Randy Strobl: Welcome to Alumni Live: the Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University Film and Video

graduates about the industry, the film/video major, and alumni profiles.

Joe McCargar: Hello everybody.

This is Alumni Live and a special little broadcast for you.

My name is Joe McCargar, former professor at Grand Valley State

University in the Visual Media Arts department and Film and Video.

And today our subject is the other half of the picture.

In other words, half the meaning.

In other words, sound, it's our sound issue.

And I have with me, Brian Hensley and Sean Quashnie, alumnuses, no alum, alumni.

Yes.

From the mid to late 1990s, am I right about that?

Brian when--.

Oh, there we are.

Brian's 1993 and Sean, you are...

Sean Quashnie: '95.

Joe McCargar: '95.

So it goes back a ways.

I just want to talk to you and I hope that, those of us who are

hearing and listening are getting the opportunity to see what

life's like in the sound business.

And again, what's cool about it, it's from kind of two different perspectives.

One is much more in the live area.

What, what might be called production sound area in the world of broadcast and,

and movies in terms of production sound.

And the other is a post-production, particularly in the gaming world

and, there's, there's wonderful experiences that are common to both.

You're, you know, you, sound's got the upper hand in both situations,

but one is slightly more controlled.

The other is, you know, right out there.

So I'd like to begin by kind of asking the question, what, what was the

circumstance or say series of events or the environment that got you guys going

into the fields that you're going into, if you would say first briefly what

it is you do, and then what was that thing that started this all off for you?

Brian, go ahead.

Bryen Hensley: Sure.

Well, glad to be here.

This is a, this is a great forum and it's really, really fun to do these things.

So for me, I, I graduated in '93 and I was lucky enough to meet somebody here--

and it was about the summer before my junior year in college and I got to

come down and see a post audio place.

And up to that point, I had been kind of just doing as many different

things as I could in college.

I was editing and filming and doing as many different things

just to figure out my path.

And then when I went down to Chicago and stepped foot into that studio, it

was like the light bulb went off for me.

It was just this is where I want to be.

I love post-production audio, and the rest is history.

I got a job.

I was lucky enough to get a job right out of college and-- here in Chicago.

And I've been doing it ever since.

I worked at a couple different post houses and then about three years ago,

I came on to the company I'm working at now, which is called Noise Floor.

And then this past January, they invited me to become part owner of the company,

so that's kinda what I'm doing now.

And we're do-- we do full-service post audio.

We do films.

We do video games, as you mentioned.

We do commercials.

We do documentaries, television, and we have a staff composer as well.

So we really, in terms of posts for the visual medium,

we really kind of do it all.

And it's been just a wonderful career for me so far, so, and lots,

lots more to, lots more to go.

Joe McCargar: It sounds terrific.

Sean, what about you?

Sean Quashnie: I do location sound and audio for TV broadcast.

I think I got started in, well, it took me a while to get to sound.

I started in grip and lighting.

Did a few years of that and noticed that there was a need for some people locally

here in Grand Rapids and bought my own kit and started going out as a sound person.

Since then, I've done too many corporate videos to count, a bunch of reality show

type work and feature films when they were here when we had the film incentives.

Did a few of those and sports broadcast, audio for that, everything

from high school sports to a few Superbowls and Stanley cups.

Joe McCargar: Wow, that'll, that's throwing you into the deep end.

That's fantastic.

In terms of looking kind of at a practical matter, what, what's a typical day

for you guys, in terms of preparation, you know, you get up, you have your

two cups of coffee and assuming that there is a specific project for the

day, what's that like, Brian, for you?

Bryen Hensley: Well, really it comes down to what the, what that project is.

Like I said, in the wonderful thing about where I work is that each day's a

little bit different, you know, if it's a commercial that day or if it's a film

that day, or if it's the video game stuff.

But really it's, it's coming in, get the elements that I need if

it's a commercial or a Quicktime in a, in an all OMF or an AAF.

You bring those things in and into, into a workstation and then

you start breaking things down.

You're going through production audio, and making sure that's

all where we need it to be.

Then we start to, depending on what we're doing, then we start to sound

design, we're adding ambiance and backgrounds and any special sound effects

or, or whatever that we're creating.

