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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
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Mishu Hilmy (00:03.244)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery, where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life, and that steady, and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold, risky mo-
So, if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com.
Hey everyone, it's Misha and welcome to Mischief and Mastery. Today we are talking with Victoria Salazar, a sound designer and re-recording mixer at Noisefloor Ltd in Chicago. She's been making waves, creating unique and immersive sounds for films like Kombucha, Room 6, and Ghost of the Void. She loves a good short form project and has mixed and sound design commercials for Jeep and Checkers Rallies. Games is where she loves putting everything she's learned and practiced together, designing sounds for Destiny 2 and
SpongeBob Idle Adventures. I've also had the good fortune of getting to work with Victoria on a couple of my short projects, web series, and my short film, A Political. So it was lots of fun getting to talk, and we chatted a little bit about burnout, as well as throwing herself into game audio and game jams, and why working with friends, people you can be direct and playful with, has been a big part of staying creatively engaged. We also chatted about what game audio implementation looks like, and why sound often ends up last in the process.
even when it can ultimately shape how everything feels. So if you want to learn more about sound design, keep on listening. And if you want to learn more about Victoria, you can check her out at www.victoriaaudio.com as well as follow her on Instagram at vict.wave. And I'll have all that info in the show notes. So without any more delay, here it is, me and Victoria.
Victoria Salazar (02:07.438)
I feel like I've been a little burnt out, honestly. Like, I was really pushing myself this summer. I've been trying to do more game audio stuff in terms of like implementation. And at the studio we're at, we don't do a lot of that. So I was doing it like kind of after hours, like on my own time. And I did a couple of game jams and I was a little tired by like October. I was like, I'm so exhausted. But I will say one thing that has kept me going is like finding friends in the industry and being like,
Can I work with you? What are you doing? Like, I want to work with people that like, I understand and that understand me, which sometimes, depending on the work that's handed to me at where I work, it doesn't really happen sometimes, because you'll just like be like, hey, meet this person, cool, now you're working together. And it's like, you don't have that like, you haven't had a deep conversation, you know what I mean? So sometimes I like, I think one thing that has
gotten me a little bit more motivated and sparked inspiration was being like, we're friends and we're working together. Cool, I can like banter with you and I can make jokes and stuff. So that's been a really fun part.
I spent it as like more of like a comfort zone where I think depending on the clients, it's harder to have that trust. Like I'm going to put something out there versus if you know, have some relationship, you can like, Hey, I think this decision or this idea is a little bit overused or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, you can like be more, not that you're, we're not being honest, right? But it's like, you can be more direct with people being like, we can try it, like, we'll definitely try it. But I think XYZ or whatever. So it's nice to be able to just say that to someone rather than like tiptoe, because you don't know how they'll react and stuff. I'm assuming that's like a normal thing in the industry.
Mishu Hilmy (03:41.496)
Right, right, like, you were talking about game implementation and game jam. So like, does that, like, what's, does that mean? Like game implementation mean to you and what's like a game jam?
Yeah, so Game Jam is basically, I've been doing them online. So there's a website called itch.io and it's basically a bunch of just like high schoolers and like people that are just interested in game development, get together, make games. And then they can also just like, if you're working on a solo game, you can just post that and people can play it for free or donate whatever. It's kind of like Bandcamp. But Game Jams are.
It depends on what kind of jam it is, but basically you have a set time. So could be a weekend or a month long or a week long and you team up with people and you make a game depending on the like rules and there's usually a theme involved. So the I've done three. So the two long ones were month long ones. And then I did one that was a weekend long that like.
I feel like audio, hold on, feel like audio is always last in the process. It's not different in games. Like it's always last in the process. So I'm sitting here like designing stuff, implementing it. So using like middleware to put a sound in and then the game engine calls for that like event file name is like the very simple way of putting it. And they're like, yeah, art's not done. So I don't know what things look like. I don't know if it'll work. And like sometimes the game doesn't get done. And then you're kind of like, okay, what do we do now after the jam is done? So.
Yeah, that's what I've been doing lately. And then implementation is more like, I've been sound designing. So what I would normally do for like a film, but it's nonlinear. So you make a couple different variations of stuff. And then I use FMOD. So that's a middleware program that basically speaks to the game engine. Like audio people can easily like put it in, implement it. And then the programmer just calls for file names basically. And then it can like trigger those sounds.
Mishu Hilmy (05:35.434)
Okay. Cause it's not like it's, I imagine it's probably for economy of like data storage where it's not like they're, they're not pulling MP3s or pulling the sort of a deconstruction, like through middleware, like it's becomes a different file type.
So with FMOD, it's like the full like WAV file or FLAC file or whatever. don't know. I don't know if Wwise, there's two middlewares that are like really popular. It's Wwise and FMOD. I don't recall if Wwise does it, but yeah, it basically calls the full like high res file, whatever you're using, it'll call for that. So sometimes I've never ran into this yet for game jams, but there's like limits on like your budget for data.
So or like, you know cash or whatever so basically like you can only use a certain amount because there's so many other things loading for the game to like Show properly and play properly and I haven't ran into that for a game jam I feel like that's like a thing for like bigger AAA games and that was like a really big thing like back in the day But now everyone's like we kind of worry about it. We kind of don't you know, whatever
Right. So, because yeah, I think I watched a couple of YouTube videos on like game development and some game jams. And I know one person's philosophy was like the daily people focus on like the game loop and the development first and then sort of art design comes second. And think probably within art design is like sound and audio. like what's, how's the challenge for, you know, creating audio or sound cues when you might not even have the art, they're just creating the coding, the development, the game loops, like.
How do you cope out of like, oh, this sounds too squishy, you know.
