Fresh Cut: Felicia Diaz

What do pizza, shoegaze, Octavia E. Butler, sound design, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos eaten with chopsticks have in common? Somehow, they all make perfect sense when you're talking to Felicia Diaz.

Since joining Mirror Mirror as Senior Finishing Producer, Felicia has brought a calm, collaborative approach to every project that comes her way. She's passionate about the craft of finishing, believes sound is one of the most underrated parts of storytelling, and always seems to have a thoughtful answer ready. We caught up with Felicia to talk finishing, favorite films, dream dinner guests, and why communication might just be the most important tool in post-production.

Meet Felicia

What's something that you're always hoping people will bring up in conversation?
Felicia: I love hearing people talk about what they're excited or passionate about.
Kyle: What are you excited and passionate about?
Felicia: I mean, food for sure. It's basic even though I am a foodie. My favorite food is pizza.
Kyle: What's your favorite pizza spot in Los Angeles?
Felicia: My favorite used to be Prime Pizza out here, but it's been dethroned by Pizzaista. It is so good. 
Kyle: What other LA foods are you loving?
Felicia: Yeah, I mean my favorite shrimp tom yum in in the world is from Holy Basil out here. It's something I think about often, oddly. The broth goes crazy.

Kyle: Also, I just want to say I don't think I had ever noticed the braid before today.
Felicia: Oh, I have two. Yeah, I grew out my hair really long for a few years, but I like to keep my hair short. So, I kept two rat tails.
Kyle: Man, maybe I should start my journey today and just get like a nice skulllet rat tail going.
Dasha: I feel like that's going to be your final form, Kyle.
Felicia: I look forward to this for you.
Kyle: Thank you so much, I look forward to this for me too.

Where are you from?
Felicia: I was born in LA, but I wasn't raised here. I was raised in El Paso, Texas. I have been back in LA since like 2017 but I lived in San Diego for a few years before that.

What's a positive trait that people always compliment you on?
Felicia: Oh my gosh. I don't know. Maybe that I am good at including people. I like people to feel included genuinely and wanted in a space, especially socially.

What is one song or artist that makes you feel understood?
Felicia: One song that makes me feel understood. Gosh, that's a hard question. Mainly because I really love music and the kind of music that makes me feel understood depends on my mood, you know? I like everything except for new country music. There’s some really old country music I can get down with.
Dasha: Yeah, there are some bangers.
Felicia: There are some bangers in the classic stuff. I would say that dream pop is one of my favorite genres, and shoegaze especially.
Kyle: Dude, let’s freaking GO.
Felicia: Like my one of my favorite like long-term bands, it's been a favorite for forever is Slow Dive.
Kyle: We are so locked in.

What is something that you think is wildly underrated?
Felicia: Something I think is wildly underrated. Gosh, something so random just came to mind, but I'm just going to go with it. Sake as a pairing with oysters.
Dasha: Spoken like a true foodie. Never had the combination, but I can see it.
Felicia: Honestly, it goes really well.
Kyle: I love that specificity!
 
What's a good TV show or movie that you've watched recently?
Felicia: I just I rewatched Clock Watchers. I don't know if you've seen it with Toni Colette and Parker Posey. It's from like 1997. I rewatched it recently. It's on Criterion. It's great. I loved it. I love Parker Posey.

How do you exit a party? We've had a variety of answers for this question – a Midwest goodbye, an Irish goodbye, and anywhere in between. 
Felicia: It really depends on the party. If I like the people and the culture I'm around. Like if I am with my Latinos, I'm going to get blacklisted for the rest of my life because we have saludos and desperidos and it's like a rule, especially if there are family members there. So, if I enter without saying hello or I leave without saying goodbye, it's the talk of the town. I am so rude. I'll never hear the end of it. I must have some beef with somebody. So, you know, I'll do my due diligence, which will be like a Midwestern goodbye because by the time you say goodbye to everybody, you know, you have like a little mini conversations and have to start over again. When I'm able to because of that, when I'm able to, I will Irish goodbye.
Dasha: You gotta balance it out.
Felicia: I do.