Bringing in the music, if it's getting composed by our composer,

he'll pop in, kind of see what I'm doing, sound design wise.

The cool part about here is we can kind of move back and forth from the

sound design suite, to the composition suite and work with each other to

make sure everything is complimentary.

Sometimes you can get a sound designer going off doing their thing and

the composers doing their things.

You bring things together and they don't always, they don't always jive.

But here, I can just run down the hall and say, Hey, Devin, what are you doing

right now with it in this particular spot?

And he can tell me, he can tell me what he's doing there, and I can listen

to it, and then I can go back and work on my sound design to make sure

it's working with what he's doing.

Once you get all the elements in place, you know, in the way we like

them, and then we're, then we're doing final mixes and, and making

sure everything's sounding good.

Right now, we're not, we don't have clients in as much as we normally do,

obviously with everything going on.

So it's a lot of just sending mixes off or doing session with, with clients and

things like that for final mixes, where we just send them, send them a mix and they

listen to it and give us comments and we kind of shoot it back and forth that way.

And then it's kind of wrapped up.

So that's sort of a regular day.

If we're working on a film, it's a little more involved then depending on

the part that I'm doing of the film, usually the films we're doing as a team.

So we, we break up each role amongst the team, you know, dialogue editors

and, and foley artists, and sound effects editors and sound designers.

And so everyone's kind of taking their little piece of it and

doing their part so that they would look a little bit different.

The video game stuff's a whole different kind of process.

So yeah, it really depends on what the project is and then we go from there.

Joe McCargar: I suspect it varies, but you're, you're, you're into

probably anywhere from an eight hour day to a 16 hour day, is that--

Bryen Hensley: Yeah.

Joe McCargar: Does it vary that widely?

Bryen Hensley: Yeah, it does.

It really just depends.

It's funny that a friend of mine was telling me a term recently, and I don't

know who came up with it, but I liked it.

There was this thing called a passion tax.

And it's like, when you, when you do what you love, do

whatever the hours are required.

And that's, that's sort of how I approach.

You just kind of-- it's my passion and I just work however long it is, but

it's anywhere from eight to 12 to 14 or more, depending on what's needed.

Joe McCargar: Okay.

Sean, what about yourself?

I suspect you know, being out in the world, it's a, it's a

little bit different for setup.

Sean Quashnie: Yeah.

Every, every day, every job is a little bit different.

They usually start the night before, while you're prepping and, and loading gear,

make sure you know, a little bit what the project's about, make sure you have

the proper equipment and enough of it.

And then it's kind of hurry up and wait.

Sound is usually waiting on camera and lighting.

And then we jump in there at the last minute with our wired microphones.

And before that we'll put on wireless microphones on talent, and then

see what happens during the day.

And it can range from running around, following talent with a

boom pole or sitting in a corporate environment, recording some CEO's.

Joe McCargar: And I love the challenges of live sound myself.

Love them both.

So this just kind of goes to a personal thing.

A question that I, I always like to ask people who've been doing it for

awhile, but beginning with you, Sean, what about your core personality or

your temperament, I guess you would say, makes you suited to this kind of work?

What is it that, as Brian says, what makes you kind of predisposed

to the passion of doing this?

Sean Quashnie: It's kind of something that gradually came along.

I kind of fell into audio, as I mentioned before, lack of audio people in town here.

And things just kind of steamrolled from there.

I really, I bought my own equipment to get the business started and each

job is different and that's one of the things that I find very enjoyable and

there's always a challenge and those are two of the big things that, that

I enjoy, and the people I work with.

Joe McCargar: I can see that.

Brian, what about yourself?

What is it in your personality that you think makes you really suited to that?

Bryen Hensley: Boy, that's a, that's a, that's a great question.

I, I guess it would just be, you know, I love working with

people and this is a team sport.

You gotta work with a lot of different people.

Sometimes you're by yourself.

But a lot of times you've got a room full of, of seven or eight people

and they all want different things.

They all want to hear different things.

And being able to sort of achieve that, you know, listening to all

the different voices and being able to sort of get what they're looking

for and making sure everybody walks out getting what they want.

And so I think I deal pretty well with, with different personalities

and I think I'm pretty patient.