Victoria Salazar (07:06.186)
my god, literally there was one, ugh, was one that was a weekend long and it was basically the theme was like, it's not what it seems to be. So you can kind of go off however you want. Every one of the game jams I've done, they've brought up Figma. I don't know if you're familiar with like Figma.
mobile app Bordia
Yeah, yeah, where you can like draw and like add links and pictures really easily and create like just like mood boards and stuff. So our team did that and we were kind of running through ideas. Our idea was an alien. So like I'm going off of just ideas, not art. An alien crash lands on our planet and has to wear like cool, fashionable items in order to meet this pop star who turns out is an alien. So you're trying to like, you're trying to like meet this person that's your goal. And then
in order to get to certain stores, you have to wear a certain level of clothing. So you have to find it in the world. We didn't finish the game, but it's an alien. I'm like, we don't have shoes yet. So I'm like, I'm just going to make squishy footsteps sounds. And we didn't finish the game because it was a weekend long. There wasn't much time. And I've played it for people and they're like, that's really squishy. And I'm like, I had no art. So it's kind of just going off a story. And then as in my experience, as everyone's working, they're posting
pictures of the art and stuff so I can kind of get a vibe of what things are looking like. But I feel like it's kind of like film where like you can make the sound. It's a little easier with film because like it's not going to change. It's there for the most part. It's not going to change, but it's there and you can like play it over and over again and get it right. With a game you have to design it, then put it in your middleware game engine and then hope to God there's art and the programmer can link it for you because I'm not that far yet into the like technical stuff. And then you're kind of like
Victoria Salazar (08:50.7)
Does it work? And if it doesn't work, then you're like, okay, well, it's easy to swap out the sound, but you have to make the sound like you have to make it different, change it however you need and then, you know, and then you, at least it's there so you can play it. But yeah, it's, it's a lot more, there's a lot more steps to get to like, does this even work?
Yeah, yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (09:09.258)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's not like when you put a, you know, an audio cue in a, your editing software or digital audio workstation, like it's, it's not going to break. Like it's not going to break typically versus like, all right, there's all these intermediaries, are they working? And then as a sound and a clip, cause like they're doing too many actions. Is it too long of a cue?
Exactly, like you have to clamp them, you have to limit them. Okay, maybe we need more variation, which is really cool. You can do that in like the game engine and middleware. So that's a little bit easier to do, but you still want it to be like unique and different. So then you make all these things and then it doesn't work. You're like, so you have to go back to your doll and like redo it all.
Yeah. And are you doing the foley or do you have like access to certain sound libraries that you're taking and maybe shifting around and building or deconstructing?
Yeah, so at Noise Floor, where I work, we have a Foley stage and sometimes I'll record stuff in there, but Katie is our Foley artist. So like if it was at work, then probably it would be a mix of like us two doing stuff or whoever else is like designing. Cause I feel like a lot of sound designers want to record their own stuff because a part of the process is you record this unique thing that's specific to the film or game. And then you can like manipulate it however you need specifically for like sound design. It's huge.
because you can record at high sample rates, can slow it down and like manipulate the sound really well with all of that extra data with the high sample rates. So it's a mix of both, long story short. Like I like recording stuff because it makes the project unique and different, like each one. And then you can also make like mini libraries so you can pull from it very easily. And if it works in a future project, great. But at least it like was made for that one specific project. So yeah, I love recording like random sounds.
Mishu Hilmy (10:52.398)
you have like a little studio at your apartment or you use different studios, you have relationships.
So, yeah, I have a computer, a rig at home and then at noise floor. There's more rooms and booths and stuff that we can use.
And then you did a, you worked on it as a Destiny 2 and a SpongeBob. Was that a mobile game? So like, what was the sort of the game jam experience versus say like something like a more, a larger studio like a AAA or a SpongeBob.
Game jams is like, I'm just on my own. I'm doing it myself. Yushin, actually, I worked with Yushin. love them. On the last game jam, I asked them to do music if they were available and they were like, hell yeah. So we both collaborated, but it was mainly just like me loading in the sounds and everything and dealing with like looping and stuff like that. For SpongeBob Idol Adventures, that was a mobile game and it was, Kongregate is the studio. I think they're based in Chicago. I could be wrong about that.
We were just making assets for them. So basically they gave us a build of the game and then we recorded it off of like the iPad or whatever. And then we like just like made sounds to it. We would send it to them. We'd give them different ideas. They'd come back with feedback and then we would kind of reiterate and then send back and then they would be like, cool, it's in the game. It's approved onto the next asset. And then for Destiny, it's, we do a couple of things for them. We do localization.
Victoria Salazar (12:15.298)
which is basically for people that don't know, it's basically the game is made in English or whatever base language, and then they have to make other languages for different parts of the world. So you basically take all the dialogue from the cinematics that's recorded in like Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Korean, and then we mix it to match kind of the English volume level, loudness level, and then they can take it and like load in that sample for.
if someone playing in France. So it's really cool to be able to like see how they mix stuff because we also do the sound design for some of the cinematics or most of them. And I've been doing a lot of that lately, which is really fun, which is basically it's a cinematic. We're just working with a linear picture and it's animated. So like things do change. But for the most part, I feel like for the most part we get mostly final renders of stuff. Sometimes it's just like.
gray and like shapes and we're like, okay, we know the basic story. So we're designing stuff. yeah, that's like, we're just designing and it's like make the weirdest, coolest shit possible.
That's great. That's great. And then like for like for this year, what was sort of prompted like the inspiration to try and focus a little bit more on game work or just add more game works and say, which your bread and butter is probably more film, you know, film.
Yeah. So I've always wanted to do like game audio stuff. Like ever since I started at NoiseSore, they've been doing Destiny, Cinematics and like LoK and stuff like that. So I was like, goals, like I want to work on that. So I feel like working, doing sound design for film and mixing for film really helped kind of like hone my skills for sound design because you can kind of take it and it's just like a different, slightly different workflow of like how you export stuff and how you think about layering sounds so you can then.
Victoria Salazar (14:03.118)
take it apart and make a variation and stuff. So yeah, I've always like, I didn't grow up playing video games because I had another brother, he would play the video games. So I wasn't allowed to touch the consoles until I got a Wii, okay? And then I was all about it. So yeah, I just fell in love with like all the sounds. I'm like, how do they even do this? Like how does Zelda make all this? Like how do they even, all the different sounds that are in there and it sounds so.
cohesive and perfect for that world and stuff. It was always something I was fascinated with. Then Noisler was really busy and I forgot. I was like, I'll just learn it at work when we get a game because we're going to get a game. Then it happens, not. Then it was just like, cool. Then I was busy learning how to sound design and how to mix and how to dialogue edit. I was fulfilled in that for a while and then COVID happened. I was like,
I feel like I'm like missing something. And then I was like, yeah, video games. I don't know if that like, if anyone else experiences that, but I'm like, how did I forget? I wanted to do this.
