Look for the quick circus show vt 16 minutes in.

Since the new year I (Chris Box) have been tirelessly working and trying to settle myself for the rest of the year.

So far this year I have been involved in quite a few projects with a wide scope. In January I was second boom operator on one of Touchpaper’s shorts for ‘Coming UP’.  Although we shot through the London snow and in tiny locations, it was a pleasure to work with mixer, Billy Quinn, and got to finally get to have a look at the illusive Aaton Cantar hard disk recorder.  There’s something to be said about having all that gear and your disposal, it definitely makes life easier, no work arounds needed.

Also on the production end I landed a nice little week long gig at the National Theatre Studios recording sound for Mighty Dog Tv’s ‘Muse Of Fire’.  This was very different to most documentary stuff I’d done before.  I was covering an actors workshop of around 14 people with different guests for every session including Sir Ian McKellen.  So strategically placing radio mics on those in the center of the sessions (ie guests, performing actors), my boom operator Aykut Evin was constantly running around the floor over two cameras covering the remaining 10 people, not a challenge I’d like to do every day.

In post Production: I am currently mixing a series of charity promos for Global Stories which should be available shortly.

I am also deep into providing sound design for a WW1 film titled ‘Deserted’, this film takes place on the homefront in a small village which slowly looses all of it’s men.  What is great about this film like so many I have worked on, is that there is very little dialogue.  I get to create meaning and texture in the film by other means, through the surroundings, the characters themselves and namely the letters which play a central part in the story.  More on that soon…

Since the end of March, I have taken a short term contract at Inflight Productions, as a audio transfers engineer.  I know this is a little out of my comfort zone, but I do get to listen to Universals back catalogue as I digitise their tape masters which is quite cool (except for the scores of Chuck Berry records that never seem to end).

Also news just in, I have been offered a contract to head my own audio department at a facilities house, with a look to joining their crew pool within 18months.  Things are still a little early yet so no names, but if all goes ahead I will get my own department and spend all day and night playing with sound gear and really get to grips with all things hardware.

Finally, Aykut and myself are tinkering away at building a purely Sound Spot project which will involve countless hours of location recording and will be available solely through sound-spot.  More details when we are underway, but this should be exciting.

Free website – Wix.com

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 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

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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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

Here be the new showreel for the one and only cinematographer Benjamin Jones

For more information contact Ben on either

or email at biggnessb@yahoo.co.uk