Colter Olmstead, Sound Mixer and Documentary Filmmaker
"I think that the human to human relationships are going to still be a big driving factor." CXM Interview - 001
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Colter Olmstead has worked with me at Tributaries for around 10 years now, every second has been a privilege. Colter has always brought A+ on-set sound mixing and post-production sound design/mixing to my projects but my favorite part of Colter is his latest crowd-funded documentary:
Last of The Nobodies is a film about Montana's burgeoning but remote hip-hop scene. Seems like an oxymoron but Colter's passion and good attitude is 100% apparent in how he brought everyone together.
Last of The Nobodies or LOTN, is a collective of Montana based artists, musicians, and producers that came together under one roof for 10 days to create 1 collaborative hip hop album, as well as a feature length documentary. This project is about hip hop, it’s about unity, it’s about Montana.
I talked to Colter about his thoughts on AI and filmmaking.
During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, Colter talked about his environmental concerns, his reluctance but being open to experimentation and what he sees for the future.
If you want to read or listen to our entire conversation, the transcript and audio file is available below.
RC: Colter. What is your take on AI, brother?
Colter Olmstead: You know, from a film standpoint, it's pretty interesting. I think the greater film industry is having a lot of stress with it. There's a lot of pushback. Me personally, I don't use AI a ton. I've been very standoffish by it. So, I would say my take is kind of neutral. I know the environmental impacts of it. That's kind of why I've been standoffish, but I'm trying not to be totally intolerant of it and I'm starting to learn certain aspects where I can use it.
RC: How could AI replace you as a sound mixer? Let's doom and gloom for a second.
Colter Olmstead: I think the big thing with AI is: it can only work with what you feed it. And so if you're giving it the audio, it can do things, but you still need to record it. You still need to have someone that knows how to input it the correct way so that it can do the things that it can do. You know, some of the new de-noising and live auto AI mixing stuff that they're coming out with is pretty incredible. I've started to dabble in it after being standoffish for a while, but it's still user-driven where you have to give it the prompt, you have to give it the parameters you want it to create. And if you let it do it itself, a lot of the times, in my experience, it's turned out really bad. It doesn't actually improve it. So, AI is as good as you can give it. So it's a tool for sure. I think that there are things that you could benefit from that I use from a video standpoint—the rotoscoping—that is one of the things I do use with video editing—it's saved a ton of time. So there are little tools and stuff as an individual filmmaker or small business filmmaker that I think you can take advantage of. But, you know, the auto creation of images and stuff like that. I'm not a fan of.
RC: If I was a marketing director or producer trying to do great work, what I find interesting is I'd want you to use AI because I know it's a cost savings to me, but I also want to get it right. So your expertise in audio still applies and is critical. What do you think?
Colter Olmstead: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I still think right now where AI is, you need the people to push the buttons. You need someone that knows what they're doing in those things to create the outcome for the AI to create that prompt. Some of that stuff is all manually done anyway. And then you render it out. But, we've seen the articles where those AI commercials have come out, I think Coca-Cola and stuff like that, where they had, you know, tens of hands on those AI videos sending in prompts for hours and hours and hours. Just to get that one shot right. So it's still a very early stage in a lot of that stuff. But I think that as far as our industry goes, there's still those people that are the professionals in their select fields that can still benefit from using this and still be assets on set and in post.
Follow Colter on Instagram.
Full Interview
Show Notes
- 00:54 - Colter talks about the job losses he's already seen in the industry.
- 3:13 - His amazing quote about "AI can only work with what you feed it"
- 14:33 - During a festival run for LOTN, an AI film was exhibited and it was interesting.
- 18:53 - Colter answers the question: How do we keep our clients hiring experts like us?
