Darlene Barrios, a production supervisor, as she discusses her journey in the entertainment industry. From managing office operations to working closely with clients like Disney and Paramount, Darlene shares insights into the behind-the-scenes world of post-production and digital asset management. Learn about her experiences interacting with celebrities like Val Kilmer and the intricacies of compressing various formats into digital files.

This is Film Center.

Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.

No fluff, all facts.

Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.

Welcome to Film Center, my name is Derek Johnson II.

I'm Nicholas Killian.

And today we're here with Darlene Barrios.

Hello Darlene, how you doing today?

I'm good, thank you.

How are you?

Doing pretty good.

Darlene, we were just asking how you would like to be referred by and you

said She's not a production coordinator.

She is a production supervisor.

Yes.

What's the difference?

So the difference is I manage the office as opposed to just looking at the

production office aspect of the business.

And who exa Can you say exactly who you work for?

There are NDAs in this town.

Gotcha.

Okay.

She works at a really nice company.

She just came from Burbank.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Uh, I know it was It's raining today.

It was a little bit of a rainy drive.

Yeah.

I appreciate it.

But anyways, tell us about where you're from.

You from LA?

You from, uh, somewhere else in the country?

I'm from LA, but I've moved around a lot.

I'm currently stationed at the Antelope Valley.

Your station there.

Yeah, so like you so they change your station.

No, I just meant to say I live there.

Oh Seemed like you were in the military I was like, yo, I say that

because it's temporary but he's always been like around California.

Yes So what places have you lived so far in California?

So LA Burbank Glendale, San Fernando Valley She hasn't left.

She hasn't left glitz and glamour.

No Valley girl, whole life.

Tell us about what was the journey that led you to the entertainment industry.

Have you always been interested in entertainment?

Yes, I always have been.

Do you think your environment, because you're from the area, you think your

environment had something to do with it?

Yeah, I think so.

Also growing up, my dad was a musician, so I got to learn a

little bit of that industry.

Real?

No, I'm kidding.

What kind of music do you make?

So he plays guitar, it's mostly in Spanish.

He was in a band, so I got to see him play with his band.

Not to say tour, but he did have some events that he played at, and

that was fun growing up to see.

It's funny you didn't become a musician yourself.

I tried.

I did take piano lessons growing up, but it just didn't stick with me.

I feel like my instructor was too tough, and You took them guitar lessons instead.

I tried that too, because my dad plays the guitar.

I just, I couldn't do it.

So you, where did you go, where did you go to like elementary school

and stuff like that growing up?

Did you go to one of those, because there aren't any,

there's a lot of private schools.

Did you go to a private school?

No, I did not go to any private schools.

Did you go to a performing arts school?

I did not, no.

So you just went to a Public school.

Just a regular public school, huh?

Yeah.

And then you went there for elementary school, middle

school And then high school.

And then you went to college.

Where was the decision to get into entertainment?

I think it was mid, when I was doing my undergrad.

I got my undergrad in business management.

And then I had to take a course, more so like an elective.

And I decided to do a jazz course.

So it was a course that taught you everything about jazz.

It's history and who the key players are.

What draws you to jazz compared to other forms?

Your father didn't play jazz.

No, he didn't play jazz.

No, so what makes you want to be in the jazz scene?

I've always liked it.

I know growing up my parents always called it elevator music.

I never did.

So I just wanted to learn more about it, just for my knowledge.

Were you in a jazz band at all or no?

No.

No.

I remember I played the saxophone.

Oh.

I played alto sax for three years, but then I was like, I don't know.

I'm from Tennessee.

Okay.

We're both from the south.

Yeah.

I played the trumpet.

Yeah.

Ah.

After high school, I was, I'm done with the trumpet.

Yeah, the saxophone, as I said, I lived in Nashville.

So if you're playing saxophone, you have to be good at music.

You can't be like, oh, I want to get into it.

This, the music, one of the music capitals of the entire world.

They're like, no, either you're the best or don't even start.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then what was, we were talking about this beforehand.

What led you so you took jazz and then you graduated from college, right?

How did you dip your toe in the entertainment industry?

I knew I wanted to work alongside the entertainment industry so when

I graduated from college, I was extremely desperate to get out of my

I was a cashier at a grocery store.

And so I just applied anywhere that said that had the word entertainment.

I was one of the lucky few is where I was interviewed where I'm currently at.

And ever since I just been with that company since then.

How long has that been?

Seven years.

Seven years now?

Yeah.

Did you, have you changed around positions since being there?

I did.

So I started very entry level doing, it's a storage company, so

we have a lot of material come in.