Yeah, yeah, I had a 10 year gap where I'm like, wait a minute, I wanted to do filmmaking, but then I spent 10 years doing theater and improvising.
Literally, you're like, no, literally. like, I wanted to do this so bad. What happened? So, yeah, that's kind of like I've been pushing myself more because it's like I for a while was like, it'll happen naturally, whatever. And I'm like, no, it won't. I like actually have to try and like get good at using middleware and get good at doing all these things so that eventually I can be confident and be like, hey, I can do video game audio for you. Work with me, please. Yeah. So because I.
Mishu Hilmy (15:42.776)
think like, I mean, filmmaking is one of the most sort of complicated art forms. And then I would say next after that is like video games, because you also have conditionality where you're creating sound designs for, depending on the game naturally, but like moments that some players may never experience, but you still need to, you know, design the cinematics or even the audio and the cues for those moments that people could unlock or, you know, do depending on the game.
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I haven't worked on a game that complicated yet in terms of like doing implementation and stuff like that. But like I was playing it takes two and split fiction, which is both by Hazelight Studios and the amount of detail of like audio in those games is insane. And I'm like, how do you, how do you, how, how, you know, but like it's true. Like everything that's like a possibility has to go through audio for that, which is insane to me.
Because for film, it's just right in front of you. There's unspoken things for sound design and score that the director may want the audience to feel and convey with the story and stuff that audio can help with, but it's mostly all there in front of you. There's world building in terms of ambience and backgrounds and stuff, which is the same for video games. But then, yeah, you have those layers of, if they go into this room and touch this thing, then the computer's going to turn on and you want to hear the sound of that. So it's a whole.
different world of like thinking about, okay, cool, we have to add audio for all of this. And sometimes you just can't. then, you know, it's not as interactive, but
So then when it comes, for, you know, mean, I was watching, sometimes I'll get like reels or Tik Toks from like riot games and they'll show a sound design for everything. Valorant it's like, it looks like a simple mechanic. And then you see all the layers to make it either very, very immersive or like this, like, how do you, when you have, when you have designed either cues or moments, like, how do you, what's your sort of process of like layering it out? it like, you know, intuitive or do you outline things or to jot down like kind of concepts? Like, how do you go about it?
Victoria Salazar (17:39.672)
I guess it depends on what it is. I feel like for a weapon of some sort, it's like, okay, cool, you have the base mechanics of it. So if it's a pistol, you kind of have a, I don't shoot guns, so I'm like, what does a pistol sound like? You have to have that real world experience with it. So you kind of have that as a base layer, but then depending on how it looks, you can kind of amplify those things. So if you see gears on it, you can add a cool gear mechanism movement thing, or if it.
has like a specific power to it. That's like when sound design can really show is like you can make a cool laser or like weird magical sound that can be a part of the like gunshot. So really it's like base layer. Okay. What's the mechanic and like motion and like performance of the gun? Cause like shotguns are different from pistols and all of that. And then I feel like that's when you can layer it up. And then my whole thing is like, can I make it cooler and weirder or like fit the story better? You know, like it's always like, how can I make this dope?
Yeah
It's really a lot of the sound design stuff I'm like trying to do is just like, how do I make this even cooler? More low end? No. More reverb? No.
Add a flange to it.
Victoria Salazar (18:50.56)
No, literally. Yeah. Me throwing, throwing everything at it being like, well, how do I make this sound weird? Yeah.
And like, like for visual artists, they'll do, you know, mood boards, Pinterest boards. Like, how do you research and, you know, collect audio samples? Like what's your sort of Pinterest boarding with audio and sound when it comes to like refilling your creative well?
Yeah, I feel like just playing games and stuff or like watching cool movies. I feel like all the time I'm like, if I watch a movie the first time, I'm like, I should pay attention to the sound. Like I have to pay attention. And then like 10 minutes in, I'm lost in the movie because it's doing its job and I'm not paying attention to the sound. So I'll like watch it again or like kind of go back to moments. was like, how did they even mix that? Just to see like what things, what elements they took out and what they kept like upfront, because it's all about like balance with mixing and like.
there's like three main focuses, it's kind of it. The rest is all like, you kind of got to move it to the side or get rid of it. So like you can focus on those things. And then for video game audio, what I've noticed I was doing since I didn't have a lot of art references for some stuff is I was like, people would reference games and like TV shows. So I'd watch some of them and then pull links and be like, that's a cool moment. Or, they really like the UI and Animal Crossing. I love Animal Crossing. Like just the overall.
Being an overall reminder of how those sounds are feeling in the game is good and has helped me in the past. But yeah, I would just say like watching content. making sure like being like, I have to pay attention to this. So I'm going to pay attention while I watch it. then, and then that usually like is cool. I didn't realize they did that.
Mishu Hilmy (20:25.346)
Yeah. And then do you have like a, like your own personal library of sounds that you have just like terabytes of audio that you can go, maybe I can pull this old track and, and futz around with it. Are you pretty much like, all right, new project, new recordings.
No, so I do have a sound effects library and the studio I work at has a large sound effects library as well. it's a mix of like, my God, there's this dog. I need that dog in here. I'll always try to put my dogs in stuff. I don't have great recordings of them, but when I put them in, I'm like, that's champ. That's my dog. So I'll definitely pull from stuff.
it's easier to remember stuff you record and edit and put in the library because you're like, this would be so useful for this one thing. It's nice to have other libraries where there's this one called hyperrealism for animals. Basically, this guy records these animals at super high sample rates. When you bring them into a DAW and don't convert the sample rate, it slows it down. A lion now sounds like a beast or something and you can manipulate it. It's always handy to have those and I don't have.
I mean, I could probably try to record a lion, but like the quality might not be as good. So it's like, you have to invest in those things, especially when you're like trying to lean or like focus on sound design. But yeah, I would say it's a mix of like using old sounds from other projects and then, you know, making them into something new for a current project.
And then like when it comes to sound design for a film, do you have a artistic or aesthetic kind of principle that you typically, you know, use as a baseline when it comes to designing or kickstarting or even working through a project?
