Full Sail prides itself on offering industry-standard tools that students can use for hands-on learning, and its campus Dub Stage is no exception. The Dub Stage is a professionally designed post-production facility where a film’s audio components are mixed into a movie’s final cut. Faculty, staff, and students use the facility to work on both professional and student projects.

“The Dub Stage is basically a small movie theater [because] the post-production audio is generally the last thing that's done on the movie,” says Dub Stage Manager Dave Chmela. “Directors and producers have a chance to see [their film] in the environment it’s going to be in next, which is a theater. We are mixing on an Avid S6 console [which] gives us up to about 1,500 tracks of sound that we can utilize. We're mixing in a surround sound environment and we're in a Dolby-calibrated room, and that allows us to [mix for] theatrical and home theater environments.”

Audio Post-Production in the Dub Stage

After a picture is assembled by a project’s video editor, they send the final edit and all recorded tracks to the Dub Stage for the post-production audio process. Components like dialogue, sound effects, ADR, foley, and music are mixed on the Dub Stage’s consoles by Full Sail staff, faculty members, and students. Audio tracks that are created through sound design, like the sound of a spaceship landing or the growls of a monster, are also mixed and balanced in the Dub Stage. Sound editors can also optimize a film’s audio for different viewing environments, like movie theaters, home theaters, televisions, and laptops.

Once the audio components are balanced, the completed film and its audio tracks are played on the Dub Stage’s theater screen and surround sound system. The film’s directors and producers watch their project in the theater environment and request any final tweaks to the movie’s sound. After they’ve signed off on the film’s audio, the movie is complete and ready for audiences.

Student Opportunities in the Dub Stage

Full Sail faculty and staff often work on professional projects in the Dub Stage, but there are plenty of opportunities for students to jump into audio post-production. Students in Full Sail’s Film, Recording Arts, and Music Production bachelor’s programs work with instructors and Dub Stage staff to mix audio for student films. Student volunteers from those programs, as well as students selected for a six-week internship program, can also help out on professional projects.

“It's a chance for students to learn how to work in a post house full time,” Dave says. “We try to get them to see what it's like from the beginning to the end, what it's like to edit the sounds for a movie, bring it in to mix it, and then learn how to mix in surround sound. We really start them on the student movies and then they get a chance to see what we do on the professional films as well.

“When we bring in film professionals, it’s a chance for our students to see how we interact with directors in a professional sense,” he continues. “It also gives students a chance to see that professional mixes are not just rainbows and unicorns. It's long, it's hard. It's a lot of creatives disagreeing with one another. But in the end, it gives them a really good experience to see how we do a professional soundtrack. Because yes, there's a lot of the mixing and the creative part, but you also have to deliver the movie to make sure that it gets out into the theaters.”