Meet DeLaVanta Tabor, MPSE

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to DeLaVanta Tabor, MPSE. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

DeLaVanta, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from a mindset to never give up. Once I see something in my mind I have to push through to make it happen. I also keep a clear perspective on what is going on and what others have done. Many of the most successful people have had extreme hardships and moments that could have broken them, but by remaining resilient they reached a goal. This lets me know that no matter what success is something you have to work towards and everyone has to go through something to achieve it.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My role as a Supervising Sound Editor working in film/tv is to ensure that all audio aspects of a project are handled and delivered. My team and I are responsible for everything you hear; footsteps, phones ringing, cars driving by, the bird chirping, and even the bone chilling Erie sounds that make the hairs on your neck crawl.

Typically there are 3 departments that I manage; Dialogue, Sound Effects, and Foley. When a project comes in I watch it in its entirety, sometimes with the Director and/or Producer(s) present, to asses what sound needs there are. Everything from dialogue that needs cleanup or be recorded again to special sound effects that need to be created. Once I have a handle on the necessities I meet with and assign tasks to the different departments.

As a supervisor my goal is always to delivered the best sound possible in the given time and budget. Managing expectations of both the clients as well as the sound team is paramount. As budgets dwindle quality mustn’t be sacrificed. This is why even as a supervisor I am still actively working as a Dialogue Editor and Re-Recording Mixer. Staying abreast of new technologies and developing new ways of working that ultimately speed up the workflow without sacrificing the quality. Me knowing what tools are available and how to use them helps me lead others.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
If I were to single out three things that have been the most impactful on my journey would be:

1. Ability to take direction without taking it personally.
2. Be confident but also self-aware of your limits in knowledge and experience.
3. Ability to adapt.

The first of these is the hardest to learn as our work is creative in nature and any negative response to it immediately feels as if we’re personally being attacked. It’s important to learn to not interject into what someone is saying. When someone says, “I’m not sure if that sound effect is working for this moment” we tend to hear it as “you are not that good at this and your decision making is terrible”. When in fact they said nothing of the sort. We have to realize that no matter what, there will always be critiques on our work; especially from those whose projects we’re working on. It’s theirs, not ours.

The second is a matter of being honest with ones self. Even if you’ve worked on 30 local, short films that haven’t gone past YouTube or Vimeo, you have to keep the perspective that in the grand scope of the industry you still have much to learn and when you start to get newer, bigger opportunities to take the time to listen to your superiors and heed their advice and admonitions. It’s not that they don’t trust “your methods” or think you’re capable. It’s simply that their experience and vaster knowledge of the bigger picture makes them more qualified and you’d be wise to hear them rather than think that you can get by with doing things your way in a environment you’ve yet to be in. This leads into number three.

The ability to adapt means knowing how to take your skills and bring them to new areas (that could be software, departments, media formats, or anything). There are somethings that you cannot change when you’re new to a situation. For example most everyone in the professional audio post production space will agree that Pro Tools is the industry standard audio DAW. Though something else may be better technically and you may know it better, the fact the Pro Tools is standard means that you should know it and be willing to adapt to any workflows that require it. This is particularly important if you want to grow and workin on bigger projects. The chances of a major Hollywood production allowing you to operate roughly with your own methods is slim; unless you are the lead on the projects and in that case you’ve already gotten past having to adapt and worked your way to a position where you could call the shots.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The number one challenge I am faced with is personnel. On one hand it’s having the resources necessary to employ them and on the other it’s having enough with the desire to learn and work in the field. When it comes to audio engineering, especially in Atlanta, most are interested in working only in music.

One of the ways I am attempting to resolve this is by making working in film/tv “cool”. On social media there are very few audio people creating content specially towards this line of work. When you search for topics such as dialogue editing or sound design you often find film editors or others who learned to do it out of necessity for their own projects rather than professionals who specifically work on audio only. Even when you find an audio engineer they don’t look like me nor do they make the job seem particularly “exciting”. No disrespect to anyone, but many engineers can come off as nerdy and unappealing to younger audiences. My hopes are to encourage more people interested in audio engineering to seek out knowledge and begin to have a desire for working in film and television. That’s not to say they can’t also have desires to work in music, but rather in addition to.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
The first black and white image was taken by Tyler Willis (http://instagram.com/tylerwillisphotography/)

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