Rising Stars: Meet Frank Ruiz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Frank Ruiz.

Hi Frank, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Well for me, originally I wanted to work in music as a recording engineer for bands however as I was on that path & learning about what it was actually like in the field, I unfortunately found out that the direction I wanted to go in with my career would not be one of the easiest ones and more likely than not, I would end up having to work on music that I didn’t want to in order to actually make a living off of this type of work. At about halfway through my program at Full Sail, this was when we were introduced into the field of Audio-Post Production for film & television at 1st I didn’t think too much of it the 1st class was enjoyable & I thought it was an interesting field to be able to go into. However, when the 2nd class Advanced Audio-Post Production, came around in my program, this is where I found my love for this field & really put everything I could into studying what all I needed to know and learn about in order to make a career in this industry. I thought in the beginning I wanted to be a Re-Recording Mixer but as I was going through it all & learning about the different aspects of Audio-Post Production, I realized that I really enjoyed being a sound editor more than the actual mixing of the Audio-Post process specifically sound design. To me, the creative process of picking out sounds & coming up with ideas for how a scene should sound is what captivated me into doing this type of work for my career.

I would not only attend my audio-post production classes but would also stay in touch with my professor for that class because I wanted to learn as much as I could from him about this field. I ended up after graduation, getting onto the Full Sail Dubb-Stage Internship where I spent my time there learning as much as I could from the wonderful folks who were running it at the time. The main man running the internship/department was strict & very keen on keeping things on track to finish assignments/projects on time. The other man assisting was more laidback but still made sure that we kept to following through & completing things on time as needed. Little did I know that both of these wonderful people were only giving us a taste of what it is like when you begin to work on this kind of stuff for not only money but with a whole group of producers, directors & writers behind the whole thing with a lot more tight deadlines. It was a great time at the Full Sail Dubb-Stage internship & man do I wish we were given the amount of time we had on those internship projects for actual full-on television shows/movies because it is amazing how fast things go and get turned around for these types of things.

After the 1st internship, I was able to land a 2nd one out in California for Larson Studios. This is where I was able to get my foot in the door & start to learn how things are done in a full-functioning & operating Audio-Post House. Here is where I made sure to leave an impression & make myself known because I did not want to be just another person walking through the building & going through the program. This is where I made sure I was doing more than what was asked of me & really paying attention to everything going on to be able to assist & help out where I could. Ultimately, it led to me being given my 1st opportunity for some paid work starting off as a Stage Assistant/Customer Representative, and here was where more of my opportunities came to be from just this one shot.

I ended up from this Stage Assistant/Customer Representative gig joining the audio-post team for the folks I was assisting on the stage with. From there, I got my start as a sound editor on NCIS:LA, doing the backgrounds for the show & cityscapes up until I was also given the assignment of handling foley curing & editing for the show. It was a great time & I enjoyed working with them for as long as I did. At about the season 10 mark for the series is when I landed another gig with the company I am with now, which is The Zeus Network & from there, I was able to have my fallback for when the unfortunate closing of Larson Studios happened. I stayed with NCIS:LA up until about a few episodes into season 11 for the series before I had to step down & join The Zeus Network full-time. I now am the Head of Audio-Post at the facility & have been with them for the past five years of my career & with the way I have grown in this place, I can’t quite say where I’ll be in the next five years, but one thing is for sure. I will still be out here doing my thing & I don’t plan on leaving Los Angeles, California anytime soon.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh, absolutely not, by no means was it an easy path for me to get to where I am today. In fact, there were numerous times where I thought I wouldn’t make it & I believed I would have to pack it in and move back home. The thing for me that I always kind of knew & had in the back of my mind at all times was that if I did end up giving up and having to move back home, I knew I would never forgive myself for not trying harder, for me there was no make it or break it, it was either do it or die trying. I came out here for a reason & I didn’t intend on breaking that because to me, I made such an effort to get out here & did so much studying to work in this field that I had to make the final outcome worth it all. I did what was necessary to survive when I 1st moved out here; I would stay late & do delivery jobs at night & on weekends to be able to make enough to pay rent & bills. I sold almost all of my musical possessions, such as my instruments and even my live PA systems to be able to cover the costs of simple utilities as well or to be able to afford groceries for some of the 1st few months.

To be honest, one of the other things I’d like to mention is before I ended up even joining NCIS:LA I was already set to begin a 3rd internship because I didn’t want to stop being in an environment where I knew I needed to be in to land work in this industry. I was about two weeks into this 3rd internship before I finally received the call to join NCIS:LA & as I stated before that was kind of the silver lining throughout my struggle to find work in this field. I remember the day very well because it was at that point where I started being a little more optimistic about things and I had regained a lot of hope in myself. Even then, with NCIS:LA as I said, it was a great feeling to have something that made everything I’ve been through so far worth it but as I said with NCIS:LA when the facility that I was doing some of the work though, Larson Studios, went out of business it meant I had to find other work to be able to supplement the income that I had lost from Larson. Luckily for me by the time the studio had went out of business, I had already been working with The Zeus Network in the meantime to be able to have this line of work to fall back on until I ultimately became full-time with them.

