Valerie Weiss' "Losing Control"

Me and Valerie at the film's first screening!

A fun and bouncy film with good energy and a spirited cast, Losing Control follows the misadventures of a young post grad-school woman (played by the talented Miranda Kent) on the hunt for the perfect love.  This off-beat romantic comedy was definitely a memorable working experience for me as all the important elements came together nicely from the start.  We were blessed with decent production audio and a flexible post schedule, and as a sound effects guy, I was glad to see the film had quite a number of good moments for knock-out sound effects work and creative design.  The most important element though was the fact that we had a receptive and collaborative director at the helm.

Writer/director Valerie Weiss (Google her story!) is super cool and charismatic, and as parents, the two of us bonded over our baby girls!  Her welcoming demeanor allowed for a great initial spotting session, which gave us a chance to really discuss how to implement sound design to effectively hit on the story's important points as well as bring out the piece's humor.

Our sound effects team included Steven Avila and Alexander Pugh, two of Monkeyland's brightest noise makers.  They provided a great portion of the sound effects work for this film, including the ambiences and backgrounds.  As supervising sound effects editor, it was my duty to compile, review and build upon all the cut effects, smoothing and leveling everything against the dialogue guide track, while designing specific moments for the film.  Once our initial pass was ready, I reviewed all the sound work with Valerie on Monkeyland's A Stage.  With each review session, we vastly enhanced the overall feel of the film, whether by enhancing the film's locations or by making some of the film's more outrageous moments pop with foley and sound design.

Monkeyland Audio - Stage B

The final mix was mixed by Trip Brock on Monkeyland's Stage B in mid August.  It went down without a hitch and Valerie was happy with the results.  As an added bonus, Valerie brought her family members to sit on the stage and watch the final printmaster.  I'm sure it was quite a treat for them to get the absolute first sneak peak of Valerie's film!

I guess working on Losing Control reminded me of one of the reasons I got into the film business in the first place: They said it would be fun... and this experience certainly was!  Thanks Valerie for trusting us with your film and I wish you much success not only with Losing Control, but with all future endeavors.