Victoria Salazar (22:01.486)
That's a really good question. Not really. I think it depends. So sound design is very broad. think for a lot of people, sound design to me is like a specific cool effect you want to help. It's kind of like score where it helps carry emotion or like can help scare you. So it kind of depends on like what type of sound design you're doing. Cause if you're doing like, a lot of times I like having like backgrounds, like ambience done cause you're like,
I have a base world I can work off of. And then at least I have that where it's not like the dialogue dipping in and out, because it's raw edited. it's like the ambience, is it smooth? And it kind of takes you out of it when you're trying to design. So I like having that kind of there, because at least it helps bring the world in. And then a lot of the time it's like watching the film and being like, OK, what elements do I have already that are in the film that I can pull from? So like if.
like if dialogue is like a heavy thing, which usually it is. And like a line is super important and it goes into like a weird like dream sequence, for example, like I would take that line or something and like manipulate it. So it has the same vibe and like tone of the character, cause like that's their voice, but it's like manipulated. So you don't even know what they're saying or it's like stretched out. So it sounds like really weird ambient stuff. So it's like taking it from visuals is a lot of the time what I do when I'm like.
Mm-hmm.
Victoria Salazar (23:25.804)
heavy sound designing and then yeah, just having like an understanding of, okay, what are we trying to do with this scene? Because that's like number one. Like what do we want the audience to feel? Do we want to scare them? Cool. Then it's like, we have a build, it stops. And then there's the scare usually depending on how it's edited. Cause it's always dependent on that. So yeah, it depends on like the film and everything. But I say like having ambience and like having like a base understanding of what we're doing and then.
From there, you can take it and either get weird with it or be subtle depending on the director and what they want.
Yeah, the Rector Story genre project. Cause I know I was talking about the Usain about it maybe a months ago or whenever we recorded our podcast was there's the sort of literal impulse of like the literal physical space or even the activities going on within the what's in frame. And then there's the creative sound design. So I think I imagine it's not that they're competing, but what literal things do you need to sort of take care of or not take care of? Like, do we even need footsteps? Maybe we don't. And then like kind of moving.
Yeah, yeah, that's essentially as being like watching the film and be like, do we even need anything here? Because like it's all going to be music or like we'll have backgrounds, right? But then so a lot of the time it's like, especially at NoiseFloor 2, it's like sometimes I'm sound designing, but I'm not mixing it. So I don't know what what the mixer is going to want to do with it. Or sometimes I'm mixing it and I'm like, I wish I wish something was here so I can like manipulate it and like change it. It just depends on the project, which is like a lot of the time with film and like the arts. But it's like
I would do backgrounds for the scene or whatever. And then if I'm mixing it, I'd be like, okay, how do I want to edit this so that it'll help me in the mix process? Or like, do I even want anything there? Or is it just going to be like useless because it's like all music and like heavy sound design. But you can kind of make those choices as you're editing and then talk to, you know, collaborate with the people you're working with and be like, hey, what are you going to do here? What are your thoughts? If they have any thoughts. So then you can kind of take that and be like, okay, cool. I'll dip out the backgrounds. So you don't even have to worry about it. And then come.
Victoria Salazar (25:29.134)
bring it back up before you even need it. So that way you can like kind of work with what you have. Cause sometimes it's like, yeah, if like, I always find Foley really hard to mix because you're trying to match it to production. And it's like, bro, this is like so hard for me. don't know. Maybe it's because like, I know it's there, but I'm like, sometimes I'm like, this isn't working. I can't do it. But like, it's always like, yeah, you want footsteps for like.
first 10 seconds and then you're like, no more. Like they're talking, they're doing other things. Like I don't want to try, I don't want to hear like random, like peaks of stuff randomly. And then, know, if it's not helping, if it's not like, can add texture for sure, but it's, you know, is it helping the story?
Yeah, it can also become distracting if it's like not balanced out. So like, do you like, when it comes to say like, dealing with when you're sound designing and mixing versus when you're sound designing and you have a different mixer, like what's, what's, what's some of the pros and cons of both of them?
I feel like if I'm sound designing and mixing, I feel like I'm more familiar with the project when I go to mix because I've like, I watched it a million times and I've like given myself enough time to like not actively think about how I wanted to make something. So to me, that comes more natural than me forcing myself to be like, how do I even want this to sound as I'm like in the mix room? But that's also like a fun part of it. like.
sound designing, can, can, a lot of the times it's like checkerboarding, you know, the clips, so it's easier to mix and pan. So that can make a huge difference. And then as, as you mix, you kind of learn like, I like things edited this way, or I don't like things edited this way. So you can kind of like give that feedback to yourself or like other people and kind of learn from that. And then if, if I'm like, if I'm
Victoria Salazar (27:11.242)
only sound designing and not mixing. It's a lot of like, hey, how do you want this? Like to the other person, like how do you, and most of, I feel like I've working there for like nine years now. So a lot of the people I collaborate with, like I know kind of how a lot of people work. And then sometimes there's random cases of like, what were your, what did you have thoughts on for the scene? Because like, I'm kind of doing this and like, do you even want anything here? So it's a lot of just like.
having those conversations. most of time they're like, what? They're like, I'm not on that project yet. So I'm like, okay, well, you should watch it. Like watch the scene with me. And like, are your, what is, what is your gut feeling? But then sometimes it's like, it gets to the next stage and then we're kind of called in and it's like, Hey, do you think you can layer this differently or like add more of like, add more low end or add more of something because it's kind of missing with all of the elements together. And then that's when.
we're kind of like, yeah, and then we jump to that scene, do the note, give it back to the mixer and they're like, nice. Or they're like, can you add this? And then, you know, it's a little back and forth. It's like, like pre-notes, like before client notes.
Yeah. Yeah. Because they can, work with like sort of the mixer to, sort of separate it out or get something that you're all maybe aligned with like, this makes sense. And then the client comes in and they're just like, this feels too dry or it feels too sharp or whatever. And you got to adjust it. like, yeah, how, yeah, I just think mixing is so fascinating because without any mixing, just like all muddy and it's on some same plate, like level. like, what are the sort of the tools or the tricks around creating depth or, or whatnot when it comes to at least your process?
for mixing. I mean, there's so many things.