And, and so I think that's really, it it's just being able to work with

either a large group of people, a small group of people, or a single

director on a film or whatever.

just shifting gears a little bit.

and certainly as, when I became an owner here, also working with the staff,

being able to deal with the different personalities of different designers and

composers as well has brought a different, slightly different challenge to it.

Joe McCargar: Let's talk just a little bit about like career paths.

The, you know, for myself, it, it kind of falls into that same area

where started out as a musician and I'll put that in quotes.

I wasn't truly a musician, but started up a band, rock and roll band.

And that, in the Beatles era where I said to myself, Jeez.

I want to do that, because of just how much fun it it was.

And, and so we started, playing quite a bit.

We ended up getting signed to a wonderful record company called Capitol records,

which we were kind of like third or fourth tier, you know, we weren't the Beatles,

but what that did with me and, when I talked about this, the environment or

the thing that tipped you towards this was I was in the studio as a performer.

But I always was kind of curious about what happened on the

other side of the glass and I'm thinking, wow, that's interesting.

Of course, we would go in there to listen to mixes and stuff like that.

And I thought, boy, this is, my chances of being a rock star are very, very rare.

But this looks like a great plan B to me.

And indeed, when I, when I finished my first teaching job out in Montana, I

came back and one of my friends in the band was working at a recording studio.

So it's like, what else do you want in life in terms of luck?

And that ended up to be River City where I am to this day.

So I came back to Grand Rapids from Montana, where I taught and ended

up at this recording studio in 1977.

So it's a, it's a long-term job.

About 1980, I got a call from this, this is local college, Grand Valley

State College, as it was at that time.

And the chair of the School of Communication said, you

know, we heard that you teach.

And we're interested, if you'd like to do a, an advanced audio class.

And I thought for about a second, and I said, yep.

And so the rest is history.

And then as I continued to teach my world shifted from straight up studio work

to teaching what I knew and with a BS in ed, it just followed me right along.

The interesting, the name of the, the band originally that I was in

that kind of got this whole thing going, was called the Frederick.

And that was named after Frederick, Michigan, where we were traveling

through to, to back up a national act up and believe it or not Gaylord.

Real cool team club up there that these guys were going to play at.

So we ended up doing that, renamed ourselves from

original name to the Frederick.

And then when we signed with Capitol, we became the Rock Garden.

And then after our first release we became the Garden.

So, you couldn't lead a more magical life, you know, and you just happened to get

signed with a record company being a 17 year old in a rock band and end up with a

40 year career in teaching and recording.

So, much gratitude there.

Speaking of which, as a teacher and as a sound recordist, I've had a few, what

I call projects from hell and it's one of those things where you, you get in,

into something and it all looks good.

And then something about the circumstance or the, the performers

or some group dynamic just sends it right into the toilet.

And I'm always interested, a professional standpoint, especially with you guys

having done so much, describe for me if you would, Brian, a project from hell that

you remember and what made it that way.

Bryen Hensley: Yeah, you always have those and it's-- sometimes

projects just seemed cursed, you know, like no matter what you do.

Joe McCargar: Yes.

We use the term snake-bitten.

Bryen Hensley: Yeah.

And, and you just, you just have those.

The ones that usually stick out in my mind, I don't have a specific example

in mind, but usually revolves around picture changes and, and it happens for

whatever reason, you know, they have to go back in and it's always that conforming.

It's always that, okay, we, you know, you've got a 10 minute

project and they reedited it.

And so you gotta, you know, you've got all your sound design done, you got your

music done, you've got everything done.

And it's like, oh yeah, we need to go in.

And we're removing five seconds here, two frames there or...

Joe McCargar: Yes.

Bryen Hensley: Whatever it might be.

And then you gotta go meticulously go in there and, you know, make

sure everything's lining up.

And inevitably there's, there's a cut they didn't tell you

about, and it's not lining up.

And it's, it's usually those that are the ones that stick out in my mind

where, where I'm having to conform all my audio to, to a new picture.

And, the short ones usually are okay.

I've had it happen on feature films and it's just...

Joe McCargar: Oh my gosh.

Bryen Hensley: You know, you got several hundred tracks, you know,

and you're trying automation everywhere and you're digging through

and going, why is it not working?

Where is it?

