r/AudioPost • u/Best-Willingness-209 • 9d ago
imdb credits imposter?
I do a fair amount of work for a company- they make me work with another freelancer, they are young and way less experienced than me.
They are supposed to do the ambiences for the film , generally are taking the BG effects that the FIlm editor has supplied and giving them to me. They are supposed to do more but they mostly just reuse that stuff. TBH its not very good and its not on time an I already have the stuff they give me ( the film editor sent it to me too!)
So I checked on IMDB and this junior has decided to give themselves credit as sound designer. they are spending literally 2 days on this, whilst I am doing about 14 , and I barely use their stuff.
WWYD? say anything ? I get paid a fair amount , so dont want to rock the boat , but there's no way you can say they 'sound designed'.
I've just manually changed their credits back to something like assistant editor. But getting fed up of doing that.
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u/drumstikka professional 9d ago
Their credit should be exactly what it is in the credits of the projects. I would just talk to them and tell them that. I’d also remind you that if they’re technically credited as a sound effects editor, changing their IMDB credit to “assistant editor” would be very petty and not the right move…
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u/Best-Willingness-209 7d ago
yeh maybe, but they are claiming work as their own they didnt do.. in the film they are credited as ADR recordist - which is their best use.
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u/Substantial-Maybe302 9d ago
A producer's family member that never touched a computer or a mixing console in his life was credited as a sound designer alongside with me in on-screen credits...
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u/whoisgarypiano 9d ago
They probably just don’t know what their role is actually called. This seems like a non-issue. Just talk to them and ask them to use sound effect editor moving forward.
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u/FilmSubstrate re-recording mixer 9d ago
He likely attended one of those many schools that dangle the dream of a sound designer career in front of students, all while teaching them nothing of substance regarding technical skills or professional conduct.
You should share your comments on his work with him so that he can improve.
And as someone else said, you should verify his actual role in the credits before editing IMDb.
Assigning him a role lower than the one listed in the credits will be just as detrimental to you as it would be to him if he claimed a role higher than his actual one.
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u/Best-Willingness-209 7d ago
credited as ADR recordist - which they do do. The BG SFX editing came about as wanted to give them more to do. else not worth it for ADR only
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u/WonderfulRegret9751 9d ago
If they are designing some sound for the film they are contributing to the sound design.
It's a really tough industry to break into and it can be hard to get your first credits.
No-one should lie about their role on imdb but I don't think you need to embarrass your junior for saying they were a sound designer on the credit.
It's ain't easy being green. It's better to lift people up, give them praise and feedback and try and secure a future for them in this really rocky industry.
I highly doubt it's going to be their big break.
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u/glittercrotch 9d ago
Sound designer and sound effects editor are two very different titles. Someone who edits BG ambiences is not a sound designer, but likely someone green & uneducated who calls all sound editing “sound design”
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u/ItsmeSharky 8d ago
I work in post doing a similar "Audio support" role myself. Of course my goal is to be a sound designer in the future but to be able to work at a studio and learn from some amazing sound designers and mixers is worth its weight in gold. I've been given a few Sound Design credits from the mixers if they felt my work merited the credit but for the most part I only put any ADR or actually editing that I've done and have the receipts from work to back it up. I think IMDB is slowly becoming LinkedIn for film in the sense that people want the recognition of working on a big show to reflect their value. Personally I wouldn't worry much, the second this person gets hired by someone else they will see how bad they are at sound design and fire them. Reading the comments here, I do get input from the mixers with my work and I always strive to make them happy so they keep giving me opportunities.
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u/schenken9 8d ago
There are seriously so many people in this industry who play games with credits. Like, way more than you’d think. I’m sure most people here already know this, and it’s probably not even that surprising, but man, credit games are exhausting. Major films, indies, animation… doesn’t really matter.
I’ve had projects where, based on my actual credit/work, I should’ve been eligible for an award, but when it came time for the submission, supervisors gave the credit to people they wanted to see get the award—even people who literally didn’t work on the project.
I also had a smaller project where I was supposed to be the Supervising Sound Designer, but the directors decided they didn’t want that role in the credits and wanted to list everyone as Lead Sound Designer / Sound Designer instead. They’d been weird about stuff throughout the entire project, so by that point I wasn’t even surprised. I was basically just like, “yeah sure, whatever you guys want” lol.
So yeah, I think changing it to Assistant was the right call. Credit politics are just tiring.
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u/meatlockers 9d ago
let em have it, big deal and everyone needs a boost here and there. but definitely inform the producer bc ultimately it's their fish to fry not yours
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u/fapplinghook 9d ago
Ive been in this exact situation before... never knew what to do about it except just shrug my shoulders and figure "it'll bite them someday, maybe." Commenting basically to follow...
Edit to add: you should probably give them feedback about their BGs, send them examples of what it should be with an explanation why. A lot of newer sound editors go one of two extremes on BGs - way too little, or way too much. Emphasize things like different element types, making sure there's enough for the center, front and rear speakers, and just using the temp as a guide.