Mishu Hilmy (28:46.562)
Yeah, yeah.
Victoria Salazar (28:53.11)
Reverb, mean, reverb helps set the tone, right? So like a lot of people, well, I don't even know if this is like, I feel like this was a thing when I like first started mixing a couple of years ago, where it was like too much reverb, take it out, too much reverb. And I'm like, really? Like everything's so dry. But I think for like dialogue specifically, a lot of people are like sensitive to it. But there's, there's a lot of things like reverb helps give like a little bit of depth, puts you in the space, right? Like if you're in a big hall or something, the.
natural reverb could be there with the production audio, the way it, maybe if it needs to be like an &E, which is like you have to separate all of the other production audio sounds separate from the dialogue. So it could be dubbed essentially in a different language that takes so much longer to dialogue at it. You do have the separation, but it's like a lot of things can kind of be, have to be sacrificed. Like sometimes it's like the line sounds a little funky because we had to take a footstep out or something.
and then it like messes with the reverb if they're in a big room. So some of it is like technical fixing stuff. And then other times it's like, okay, cool. We have the backgrounds to start out and then we can kind of fade them down when people start talking because you don't want to hear like a loud car pass by. As someone saying something important and someone's like, there was like, like that car was really loud, you know? So like a lot of it is like, I think second nature is like.
You know, when you're talking to someone in a conversation, you kind of do tune out the world a little bit because you're so like, engrossed in what they're saying. And then other times it's like, we work in Dobie Atmos so we can pan with like height. A lot of the times it's like just panning stuff away from the dialogue so that you do have a sense of the world around you, but it's not in the way.
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (30:27.221)
interesting.
Victoria Salazar (30:35.668)
of the dialogue and when it down mixes, it still feels like a little bit separated from the actual dialogue that's happening or whatever's happening on screen that you want to be front and center. So panning, definitely like volume automation, always automating volume. I automate so much. It's like, sometimes people open my projects and they're like, why do you automate so much? I'm like, cause it's cool. It's really fun to be able to like EQ something out for a second and then like bring it back in. a lot of it, yeah, a lot of it's EQ too.
backgrounds have a lot of low end, which sometimes they do for ambience and cars passing by and stuff. There's always a lot of low end. cutting that out and cutting the mid to highs out so you still feel the cars, but it's not super bright and in your face. It kind of helps give more depth to things. I'm trying to think what else. That's pretty much it, I think. A lot of it's the same. It's just different tricks for different scenarios.
God.
Mishu Hilmy (31:28.332)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, cause I was saying that, you know, I'm familiar, you know, you have the panning, but I wasn't familiar with the panning up and down. Like that's really interesting. Cause I'm like, well how do you record something low to the floor versus up high? And, you can actually sort of emulate it with different, you know, platforms or softwares or whatever.
Yeah, and Dobie Atmos is like, it's not new anymore. Netflix is like, this is in Dobie Atmos. And you're like, how? Like, I only have like a stereo sound system. But it's like the way, like if people have access to that in their like homes and are able to like replicate it, then it just makes the home experience like a theater experience. makes it even cooler. And a lot of the time it does, I think it gives you a little bit more space and like more room to work with things. Like if someone gives me like just birds, like a track of birds, I can put them up there with reverb and be like,
That's great. It's not in the way. It's not too loud. Like it's subtle. And then when you listen down to like the down mix, the stereo down mix, it's like, it feels it's still like in the front, obviously, because it's down mixing to the two, but it's like more pulled back. I think it's like helpful for mixing because you have more room to play with and stuff.
And then I'm curious, like, because you've done like the whole gambit of like sound work, like ADR and, you know, sound mixing, then what's sort of like the supervising sound editing? Like, what's that like, say compared to, you know, you know, sound designing or et cetera.
It's, you have to like have an idea of the overall picture the whole time. I haven't done it too much. Like I do enjoy it, but sometimes I found this, I'm a little bit of a control freak. Where, where like, for example, at noise floor, like if, if I'm going to be supervising something and other people are editing stuff. So basically if I can choose who's working on stuff, I can be like, yeah, Stash is super good at sound design. Let him.
Victoria Salazar (33:18.722)
do the sound design, he'll kill it. And then Brian can do dialogue or something. And then conveying what the director wants or whoever has created control to those people, I find is sometimes hard because in my head, I have an idea of how things, how I would do things, but Stash has a different idea and Brian has a different way of doing things. when I do, when you do like approval process, basically you listen to the film and you're like, okay, cool. This is kind of conveying what the director wants or it is or it isn't. Then you can do like,
little notes and then kind of it can go to the next stage at that point. So sometimes I find like when I listen to something, I'm like, that's not what I had in mind at all, but it still works. Yeah. So like that's the part where it's like, dang, like I didn't even think about it like that. That's really cool. Or it's like, I didn't convey this right to you. I'm so sorry. Like that's not, that's not what the director wanted or like, I don't think it'll work. Maybe we should try this direction. So it's, it's more about like guiding the team to what
the director wants. Because usually when we do spotting sessions, it's just like the supervisor or mixer. And then talking to the director of like how they want things to sound. If there's like technical fixes, those are, you know, we'll come across them as they go for like ADR and stuff like that. But a lot of time it's like conveying what they're saying to you in the room. You're like typing as they're talking and like you're talking about like all these crazy things. And then you look at your notes and you're like, what did I just type? what?
What does sun even mean here? Like, what does that mean? Like, why did I say that? So it's like trying to relay your notes to other people and people take it differently because of different lived experiences.
Like, I guess I'm curious around repair and sound repair and sort of the horrible, you know, fix it in post. Like what's, what's the sort of extent of, you know, we have a lot of technology and, you know, noise, like noise filters, but like what, what is like good hygiene practices for recording versus like, what's the extent of repair that you're able to do versus not able to do.
