Gateway Sound's official trailer
Creative projects, by their very nature, can change and morph as they move from concept to reality, and Justin L. Fisher’s new documentary, Gateway Sound, is a prime example of that. Already well into the production process, Fisher made a hard shift toward a one-hour documentary that would focus on a much-larger, nationally focused story: the changing nature of professional recording studios in a world awash in home-recording software.
As it began, he says, “it was St. Louis-centric, but as I got access to more people, I started thinking to myself ‘Why am I limiting this to St. Louis?’ The audio engineering community is tight-knit, for the most part, and I’d met a lot of people before at conventions and workshops.
Courtesy of St. Louis International Film Festival
“The idea of the film, the original concept, was to document the history of recording studios in St. Louis,” he says. “Then I thought to myself, ‘Not that many people will watch this.’ I was limiting the audience to a very finite amount of people, so I opened the scope way up. In talking to people, I expected more interviewees to say ‘My studio’s closing down, we can’t pay the bills.’ But I [ran] into more people than I thought who are doing OK. They may have switched their focus, streamlined their operations, cut the fat, but they’re still doing OK. I was surprised by the amount of people who said that.”
In staying flexible, Fisher wound up creating a doc that’s viewable by experts, sure, but also by fans of music generally, who may not know all of the technical ins and outs. In that sense, Fisher had to make sure that he was creating a work that was accessible to folks who don’t make their living in the field. Even that approach brought on another conceptual concern.
“I was actually more worried,” Fisher says, “about engineers and producers not feeling that it served them, more so than the average music aficionado. I didn’t want the engineers to say ‘I’ve heard all of this before. I’m living it.’ But with the two screenings that I’ve had, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve genuinely found that most people have really enjoyed it. You can tell the difference when people are genuine with you. I’ve found that everyone from my mom—who knows nothing about the music business—all the way up to people working in the field every day, can identify with this. I didn’t know that would happen going in. At the end of the day, a documentary should inform, and I think it did its job.”
Though running a lean hour, down from a first edit clocking in at an hour-and-a-quarter, the film manages to pack in about 30 different interview subjects, with a variety of viewpoints on the topic. Producers with gold records to their credit bounce ideas, as do folks recording on computer software in their bedrooms, giving a variety of perspectives in scale. But a variety of folks in the middle—working at the day-in, day-out, mid-sized recording studios—provide the film’s real spine, discussing the ways in which they have to work differently today.
Musicians, too, are blended into the piece, coming from a variety of perspectives. Artists with STL ties as diverse as Brian Owens, Kristeen Young, Fister, Chan Maurice Evans, CaveofswordS, and Richard Fortus (Pale Divine, Guns N’ Roses) all discuss their feelings about what studio time means to them in 2018. In bringing in this wide-ranging blend, Fisher’s able to keep the film balanced. It’s neither a scrappy, DIY affair or an exercise in showing off all the famous producers that Fisher can access (and, based on the film, he can access a few).
“Both are in the documentary,” Fisher says, “but this isn’t about a big, big studio or the little, tiny studios. In a way, it’s more about the working studios and the people who every day have to work to get people through the door.”
Gateway Sound will play the St. Louis International Film Festival on Saturday, November 3, at 2 p.m. at The Stage at KDHX. For more information, see Cinema St. Louis' website.
