"Films are 50% visual and 50% sound. Sometimes sound even overplays the visual"

David Lynch

Recent work:

The Immediate Unknown is a feature film making it's debut August 29th at the Willmette Theater. I had the pleasure of doing dialogue editing and mixing for the film.

Screencrave.com gave it an Indie Fundraiser Pick of the Week and said:

There are a lot of movies about college out there, but many of them are raunchy comedies that don’t capture the true feeling of that scary, vulnerable time in a young person’s life. Kaitlyn Mekertichian‘s The Immediate Unknown wants to show the reality of that time between teen-hood and adulthood. The film follows Chloe, an eighteen-year-old girl who enters her freshman year at Fitz College, a small liberal arts school in the Midwest. Her ordinary life gets shaken up when she enters college and experience adulthood in its most vulnerable form.

Commercial

Film

Awards:

Winner, CIMMfest Student Film Competition "Breaking Through, Best Shorts of the Next Generation"

Best Graduate Short Screenplay, Ivy Film Festival at Brown University

Best Cinematography, Living Skies Student Film Festival

Official Selection:

Langston Hughes African American Film Festival

Athens Film Festival

Pan African Film Festival

Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival

Cinequest Film Festival

Beloit International Film Festival

Bahamas International Film Festival

New Hope Film Festival

Charlotte Black Film Festival

Awards: Best Film (Ten Minutes or Less),

Bluestockings Film Festival.

Official Selection:

Chennai Rainbow Film Fest, India

Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Fest, South Africa

Dyke Drame Film Fest, Perth Australia

Budapest Pride, Hungary

Rebels With A Cause, Toronto Canada

Mix-Copenhagen, Denmark

Everybody's Perfect, Geneva Switzerland

Homochrom Filmfest, Cologne Germany

Austin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

Boston LGTB Film Festival

Brisbane Queer Film Festival, Australia

Rio Film de Gay Festival, Brazil

Pan African Film Festival

Reelout Queer Film+Video Festival

International Black Women's Film Festival

Outtakes Reel Queer Film Festival, Wellington New Zealand

Out Twin Cities Film Festival

My Portfolio

As part of a recording bootcamp, these songs were written and recorded in just a week. Mixed at my studio.

All songs recorded for  Weathervane Music's "Shaking Through", vol. 1-4. Unofficial mixes made in my studio.

In conjunction with Columbia College Chicago's music department, these are some recordings made by various big band, jazz, and RnB ensembles. Recorded at Columbia College Chicago's facilities but mixed at my studio.

I had the pleasure of working with VerveLife's concert series "VerveLive", working with many talented artists. Being in charge of live sound while recording straight to two-track and also shooting video, VerveLive was always an extraordinary event.

Mixing and Mastering

Why is mixing/mastering so important?

In the last decade, musicians have had access to some great equipment allowing them to bypass recording studios and record in their home. While this is great for creativity, it might not be the best in a sonic sense. Recording studios came with great gear, but also with engineers and producers who would be another set of ears in the decision making process. The mixing stage is where all the ingredients come together to get cooked into a meal. Think of the mixing engineer as the chef, and the mastering engineer as the final seasoning and plating that takes a meal to new heights.

It is our job as audio engineers to help the artist achieve their sonic vision, and we study long and hard to learn how to translate what the artist wants into the technical prowess needed to attain that. Using compressors and eq's, volume automation and effects, the engineer molds the raw song into  a finished product.