Victoria Salazar (35:15.158)
Yeah, mean a lot can be done now. I'm not saying that Rx fixes Rx is like a restoration software that a lot of people use. It's really good, but you can still hear like artifacts. So like if it sounds a little like washed out or phasey or weird or they're like the fundamental of your voice is like not there anymore. Like it can do weird things to people's voices. So you always have to be careful with that. As for recording dialogue, it's like from my experience, if your dialogue level
is separate enough from like the noise floor of the room or like the environment of your in, it should separate out okay. Like you shouldn't have too much of a problem. I think it also depends on like what device you're recording with. Like if the interface isn't good, then it will artifact a little bit more. Like sound devices, great, great, great tools. Like obviously they're an industry standard everywhere. Like a lot of people use them.
But sometimes you'll get something and you're like, what did the sound recordist use for this? Because it's not cleaning up well. And it could be the law of the type of microphone or it could be a couple other things. So yeah, I would just say a tip for recording is making sure your dialogue level is good, not sounding too compressed or limited. And then also having a separation between noise and dialogue because...
If there isn't, and they're too close or the noise is too loud, most of time when you try to clean it up, it sounds really weird. And then it's like, okay, we're gonna have to ADR this. And most of the time people are like, don't have money for that. So you're like, okay, great. Which is, fine. But it's like, that's something you should account for when you're like scouting places to shoot and stuff like that.
Because there's noise from like the mechanics, the instruments you're using if whatever your preamp is like not good or broken or your battery is dying in the preamp or even the microphone versus noise in the environment.
Victoria Salazar (37:04.174)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally different. And it's different methods of cleaning up too. Like you can, like if there's cicadas, there's nothing you can really do about that except not shoot in the summer. But it's like if you've got the summer vibe then. But I mean, honestly, there's different techniques you can do when you like see the audio in Rx.
And you can kind of like judge like how much you can clean up and how much you are just like, well, I mean, you can take it out and hear it, but like, if it sounds like crap, then it's like, you might as well keep it in, just make the cicadas as smooth as possible. So that way, at least there's some, there's like balance, I guess. And then when you're talking to the director, it's like, most of time, if I hear something, I'm like, we'll try to clean it up as best we can.
if it like, are you cool with the cicadas or do you mind them? And then we can kind of go from there. If people are like, yeah, we don't want to hear them at all. It's like, okay, well, we'll try it. Might have to do ADR. Just letting you know. And then we'll have to account for that sometimes, you know, later down to the dialogue edit.
Yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (38:06.008)
Right. And then with ADR, what's, how challenging is it to match sort of the room vibes of, know, production sound versus like you're recording in a studio. Like what's, what's the difficulty? Like, it sometimes successful or are you pretty, you got tricks to make it 90 % successful? Like, what's that like?
Yeah, so it's a little hard because like you're in a different environment. So one, I think it depends on like why we're replacing the line. Like is that a performance thing or is it a technical thing like for us? Like if it's a performance thing and they're on screen, it's hard because you have to, actor has to match what they're doing on screen. And then they also have to like put themselves back into that character, back into that time, which.
a lot of the time it's been like six months, like a while after the shoot was done. And it's like, I can imagine it's hard. I'm not an actor, so I don't know exactly what it's like, but I can imagine it's really hard to get yourself back into that. Especially when you're in a completely different environment. You're in a booth, you could hear yourself like very well. Like it's very like dry and in your face. That's part of it. And then there's tools, there's like plugins and stuff that can help rep like match EQ. So like the tonality of someone's voice a little bit, like if it's
If it sounds a little too bright in the ADR, we can kind of like match it to the production by bringing down the high end and stuff. And then there's like reverb tools. So there's one called Chameleon where basically you can take an audio file, it'll scan it and then grab the reverb, like the tail of their lines and try to replicate the room, which I've had good success in. So it's like, it's like a mix of a couple of things, like performance, then it's okay, can we EQ it enough to where it matches? And then the other part of it is
okay, can we put it in the same room? Because sometimes the reverbs, if I'm mixing, sometimes the reverbs I have aren't exactly what, you know, like it's not, I'm not going to go to the exact room and like get an IR scan of it, which would be really cool, but it hasn't happened. So a lot of the time you're using just like the tools you have to try to like replicate things. And then another part of it is if you're just doing one line and not the other lines, it could just sound very different from the others. So.
Victoria Salazar (40:13.708)
A lot of times people just try to get the whole scene or if they have a bunch of lines together in the ADR process and sometimes we don't use them, but at least it's like we have them there just in case it's very different and we can't match it.
So I'm curious because there's so much technical problem solving that I think at the problem solving level is very creative. And then there's also sort of artistic problem solving. like, do you balance some projects that might be more technical minded rather than say sound design might be a little bit of a larger canvas to play around with? Like what's your relationship to either creative flow or creativity when one is like very technical, very crap oriented rather than something that might be seen more artistic.
Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like the difference, the two different things that's coming to mind is like dialogue editing and then like sound design. Like sound design, you can record your own things. You kind of like can go off and do whatever you want that works for the story and what the director wants. And then you can kind of pull it back from there. Dialogue, like you can't, like there's ADR, but like what they got on set is what they got, you know? So a lot of times when doing a dialogue edit, having all of the production audio is really helpful.
If something's like, if it's one line that's like not good, like there's something, like someone drops something right over the line and like you still want it. What I've done is I've gone back to the production audio and just pulled a different like take in there. know, as long as like it's not something incredibly important, like a really emotional scene where it's like they're on screen and it's like in your face. I feel like those are the moments when you have to talk to the director and to be like, hey, like.
there's this part of the line, do you mind if we pull alts? Like can you listen through all these and like pull one that you like the most? And then other times I just take it upon myself to do it, because it's like a puzzle, you know? You're just like, that part of the line sucked and it's gonna sound really bad, I'm just gonna pull this and it still works. Sometimes like a lot of actors are really good at like, depending on the film, if it's like improv.
Victoria Salazar (42:15.782)
You're kind of, they maybe say it once and that's all you got. But if it's like a drama or a horror and like it's like very specific, you can most of time pull and be like, okay, cool, I can use this take instead of 3B, I can use 4C or whatever.
Right. And does that depend a lot on the workflow? Because typically, ideally, you're getting a picture lock and you might not have all the access to like audio files or audio files. And, maybe they might have some of the stems there where they have the lav one and boom one and lav two and you can steal from it. But what's it like if you don't have access to some of those, you know, alts? Do you just have to ask the production and go, Hey, can you send them over?
