( L-R) Chace president Bob Heiber with CRAS instructor Jeff Thomas and Chace restoration engineer Brian San Marco.
BURBANK - Audio post house Chace Audio (www.chace.com), known for its sound preservation and restoration services, has launched an internship program, providing hands-on instruction in the major aspects of the company's core services. The eight-week program launches in July and will become an annual fixture at the facility.
"While many schools emphasize preparing students for careers in music recording, there are also significant opportunities in audio post production for film, television and home entertainment," observes Chace restoration engineer Brian San Marco, who played a key role in conceiving and coordinating the program. "Many educational institutions focus on the fundamentals, but instruction in the sub-specialties of sound preservation and restoration continues to be vastly underrepresented. We plan to help change that."
Chace Audio will welcome its first intern from the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences (CRAS) in Tempe, AZ. As part of the school's focused curriculum to prepare students for positions in the recording and professional audio industries, students are required to perform a 280-hour internship. Chace has several CRAS graduates on its staff of engineers and interest from the school's internship coordinator drove the decision to offer the first opening to one of the institution's undergraduates. Based on the success of this year's program, the internship opportunity will be offered to local Southern California and national recording schools.
"The pro audio industry remains highly competitive and it's critical for our students to graduate armed with experience in a working facility," explains Kevin Becka, the director of education at the Conservatory. "We are pleased to partner with a preeminent facility like Chace Audio to offer a step-by-step opportunity to learn how the restoration and preservation of film soundtracks is achieved."
Following an initial orientation, the Chace intern will spend eight weeks across the company's departments. Film preparation and recovery will provide instruction on how a variety of audio elements are cleaned and prepared for evaluation and digital transfer. A week in Chace's digital and optical transfer suites will then demonstrate the analog-to-digital transferring process, as well as train the inter's ears to listen for, recognize and interpret a variety of important sonic nuances. Next, a week will be spent with Chace's conforming engineers who will lend instruction on how audio is synched to picture. The seventh week will be spent with Chace's senior restoration engineers who will demonstrate how technologies like Sonic Solutions NoNoise and the Cube-Tec Audio Cube 5 are used to digitally repair an array of problems and anomalies that often plague a typical film soundtrack. The internship concludes in the eighth week, where the intern will follow a specific title throughout the entire restoration process reinforcing the skills learned over the previous weeks.