Fairlight & Freesound.org for Pro Audio on a Dime - Seeking Advice!

Hey everyone,

I'm Mei-Lin, a Production Coordinator usually working on bigger sets (recently with an ALEXA Mini and LS 600d Pro lights), but I'm dabbling in my own indie short film on the side. We shot it on a KOMODO, so our visual quality is decent, but the audio... well, that's where the budget really hit us. We used a simple shotgun mic, nothing fancy like a 4017.

Now I'm in DaVinci Resolve, learning Fairlight, and I'm really trying to make our sound design shine without spending a fortune. I've been pulling sounds from Freesound.org, which is a lifesaver, but I'm struggling with how to truly mix everything to a professional standard. It feels a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall right now.

For those of you who work with limited resources, how do you approach mixing in Fairlight using primarily Freesound.org assets? What are your go-to techniques or workflows to get a polished, professional-sounding track when you don't have access to high-end plugins or a dedicated sound mixer? Any specific Fairlight features I should be focusing on?