Yeah, usually, I'm trying to think of like how I've done it recently. It's like, I'll go through and then as I'm editing a scene, if it's like really rough and there's a lot of alts, I'll ask. So if I'm not supervising it, I'll just ask the supervisor like, hey, can you ask for these production, like the production files from this day or whatever, or this scene? And then I can go through them or if.
There's so much dialogue where we don't have time to do it. It's like, hey, can you listen through, we're going to bark alts for you of like what we want alts for. Can you go through the production and like you flag the ones you want? Cause then I'm not wasting time going through and figuring out what would work and what wouldn't. At least I have like a direction of like which one could be useful. So yeah, I think it's just, it's more like asking me like, Hey, do you have this? If you don't cool, we'll figure it out. you do great, you can try to edit it.
And like, how often is it you're doing like a dialogue edit and picture's locked and you're like, there needs to be some kind of edit something, whether it's because of a sound issue or just a recommendation. Like, does that happen frequently where you're like, actually this might, this might smooth out the cut. Yeah. I'm just curious. Yeah.
Victoria Salazar (43:59.606)
like picture edit. I've never recommended it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I feel like if like we were really close friends and I was like. But I think that's a part of like what I'm feeling now is like, I want to be able to give that input. And sometimes I don't feel like it's my place, because a lot of the time for like commercial and stuff, it's like.
Okay.
Victoria Salazar (44:24.642)
You don't say anything. You're just working. You're doing your thing. And then if they ask you, you give your opinion. like, you're not, you're not like suggesting stuff when they kind of, when you can feel a vibe of like, they know what they're doing. Like, I'm not going to say anything. So yeah, I mean, I've never, there's been a couple of times where I'm like, I wish they would have done it this way. Cause that would have been really cool. But I mean, at that point we're picture locked. We already have everything. You know, we don't, we don't like, well, I'm not getting picture.
Yeah.
Especially when we're mixing, it's like, it's. We have to move, yeah, like you can break so many things.
You heard?
Mishu Hilmy (45:01.016)
Yeah. And then like, imagine commercial timelines are much tighter. They probably also have higher budgets versus say, depending on certain indie project or film projects, you might have a little bit more flexibility. like, is that also like a relationship thing? And then just a turnaround thing where it's like, Hey, tight, timeline. We're just doing this for the client.
Yeah. And then I think it depends on like your relationship with people, which I feel it's for everything. But like if if I'm working with someone new and it's a commercial client, like I'm just trying to do the best I can in the time I have. like trying to be very professional, which not to say I'm not doing that for films, but it's like you have so much more time with people on films where you can like kind of build that rapport and everything where for commercials, it's like, hey, we need this video recorded. OK, cool.
no info and you're just like, all right. And then you're in a session and you're recording and then you're like, you're running it. So you're just kind of like, okay, cool. Let's do the next take. How do you guys want to run the session? Do you want to do a whole read of the script? You just want to do parts and then you kind of go from there. So yeah, it just depends.
Yeah. And then I know you mentioned it briefly, horror, I think like this might be the dumb take, but I think horror is like 80, 90 % in the sound. Like what's, what's your sort of approach when it comes to create? I think they're so creative. So like, do you, how do you create horror? what's like, what, what makes something scary to you and how do you think about it, you know, in terms of just like horror and sound design for that.
Yeah, think it's, I think it's how can you build tension? Because it's always like a build. Yeah. And then the scare happens. The scare happens, It's always a build and then the scare happens. So how can you do that? That works with picture, that works with the elements that you have in the film. I worked on a film, Kombucha this year and we didn't, we weren't doing the sound design. Like we did dialogue, sound effects fully. And then I mixed it.
Victoria Salazar (46:50.808)
but I was adding sound design elements while I was mixing because I'm like, this needs more. It needs to build more. It needs something else to it where if it didn't have it, I don't think the scares would land as much. And then it's a part of timing. So picture edit, depends on that, because you're kind of locked to that in a way, but you can kind of wiggle it around. it's like, it may be like the sound lingers a little bit and then it stops and then the jump scare happens.
I think a lot of it is like where your builds are. And then you can kind of like slowly build things to be scarier to the climax of the film. But you don't want it to be like this the whole time, like scary the whole time. Cause like people will get tired of that and then they'll like not be as scared as they would have if there was like builds to it.
Yeah, I mean, I think the director's job or a great director's job is, you know, contrasts and variation. it's like, if you just have the same sort of droning tonality or tension, tension, tension, then it's like becomes like a metronome in the background where that's all you're hearing. That's all you're feeling. And it just becomes no different than noise, you know, birds chirping in the background. It's just noise. So I think it takes direction as well as like that sound design to know like we can't just have it always be, you know, intense. Yeah.
Yeah, like there has to be even for like in kombucha there's this monster that you see and like even for that monster like it can sound a certain way to start but then it needs to evolve because the monster itself evolves and then and then you kind of have to like work with what you have to like manipulate those sounds to evoke emotion and stuff so it's it's it's all different and then you just kind of have to do that throughout the whole film.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And then earlier you mentioned, you know, 2025, a lot of work, especially near the tail end of the year and maybe feeling exhausted, burnt out. like how, you know, either entering 2026 or you just personally day to day, like how do you find balance? How have you been either getting rest or what do do to get away from like the DOS and, you know, film and sound? Like what's been working for you?
Victoria Salazar (48:48.046)
Um, hanging out with my friends helps. Like they're always great, you know, taking my minds off things. And then, you know, it's like for me personally, I'm like when I'm, when I don't see my friends for a long time, cause everyone's so busy, like everybody in the world. And then you hang out with them, you're like, I'm a new person. I'm revived. So like doing that is really helpful. And then I've been reading a lot, you know, just been trying to like focus on other things other than audio. I sewing, I got a sewing machine back here. I've been doing that. I'm trying to make gifts for my friends this year.
Did you gifts or gifts? Gifts. Gifts. Okay. So gifts.
