We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Marks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk about keeping costs under control when growing. How have you managed to keep costs from getting out of control?

One of the most important choices any business owner faces is who to hire, and when to do so. Talent doesn’t grow on trees, and neither does trust. There’s great value to bringing in the right person and giving them access to knowledge that can help them grow within what the company is already doing, and also honoring their opinions to improve upon existing foundations. Conversely, hiring the wrong person, or the right person but at the wrong time, can be catastrophic for a small business. I’ve seen many companies grow too quickly, and some don’t make it through challenging times such as our current landscape.

Slow and steady growth has been essential for us. It’s not necessarily exciting, but it creates a stability and core group that communicates solidly without as many variables.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up obsessed with movies and video games, and knew from a pretty young age that I wanted to be in this field. I ended up going to 7 years of film school – 4 years at the University of Miami for my undergrad degree, and 3 years at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts for my masters. After graduating, fellow USC alumni Neel Upadhye took a chance on me at EA, and I was able to get my feet wet there sound designing and mixing trailers for Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Fortunately my career took off from there!

At Transported Audio, we are fast, friendly, creative storytellers. We get to the root of sound issues, including anything getting in the way of experiencing the story in the strongest way possible, and fine tune a mix to ensure that the story is at the forefront. When it comes to imagining new sounds, we always begin from character and build out from there. It’s essential for us to be on the same page as a director and their team, so we aim to be deep listeners to gain a full understanding of what’s expected of us. This requires putting our egos aside in order to make sure we’re serving the project and team we’re working with in the best way possible. We may have ideas of what work best, but ultimately we’re serving the people who bring us aboard, so that creative synergy is critical.

I’m incredibly proud of our team and the culture that we’ve built. We elevate stories every day, and have the unique opportunity to learn from exceptional artists from all over the world. I believe it’s our positive approach that resonates with clients and makes them interested in coming back for their next project.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When the pandemic began here in March 2020, many sound studios were wholly unprepared for the rapidly changing landscape. Work slowed to a stop for many in our industry. When work was required, remote work was key, which is something that many sound studios weren’t comfortable with at that time. We were luckily a hybrid studio already, and were able to excel at a time when others didn’t have the infrastructure or flexibility to change course.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was a member of a large team that was let go from EA in late 2013. This was truly devastating as I loved my supervisor, the team I was working with, the unfinished project I was working on, and the unique responsibilities that were given to me there.

In this unique time of transition, I began building up my freelance portfolio, including working on commercials, short films and TV pilots. Within two years, I was ready to launch my own company. I have yet to look back since!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://transportedaudio.com/
• Instagram: @transportedaudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransportedAudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/transported-audio/
• Twitter: @transportdaudio