Started as data entry clerk, and then I've somehow moved into the account

service team, and then I've dabbled into leadership roles, and then Where I, what

I'm currently doing now, which is with post production and digitizing the assets.

So do you ever go back to your old grocery store and be like, pshh,

this place fell apart without me?

Yes.

Yes.

In fact, my manager has been very open about that.

So he does what he can.

Yeah, he does what he can to keep me because I've been

wanting to move away from there.

With that being said, what else?

Would you say is a hot topic right now in your industry?

Hot topic?

Yeah, because AI, everything that's going through a revolution right now,

what's something in your specific area is a real big hot topic right now.

They did just come out with that Sora AI, with the text to video.

What do you think of that?

Right now a lot of our projects are based on actors and singers

who are doing documentary work.

We've been dealing a lot with that, so it's a fun project where

we get to open their vault and get to see what they did in the past.

I can share one story, so we all know Val Kilmer.

Actor for Top Gun and Willow.

So he had that documentary named Val.

I don't know if you guys had a chance to see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Actually, I think it was Amazon Prime.

It was oh, yeah, that's right There's so much streaming services now.

It's like you had to buy like the bundle.

Yeah, like all of them Yeah, just to see one thing just so you don't miss anything

to meet val kilmer I did get to meet him.

So he went into our office.

It's all very tall.

He's not that tall.

I'm five four I would say he's five Six, five, seven?

No way!

Yeah, he's not a really tall man.

He's five, six, five, seven?

Yeah.

So he's DJ's height.

Yeah.

Is that how tall you are?

I'm five, seven, yeah.

Okay, then yeah, I would say five, seven.

That's crazy.

So I'm taller than Val Kilmer.

Probably, yeah.

I think you're as tall as Mike Tyson.

How tall are you?

Five, ten.

Yeah, that's Mike Tyson.

How come you're not, how come you're not fighting?

How come you're not fighting?

How come I'm not fighting?

Yeah, me and Val Kimmerer locked down.

The 5'7 club, we're both working entertainment.

The 5'4 club's in entertainment.

You know what I'm saying?

The 5'10 club, that's like for boxing.

What you doing, man?

I had a better childhood than Mike Tyson did.

Yeah.

When you deal with celebrities, do you find it's, cause we've.

Dealing with celebrities is different for each context.

For ours, it's more like, okay, I'm writing that I do for them.

I don't really need to talk to the actors a lot.

That's not part of my job.

There's no reason I would need to talk to them.

Or even when we're doing the show, it's okay, cool.

They're coming on here to do the show, right?

But when you're working closely with someone on a documentary,

it's much more intimate than that.

Sometimes I find it like, I know a lot about you, but you don't

know exactly why you're here.

No, because they come into the room not really having that stigma upon them.

They're really open and friendly, in my experience.

So it's just easy to talk to them like a regular person.

I think people forget that these are not just celebrities, because

you're used to seeing them on TV or social media or whatnot.

And when they come there, they just look like the regular people.

Your average guy, that's walking down the street.

Does Val Kilmer, does he dress well?

That's not necessarily my style, but.

What is Val Kilmer's style?

I heard he likes vans.

It's, how would I describe it?

When I met him, it was more so a little hippie, hobo vibe.

Not hobo, that's so mean.

That's a bad connotation.

Sounds like a homeless sheep.

No.

He was in chill mode probably.

Chill mode, yeah.

Dressed down, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Although, to be fair, I think if he came in with a giant van.

Val Kilmer shirt on, they're probably a little bit narcissists, so of course

he wouldn't look at anything crazy or too flashy, especially because the

celebrity standard for hiding in person is the baseball cap and shades, as

if no one, as if no one could tell.

Did you have intimate conversations with Val Kilmer or what was

your interaction with him?

Because you're working as a, you're working as post supervisor, right?

So it's like, The stuff's already shot when it comes to you, right?

Yeah, it's all like from the past I guess you could say my interactions

have been positive I don't never we don't get too personal because we

also want to keep it professional We are representing the company, right?

Right, but we asked how it was working for that particular project and he's

able like he was happy to share I think more so they're more happy to

That they have someone talk to them as a person as opposed to a celebrity.

Or as a product.

Or as a product.

People assume they just like, as soon as they get off stage or they're done

acting, they go back into the cage.

Or a product to be sold.

So if you're a product, sorry, if you're a post supervisor, how do

you, what exactly does that mean?

Because it's not the For those of us, a lot of people who listen to the

show are in the industry, but some people aren't listening to the show.

How would you explain what a post supervisor does?

Yeah, so my role really consists of overseeing the account service team.

This is the team that is face to face with clients if they need to pull materials and

clients as in post production companies.

