Scott Paterson is a dubbing and re-recording mixer at the post production branch of Glasgow’s Blazing Griffin — a film production company, video game developer and film and TV post facility. The studio provides a range of post production services, including sound design, dialogue editing, ADR, voiceover and loop group recording, and final mixing in Dolby Atmos-equipped suites. It also offers in-house offline and online picture editing, VFX, final QC, mastering and delivery.

Let’s find out more…

What does your job entail?
A dubbing mixer tends to describe someone who mixes the final sound of a TV show, while a re-recording mixer has historically mixed the final sound of a film. It’s essentially the same role, just with confusingly different titles depending on what the project is.

As a mixer, it is my job to bring together all of the sound elements, dialogue, sound effects, Foley and music and to balance those into a cohesive final soundtrack. You work closely with the director or producer(s) to balance levels and apply effects to realize their vision. The main goal is to have the soundscape of the film tell the story we see on screen as effectively as possible.

What would surprise people about what that job also includes?
Something that certainly surprises most people is that most of the sound we hear in a film was not recorded on-set on the day. On location when filming is happening, the sound that is recorded is almost entirely just the dialogue. Some ambient sound might get recorded too, but really the focus of location sound recording is to capture the actors’ performances.

By the time the film gets to post production, it is up to the post sound team to flesh out the soundscape by carefully selecting and editing in all the other elements we would expect to hear — everything from wind in the trees, birds chirping, the sound of a car passing by, a coffee machine steaming in a cafe, the neighbors moving about upstairs, the footsteps and the objects that the characters interact with, all of that. Every little detail has to be placed there by someone in order to make what we see on the screen feel real.

When we are mixing the final sound with the director, we are not just mixing sound that was recorded on-set by a small team. We’re mixing many, many layers of elements that were painstakingly put there by a much larger pool of creative people — on-set sound recordists, sound effects editors, sound designers, Foley artists, dialogue editors and so on.

What is your favorite part of audio post? Can you talk about your process – how you begin on a project?
At Blazing Griffin, although my job is officially a mixer, I might find myself in other roles depending on the project. We’re a small team, so all the mixers here can also do all the other sound jobs. On some projects I might be a dialogue editor, or on another, like my current one, I am a sound effects editor and sound designer.

I do find the sound effects side to be incredibly rewarding. It’s a little bit like coloring in when you were a kid. There’s a blank slate there, and it’s your job to fill it up with sound color and make what you see on screen not only feel real but also have the right emotion for the story and what the director wants us to feel in that moment.

The process for FX can involve many hours spent looking through sound libraries for just the right door creak or arctic wind or car whoosh pass-by to get the right feel for a scene. But it can also involve getting a microphone and going out into the real world to capture those things and bringing them back into the studio. Sound design is an incredibly creative job, and I find that immensely rewarding.

Are you a musician as well?
I am, yes, and I came into post sound via music production. There are similarities to the two but also vast differences. The software we use — reverbs, EQ, balancing levels —is similar to both post and music mixing, but the workflows are very, very different.

That said, creativity is key in both, and I’ve found that post sound has stretched my creative imagination and audio problem-solving capabilities in new ways.

What’s your favorite part of the job?
I think as cliched as it is to say, my favorite part is just getting to the final result — a finished, mixed soundtrack, where the director’s vision has been achieved and everyone feels that the sound has elevated and supported the picture and the storytelling.

Do you have a least favorite?
There are certain jobs that need to be done from time to time that are simply very repetitive. For example, re-conforming the sound to tricky picture changes is not my favorite job, although it is essential. Luckily, nowadays, we have incredible tools that are taking a lot of the pain out of those things so we can automate a lot of that work.

If you didn’t have this job, what would you be doing instead?
I have absolutely no idea. It would probably be something else that involved creativity. I think that is something that has always been important to me, to be able to be creative in my daily work life and have a space to dream.

What are some recent projects you’ve worked on?
I’ve been lucky enough to work on some fantastic projects in 2025. One is a very classy BBC documentary series called Human about the evolution of humans and the birth of civilization. I also worked on a series of short films with the Sean Connery Talent Lab, all from new up-and-coming directors. They were six wildly different and wildly creative films that were inspiring and a lot of fun.

My current project is a TV series called Half Man for HBO and BBC, written by Richard Gadd of Baby Reindeer. It’s a six-part drama that I enjoyed working on immensely.

Name three pieces (or more) of technology you can’t live without.
Matchbox 2 by The Cargo Cult. For the aforementioned least favorite job of tricky conforms, it’s an absolute lifesaver.

Soundly, which is a sound librarian software, helps me to sift through our vast sound effects library to find what I need quickly.

Avid Pro Tools would be the last and obvious one. I simply could not do this job without it. It’s the main software that we mix film sound in.

How do you de-stress from it all?
Weekends are really important! I try not to take work home with me so I can enjoy them. I’m a big fan of cooking, so I like to do a lot of that. And, of course, watching films too. I like to keep up to date with what’s new out in the cinema, but I also enjoy delving back and going deep and finding old gems I’ve never seen before.

Main Image Credit: Michael C. Hunter