Although there’s been very little activity here on the Sound Spot Blog, the same cannot be said of out in the real world.

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.