We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Frank Ruiz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Frank Ruiz below.
Frank Ruiz, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style. Do you have an interesting story from that stage of your career that you can share with us?
When being an intern, one thing that I feel like many folks don’t understand or realize when doing internships is that if you are able to get the job & get your foot in the door of the environment you want to be in. Then, why are you not also taking the opportunity to do everything you can to make it worth it?
I did 2 internships when I was first starting my career & was about to go onto a 3rd one. Until I was able to finally land a role that would help push me in the direction I wanted to go. However, getting to that position was a task in it of itself.
After finishing my 1st internship out in Florida at the Full Sail University Dubbing-Stage I moved out to Los Angeles, California to begin my 2nd internship at Larson Studios. As soon as I began on my 1st day interning I immediately knew & set my mind to not just be another body/person passing through the building but to be taken as someone who was serious about it. Now, in the beginning, even I’ll admit, I didn’t exactly know how to go about this. I would do the tasks I was given & would follow the schedule as planned, however, this is where I knew I was only doing what was required of me & I knew I needed to step out of my comfort zone if I wanted to get noticed by others. I began by making sure I would greet & introduce myself to all those who I worked with. Even if it was just a simple “Salutations” as I would pass them in the hallway or a greeting as we ran into each other in the kitchen, anything just to get folks to start noticing me. From there I started asking if there was anything other than my simple day-to-day tasks I could do to assist. At first, there was not, however, as time continued on they started noticing I was paying close attention to what it is they were doing & how they were doing it. I was able to start being shown the process of things as well as asking questions as to why things were done a certain way.
Once I was seen as someone who they could trust & rely on I began to get more tasks handed to me. At about halfway through my internship there, an opportunity to switch to night intern was presented to me & the other 2 interns there with me at the time. The opportunity would be for switching from day to night intern which would allow for that person to be the only intern in the facility during the new schedule as well as more of a chance to be in the dubbing-stages since they wouldn’t be as busy or occupied as they would during the day.
All 3 of us collectively declined the offer however, at the end of the scheduled work day after largely contemplating it all. I ended up going back to ask about the position & made the switch. This allowed for me more time to actually get to be in the Dubb-Stage & learn a lot more about the equipment & software. It was also during one of these night shifts that I got some of the best advice from one of the Transfer engineers who was supervising me told me.
She said, “No one is in charge of making sure you get the best or most out of your internship.” She informed me that I should be doing everything I can to make sure I take advantage of what is being presented to me. Whether it was asking how something works or just asking the engineers if I could sit in with them during sessions. It is my responsibility to get what I need out of this experience, not theirs, they provide the opportunity but they are focused on making sure the day-to-day operations are being met & completed.
This is something that resonated & to this day stays with me as I pass it on to others. When an opportunity presents itself to you, no one else is making sure that opportunity is what you need it to be that is the sole responsibility you as an individual have to make for yourself & take from the experience.
Everyone is always waiting for their big break or chance in life but the difference between everyone is, who will actually get the most when something like that presents itself.
By the end of the day, how much are you willing to do to achieve your goals & get to where you want to be? That’s what you need to decide when you begin your journey.
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?
My name is Frank Ruiz I am a Full Sail Graduate with a passion for what I do, my dedication for making a project sound as best as it can be is what got me into working full-time in the Audio-Post field. Like most of us in this field, I began as an intern not once but twice & with a lot of determination & drive I have been able to make a career out of it for the past few years. I primarily do sound editing & Re-Record Mixing for television but I also work on films when I am able to as well. A lot of my work is focused on dialogue editing and making it sound as best as I can but my favorite projects to work on are the ones I get to do sound design for.
Some of the biggest challenges for what I do with sound editing is trying to clean up or fix mistakes all while preserving the original performances of the talent. Usually, with a lot of the shows I do since it revolves around reality tv, a lot of it is spur of the moment type situations & when what was captured on set isn’t the best, it’s up to me to figure out how I can make what I have work for the show. This involves really knowing & studying all my tools to be able to come up with a roadmap of how I am going to approach the cleanup processing, all the different techniques & tricks I was shown throughout my years in audio-post have provided me with an arsenal of methods on how to approach a scene.
As far as accomplishments go, honestly, I know it is a simple thing, but to me, I am very proud to be able to have a full-time line of work & still be able to take on freelance projects when I can. I remember when I was first beginning my career & having to always worry about where my next line of work was going to come from as well as if I was going to have enough money to cover my living expenses. I can definitely recall the times when I had to do food delivery services to supplement income when I didn’t have any audio-post work to do. For me, now, being in a position where I can take on freelance work as I choose to, is a huge accomplishment for me & I am beyond thrilled that I can also work full-time in my field.
My work and career are a lot of what I focus & spend my time on even during my free time a lot of what I do is study how I can make my craft even better than it already is, what technology is coming out that could essentially provide me with an overall better final product than the last project I did. I am always hungry for knowledge & my drive for what I do is something that I know pushes me above & beyond because I am willing to give something my all when I know that the rest of the team is as well.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Yes, my ultimate goal in my career is to be able to work on a Marvel or DC film, I want to one day be able to sit in the theatre & watch my name roll down the credits along with my family & friends. It’s something that I know will take a lot of time to get to, but ultimately it is where I want to go in my career.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
For me, my entire time living in California has been my resilience, so many times throughout these past years of living in Los Angeles have I thought I wasn’t going to make it or if I was going to be able to survive as long as I have out here. Multiple sleepless nights as well as long work days & for the first 3 years of my living out here, I really didn’t do anything besides sleep, eat & work every day. It is something that I warn people about when in this industry because it is very easy to fall into that pit of neverending work & it is the quickest way to get to burning yourself out. However, I knew when I moved out here that there was no trying to make living out here work, there was only do. I knew I had to do whatever it took to make it work out here & I was determined to keep myself here no matter what I needed to do.
As I stated before, I got into working for food delivery services & this provided me with a supplemental income when I wasn’t doing audio-post-related work. The freedom of schedule with food delivery service type work also made it easier for me to be able to hop onto any audio-post work I needed to when I did get hired onto a project. However, many nights delivering food from house to house, really had me in my own thoughts & wondering if doing this was all worth it or if this is what my life was going to become. I can’t count how many times I almost thought about giving up, calling it quits & moving back home but I knew if I did, I would never forgive myself for it & would constantly live with the regret of what could have been.
It took a long time to get to where I am today & in all honesty, this is just the beginning, there is still such a long way to go & I have many more goals that I wish to accomplish in my career. I don’t know how I am going to get there & I certainly don’t know where my life is going to take me but I know 1 thing is for sure. I am still here & I am still going so as long as I am still standing, I will continue to do what I love.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fendergibson22a.wixsite.com/curriculum-vitae-r
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fendergibson22a/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008295491864
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-ruiz-771372a9/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gibson8636
- Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8820561/?ref_=rvi_nm
Image Credits
Image Credits: Frank Ruiz & Billye Sands