While that oxymoronic standby ‘less is more’ has proven sporadically true at best over its long life, in the post-production world the adage is gaining some respect. Born of the evolution of digital technology and the constant search for time and cost-saving means of completing a project, smaller gear and a streamlined process are being applied to more jobs at every level.

And as more is done with less, the universe of audio and video post is also contracting, with not only smaller gear and a ‘contracted equipment set’ but convergence of talent. With digital nonlinear post, the job descriptions of audio and video post people as well as engineering and post become blurred. At the same time, talent is now working on traditional as well as digital equipment and methods, both new talent schooled in both worlds and existing talent who have devoted considerable effort to making the leap.

The combination of that intermingling of talent and the expansion of high-level capabilities over a larger equipment base has been, once again, to distill the importance of the human equation; a more level equipment field emphasizes the importance of raw talent and quality from the beginning to the end of the production process.

In the following report, new stars and established players discuss shrinkage, digital dexterity and the evolution of the production and post process.

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The release of mgm’s sci-fi fantasy feature Warriors of Virtue to 2,000 North American screens May 2 will come complete with cheers from Vancouver’s audio post community and an audible sigh of relief from sound designer Cal Shumiatcher.

As the lead sound designer of Warriors – the biggest show to complete its post-production on the West Coast – Shumiatcher supervised a six-month schedule, a staff of 10 and 2,400 tracks of sound. The Warriors job was at least 10 times bigger than any Canadian feature that has come through Vancouver and tested the skills of the community.

‘There are no masters here to study,’ says Shumiatcher of the burgeoning audio post sector in the city. ‘And sometimes I think I’m reinventing the wheel because some of our post-production experience is limited. It’s been kinda provincial here.’

But shows like Warriors are forcing an evolution of Vancouver’s sound community.

‘I’m hopeful that more projects will finish here,’ says Shumiatcher. ‘We, in post-production, are at the same stage that production was at in the late ’80s.’ A few more large-budget pictures will increase the profile of Vancouver sound designers and open more doors to business, he explains.

But, at this time, Vancouver is production-saturated with nary a sound studio to be had most times, which is a situation that deflects projects to other post cities. ‘We’re growing as fast as we can,’ says Shumiatcher. ‘I’m training people all the time.’

Shumiatcher himself got his start in the industry back in 1980 working on provincial government industrial films and eventually discovering a love for sound on nfb shorts. Shumiatcher then moved into the producer’s chair for a half-dozen documentaries and four features.

In 1992, however, he was lured back to sound.

‘It was when I realized that technology allows for the possibility to expand sound design 1,000-fold that my imagination got going,’ says Shumiatcher, 39. He says he works with people who have never edited with magnetic tape.

He calls himself a creative type who came to learn the technology, rather than a tech who is expected to be creative, a situation that contributed to what he describes as ‘a banality of sound’ when digital technology took root in the 1980s. Today’s audiences, Shumiatcher says, ‘demand sounds that are more entertaining and more enhanced in the same way special [visual] effects have become the norm.’

From his base at North Vancouver’s Sharpe Sound, Shumiatcher works with Nord Rack synthesizers, Roland and Emulator samplers, Lexicon PCM 80 digital effects processors, Pro Tools editing systems, Dawn hard disk editors for playback and theaters that produce dts multitrack, 3D sound. Shumiatcher tested the Sound Hack software system that ‘morphs’ two different sound wave patterns into a third by merging a fart with a violin, an unusual hybrid he says he’ll keep in his library for a future project.

Shumiatcher – as the winner of two Genies including one as sound designer for the b.c. film Whale Music – most recently worked on the one-hour special Gary Larson’s Tales from the Far Side II (animated by Vancouver’s International Rocketship) and the new ride film from SimEx called Mars.

‘It’s often suggested to me that I get back into producing because it’s supposed to be more interesting `than just doing sound,’ ‘ says Shumiatcher.

‘There’s no such thing as just doing sound. It’s such an expanding craft. Everyday I’m experimenting.’