On Finishing & Mirror Mirror

So, shifting gears. For those who don't know, what does a senior finishing producer actually do?
Felicia: I always say that we put the bow on top, you know? We're the polish. We shine up the product that all of these creatives and editors worked so hard on. We make it as clear and the best looking and the best sounding it could possibly be. Like, how do we get that vision across in the like most beautiful package?

What drew you to this role at Lucky Day and Mirror Mirror and how did you find us? 
Felicia: You know, it just felt like it was meant to be. Things collided when they did. I got an email. So happy to get an email from a recruiter working with Lucky Day and it just worked out really well. I feel like finishing for me became just a natural progression into where I was headed in my career already just because my projects were leading me in that way. I started to do a lot of finishing. I gained a lot of literacy around it and so this just seemed like a logical next step coming from doing a lot of offline producing and then audio producing before then.
Dasha: What excites you most about stepping into your role here?
Felicia: Just being trusted to take ownership of these projects that we get. You know, we have some amazing clients, some major ones, and it's just cool to see how we're trusted to execute like this high level of a campaign with so many moving parts and so many collaborators on every side.

What's your favorite part of the finishing process? Would you say it's audio, or something else?
Felicia: Honestly, I would say color probably as the most dramatic sometimes. I think it’s just beautiful what color can do for picture. I mean obviously in conjunction with VFX because you can do crazy stuff with that but I feel like we do a lot more cleanup on our end. It's not a lot of you CG or anything like that, but I do think color is like a really beautiful art and I love to see the before and after, how you can set the mood and just make it so lovely.
Dasha: That was one of the things that really blew my mind about finishing when I was first starting out and learning about all the different pieces of finishing and the color especially stood out to me the most cuz it's crazy how impactful it can be.
Felicia: And especially for the people that are shooting it and the directors, etc. when they get to see it brought out to its full beauty, it's always nice to get that reaction.

What would you say is the most misunderstood or underrated aspect of finishing?
Felicia: I would say that's audio.
Dasha: I can see hear that.
Felicia: I always really appreciate it when people treat it like a bigger deal because I do think that we actually notice sound before we notice anything visual. When we're watching something, it's just very implicit. Like if you can't place any issue with like the picture, you could have the best color and cinematography, but if the sound sucks, it somehow just like can break the whole feeling.
Kyle: Totally. There's a Walter Merch book on editing that I read when I first started getting into it and he's basically like, "Yeah, sound is more than 50% of like the cinematic experience and yet it's really discounted.” It's so lost in social media and stuff when you're just like watching videos on your phone and you're just watching the image and it has no sound component, which is just so crazy. You lose so much of it.
Felicia: I know. I highly recommend watching Obsession. The filmmaker put a lot of their budget into the sound for that and you can tell -- it’s so good. The score and the sound design totally make it.
Dasha: Yeah, that film had like a really low budget, right?
Felicia: Under a million.

What's your approach when a project hits crunch time?
Felicia: I mean for me it's setting priorities and setting achievable goals. Crunch time makes delivery look like a monolith and you just have to kind of step back and do what you are able to achieve with the time that you have and just keep the time that you have and just keep pushing forward. You'll get there. That's kind of my approach is to make it manageable for myself so I can hit each step that I need to hit. Don’t freak out. There’s a tomorrow.
Kyle: Love that. That is a bumper sticker.

How do you balance technical precision with keeping the creative vision intact?
Felicia: Gosh, I feel like that rests in communication early on and being transparent on what is achievable cuz you know, creative visions sometimes are so huge and amazing and we love to see them, but there's sometimes like a limit to what can be done with, you know, the budget or the or the footage that we have or, you know, a million and other things, you know, that can block fully realizing exactly what they have in their mind. If we can make it happen, great, but you know, that's where that technicality comes in. You have to know what the artist can achieve with what they have. And so, it's just translating that to come to an agreement where everybody's happy, hopefully.
Dasha: For sure. I would imagine that's a big part of what you do throughout the project.
Felicia: Yeah, I think so. You are kind of translating a language in a way.