Joe McCargar: I usually, that I kind of chalk up to a situation

where the client seems to know what they want, but they really don't.

See that coming like a freight train.

Now, what about you Sean?

A project from hell?

Sean Quashnie: I think one of the 50 cent films that shot in Grand

Rapids, we shot over the winter.

And 18 hour days outside in bitter cold, that's not, fun.

Especially when you're on set for, for the 18 hours and you maybe roll

an hour of dialogue, if you're lucky.

But sitting around waiting.

Joe McCargar: There you are, now I can see a picture there of you standing

in the middle of Lake Michigan there.

Sean Quashnie: Yeah.

It's, weather, you know, things can be very extreme in location stuff and that's

my biggest adversary, rain and snow.

Joe McCargar: Yeah, right.

But, but think about all the growth that happens to you in

getting through that stuff.

Another question I had, this is, I think it's kind of a practical matter

because it involves your employment and it goes to your personality as well.

Sean, what is it about you, say, as a person and as a, to call it something very

basic, as a vendor that you think makes a client come back to you, you know, often

because you, you both know that in this business, what we rely upon is that repeat

business where you gain the trust of someone and you've got an ally for years.

What, what do you think it is about you personally that makes

the client keep coming back?

Sean Quashnie: I think a work ethic has a lot to do with it.

When I'm on set, you know, I'm trying to bust my butt and have

clients see me working and know that they're going to get a good product.

And also being able to work with the rest of the crew.

You know, if grip and lighting needs a hand, you know, jump

in and do a little bit of help.

You know, not so much on a union job, but on our local work here, the film

community, film and video community here is, you know, a lot like a big family.

We've been working together for years and we're friends with each other.

And, the goal is a great project.

And when clients see that, they see a good team, they bring them back.

Joe McCargar: Terrific.

And Brian, I assume it's kind of the same, but do you have a

different perspective on that?

Bryen Hensley: No, I think he kinda hit it.

It's, it's really what, like you said, it's trust, you know, I have, I have

several clients that I've had for over 20 years and I think what, what

makes them keep coming back is they know they can call me, and I'm, I'm

the type of personality that I can answer my phone pretty much anytime,

or I'll check email anytime, but it's not like at five o'clock I turn it off.

They know that they can hand me something and they're going to get

it back and it's going to be right.

And it's going to be what they want.

And they know that I'm always looking out for them and the project.

So it's, it's just that trust, that you build up over time.

And I think that comes with experiences.

They don't have to do a lot of handholding.

They don't have to do a lot of explaining, a lot of whatever.

They can just say, here's this project.

Clean it up, mix it, make it sound really good and send it back.

And it's not a lot of back and forth, you know?

Joe McCargar: I love that transition where they have to be

sitting next to you for a while.

And then all of a sudden they just go, oh, you can handle this.

I don't need to be here.

Bryen Hensley: Right.

Joe McCargar: And then you go, yes.

Yeah.

Bryen Hensley: Yup.

Exactly.

Joe McCargar: Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with the client to be in there, but

it's that great transition.

Sean Quashnie: With jumping over with Brian's thoughts on trust that

goes in location sound as well.

A producer or director, they're going to lean on you

to make sure the sound is good.

So if you're shooting outside and a plane goes over or, you know, you

know, cars or sirens, they're going to want to know that and trust that

you, you'll raise your hand and say, Hey, maybe we should do another take.

And, you know, I'm sure post audio appreciates that as well.

Joe McCargar: Oh, that that is, to me, that's kind of like the ultimate do unto

others type of thing where you just don't want them to be pulling their hair out.

It's just like it's bad form to have the audio come over and

have people going, oh, God, no.

Here we go.

Sean Quashnie: Especially on a CEO or you have somebody of another pants with.

Joe McCargar: We do have some questions coming in from the audience.

I have something from a young woman, Sarah Bellamy, and we're looking...

For her question, she says, since networking is a big part of film with

all the COVID regulations and online classes, how would you say students

can start networking and getting to know professors well this fall?

Terrific question.

Go ahead, Sean.

Sean Quashnie: Yeah.

I don't know.

You can get ahold of me cause I need to do some networking now.

With COVID all the, all the work went away.

