At the best of times, the Alberta film production scene is less hit and more miss. Given this, some may be led to believe that the life of an audio post facility, located in the heart of Calgary, as Sync Spot is, would be short. This is not the case. In fact, Sync Spot moved in July to a bigger space to accommodate its growing business.

‘We are hardly into our boxes or unpacked,’ says Sync Spot president and owner Frank Laratta. ‘We have our production rooms up and going, so we can actually do some work, but it still looks like we moved in yesterday.’

Laratta established the audio post facility in 1995. Sync Spot handles various forms of audio for feature films, television programs, television and radio ads, audio and video projects, multimedia. Basically, anything with sound, Sync Spot can handle.

‘For a lot of people we are seen as a recording studio,’ he says. ‘That’s how they understand it. Well we don’t record garage bands doing their demo, but we can do anything else in recording.’

The bulk of the business for Sync Spot, according to Laratta, is split between film and commercial work. The majority of the broad range of film projects that Sync Spot works on are local independent productions by filmmakers who pay the rent working on bigger productions in Calgary.

‘A lot of those people are budding directors and have their own little film projects on the side,’ says Laratta. ‘They are working, so they are making some money, and when they were off set they put together their own little features and that was the stuff we saw.’

According to Laratta, as the number of productions coming into Alberta fluctuates, so does the film business for Sync Spot. Sighting the lack of tax breaks for Alberta producers, Laratta says the amount of production in Alberta ‘plummeted’ in recent years, but things are starting to look up.

‘The local scene has gotten busier lately and there is definitely more activity,’ he says. ‘I think it will start coming back for us in the film area.’

For its advertising portfolio, Sync Spot has done audio post on numerous television and radio spots for Ford Mercury in the Prairies as well as some atco radio and tv spots. The last project completed in the former Sync Spot location was some adr work for the mow The Sheldon Kennedy Story.

Sync Spot is equipped with two major production rooms where the staff can work with producers to oversee audio from the beginning to the end of a project. Additionally, under construction at the new space are three editing rooms and a transferring/machine room, which will enable Laratta and company to work at several different sound stations at once on the same or different projects.

Laratta is pleased with Sync Spot’s new isdn recorder, which works like a modem, transferring sound over a phone line with astonishing clarity.

‘It is virtually like they are in the sound booth in the next room and we can record them in digital quality – cd quality or higher – and we get the voice from anywhere in the world.’

Another new development at Sync Spot is the recent merger between the audio post shop and another audio services company, Brain Camp. Now under the name Sync Spot, former Brain Camp operator Garner Andrews brings a wealth of radio knowledge to the table.

‘Brain Camp was primarily focused on radio production and my background is in the film world, so it was kind of a good fit,’ says Laratta.

Patrons of Sync Spot also often utilize the talents of on-site composer Mike Shields, who runs Jet Music out of the Sync Spot facility.

All of this is housed under one roof in a new facility that offers Sync Spot some additional space, making the audio post house a more efficient space to work in.

‘A lot of things from my wish list for the last four or five years we were able to put in here,’ says Laratta. ‘Everyone seems to have the same deadlines.’

Space and efficiency notwithstanding, it is important to Laratta to retain the same comfortable milieu that Sync Spot’s clientele has come to appreciate at the old location.

‘There is kind of a boutique atmosphere at Sync Spot and we like it to be a kind of tight-knit creative group,’ says Laratta. ‘We have gotten functional enough that we can offer anything you want in audio, but at the same time we are small enough that when you walk in you pretty much know everyone here.’