Today we’d like to introduce you to Frank Ruiz.
Frank, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I began wanting to do audio post when I was about halfway through my program at Full Sail University, the field of audio for film & television seemed more inviting to me & it was ultimately what lead for my desire to be a sound editor for this field of entertainment.
I got my 1st start/internship doing sound editing for student short films at the Full Sail University Dubb-Stage which was an internship that was available to students after graduating which helped me get a lot of experience on how things are done in a professional setting. Afterward, once I completed the internship there I set off to move to Los Angeles California because I knew this is where I needed to be as this was where all the work was for my field of study. I landed an internship at Larson Studios which unfortunately is no longer in business. However, during my time there that is where I got to see & learn from industry professionals on just how fast-paced a real audio post facility is. Towards the end of my internship at Larson Studios, I was finally given my 1st chance to network with producers & supervisors of what would become my 1st official gig as a sound editor. What ended up happening was the stage assistant for the NCIS: Los Angeles team was not able to make it to the dubb-stage for a certain week due to having an event out of town that she needed to attend. The manager of Larson Studios approached me about filing in for her position while she was going to be out & I said yes.
I was able to meet the sound supervisor of the show as well as get more time to discuss and talk with the Re-Recording mixers of the show. Shortly after that week, the original stage assistant was no longer going to be able to continue her position as the stage assistant for NCIS:LA & that is when I was once again asked to fill in for her position until the end of season 8. While doing this, the sound supervisor for the show had taken a liking to me working with them & it would be during that same summer after season 8 had finish that I would receive a call to join the NCIS:LA team and become a sound editor for my 1st official gig. The team trained me very well & it is why to this day I am very grateful that I was able to learn from some of the best before going on to do my own thing.
One year later, I would go to join where I now work at which is The Zeus Network, a company that like Netflix provides content on a streaming platform that is more targeted towards the younger generation. When I 1st joined the company as a freelancer it was two months before they were set to launch the company to the public. So they had over a hundred hours of content that needed to be audio edited & mixed and be ready in time for their launch date of July back in 2018. I would work for The Zeus Network during days where I wasn’t working on NCIS:LA items or Larson Studios work, which would usually be on Thursdays & Fridays. However, with the closure of Larson Studios in 2019, I joined The Zeus Network full time & have been working with them since as their main Sound Editor/Re-Recording mixer for the past year.
Throughout my time in Los Angeles, I have also been able to continue working on freelance projects during my available weekends as well as continuing to work with the NCIS:Los Angeles team. Back in 2019, I was able to do my 1st feature film as a Sound Designer for the movie Mope, which would go onto The Sundance film festival. I currently have both a short film & video game that I am working on to do audio design for & I look forward to where the next few years of my career will take me.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The hardest struggles for me was finding work that would follow through & being available to work for a project when it did come up. I was determined to stay in Los Angeles & determined to work in my field. A lot of the time, when I didn’t have enough money for rent I would stay up late doing odd jobs such as Postmates, door dash & amazon flex. Basically, anything that would provide money but allow me to stop at a moment’s notice if I needed to. The number of times where I would already be exhausted from working all day at my dream job and then switch over to working late doing delivery was excruciatingly tiresome. The thing is I would do it and there was almost a time where I thought I would have to move back home or where I would have to take a stable and uninteresting job. The thought of failure was something that constantly dwindled on my mind and I was never sure if I was going to make it to the end of the month but the one thing I knew was that even if I had to live out of my car or on the street, I refused to go home & to this very day I still believe in this.
My dreams are what keep me going & my goals are what motivate for me to take the next step or get up and rise out of bed when I am feeling sluggish.
Please tell us about Frank Ruiz Audio Services.
Well for me, what I do is primarily audio for television & film, my specialty revolves more around being a sound editor/designer as I like to be the creative person placing the audio to what I am seeing on screen. Being able to see a silent clip from a film project & being able to decide in seconds what something should sound like & how to achieve that sound is a lot of what I do. It involves an extensive range of not only knowing your tools but making sure you have a library of sound effects that you are highly familiar with because along with being creative there is always a matter of time, and hours can go by fast when working on a really heavy sound effects scene.
The biggest thing I believe I am proud of was working on my 1st feature-length film “Mope” as a sound designer which then went on into The Sundance film festival. This & being able to get to the position that I wanted to be in as a sound editor quicker than I expected was another great accomplishment for me.
The thing that I would say that sets me apart from others is that, I not only have experience in the vast majority of the audio post field (I.E., Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, Backgrounds, Re-Recording Mixing) as well as having experience with being on set during production but that I make the effort to get a project done and sounding correct to the client in the specified deadline. Now, this isn’t to say that I know everything & that I am better than the others, more so it is saying that I like to get things done & for me if my name is going to be on that project I want it to be the best that it can & I make the effort & times to do that. My work and career are a lot of what I focus & spend my time on even during my free time a lot of what I do is to study how can I make my craft even better than it already is what technology is coming out that could essentially provide me with an overall better final product than the last project I did. I am always hungry for knowledge & my drive for what I do is something that I know pushes me farther than the average person because I am willing to give something my all when I know that the rest of the team is as well.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, there isn’t a lot I would change the outcome of how things happened needed to happen in order for me to get to where I am today. There isn’t really anything I would change except for the fact that now I know there were a lot of tools & software that I needed to have before starting in the field I am in now. A lot of things that as I went up and up in the industry, I just ended up buying because they were required for certain jobs. The struggles I went through really helped shape who I am and it pushed me to get into a better position even quicker so that I could finally stop doing those odd jobs. I can’t go back in time and change things because that just isn’t possible but even if there was the slightest chance that I could, I still wouldn’t take it. I would maybe use the knowledge I have now to my advantage to go into things more smoothly, I guess but I would most likely just follow the same path with a clearer picture in mind.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fendergibson22a.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r/post-production
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fendergibson22a/
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8820561/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
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