RavensWork is the audio post house that has, since its founding in ’96, shared space with music and sound design company Machine Head, Venice, Calif. RavensWork is now leaving what has become a very crowded nest. In October ’99, Robert Feist, RavensWork founder/mixer, bought out partner Stephen Dewey, president of Machine Head, and is currently seeking a new, larger space for RavensWork.
"It’s going to be great for both companies," Feist says, anticipating that his company will be in new digs within six months. "We’ll both have more space, and down the line we can open a third room." Though there was undoubtedly a close relationship between Machine Head and RavensWork, with common space and common ownership in Dewey, the two companies were never joined in a formal business sense. "It’s a totally amicable split," explains Feist. "Stephen and I are pretty close. We were partners for four years. We’re very familiar with how the other works, and I think I’ll always consider Machine Head [to be] like a sister company."
Feist estimates that 95 percent of RavensWork’s business comes from outside of Machine Head. "That’s always been pretty much the case," he says, adding that the two companies will continue to have a relationship. "I had a strong background in mixing before I ever came to Machine Head. I already had a clientele and a business."
Feist came to commercial work via the record business, where he worked as a mixer, recording engineer, and record producer. He freelanced between album projects, recording music for commercials at companies such as Admusic, Santa Monica. Through Admusic, Feist began working at Margarita Mix a la Hollywood. "Admusic was then a sister company of Margarita Mix," relates Feist, "and when they built Margarita Mix about nine or ten years ago, they offered me a job. I decided I had to try it and I started mixing commercials." (Margarita Mix, Margarita Mix de Santa Mónica, L.A. Studios, Hollywood, and Zona Playa, Santa Monica, are all part of the L.A. Studios Inc. family of audio houses.)
After Margarita Mix and a short stint at POP Sound, Santa Monica, Feist approached Dewey and proposed launching a mix room at Machine Head. "We had some discussions about it, and opened RavensWork with Steven as my partner," he says. "Everything went fine. Both RavensWork and Machine Head grew. Eventually it got crowded up here on one floor, and it became apparent that RavensWork would need to move. Machine Head was Stephen’s thing, and RavensWork was always my thing. It just made sense for Ravens- Work to move so Machine Head could have its space back." When Feist took full ownership of RavensWork, he brought Katherine Morgan in as operations manager; she had previously been with Riot, Santa Monica, where she was a scheduler. Last month, Morgan was named managing director of the audio house, overseeing day-to-day operations and scheduling, as well as sales and marketing.
RavensWork currently operates two mixing rooms for Feist and mixer Eric Ryan, using 24-bit Fairlight MFX-3Plus digital audio workstations with nonlinear video playback. "Initially, I’m going to move the two rooms we have now," Feist says. "After the move and things settle down, I’m going to open a third room."
Feist says that plans for the company are to continue doing spots and music videos. "I have some documentaries coming up, but I don’t see us doing any features in the near future."
The company’s recent credits include Toyota’s "Ants," directed by Bob Grigg of Industrial Light + Magic Commercial Productions, San Rafael, Calif., and Los Angeles, via Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., and Levi’s "Cut Offs" out of TBWA/ Chiat/Day, San Francisco, directed by Michael Bay of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films.
Feist cites "Cut Offs" as being a good display of sound mixing sensibilities. In the ad, a tall blonde in skin-tight Levi’s and a tank top walks along railroad tracks. A train whistle sounds, the locomotive approaches, and the young woman begins pulling off her Levi’s. The spot cuts to passengers on the train peering intently out the windows. It ends with the woman slipping on a pair of Levi’s cut-offs, apparently just rendered so by the train’s wheels.
"One of the things I really liked about it is that when you cut to the train, it’s really an aggressive mix. It just hits," says Feist. "When you cut to the girl, the sound drops off. And when she unbuttons her pants, the music comes in. … I think it plays great on TV."
He points out that mixing for spots is very different from other types of audio. "Some very special things happen with commercials that don’t happen in other audio post, like film or TV shows. By their very nature, ads are short, and they nearly always play in pods with about five or six other commercials," explains Feist. "You can’t apply the same sort of techniques you would in mixing a feature. If you take those same sounds [from a feature] and throw them in a commercial, it will die in the pod. You really need to make the audio pop—your mix needs to be bright and hot."
