Audio Production

After studying Stage Management with a special interest in Sound at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the late 1980’s, I went on to gain experience in recording studios, theatres and production companies. I learned my way around analogue mixing desks, cut my teeth editing ¼ inch tape with a chinagraph pencil and razor blade on a Revox B77, watched tape become minidisk and DAT while vinyl and cassette became CD’s before everything got replaced with an app. I have produced sound for theatre productions, designed and mixed live soundtracks for firework displays, recorded audiobooks, and created voice recordings for adverts, cartoons, video games, short films and demos.

Halfway through my second year at Arts Ed drama school in 1993, I found a local on-hold marketing company and was able to show them that a budding acting student with a background in sound engineering could be a valuable asset, and so began my enduring love of being able to stand with one foot onstage and the other backstage. First I recorded my voice in their studio, and then I moved to the control room to produce what I had recorded for their computer telephony applications. Since then, I have used my voice and production skills both independently and collectively to create recordings for computer telephony and in-store applications, video games, short films, radio dramas, adverts, podcasts and audiobooks.

With the constant advances in technology, it is now possible to produce with just one computer, a good microphone and a little bit of hardware what once needed racks of equipment and miles of cabling. If my ability to do this sounds like it might be something you need for your project, get in touch!

 

Video Production

If you need to source a training or other in-house video, then you have quite a number of choices to make about a things like objective, target audience, scripting, style and so forth. Once those decisions are made, you could then call a video production company and they would collaborate with you to get the job done beautifully. Alternatively you could take advantage of the amazing advances in technology over the last few years and use an online AI video generator like Synthesia, and that will give you good results for the price of a monthly subscription.

Or, if you want something in between, something more nuanced than AI but at a lower cost than a production company might charge, you can get in touch with me.

During the Covid Pandemic lockdowns, I worked hard to create a form of online engagement that would allow me to continue to deliver my work remotely in a style similar to my face to face workshops, and my skills and experience in technical theatre, production, sound, voiceovers, acting and events came to the fore. To do this, I invested in film equipment and video editing software which allowed me to exploit the potential of Zoom, and develop a particular method of delivering true hybrid training workshops singlehandedly.

It is this equipment and the joy of combining my technical and artistic backgrounds which allows me now to produce training and other videos by taking care of every stage of the process myself. If you send me your script, I’ll film myself presenting it to camera against a green screen. Then, using software like Final Cut Pro, Affinity and Audacity I can add a background, your logo, graphics, B-roll footage (perhaps an interview with your staff – this guide can help you set yourself up to get the best results), incidental audio and finish it off with any number of special effects.

You can virtually sit in on the recording session to make any last-minute script changes and ensure there are no mistakes made during production, and you can also audition the final edit on a shared screen to verify that what I have produced is what you want. Once you’re happy with it, I can then master and send it to you.

• Scripting
• Presenting
• Voiceover
• Simple whiteboard animation
• Videography
• B-roll
• Production
• Simple graphics
• Editing & Effects
• Mastering

Get in touch if you’d like to discuss your audio or video production needs, or would like to see samples of my previous work.