Just done a quick vt shoot for BBC’s Lottery Big Night Show.

Look for the quick circus show vt 16 minutes in.

Here are some more great youtube videos of sound related stuff be it commercials, skits and whetever

There’s also an absolutely amazing commercial made in Sweden (I think) that used to be on youtube, it involved creating the sound for crackers of some sort.  If anyone can find it please post it here, i’d love to see it again

A great little commercial for DAB radio which I stumbled upon across youtube.

Here in all of its glorious 11 minutes and 46 seconds is Luke White’s short ‘Tide’

A beautiful short made at LCC last year. Here’s a short description taken from Luke’s website blackpaint.co.uk

“A boy and his father live a harsh existence against a desolate backdrop. Whilst the father is stranded, the boy’s physique allows him to pass through a small tunnel leading to a place very different from their own. He brings back footage to satisfy his fathers desire to re-live memories of when he too could make this journey. Tide is the story of a father’s obsession that will ultimately lose him the respect of his son, and in turn his companionship.”

TIDE from luke white on Vimeo.

I (Chris Box) was lucky enough to be involved, creating the sound design for this, recording foley, ADR and mixing it at Borough Studios here in London.  Since completion it has gone on to be screened at both the BFI and London Shorts Festival (and many more).

Hope I’ve included everyone in this list.

Father – Liam Thomas, Son – Luke Williams

Writer & Director – Luke White, Producer – Emilia Dobrogowska, Cinematographer – David Stafford-Clark, Production Designer – Jessica Bernard, Assistant Director – James Fisher, Associate Producer – Zuzana Markova, Costume Designers – Jessica Bernard & Ruth Wade, Make-Up Artists – Claire Belling & Jessica Bernard, Production Assistants – James Winterflood, Nicolas Crew & Anna Jurkoweicka, Focus Puller – James Stafford-Clark, Johanna Lietha, Jessica Greene, Alba Moronuiz & Jack Newman, Clapper Loader – Johanna Lietha, Holly Cleary & Alexandra Michaels, Sound Recordist – Chris Box & Chris Mcquillan , Gaffer & Grip – Paul Kemp, Sparks – Holley Cleary, Chris Brown & Ritvan Mislikovjan, Continuity – Analisa Tremolada & Anna Meller, Set Construction – Fred Mercer, Mirela O’Prey, Matt Hansell, Joe D’Ovidio, Yoku Ishida, Chaperone – Mark Bromley, Editor – Armen Antranikian, Sound Designer – Chris Box, Foley Recordist – Palani Bala

Over the last few months we have been amassing as much gear as possible to make your productions as proffessional, stress free and with a variety of options.

We have equipment for any small drama, documentary, eng, interviews voice overs… pretty much anything really.

We have a wide array of microphones for use on location or in the studio, for both dialogue, effects and music.

For dialogue in interior locations we strongly recommend our Schoeps CMC641.  This extremely high quality condenser mic sounds incredibly natural and has great rear rejection which heps combat reverberant spaces. In outdoor locations we have the new Rode NTG3 shotgun microphone.  This sounds identical to the Sennheisser MKH416, a long term industry workhorse.  Not only does this microphone provide great rejection of lateral sound (great for noisy locations where distant traffic is an obstacle), this RF mic will also work under the harshest conditions in low temperatures and high humidity.  When there is no way to get in a cabled microphone, we can also provide new Audio Technica wirelees mics.  There are two available which can also be used  connect a mixer to your camera.  There are also a range of microphones for other applications such as Rode NT1 (for voice over or music application), NT3 (voice or foley recording), Shure SM57 (music, voice and loud effects recording such as gunfire), contact mics, telephone pick ups and plenty more.

There is an SQN 4S series IV location mixer that can mix up to 4 tracks of audio into 2 channels that can be recorded into camera or any other device.  SQN’s are highly reliable and have been used for film and broadcast for over 20 years.  We can also record remotely onto 2 Zoom SD recorders or to hard drive through a Laptop.

We also provide facilities for post production with a choice of several small facilities operating Pro Tools Le, Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Final Cut which are cost effective and can work remotely.  For larger productions we can provide high broadcast grade facilities at Borough Studios right near london bridge which houses 2 Pro Tools HD recording studios.

For rates and more information conact chris@sound-spot.co.uk

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After having this little telephone pick up sitting in my kit for a long time, it finally came in use for some unorthodox ADR recording.  After that i thought I may aswell take it out in the field and see what I could pick up.

I had played with it before in my uni days picking up all sorts of powered objects like hard drives and what not but never really left the flat with.  I wondered what London would sound like through this little gadget so I recorded my journeys through the city.   As soon as I pressed record I noticed lots of weird tones coming out of nearly everything on the street.  However things really got interesting when I got onto a bus and the magnetic tones matched the buses engines exactly.

Here’s a snippet of what I picked up that day

Chris Box – Bus 1

This includes 5 minutes on the street with street lights, shops and passing buses all influening the soundtrack, then 5 minutes onwards the interior of a bus takes over.

Next I’m going to experiment with mixing these magnetic sounds with some bin-aural mics and see how they influence each other

Really nice to hear these mics back to back so we can really notice the difference.

Just come across this little gem over at creativeapplications.net

“Berna is a software simulation of a late 1950s electroacoustic music studio. Oscillators, filters, modulators, tape recorders, mixers, are all packed in a easy-to-use interface with historical accuracy.

Explore serial, concrete and tape music or create strange new sonic worlds with instruments inspired by the greatest studios of the early days of electronic music.” Berna Website

I can’t wait to play around and create some serious retro si-fi stuff.

Head on over to Gleetchplug and get yourself a copy

Personal projects have had to get comfy for a while in the back seat while all of us down at Borough Studios become overwhelmed with the amount of work that renovating a studio has thrown at us.

After gluing acoustic treatment for several rehearsal rooms, the time has come for me to move downstairs and begin the recording and post production facilities.

I have so far been helping the studio owner Carlos by treating the recording studio (which is now looking quite nice) and rigging up Pro Tools facilities.

Here are a few pics shoved into my Iphone’s incredibly small camera.

After working for some time now as a location recordist, I am finding it more and more important to secure enough of my own equipment so as to avoid rental houses for smaller jobs.

This is partly for my own and clients convience, and partly due to the constant pressures of, let say, frugal sound budgets (the pinicle of this is being asked to provide 5 radio mics, boom, mixer and recorder including rates for the grand sum of £100).

Anyway, I am now pretty muh all the broadcast grade gear I need short of a set of radio mics.

Despite the fact that (as I’m sure many recordists would agree) I loath using them, there a valuable asset for the corporate, eng and documentary work that I do, so i resigned to spending the money.

However there is one huge problem with this which I am yet to find a solution.  This is the inevitable switch over from Ch69.

JFMG

Moving into Channel 38

So as I desperately try to build an inventory of equipment, what is there available to buy that will outlast the next 2 years.

So far I can see plenty of gear operating in the 800 spectrum right slap bang in ch69.  I cannot afford to spend upwards of a £1000 for gear that will only live for two years until serious adjustments need to be made which may cost the same again.