Throughout all these changes in my own personal life, there was also a lot of other difficult challenges that I ended up facing throughout my journey. With my mental health, physical health & even my own personal relationships. For the first three years of me living out here in Los Angeles, California I really didn’t have any friends or anyone besides my (at the time) significant other to really do other things with. Most of the time, I was always working, and I rarely, if ever did things that weren’t work-related it got to a point where I had a really bad crash and burn with my own health, and my mental health went spiraling down the drain. I was able to pick myself up out of it & it was at this point I learned how important it is to take time for yourself & for your sanity & now it is why I strongly encourage others to pay attention to their health. If the work one is doing, stops becoming enjoyable and simply only becomes a job, then that is where we start to lose ourselves & I understand that there will be times where work just needs to get done & there will definitely continue to be times where a deadline may keep us late into the night. However, what I particularly want for folks to keep in mind is that by the end of the day, even though we love what we do and we very much take pride in our work. Don’t lose yourself in constantly keeping yourself busy and never having a moment to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Burnout will happen; this is something that can’t be avoided so it is important to make time for not only ourselves but to be able to enjoy our lives and make relationships outside of the work field.

No road is fully smooth; there will always be bumps and obstacles that appear in our way. The question is how is someone going to overcome it when a challenge approaches in our way?

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I currently work as the in-house Sound Supervisor for The Zeus Network; my job is to edit the dialogue as well as mix our shows to the best of my capabilities with the materials I am given along with the timeframe I am provided. I also am in charge of my team/department of Audio-Post folks who assist me when we have multiple shows running during the same week & making sure that everything is being done to the same standard as well as keeping track of our timeframes/deadlines. A lot of what I primarily do is dialogue editing as well as Re-Record Mixing, which is what the biggest chunk of my work entails. Sound Editing is what I am mainly known for, specifically dialogue editing as well as Foley Editing but most of the work I am asked to do revolves around doing dialogue edits & providing a final mix for a project. The thing that I love to do most is sound design & one of the projects I was most proud to be able to do was a feature film that ended up on Amazon Prime called “Mope” where I got to sound design the entire thing & really enjoyed the creativity that I was able to have with this project.

The things that I feel, really, keep folks coming out to me or reaching out to me is that I can be very easy to work with, but I am also very stern when I have to be. For me, I love what I do & I could never picture myself doing anything else. I enjoy it & I definitely have fun with it whenever I can. Now, on the flip side of this, when work needs to be done, I am very strict about meeting deadlines & following through with things & I expect the same from others I am working with. Whether it is a co-worker or even someone who employs me, if something is not going according to the plan, I make it very apparent that this will affect deadlines & original timeline deliveries. So I always am very keen to make sure that nothing is deviating from a set schedule or I make sure that we are covered for scenarios such as this. I usually like to add time for technical problems or even mistakes that may come along the way so that we can always catch them on the backend before sending it out. It’s a constant battle in this industry because if you want things done good and fast, it isn’t going to be cheap, but if you want it cheap and fast, it isn’t going to be good either. This is why I make things very apparent in the beginning before I work with anybody & have it all written down so we know what the expectations are moving forward & while this has caused problems with some individuals in the past. Most people I work with appreciate it, and it is why they love working with me because I have a clear, detailed plan and everything that needs to be done is laid out in a way for each of us to understand.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
To me, it would be these three things I have mentioned in a previous article that are crucial to succeeding in things, no matter what it is. I’ll re-iterate them again with a little less wording this time around, haha.

1.) Being a risk-taker, take chances in life, a lot of times you will find yourself in the middle of a very difficult decision, some smaller than others but ultimately, both could change the direction of your life & you as an individual have to decide if one or the other is going to work in your favor & be worth the risk or not. This can come in the form of job opportunities, events, or even new placements/situations in life. By the end of the day, this is one’s own life & career that they are risking & so the decision must come from one’s own self but while some decisions may allow for time to really process & think it through, there may be others that require for an immediate response.

2.) Patience, this is something that I think almost everyone has said because patience is a virtue & it is key when it comes to making it in life. Unfortunately, things don’t go perfectly for everyone & careers aren’t built overnight; they happen over time with a lot of dedication & time put in to really hone the craft alongside getting to network with the people who help build you up along the way. Prepare for obstacles & hardships along your path & realize that things are not going to go according to plan as you navigate through your career.

3.) Clear Communication, this is the most important one for me & when I say clear communication, there are a few key things to keep in mind with this. When we say things to someone, we are never entirely sure of how something is going to be taken or heard, so when it comes to communicating be clear & decisive on what it is that you are trying to say. If something is not understood, don’t guess or assume that something was said in a certain way always ask & clarify, “Hey, what exactly did you mean when you said that?” Sometimes, we hear something being said quickly without really listening to what was actually stated. This could be in the form of workplace comments, feedback on something, or even directions. Misinterpreting something someone said can not only affect an individual personally but if what was heard wasn’t correct, it can also affect others. As I am finding out from being in this field for six years now, not everyone really grasps & understands how important communicating with each other is & more than that, clearly communicating what it is one is trying to say is even harder for others. This is one of the traits that separates the folks who last in this industry from the ones who don’t because it doesn’t matter how great of a personality or individual one is when working with a team; clear communication is something we all need to be able to do when we are unsure or need guidance/clarification on something.

These are what I find to be the essential skills/characteristics to succeed in both my industry as well as life in general.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fendergibson22a.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frank_a_ruiz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008295491864
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-ruiz-771372a9/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gibson8636
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8820561/?ref_=hm_rvi_nm_i_1

Image Credits
Billye L. Sands