So we work closely with NBC, Disney, CBS, Paramount.

So they are working with these management teams to pull material off the shelves.

For whatever case they may need it.

And on top of that, I work closely with operations, so we need to ship

materials out to If it's local, it's easier, but if we need to ship things

out international, international, then we need to work with them to ensure

that everything is packaged correctly.

But the most fun for me is working with the studios team where we get the assets

and then we condense those materials into digital files and we upload it

to whatever networks they needed to.

Is that a complicated process?

Can you talk about that process?

Yeah.

Again, I don't know.

It's Details about it, software is not necessarily the biggest

thing that I look into.

She's not a software engineer.

No, but we have a lot of, I guess you could say, profiles

set up ready for us to use.

Really what we need to do is make sure that the asset is in good condition.

We'll add it to the machine.

Load it onto the machine.

And then we just play with the settings to compress those files.

And it does it for us.

And about how long does that usually take?

Real time.

So if The tape is an hour and ten minutes.

It's going to take an hour and ten minutes to compress into a digital file.

What's one of the biggest ones you guys have done anything like five, six?

I guess you, documentary movies can last a long time, or really, especially

if it's a series or something.

Documentaries don't really have a time limit on them.

No, mostly about, like, documentaries, what's cool about it

is we get to compress, uh, files.

From different formats, so we're working with digi betas.

We're working with HD cams.

Those are the most recent tapes, but we also have things that are on film

and those are a little bit trickier to work with because we have to ensure

that it's rolled up correctly or If it's, there's a lot of technicalities

to it, but we just have to make sure that it's in good condition before.

I assume you probably don't prefer film deliveries.

No, they're heavier to work with.

Just, there's a lot more components to it.

Who do you mostly deal with as far as a post production supervisor?

As in Day to day, do you work with the studios more?

Do you work with independent people more?

In that aspect, what would you say?

Studios, for sure.

Do you have a preferred studio that you like to work with?

Yes.

Do you want to tell us?

Sure.

It's actually Disney.

You like working with Disney the best.

Yeah.

What about Disney do you like?

Is it the Flex Studio?

Is it that you get to walk around and flex?

It's not a flex?

It's not a flex.

It is, it gets a flex.

It's a plus side.

But what makes them your favorite?

Morso is really the team that they have over there, their management

team, they're just really friendly.

For me, it's about connecting with people really, and working with that

particular person, the management for that department, has been great.

And just, I've been working with that company for some time now, so we've

built So that has built over time.

Yeah.

And do you have these types of connections with all of the studios?

Or do you feel like it's just Disney that you have this connection with?

Because, to be fair, I guess everyone has their favorite Usually people's

favorite, quote unquote favorite studios to work with, really just comes

down to how that Personnel at that company and you click where sometimes

you click sometimes you don't because there are definitely times that we work

with other studios Where's oh, okay.

We're not best friends But working with them compared to some other

people that especially every time we go to the LA comic con specifically

Those are people we meet up with all the time and we have a really great

time So is it like that second one was okay We can we click or is it more?

Oh, which is that disney's the longest one you've been running with?

I think it's a mix of both So Disney's top client for me, but

I also do working with Paramount.

The team, similar values that they have.

Disney carries and with them it's been it gets difficult with

paramount because they do have those 70 millimeter film reels Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, so it gets trickier with some of the projects that we do for them

But just in general working with them has been a breeze now when you talk

about working with Disney and working with Paramount being your particular

favorites is it You said team.

Is it like one to one particular person that you like working with?

Or is it just the team as a whole?

It's the team.

So it's one person, but they have their team.

And so we work with the entire team.

So your point of contact is the person you like the most and then you like

working with that team in general.

Is that what you're saying?

Yes.

Who do you not like working with the most?

I don't think, I don't think you should say that.

No, I'm not gonna.

Okay, I had to ask.

I figured maybe you might tell us.

But is there, what are the personalities like between the studios?

Could you say, oh, Disney acts like McDonald's?

From a post perspective, because we're more on the other side of it.

But from more of a post perspective, are there personalities distinct

to each company that you work with?

I don't think so.

I will say, even though it's post production, everything is still

fast paced because they need it to air wherever they need it to air.

I think it's a balance of having to work with how they need to work around it,

and then aside, building relationships.

Hey, did you get to go to the HPA?

The Hollywood Post Awards?

No, I didn't get a chance to go.

Oh.

Have you ever been before, or did you just go this year?

No, I haven't been before.

Oh, okay.

Something that you always hear when you're at HPA, to be fair, It's not the biggest

out of all the award shows, there's what, an award show every day in this town.