But there's a lot of groups, Facebook, and other areas, LinkedIn

and those types of websites.

Those are great for networking.

Kind of flip through and, you know, see what you can do there.

Drop a quick message, say hi, and things start to roll.

As far as online classes.

Yeah.

I don't really have any real thoughts about that one, but networking, just

anything you can do to meet somebody new or have a friend introduce a friend.

It kind of snowballs from there.

Joe McCargar: Bryen, your perspective on this?

Bryen Hensley: That's that's, it's a tough one.

And I think we're all, we're all sort of trying to figure that out,

as far as the networking goes.

I would tell people if, for anyone who's, who's going to want to get back when

things get back to work and Chicago is getting ready to start probably here in

a month, you know, with some of the w the studios and the production stuff.

I would definitely recommend to everybody to read up on COVID and the procedures

and things that are in place, understand how a film set is going to work.

There's a lot of great documents out there, SAG and all of the unions kind

of came together and did a document.

It's about 35 pages long.

And, and make sure you just understand that.

Cause I think, I think people who are going to be hiring and they want to know

that people understand it and they're going to be flexible because those sets

are going to look very, very different.

And, and Sean can speak to that too.

In terms of in studio, you know, I've had to do, we've had to do

a lot of stuff here differently.

We just simply can't operate the way we were before.

You know, we have to clean rooms all the time and, make sure it's just, it's, it's

clean and sterile and all of that stuff.

So when people do come in.

And then I think people, when they start hiring are going to be looking

for people who are going to be flexible, who are going to understand those

kinds of policies and things like that.

So--

Joe McCargar: That's a really good point.

Really good point.

Bryen Hensley: And then, you know, networking, I have two sons, one son

in college and he's been doing a lot of online stuff and he just talks to his

professors as much as he can through Zoom classes and things like that.

And I think, unfortunately, that's, what's available to them in terms of connecting

with, with professors and stuff like that.

The networking stuff, Chicago usually has a lot of networking things going on.

And a lot of those have, at least the in-person ones have stopped.

There's actually a cool one this week.

There's a thing called the Midwest Film Festival.

And they actually are, they hired out, usually it's at a theater here in town.

What they did is they actually hired a, a drive in for a night.

And so they're going to do a bunch of short film stuff, playback and

stuff, you know, in a, at a drive-in.

And I thought that was kind of really cool and sort of creative way of getting

people out to see films, but they can stay in their cars and kind of stay, stay

socially distanced and stuff like that.

So, at least here, I think there's some creative things that are

going on in terms of networking.

You just gotta, like, like Sean said, just keep your eye on Facebook

and join some of those groups.

And really just, you know, look out for any opportunity that you

can find as, as we sort of all work through this, sort of unique time.

Joe McCargar: I get from a professor's perspective, for me while I was

teaching, getting an email from a student with an intelligent question or

someone just, you know, just inquiring about the classwork in general,

that always just made me feel great.

Professors are not celebrities.

I'm sure you all know this.

The best of them love to get that feedback and a simple email, as low

tech as it seems right now, is huge.

If they know you as the semester comes to a close, they're going to

remember you and that translates into all sorts of good will and, clearly,

practically speaking a much better grade.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Dirk Koning

Memorial Film and Video scholarship.

Here's Gretchen Vintage remembering Dirk Koning

for more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now, back to the show

Joe McCargar: This is to both of you.

Michelle writes us, in an industry inundated with new must-have technology,

how do you tell young people how to balance the gear or the equipment

versus the knowledge of how to use it?

Let's start with Sean.

Sean Quashnie: As far as the knowledge of how to use it, most of the time

you just kind of flounder through.

If you know the basics about a camera or an audio deck and how to interface the

two or, basic meter rating, then you can kind of fumble through any piece of gear,

most piece of gears that are thrown at ya.

And, because they do come so fast and frequently, usually you work with the

other people on the set to work with them to teach them camera tricks in

the menus, or they can help you out with dealing with things like, where do

you find the time code on the camera?

Where am I plugging that into?

Joe McCargar: So yeah, so much of that is you're right.

It's kind of on the fly.

And it, man, I'll tell you just from my own experience, it sure doesn't

hurt to be in touch with industry publications and stuff like that.

