OP-1 Kits

Teenage Engineering asked me to make some kits for the OP-1, their killer wee synth + funbox.

All made using a combination of my Roland SH101, feedback through a BetaSP deck, and my Teac X-10R reel-to-reel. Comfortably squooshed goodies to bump with.

Head over to their website to snaffle these for free, and drool over their awesome wares.

Munted

A stunning short film written and directed by Welby Ings. It’s currently in festival competition so I can only show short snippets. Below are some of the transition sequences that bridge the two worlds that the film embodies, as well as progressing time through a New Zealand summer and creating an almost flammable environment.

• (Winner 2011 Best Short Film) Lucerne International Film Festival
• (Winner 2012 Special Honours) Regensburg Short Film Week
• (Winner 2012 Audience Award) ZUBIAK Getxo Antiracist Film Festival
• Brussels International Film Festival
• Bilbao International Film Festival
• Berlin Interfilm International Short Film Festival
• Jena/Weimar International Short Film Festival
• Montreal Film Festival
• Vladivostok International Film Festival

A 1963 Chevrolet C10 plays an aggressive supporting role in this film, and it was well worth spending a morning recording it to capture some V8 growls. Thanks to the owner, Alan Nelson for not holding back..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2011144/

This Is Not My Life

This Is Not My Life
2010 GRST

Series Directors: Robert Sarkies, Peter Salmon
Written by: Gavin Strawhan, Peter Cox and Rachel Lang
Sound Design : James Hayday
Series Re-recording Mixer: Tom Miskin
Composer: Don McGlashan
Sound Post Facility: Imagesandsound

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1405466/

Skate Pinball

Creating the sound effects for a skate-park sized pinball machine was a bit too much fun. Players triggered events and scored points as they hit ramps, rail slides, completed combo’s etc.

There was no better reason to do some recon on classic machines, so I found two of Auckland’s pinball kingpins, Clive Pedersen and Phil Hannon, who let me record a whole lot of games from their collections.

In a lot of games there is usually an omniscient ‘voice’ that pipes up when you complete combos, score a bonus or make mistakes, and for these I needed to convert the dude yelling in the booth (Aaron) in to Thor, basically.

Pinball NZ Website

Muff Wiggler’s Monotron mod’s

‘Making Of’ video directed by Jae Morrison

Agency : ColensoBBDO
Creatives : Victoria Daltrey, William Bingham
Executive Creative Director : Nick Worthington
Producer : Rob Linkhorn
Sound Post-Production Facility : Imagesandsound

Billy T : Te Movie

Working on this was quite a treat, especially alongside Ian Mune and his cronies who had been involved in a lot of the original Billy T shows.  There were a couple of stories in the film that were were based around vehicles that played roles in Billy’s life so this gave me some pretty fun opportunities for effects recording. The first and probably most important being the pickup truck that took the infant Billy home, and the other being the band van that he toured the country with as a musician. Alongside interviews and archive footage, these recordings weaved in and around the dialogue.

The production chanced upon an excellent Chevy pickup truck that belongs to Rob Webster, a Chevy collector and expert repairman, and an all-round good dude who not only let me attach mic’s to his truck but towed my car home after it blew a head-gasket on the way to Waiwera.. Check the comments for the different microphone perspectives.

Malcolm France offered up his driving feet to helm what became the band van. Ian, the director wanted it to sound like it was on its last legs, so Malcolm generously took to it with a spanner. The best sounds I recorded were during the level check, which was a good lesson… no test runs. If the fanbelt is going to slip or the starter-motor complain then it’s going to be when you first fire it up, and that’s where the personality is. I added a contact microphone for this one to see if I could pick up some engine ticking through the chassis and give us another fader of hokiness.

The microphone kit was assembled from a mixture of some good quality and some .. ‘robust’ choices (i.e. what was in the drawer) which all worked well, but I might take a look at some better options for the spots next time around. All recorded to a Sound Devices 744T.

The slideshow up top has some images of the cars.

Post-production facility : Imagesandsound

Dolby Mix : Soundfirm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1992089/

Check out Tim Prebble’s excellent blog for some vehicle recording techniques

Inside Out, Outside In

Animation by Jae Morrison.