What can I do to get my audio engineer to return?

[ironpony]

For a film school short film, the school assigns the filmmaking students, audio engineers to do the audio mixed for our short film projects. However, my audio engineer went on vacation two days after he was given the OMF for the movie, and hasn't returned yet, and no one knows when he is coming back. I don't know what kind of progress he has been making cause he hasn't responded to any of my messages to him.

When it comes to being graded on the assignment, we are graded on our ability to get the audio engineers to get it finished. So since I only have one day left before the sound mix has to be turned in, to finish the assignment, is there anything I can do to pursuade him to come back for vacation and do all the sound mixing, clean up, and foley all in one day?

What do you think? What can I do to persuade him to come back and finish?

 

[Jared Isham]

You may have missed your opportunity to go to your professor and ask for a replacement because the audio engineer is not doing their job. What you could do is try to do the work yourself. Maybe tell your professor the dilema you are in and that due to the deadline you will be finishing the sound mix.

It is an issue you face even in the pro world. I had to cancel a production I had scheduled 4 days before we were supposed to shoot because the investors didn't follow through and the funds would not be available in time for us to get our location permits and specific production needs scheduled. So we pulled the plug and had to tell our entire cast/crew that the shoot was off. So, in prepping for the real world, you now know to jump on these things as fast as possible.

This also will allow you to work on your negotiating skills...another extremely useful skill in the film industry.

Good Luck.

 

[ironpony]

Okay thanks. We didn't have class for a few days last weeks cause we were suppose to be working on the movie. I spent that time doing the other duties, while waiting on the audio engineer, such as color correction, VFX, and fixing other problems with the video from shooting. I didn't see the professor till he got back today, to tell him. I suppose I could have texted him about it, I was just pre-occupied trying to work on other areas of post production.

But as far as jumping on the situation goes, taking matters into my own hands, is not really an option, the way the assignment is laid out. I'm not really allowed to get someone else cause that part of the assignment is there grade. If was my own thing, outside the school rules, then I would definitely have more control.