Soundmen Jerry Gilbert and Michael Baird stepped away from Hollywood to be part of the bustling film industry in Louisiana. Though the pair has worked together off and on over seven years, but it was director Peter Hyam’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt that first brought them together in the South. Scene spoke with them over sushi at Rock-N-Sake in Baton Rouge about their early careers and working in Louisiana.
Gilbert began his career in sound as a musician in high school, performing in two symphony orchestras before graduating college and heading the classical department of MCA/Universal for three years. He moved on to mastered CDs by such artists as The Beatles, Steely Dan, Queen, R.E.M, Pink Floyd and B.B. King before transitioning from the music industry to film. “I realized I wasn’t quite talented enough as a musician to make it professionally with any reasonable amount of success. So, I got into recording with bands and all kinds of other sound things that you get into when you’re young. As I evolved professionally, I went from music recordings to working in television to working eventually in film. I’ve been doing audio for film for about fifteen years now,” said Gilbert. “I’ve had my own studios in Los Angeles now for about twelve years, then came out here from Los Angeles about five years ago to set up a post facility to take advantage of all the work that’s been created here by the tax credits. At first I traveled between here and Los Angeles to my studio in Culver City several times a month, balancing a full calendar of projects in Hollywood with the startup here. Sooner than ever expected, I moved here full-time, bringing my wife and son with me.”
With comparisons between Louisiana and California a natural part of the business, Gilbert notes the ability to be fully involved in a project as an advantage the southern state holds over its western counterpart. “One of the advantages of working in Louisiana is that you get to see the entire workflow, whereas in L.A. I would rarely ever meet a production recordist. You didn’t even know who that was by the time you got the show…there was no relationship with anyone from production,” he said. “But being here I’ve been able to be involved in both production and post-production, dailies, workflow, the whole process.”
While even the largest studio films will often shoot in Louisiana, it is uncommon for a very large film to do the majority of its post-production sound work here. “It’s really difficult to get a studio film to land anywhere else [other than Los Angeles]. Once you’re over a hundred million dollars, they are going to go back to Universal, Warner Brothers, whoever’s shooting it. They are going to do it in their own place and thirty percent [saved] is nothing. That’s a whole other world.” says Gilbert. The majority of the work in sound is in independent films, both those shot here and outside of the state. “It’s difficult on a big studio movie. You may need to be approved by ten producers. They can’t all come out here. That’s just realistically not going to happen. What we’re looking at in the market is the kind of mid-to-upper level indies or the kind of indie studio pictures where they are not tied into the system all the way through.” Continue reading…
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