I find myself a little guilty of not doing that as much as I should.

And again, it's almost like a networking thing where you need to

know what's, what's current and then a lot of the best way to find it is

even the manufacturers themselves.

Because they, they're all in commerce.

Right?

And they want to sell stuff.

Sean Quashnie: And, since the lockdown, some of the companies, one

I'm specifically thinking about is Sennheiser, they're doing demos with

their microphones, and that some of the wireless companies, they'll

do webcast very similar to this, walk through their gear, and then--

Joe McCargar: Oh, of course, yeah.

Sean Quashnie: Back to Facebook and that, there's plenty of groups on there

with people from around the world with experiences that you may be jumping

into, or you may have had, and see how they dealt with it, or ask a question

about how you should deal with something.

Bryen Hensley: Really quickly, just a really quick story about this exact thing.

I was on Pro Tools for over 20 years and then when I came to Noise Floor,

they actually don't use Pro Tools here.

They use a program called Nuendo and it was, you know, at 45 years old, I was

like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to learn a new, a whole new way to work.

And, you know, it was, it was pretty nerve wracking at the time.

And then what I quickly realized is once I figured out where the buttons

were and what they called things and how they routed things and all

of that, it's just another tool.

And so, you know, it, it really.

I always tell students and things like that

Focus on the craft.

Focus on what you're doing.

All of these programs are going to do virtually the same thing.

You just got to figure out where it is.

So, if you're jumping from Logic to Nuendo to Pro Tools to Reaper

or whatever, it's all in there, you just got to figure out where it is.

And so definitely focus on the art, focus on the craft.

How are you going to use that particular hammer and what it can do.

You know?

Joe McCargar: They're only tools.

Bryen Hensley: Exactly.

Joe McCargar: I really like that, focusing on the craft.

I think, a plug for people I love, the Film and Video program

at Grand Valley to me puts that emphasis exactly where it belongs.

Gear is always in the service of the story.

I think that's something that's consciously taught.

We have some more questions looking for-- Alex!

Hey Alex, I know you.

Let's take a look at his question.

If you guys can see it.

What's the future of audio, in your opinion, video games, film, TV, radio?

Bryen Hensley: That's a hard one to know.

I can tell you one thing, video games isn't going anywhere.

Video games is huge.

It's a huge industry.

Games are being made every single day.

Film I think is always going to be around.

It's changing, and certainly the distribution is changing.

There's a ton more places for films to get played than when

I started in the business.

You've got Netflix and you got tons of online distribution methods.

So I think it's really just understanding standards and understanding where things

are going to get played more than ever.

Radio.

I don't know.

It's hard to say what's going to happen there.

One area that I'm actually very intrigued in right now is,

the area of scripted podcasts.

It's kind of a throwback to the radio dramas of the thirties, forties, fifties.

It's kind of circling back here a little bit.

There's a lot of scripted podcasts kind of stuff happening,

which I think is kind of cool.

Cause it's, it's strictly audio, which is great.

No, no pesky picture to get in the way.

I'm kidding.

Of course.

So yeah, I'm, I'm kind of really intrigued by those, and where those are going to go.

Joe McCargar: Great.

The, we have a question from Suzanne.

There we go.

A great question as well.

What's the best way for graduates to get to work in sound?

What experience slash knowledge should they have?

Sean, what do you think?

Sean Quashnie: So you can get the basics at school, but get out, see

if you can find a mentor, somebody you can job shadow on a job or two.

Yeah.

Joe McCargar: You know, what I thought was really nice about what

you said, oh, there you are now.

What you said was you're doing light, light and grip stuff on the set and you

see that there's this need for audio.

To me, when you're on the set and you see something that needs doing,

if you do it, people recognize that.

And a lot of that is having that kind of sense of looking over the

set and seeing what needs doing.

And your point about the need for audio is backed up by what I get at the studio

all the time is that we get films to do post-production sound on and the

producer, director comes in, always with kind of the excuse of, yeah, well, one

of the reasons we're bringing it to you is because the sound is a little iffy.

And I'm just going, oh no, save me.

But what that says is there's room out there for good sound people.

There's a need.

And all, all that is is just being observant.

If you get the chance to be on a set, observe and learn.

Bryen, do you have anything on that as well?