Yeah, sewing gifts. I've been trying to make them something. So like I have to like cut fabric and stuff. And that's super helpful to like drown out, put on bed bunny and just be like, okay, I'm cutting fabric, you know? And that's actually been really helpful. It's just finding hobbies that aren't sound related or film related. I feel like I didn't realize how much I needed that until like recently I'm like, hobbies are important. Interesting.
especially like unproductive, non-monetizable hobbies, that's really key.
Yeah, yeah, like I'm not trying to sell this stuff. I'm just trying to make weird gifts for my friends, know? It's gonna look bad, but it's a sweater, you know? Right, right.
Mishu Hilmy (50:00.536)
Made half out of love and half out of, shoot, I gotta get this by their birthday.
Exactly. Or Christmas or whatever. So it's like, we're gonna work on that.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. then for you, like, are there any sort of iconic or pivotal movies or games in terms of sound design or just mute? Like, yeah, think I go with sound design that you're like, this is just incredible, you know, inspiring, like, like, you know, favorite, you know, top two or three or whatever.
Okay, so I feel like for film, it's like Studio Ghibli movies. Like any animation really is just like, wow, you have to make everything from scratch. It's insane. But mine is like the VO. So I was spirited away. It was like one film where I was like, my God, this is incredible. And then the first Zelda game I played was Twilight Princess. So it wasn't any of the OG games, but I think that's when I was like, my gosh, like this is insane. How do people do this? And then I played Skyward Sword.
nice.
Victoria Salazar (50:54.35)
that came after that. And I was like, oh my God, this is, this is even better because the technology got better for the consoles. I'd say those. And then pretty recently the Hogwarts legacy game. Incredible. Incredible. A lot of, a lot of video game sound though is, so good. Like people are locked in there. They're, they're, they're doing so many things where like I'm taking it and putting it in film. And I'm like, it's working. Some of the stuff, some of the techniques they're doing. like, this can work for film. Okay, cool.
yeah.
Mishu Hilmy (51:18.083)
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Salazar (51:22.486)
And then another film I would say was like Annihilation. They had some really cool sound design elements in there. The way that, so like, I like work on horror movies. I don't necessarily like watching them all the time. It gives me too much anxiety, you know? I'm freaking out already. I don't need more scaringness, but Smile 2.
Yeah, amazing.
The mix on that is so good. Like all of the ways that they mixed everything was insane. then having like to deal with like big crowds and like arenas and stuff wild and just like having it be having it sound so like clean, like full is perfect.
Yeah, I saw that in theaters at the Almodraff House in Wrigleyville and I was just sitting there like, why am I doing this to myself? why? I'm sick to my stomach, just anxious.
my god. Have you seen weapons?
Mishu Hilmy (52:11.768)
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
I saw that in theaters too when the principal smashes his partner's head into the tile and it sounds like hard at first and then it gets squishier and squishier. I literally was in the theater. was like, my fucking God, like that's insane. But it's like, that's a way to convey like, you know, horror. it's like, it's like they did their job. They did it well.
Yeah. And I saw something on, I think maybe Instagram or TikTok, where was like the, I think Zach Greger is at the, the director writer. He got feedback where he had like David Fincher watch a cut of it. And there's like a scene where the main character is like walking across the street and they rack focus to the background and back to her. David Fincher was like, when you rack, also rack the cicadas, rack the audio. So it's like such an interesting note to like, you know, play with panning or even the height or depth of audio.
That's beauty of sound design, like you can keep working with it, like, you know, adding depth to the image as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's all, a lot of the times it's all about like perspectives of the camera. So it's like, cool, we can like bring focus to this thing if we want to or not and just keep it like smooth and whatever. But yeah, that's what helps, another thing that helps create depths, I think is like being able to pull perspective and have that in your film. It's like something small too, but it like gives it character and it just helps like.
Victoria Salazar (53:34.67)
make it interesting, especially if like not a lot's happening. It's like, how can we make this a little, you know, different? And sometimes people are like, no, keep it smooth. You're like, no,
Right. And then you just wrap things up. Like given how uncertain the entertainment industry consistently is and the world is like, how do you stay motivated, you know, whether creatively or just in life?
That's a good question. Kind of figuring that out right now because it's been like, it's been a rough year. It's been hard. And I don't know. mean, so for audio, it's like we're working on other people's projects. You know, like I'm not making a film. Like I'm not personally writing and like trying to put together a crew to then shoot and then like finish the film. So some of the time it's interesting to be like, right. Like I can make stuff too. So just like reminding myself of that. then like,
pushing myself to do other things like game jams and like just trying to learn more. Because I feel like you're always learning like different techniques and stuff. Like I said earlier, the video game industry is doing so many things technically that I think can help the film industry make cooler, like interesting sound design things. So kind of like not always paying attention to it, but if I see something on like YouTube, I'm like, I should watch that. I watch it, I'm like, cool. It's cool to see like
other people that are like really well established, like make a YouTube video and they're like, this is how I did this thing. And you're like, okay, my thought process is right. Like that's like super, it's, it's reassuring. And then it's also like inspiring. Cause then you're like, I want to make a gun now. I want to make a gun sound. So always kind of like paying attention to that stuff. I feel like it's helpful. And then just like filmmakers still making films right now. Like that's inspiring in itself because shit sucks. Like it's not great right now. And like,
Victoria Salazar (55:25.526)
You know, everyone is experiencing it differently, of course, but it's great that people are still trying to push their art into the world, because that's what people need, you know?
Yeah. Well, Victoria, thank you so much for sharing. has been such a enjoyable, lovely conversation.
Yeah, thank you. It's really, I mean, I feel like I talk about sound a lot, but it's nice to talk about it with people that aren't like doing it for their career, you know, because then you can have different types of conversations.
Thank you so much
Mishu Hilmy (56:00.75)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief in Mastery. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief motivation. Alrighty, final prompt, Mischief prompt time. This one work with someone you can joke around with. Reach out to...
One person you already feel relaxed with and ask them to collaborate on something tiny. One sound project, one scene, one interaction, one script, one idea. I don't know, anything. Reach out to them and see if you want to work on something. Okay, shoot them a text, an email, maybe a voice memo. I love doing those. And let's see how your energy changes when you get to work with someone you enjoy versus the pressure of constant professionalism. So give that a shot. Reach out to a
person you like and you want to collaborate with. All right, there it is. Thanks for listening this far.