What's one thing that you always triple check before delivery?
Felicia: Everything on my delivery checklist, honestly. I feel like it's an ongoing journey of just getting better and better at QC as you continue doing this job. You know, like every time I do QC, I feel like I notice things a little bit quicker or have like a bigger list of things to check for um to make sure that it gets out the way, you know, perfectly. I hate getting stuff kicked back. File names. Make sure that everything's versioned correctly. Very important. It’s all these little details.

Can you think of a time when finishing genuinely transformed a project? It could be one that you worked on or maybe one that you've seen.
Felicia: Gosh, I mean I feel like I can say that to some degree with most things that I've worked on because I mean I feel like you always reach the end of it like wow that looks so good from you know the moment where you're just like ingesting the footage you know with nothing done to it. Um, I don't know if I can think of a specific example right now off the cuff, but I don't know. You know, I've worked on some really low budget horror films before and the before and after, after going through finishing, is crazy because you know there's a lot of stuff to scrub out and there's a lot of feeling and emotion that you're trying to convey through color and audio especially because you know you got to make it scary. It's really not so scary and funny before all of that happens.
Kyle: As soon as you add those -- what is it? -- the pipe twisting sound effects, like I'm immediately on edge. You put a pipe twist in, you got me!

What's the most rewarding part of seeing a project fully finished and out in the world?
Felicia: I think, you know, just having a part in such a great undertaking, it's nice, you know, you're like, "Oh, I was part of that." Cuz it's a huge effort involving so many people with ads like these. Just so many people are involved in getting these created and out the door. So, it's kind you kind of see that and you're like, "Oh, you know, that was a huge team of people and I was part of that team in some capacity." So, you just know that you touched something that a lot of people are going to see.
Kyle: Yeah, there are so many people involved in these things.

What would you say makes a strong relationship between producers, editors, and finishing teams?
Felicia: Respect and good rapport. I feel like relationships are so important, period. So, like we are in relationships with everyone in our lives, including our co-workers. Having mutual respect for each other, trying to be attuned on how people work best with each other, I think is a great place to foster those strong relationships.
Dasha: How do you keep communication flowing when a project starts to get complicated?
Felicia: Well, maybe I overcommunicate. But I think that's a good thing in finishing and in post in general. You know, we really have to have all the information we possibly can have. People should be looped in. I feel like maybe I identify what is a priority to communicate, you know, and just make sure I know that I am communicating with the right people because I could be throwing information at like the entire team, but it might not be getting to the person that can actually help me solve an issue. So I think knowing who to speak to at the right time, knowing your resources and having strong relationships with your team helps you know who you need to go to as well.
Kyle: Man, I'm like loving all of these answers. We got to get we got to get Felicia to write like a business book or something because they are they are like locked in.
Dasha: No, seriously. You’re killing it.
Felicia: Oh my gosh, thank you. And you know what? It's Gemini season.
Dasha: Are you a Gemini?
Felicia: I'm a Gemini moon. So, you know, I kind of claim it and my sister is a Gemini. So, like culturally, I understand Geminis.
Dasha: When is your birthday?
Felicia: It's April 10th. It was like a week before I started. I celebrated my birthday and a new job!
Dasha: Mark your calendars, folks.

What's the best kind of feedback that a client can give?
Felicia: Oh, it is the best when it's clearly articulated and in a way that is easily translatable to our artists. Sometimes client feedback is just very much based on vibes, and they’re like “you know what I mean?”
Dasha: And you're like, "No, I have no idea what that means.”
Felicia: But I'm gonna try!

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

What do you think sets Mirror Mirror's finishing capabilities apart?
Felicia: I mean, from what I've seen in the short time that I've been here, it's the ability to execute at an extremely high volume very fast with a small team. Like it's really amazing. The workflow that has been set up with so few people on the finishing end. It just blows my mind.
Dasha: Yeah, it blows my mind, too. In your opinion, what is something that the team here does especially well?
Felicia: I think it's building systems and workflows. I think that we have a very artist-sensitive system built out that helps our artists because we're working with so many at the same time make sense of what's going on pretty well because I mean the potential for these things getting very convoluted and confusing is so high and it can happen so quickly and just like unravel so many things. So, I think it's really great how we’ve built out these really sophisticated systems to keep everything in line.

