The audio janitor

There’s an unspoken role in audio production that nobody puts in the credits: the audio janitor.

It’s the post-production professional who should be crafting the creative work that makes a project land. Instead, they’re spending most of their energy managing disorganized assets, fixing mistakes that could’ve been avoided, and disguising problems that got pushed downstream by people who checked a box and moved on.

I’ve seen this pattern repeat across every format I’ve worked in. The person with the deepest understanding of how everything fits together, the one who hears every seam and every missed opportunity, is the last one brought into the conversation. If they’re brought in at all.

This isn’t just inefficient. It’s a waste of talent. And the audience never hears the product that was actually possible.

Here’s the thing. Post-production isn’t the last step. It’s the vantage point. Whatever happens in post is what the audience actually hears. Treating it as a cleanup phase is a choice, and it’s the wrong one.

What’s the most avoidable problem you’ve had to fix because nobody asked the right person early enough?