Graduate Stories – Alistair Pritchard

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Blog post by 2014 Alumnus Alistair Pritchard.

Once I left University I went straight out on tour with Darlia & Dolomite Minor as Stage Manage/Guitar Tech. During that time the management company was able to put me out with Noel Gallagher on a couple of shows shadowing their techs who got me involved on a few roles during the shows.

Dolomite Minor then went on tour with support shows to Eagles Of Death Metal, the Tour Manager asked if I wanted to join the crew as Drum Tech, I ended up doing some bass as well and went from there. We were out for 2 months across Europe, it’s been my favourite tour to date. Looking after Josh Homme for the shows was a great experience and the money wasn’t bad either! They didn’t ask me to return to the crew for the US run stating that it was cheaper to replace the previous Production Manager with a US based member which is understandable. It’s becoming much harder than ever before for UK roadies to work in the US.

In-between tours I’ve been working for a construction firm as a labourer whilst doing training for a site foreman job role in domestic housing. I turned down a full-time position though as I love touring and working on the road. The day after I returned from the EODM tour I was offered a job with Kiko Bun (BBC Radio 1xtra artist) and have been busy working for a few other artists (Lapsley, Rat Boy, Rejjie Snow, Andy Gangadeen of Chase & Status, Nothing But Thieves).

Early in 2016 I went back to Rock n Roll with Highly Suspect on a UK arena tour which was fun. Shortly after I had my first dry spell of the industry where label (XL Recordings) cut the budget of a tech on Lapsley’s US run even after my visa was approved, frustratingly.

The Summer is looking busy as I’m out covering for a friend who works for UB40 and he’s asked if I can do Fun Lovin Criminals which is going to be awesome. Kiko Bun is also picking back up thankfully. I was put forward for Busted as Guitar Tech but unfortunately did not get the gig (My older/wiser friend got one of the positions!).

I’ve also started a band of my own, we’re a Dark Rock, Gothic influenced act going by the name of The Devil In Faust. My old Audio Production mucker Ben Perrett plays bass and a childhood friend of mine is on drums. We just completed a short UK run of shows and flew to Denmark in May to record our next EP. We’re still independent and are just enjoying making art at this moment in time. I’d love to tour more with the band but funding is an issue right now.

Philip Rollett, Class of 2014 | Audio Production Engineer

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Recent graduate Philip Rollett will be on-campus for LSFM’s HEADSPACE event on 6th May with other working audio & radio alumni to share their own industry advice with students. Philip opted for self-employment to start his new business and discusses his experiences here.

About a month ago I was ready to give up on running my own audio company, it seemed like an impossible, thankless, task. I was constantly thinking if I was going to be able to earn a living from a degree that I’d dedicated so much time and money to. You find that you are no longer just an audio engineer, you’re a social media marketer, website developer and a phone salesman. I set my company up Start! Audio in July last year, with the help of my part time employer Howard Young (Engine 7 Post Production), this was around two months after finishing my degree in Audio Production.

Howard took me on part time after I spent a few days with him in his studio.We work on a range of projects such as animation sound design, radio adverts and telephone on hold messages. I was extremely lucky to get paid work from him straight after leaving university, it also meant I was constantly being creative and using Pro Tools. With the work only being part time at Engine 7, Howard was kind enough to give me lots of help and advice to set up my own audio business where I live in Chesterfield. I spent a couple of weeks turning a spare room into a small studio, I purchased some bass traps and foam panels and was ready to go.

My marketing strategy didn’t go much further than Twitter, email and my website, and still doesn’t. I probably should have paid more attention in R&D, but, honestly Twitter has been the best networking/ marketing tool for my business. The majority of the work I get in is from Twitter.

Since leaving university I have done one week’s free work experience in London and it was so bad, I think it was the company’s fault and others are undoubtedly better, but I don’t plan on doing any more, unless it’s for Christopher Nolan or some other amazing opportunity, and even then I’d be like “hey, Nolan, stop being so tight and pay your staff”.

Perhaps my unwillingness to work for free is why it has taken me six months to start getting work, but what people expect graduates to do in the media industry for free (or for hardly any money) is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t mean if you visit a studio for a few days because everyone should definitely do that for free, but once you start actually doing work for them you should be getting paid, no doubt about it. It’s only because people are so desperate to get into the media industry that companies can take advantage of students coming out of university and you have to be very careful of that. It’s down to everyone individually, but there’s still plenty of money in the industry to be paid for your contribution.