Bryen Hensley: Yeah, I think it's a lot of what he said.

I think you just got gotta, video game audio is a wide open field.

I think there's a ton of game companies that pop up and they're

looking for good sound people.

Always.

At least in here in Chicago, production audio is a very, it's

a good field for, for people.

There's several network shows going on.

So they, they kind of soak up a lot of people.

So there's always opportunities to be on commercials and those kinds of things.

So it's pretty wide open as well.

In post, little trickier.

Not a ton of places like, like ours, but there's a ton of content being created.

There's more content being created than ever before.

And, and like Sean said, just stay in contact with the people you went to

school with, because you know what?

They're going to make content.

And so if you want to do sound, do sound.

Don't get distracted by, obviously we all got to work and we got to eat and pay

rent and all of that kind of stuff, but just keep working, and eventually talent

and creativity and all of that will float to the top and people will recognize it.

And you'll start to get work.

So you just got to persevere and just keep doing it.

Joe McCargar: I was thinking, I guess we might say as a, as a wrap

up, maybe some final thoughts.

Many years ago, it was I'm sure in the nineties when we had a segment

at River City with my Audio III students, about the industry.

One of our alumni, alumnus, alumni, Joe Warner, I believe his name was

came and talked to the students and he was in Hollywood for quite some

time and did a lot of work, and at the end of his talk, I asked, give me

a one-sentence impression of what it takes to be successful in the business.

And it was jaw dropping in a way, but it was very Joe Warner

and he said, I'll tell you what.

The two words are, be nice.

And I thought, that's an idea.

He said, you're always going to find experts the field and in

their particular job on the set.

But if you're not nice, you can be great, but people just

don't want to work with you.

Now, I don't want that to steer you to any one particular thing, but if

you were to give, Bryen, kind of a one sentence or a few word summary about

what it takes to be successful in the business, what might that be to you?

Bryen Hensley: Well, it's hard to top be nice, but, I, I, you know,

patience is always a big thing for me.

And that goes along with being nice, but just being patient,

every client is different.

Every need is different.

And then to go along with that is creativity.

We're here to tell stories, and make things sound as good as we can.

But, along with that creativity is where the patience comes in.

Because a lot of times, you guys I'm sure know this, you want to do

something one way and you know, you have really cool grand ideas, and

then the client's like, no, no, no, no, we don't want to do any of that.

We want it to be simpler.

So you gotta be patient when you think it wants to be one way

and they want it another way.

It's like, well, okay, you're the client.

So it's like, you just gotta be patient and hopefully you can work in some

of your ideas and your creativity.

At least in my experience, a lot of my clients will be like, oh,

I hadn't really thought of it.

That's a really cool idea.

You know?

And so just, just staying patient and being creative cause story is everything.

And, and everything we do is in service to that.

Joe McCargar: And Sean.

Sean Quashnie: I'm going to go with pay attention.

When, when you're out on a set, you have to have your eyes open all the time so

you know what the producer and director want and DP and kind of the general

story that you're trying to convey.

You know, you can learn a lot from that.

Just stand back and pay attention.

Joe McCargar: Right on.

My feelings about that fall right along you guys' lines, but I, my

mantra is the, the client, is it.

That's it.

End of story.

If, whatever happens, it's got to start with them.

It has to come from them.

Now you can steer it once, once you know what their real desire is.

But it's their thing.

And I dunno how many times I've just taken a deep breath and said, director

so-and-so, you're the last word.

I liked my idea.

I'm saying this, of course, in my brain.

But, but you're it.

And I think if you keep in mind the story comes first, of course, but

in prep, but practical matter, it's, it's the client and they're the ones

that butter your bread, so to speak.

You know what, I think that we're, we're nearing our end time here briefly.

And I do want to say how grateful we all are that you guys had a chance to do

this, and were, were willing to do it.

We're grateful that you took up the invitation.

And, so I say, thank you so much, both of you for taking your time to do this.

And, we hope to see you on the set somewhere in the future.

Thank you for everybody for watching and listening to Alumni Live.

Bryen Hensley: Thanks, Joe.

Thanks Bryen.

Joe McCargar: Thank you guys.

Randy Strobl: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Alumni Live: the Podcast.

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