Having a background in Post Production Audio I’ve found myself recording and mixing short films where the opportunity has presented itself. While editing voice overs and advertising material all day I found that it did get repetitive at times, but working on short films and having that freedom to ‘make it sound good’ gave me a personal sense of sonic expression that I couldn’t find anywhere else I while working with sound.

Many of the productions I worked on were for little or no reimbursement whatsoever and that’s how I started; shooting on weekends and weeknights, taking leave from my job, eating lunch standing up and not stopping till ‘we got it’. Some of the tasks involved location sound, voice over recording, sound effect production and recording, Foley, post production sound, mixing, sound design and even an original composition from time to time.

The feelings I get when the final product is delivered I still find hard to describe, perhaps I could say it’s a combination of fulfilment coupled with a feeling of inadequacy because of some mixing issue that passed you by at 04:09am while doing the final-final-beta04.wav mix down. The audience probably doesn’t even know or care about your minor or major shortcomings as a Sound Mixer for short film; after all they say you are your own worst critic. On the topic of inadequacy, let’s talk about finishing a project. Is it ever really finished? I mean I could tweak this for a few more hours, days, months etc. I’m a fan of deadlines because it forces creative action to stop and forces the work to conclude, for better or worse. Having something finished (term used loosely) gives you the opportunity to start another project and build your creative portfolio. I accept there are an infinite amount of changes and ways to make something better, louder, clearer etc. It’s taken me a very long time to let go of this idea of perfection and just create. A large and varied body of work appeals to me more than one perfect piece, I did spend too long trying to create this ‘perfect’ work and failed every time.

That’s enough hot air from me, back to what I originally set out to do on this page.

I’ve collected links from around the internet where my work is exists paired with its visual counterpart for people to admire, criticise but first and foremost, enjoy.