Who on the team stays the calmest under pressure?
Felicia Diaz: I haven't seen anybody freak out. Everybody's very calm. Spencer's pretty calm. He's like, "Yep, what's up? We'll figure it out."
Kyle: I love that about him.
Dasha: True. I mean, I've been working here for like a solid 5 years now and I feel like you're right – people don't really freak out here. Everyone's very calm and always respectful towards each other, which I’m so grateful for. But we all kind of have our own quiet signs of freaking out. And it's never obvious. But as you get to know people, you're like, "Oh, yeah. He's sweating bullets. I can tell."
Felicia: It's true, it's true. Workplace appropriate freaking out is okay.
Dasha: Yeah. We’re only human.
Felicia: Period.

Who's most likely to save the day with a last minute solution?
Felicia: Oh gosh. Probably Nick Thomas.
Dasha: Yeah, he's very cool and calm.
Felicia: He's definitely got some solutions and ideas and information for days. So, I could see him and Spencer going toe to toe for the last minute fix.

Who on the team would survive a zombie apocalypse and why?
Felicia: So, I want to give a shout out to the producers because, you know, one thing about producers, we're going to figure it out. We're going to plan. We've got a plan and we're going to rally people. I know some of them garden, so they are going to have food. I personally don't have a green thumb. Sad. But you know, I feel like people who can grow their own food probably will survive if they can ward off the zombies.
Kyle: This is true.
Dasha: True. I mean,
Kyle: true.
Dasha: We could just have a whole like MM/LD compound, honestly.
Kyle: I'm good at shoveling. I can just shovel stuff.
Felicia: Amazing. We have a human encyclopedia in Cylie. So, if all books are gone, who cares? Ask Cylie.
Dasha: Everyone on the team is pretty funny, so we'll have entertainment.
Felicia: I love it.

If you could have basically if you weren't working in this industry, what oddly specific job would you have instead?
Felicia: Hmm. I think that this answer is totally something that would change depending on my mood. But right now, maybe I would be a writer. A novelist.
Dasha: I love that. So you like to write?
Felicia: I do, but I've never written anything long. I have an idea. So maybe I'll do it.
Kyle: You should do it.
Felicia: I think I will.
Dasha: It’s just your resignation letter.
Felicia: Oops, I have found my new purpose in life.
Dasha: Dang, this interview backfired.

Rapid Fire

We want to know some of your favorite things.
Movies: Arrival. God, it’s so good. And the score is amazing.
Book: Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler. She’s my favorite author.
Food: Pizza
Snack: Xxtra flamin hot Cheetos dipped in ranch. Eaten with chopsticks.
Color: Pale blue and red.
Music: Shoe gaze and dream pop.
Artist: Bjork.
Favorite place on earth: Japan and Puerto Rico
Three people to have dinner with: Octavia E. Butler, Bjork, Selena Quintanilla.

This or That?

You made a comment earlier about the importance of naming files correctly. If you had to pick one, would it be final_final or all caps FINAL_final_v12?
Felicia: If I had to choose... FINAL_v12.

Do you prefer a client-attended or unattended sessions?
Felicia: It kind of depends on what we're doing. Because some elements are kind of like watching paint dry, you know, like don't always think that a client needs to sit and watch a flame artist paint out a logo necessarily, but sometimes it's nice for them to be a part of a color session so they can really watch the magic happen.
Kyle: Totally.
Felicia: But for my artists, I'm like, if you want to be unsupervised, sometimes that is ideal. I will push for that for you.

Slack or email?
Felicia: Slack. But it depends on the level of priority.

Export overnight or supervise it live?
Felicia: Better to supervise it just in case. Better to catch it when it's happening.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Felicia: This was awesome. Thank you for asking me about myself and letting me share. I'm so excited to be a part of this team, truly. I'm really excited to get to know everybody a lot better and hopefully I can make my way up to Portland sometime soon.
Kyle: We've got to film a hot Cheeto demo thing. 'How to eat Cheetos and not mess up your WFH environment.'
Felicia: A documentary.