Introducing Austin Artist ... Jason Manzano

Age: 26
Location: South Austin
Occupation: Sound engineer, musician, photographer, photo retoucher, graphic designer, film editor, occasional actor
Website: resonancedigitalstudios.com

This is the third in the Austin Artist Series.

Explain briefly the job of sound engineer as it relates to both film and bands.
Essentially the job is the same for both film and music. I record the sounds in the best quality I can, then manipulate and give interest to those sounds to create a final product. Although the job is the same, the experience of doing sound work for film and bands is really quite different. For film the initial recording aspect is always done on location. No matter how much I try, I can never have complete control over the environment. I am always competing with talking, generators, car noises, etc. These issues can be cleaned up or replaced, but they are still issues. Also, on film it is one huge collaborative effort. I am working with anywhere from a 2 – 50 person crew, and my efforts are just one amongst many to create the final product. Recording music is an entirely different experience. It is usually a small more intimate and relaxed setting where I have much more control over all of the variables.

How did you get into the business?
The business was always there, it just took me a long time to embrace it. I always toyed with recording as I did with many of my other creative pursuits back in High School, but they were never realistic to me as a career until a bit later. I kept learning these things more and getting more interested to suit my own needs. My band needed a recording, I did it. Logo? I am sure I can figure that out. Someone wants some pictures taken or retouched, yeah let me read a few books, and I can do that for you. The thing for me was that once I started learning about how to do something, I couldn't stop. I tend to take it all the way. I really enjoyed everything that gave me the opportunity to create any type of digital product, but it wasn't until other people started coming to me to get these things done that the wheels started turning. And it wasn't until the last couple of years that I have really gone all out into making it my career.

Is it what you really want to do or is it a stepping stone to something bigger?
Yeah, this is what I really want to do. Create. I love it. To be honest, if I were just doing one of these things I would probably get bored of it eventually. The diversity of things I create keeps me interested, and I am sure I will expand to many more throughout my life.

You've been playing guitar in a band for 12 years, you studied guitar in college. Talk about your history and your relationship with music and specifically with the guitar.
I picked up guitar around age 13 or so. My mom had a couple of classical guitars lying around from her days as a Mariachi. She showed me a couple of licks and I took off with it. I remember my first lesson was the first four notes to La Bamba. I played those four notes every day for about three months because that was all I knew. I eventually started finding other people who knew how to play and had them teach me. Eventually we started calling ourselves a band and practicing all the time, even though my first couple of bands never performed for anything more than our parents and friends in a garage. I may have played a total of two gigs before I left high school. In college, I started over with new people but gigs were a lot easier to come by. I didn't actually change my major to music until my fourth year of college. I was doing engineering and philosophy before that because it had been drilled into me that I needed to have what other people thought of as a "real" job. You know, eight to five Monday through Friday. (God, that is my worst nightmare.) I wasn't doing to well in school. I wasn't a hard partier or anything, but I lost my full ride and got kicked out of the College of Engineering because I was spending too much time with my music. It wasn't until I got kicked out and had a total breakdown that I said "Hey, I am spending all of my time with my music anyway, might as well make it my major." So, I spent the next five years of college as a guitar/music technology major and all of the sudden my grades went up because I actually cared about what I was learning. I played in bands that whole time, and for a while after (up until a few months ago really) and finally gave that up to focus on other pursuits.

What is the most misunderstood part of the work you do?
Out of all the things I do, I would say that the most misunderstood part is how important sound is to a film. I have seen so many independent films that put all of their focus on what a film looks like, but their only expectation of the sound was that it was there. Those films are lacking. I saw an example one time of the same scene done with good picture and bad sound vs. bad picture and good sound. When it sounds right the viewers think the bad picture is done for effect. Vice versa the film seems lacking in production value.

What is the biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge for me is to temper my desire to perfect my art. I try so hard to be the best at what I do, but sometimes I spread myself to thin because there are too many things I am trying to perfect. And if I spend all my time learning, then I sacrifice the time I could be spending doing.

The biggest reward?
The biggest reward is the end product. I get such a sense of fulfillment when I have a great design, or photo, or song, or film in my hand that I can be proud of.

Austin is touted nationwide as the creative capital of the country. What's it like to live there? How is it different than other places you’ve lived?
Well, I am actually from Houston. Oklahoma is just where I spent my college days, and in a large part is where I discovered my desires and talents. But I have always been drawn to Austin. I wanted to move here right after high school, but I couldn't pass up the full ride Oklahoma was giving me. So I basically moved down right after I graduated. Six months later, I am well into building my career, and my business. Austin in amazing, I love how the populace supports the arts. There is so much more to do here…lots of outdoor fun, live music, a sense of keeping things natural, spiritual. Plus there is actually a market for me to do what I want to do and make a living at it. In Oklahoma I could find films to work on, and bands to record, and pictures to take, etc. But there wasn't enough of it going around to quit my day job. There were plenty of people interested in this stuff, but very few who were willing to follow through with it. Maybe it was because they didn't have the public support Austin has.

Who are the people whose work have influenced you? Who are your personal heroes?
There are so many places to pull influence, and inspiration from. Sadly enough, most of the photography and graphics I see I never know whose works they are. Music, is totally different though. I definitely have my favorite artists and producers. For guitar I am a huge Santana fan. As far as bands go I am really into all of Maynard's projects, System of a Down, Maroon 5, and a lot of old Michael Jackson stuff… His music was phenomenally produced. Danny Lohner is a pretty bad ass as a producer and musician. He has his fingers in so much of my favorite music. As far as personal heroes: Maynard, da Vinci. Da Vinci was into all types of art too. He got into and excelled at everything. I do completely different types of art, but I see him as inspiration of how much one man can accomplish.