There are some people who swear by free labour once you leave university. I personally don’t. I think one thing students don’t realise is that there is lots of media work out there, it might not be on major budget films, but even locally you can find work, such as, explainer videos for local businesses or producing on hold music for their telephones. Earning money in the industry is something that never really seems to get talked about, even at university, and that really should change because it’s so important. Don’t let people fool you into believing you shouldn’t be making money, because in most cases someone will be making money out of the work you do.

I now have two audiobooks to produce this month, along with a few other audio projects like working for the university. I’d still like to be busier, but this month I’ll be making enough money to be earning a proper month’s wage and that’s a great feeling. If you love audio, video, or whatever, then you definitely can make a living from it. It probably will be easier to just be a banker or something, and it’s guaranteed to pay better, but it definitely won’t be as fun. Although, I might still end up being a banker.

INTERSTELLAR – drowning in sound

I watched INTERSTELLAR last night. The soundtrack was (as you would expect from a Christopher Nolan film) electrifying.

Music was composed by Nolan’s composer of choice Hans Zimmer.

As I watched I realised that the predominant instruments were strings and what sounded like the biggest church organ in the world!. I wasn’t far wrong it seems.

“Over the course of the film, the core five-note melody (the soundtrack is released on November 17th, but for a taste listen to Trailer #3) is expressed in different ways. The score is an ensemble effort combining 34 strings, 24 woodwinds, four pianos, and 60 choir singers, all of which get their time to sound off. But the starring, and most meaningful voice, is the 1926 four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ, currently housed at the 12th-century Temple Church in London and played in the movie by its director of music, Roger Sayer”(i)

What also became apparent is that on many occasions the audio track was so loud that at times when actors were speaking you could not hear clearly what they were saying. As I watched, my sound editor’s head said to myself “this must be deliberate, Nolan must WANT US to be straining to hear what they’re saying, to make the scene tense, threatening or downright overwhelming. I certainly thought at times that the cinema sound system was going to blow. I was being affected physiologically, my heart-rate was increasing. At other times however, quieter times, The main dialogue was relatively low in level – almost hard to hear what people were saying. This huge dynamic range (only available in cinemas) made me wonder how it will sound on DVD/streaming etc. You cant really watch a Nolan film anywhere other than the cinema it seems to me.

Afterwards some research into the sound led me to an article on this very subject, which confirms much of what I thought and far more.

https://soundcloud.com/zimmer-fans/hans-zimmer-our-destiny-lies

Here’s more from the article:-

Hans Zimmer’s score drowns out dialogue and has already broken an Imax theater, but there’s thematic significance in all that noise

“As Zimmer recently told the Film Music Society, the organ was chosen for its significance to science: From the 17th century to the time of the telephone exchange, the pipe organ was known as the most complex man-made device ever invented. Its physical appearance reminded him of space ship afterburners. And the airiness of the sound slipping through pipes replicates the experience of suited astronauts, where every breath is precious (a usual preoccupation with sci-fi movies that is taken very literally in Zimmer’s music, which also features the exhalations of his human choir).

Zimmer’s score—which alternates between a 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century Minimalism—of course has an element of spirituality to it. But the organ does more than just recall churches. From the movie’s earliest moments, it performs some very necessary narrative legwork for the overburdened screenplay. When it kicks in as Cooper chases down an Indian surveillance drone, a light touch on the organ keys, paired with rousing strings, creates a whirling, ethereal sound that channels Cooper’s interior life. The giddy tone it sets demonstrates that Cooper is a risk-taker and adventurer, which solves the screenplay’s early problem of establishing emotional motive for Cooper to leave his children.

As organs are wont to do, this one resonates. And there are moments when the decibels at which it does can only be described as an action-movie crutch. The organ gets a noticeably more heavy-handed touch as the plot becomes ever-more preposterous. It blasts when the elder Professor Brand, played by Michael Caine, hands over the keys to the spaceship—and his life’s work—to a farmer (Cooper) who presumably hasn’t piloted anything except a plow in a while. It booms when Ann Hathaway’s younger Dr. Brand shakes hands with “Them,” heavily foreshadowing events to come. Some of these moments necessitate the extra spiritualistic oomph, but it’s often the case that when the plot turns implausible, Nolan and Zimmer ramp up the organ.”(i)

(i)http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/why-interstellars-organ-needs-to-be-so-loud/382619/