It's always somebody's award, soon they're gonna have Jupiter awards here

or something, it's always something.

Anyway, at the HPA they talk a lot about ways to keep things organized.

And I specifically know more editors than I do coordinators

and supervisors like yourself.

They always have their organization list.

As a supervisor, what do you do to keep organized?

I make a list.

Oh, it's still a list?

Yeah.

Is it like the straight up Google sheet?

Uh, yes.

Yeah, that's the best way to go about it.

And that's the only way you're able to stay organized?

That's how I like to stay organized.

It works for me.

I'm more of a pen and paper type of gal.

Sometimes you lose that piece of paper.

So then Google Sheets was the next best thing.

When we talk about post production coordinator or post production supervisor.

What is your day specifically consist of?

Like when you go to the office, what's one of the first things you get down

the door and be like, all right, you're being supervised right now.

No, no, no, I would not do that.

Most of my roles really consist.

of ensuring that the teams have what they need.

And if they don't, then I'm the liaison to get the materials that they do need.

But I will say, I think I venture more into the digital aspect of it.

I just specifically make myself be there a lot more.

We talked a little bit.

This is before the show started.

We talked a little bit about, uh, software and you said that your company

and possibly some other companies might be going down some software changes

nowadays because AI does a lot and the technology is moving really fast.

Have you had to do a lot of big software overhauls?

Is that like a thing that regularly happens?

No, it doesn't happen regularly.

I think it's just the company is ready to make a switch into cloud storage per se.

And so they just really want to keep up with the times to ensure

that they don't fall behind.

Cloud storage instead of their own servers.

So instead of physical storage, it'll be like once we digitize

the assets, like someone needs to store it somewhere, right?

We can't stay on a hard drive for the longest time.

So they're implementing like a cloud storage service.

Are you guys too worried about any sort of hacking?

Cloud storage just get hacked a lot.

That's one of the biggest thing for a company, security.

That's like the number one priority.

So that's, I know they have like their own IT team that works through that.

Aside from like technicality, technicalities of it, I have You

wouldn't want to have another like Sony where you just get completely hacked.

Yeah, definitely not.

Sony is another of our clients.

So I know security as it is important for them.

It is for us because they are in our, I know it's important to

them now because they got, they leaked their Superman, right?

Movie.

Yeah.

Just the whole system just.

completely went down.

They had, I remember a while back, they had a team of hackers

that basically took over Sony.

You couldn't go on the PlayStation store.

I don't know how they did it, but hackers like By hacking, probably.

Yeah.

But they hacked into the source file, and basically had Sony by the cojones.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of even for I work for that company, there's

a lot of layers of security.

So, you need to enter this passcode, and then they send you a code,

and you enter that, and Yeah.

I know security's big on both sides, for the people who work there, and

the people our clients, per se.

And then, as far as Being a supervisor ghost.

Have you ever had to fire people?

I knew you were going to ask me this question.

I, yes, it's not necessarily myself because That's what HR is for.

Yes.

Because why be the bad guy when you don't have to be, right?

Yes, but, so it is you.

Here's the thing.

We hire people to do certain things, right?

And if we talk to them and we try to work with them, and if that doesn't

work, then we're going to need to find someone that's willing to do the work.

I feel like there's a lot of turnover in, I don't know.

No, there's not.

No, most people that are there, it's because they want to be there.

And that's something that they pursued from time to time.

You get those one.

One offs.

Have you ever recommended anybody to be fired?

Isn't that the same thing?

It's the same thing.

With post production, so most of those people, they, production is, post is,

you have to like doing it to be there.

Yeah.

Yeah, cause it's one of the most tedious aspects of making any creative endeavor.

Is there anything that you as a supervisor do to help your employees

go for Long periods of time or possibly keep the grind going.

Yeah.

So I think it's just finding areas of opportunity where they could grow,

just knowing what their background is, what they went to school for,

and then how we can implement those skills into the company.

So I have seen a lot of people move up in different positions.

Cool.

You know what?

It's been so great talking to you.

Thank you for coming on to the show.

Thank you.

Is there any way where people can follow you or would you have anything

to shout out, anything coming out next?

Anything to plug, say hi to Val Kilmer.

Val Kilmer is great.

But people could follow me on LinkedIn, Darlene Barrios.

Darlene Barrios, awesome.

Guys, this has been Film Center.

I'm Derek Johnson II.

I'm Nicholas Killian.

And this, we're here with?

Darlene Barrios.

And we'll see you next time.

See ya.

This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.

Check out our previous episodes at Comic ConRadio.

com.

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Tune in next Wednesday for a first look.

Until next time, this has been Film Center.

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