A Mac G4, Pro Tools software and a 24-channel Mackie mixing console may be enough to open the doors of a sound design and audio post-production facility these days. But to successfully establish oneself in the film and TV industries, the demands for innovative manipulation of technologies, flexibility and diversification have never been greater.

‘It’s a hard industry to break into,’ says producer Bruce Thomas, who, together with sound engineer Patrick Cooke, owns Stream Audio in Toronto. ‘We’ve had to develop a tight focus. New technologies keep costs low for our clients while we try to create a quality end product that competes with higher-cost production.’

With an initial investment of $20,000 and after less than one year in operation, Stream Audio, which strives to eventually work on full-length animated features, has started by focusing on commercials for clients including Kellogg’s, Tefal/T-Fal and Minolta.

‘It’s better to start off small and grow,’ confirms Post Modern Sound VP Mark Scott. ‘You need to develop skills and experience to give your clients the quality they need.’

Post Modern began doing audio and post-production on commercial spots in Vancouver in the early 1970s. Since then the company has grown. Post Modern has recently worked on TV series including The Chris Isaak Show, the MOW Due East, directed by Helen Shaver and airing on Showtime, and feature film projects such as director Anne Wheeler’s Suddenly Naked. Its crew has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy for best sound editing on the Showtime Christmas MOW Off Season.

With as many as 50 staffers, Post Modern now works predominantly on long-form projects, though Scott says they have retained several of their original commercial clients.

Start-up costs have dropped dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1992, Jane Tattersall, now president and CEO of Tattersall Casablanca in Toronto, borrowed $110,000 to buy her first audio system, the WaveFrame Digital Audio Workstation, and founded Tattersall Sound.

In June 2000, Tattersall Sound merged with post house Casablanca Sound & Picture, headed by Wayne Griffith and David Evans and owned by Alliance Atlantis Communications, creating Tattersall Casablanca, a full-service sound design and post-production facility. Tattersall says the merger strengthened both companies, and although at first only about 5% of her business was non-AAC, now that number is around 30%.

‘The best advice I can give someone trying to break into the audio industry is to take any work that you can,’ says Tattersall. This rings true for Thomas and Cooke, who did some spec work on occasion in the early days of Stream Audio. But in the end, Tattersall says, what distinguishes her work is the ability to ’empathize with the director’s vision and come up with sound that complements it.’

Tattersall is currently working on director Barbara Willis Sweete’s Perfect Pie, produced by Rhombus Media, and recently completed work on Steve DiMarco’s low-budget feature Hurt, produced by Charlotte Bernard Entertainment. Tattersall Casablanca was nominated for achievement in sound editing at the 2002 Genie Awards for John Fawcett’s teen horror flick Ginger Snaps.

Today, finding the opportunity to demonstrate talent and creativity can be more difficult than actually creating great sound. Artistic director/composer Robert Guerin and production director/sound designer Stefane Richard, for example, have diverged from the plans they had for ZeroDB when they opened the audio and post-production studio in Montreal in 1992.

‘The goal is to do audio work for film and TV, although that market is pretty saturated in Montreal right now,’ says Guerin.

The ZeroDB partners have adopted a very diversified approach in order to generate revenue, taking on multimedia and film projects, as well as writing books and teaching.

ZeroDB composed the soundtrack for the 1998 film Miroirs Aveugles, produced and directed by Jean Tessier. It also did the mastering and sound design for a CD-ROM released this year about the life of Quebec painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, who passed away in March.

A Triumph of reinvention

Unlike some of its peers, Toronto’s Metalworks Studios reports a smooth transition from the music biz to film and TV audio. The Mississauga, ON-based studio is headed by Gil Moore, studio owner and former drummer for Toronto hard-rock trio Triumph.

Since Triumph stopped performing in 1988, Metalworks has grown from a single studio, originally built by the band for making records, into a six-studio facility geared up with three Solid State Logic consoles, one AMS Neve console and Sony video monitors throughout. Studio six, used primarily for TV, film and DVD production, offers surround-sound audio formats and boasts an SSL 9000 J console, projector and screen.

Moore says many film and TV producers have started looking to music recording studios for high-quality audio. For Metalworks, maintaining a foothold in the biz has been less of a conscious quest than a natural transition. Moore says he is particularly jazzed by projects that allow him to combine his music talents with a love for working in film.

Last year, boy band phenom N’Sync was at Metalworks Studios for 10 days working on their Miramax film On the Line. Another film, Festival Express, being produced by the Netherlands’ Barking Dogs Films, took Moore back to his rock ‘n’ roll roots.

Doing the sound for Festival Express involved restoring music recorded at a rock festival of the same name that toured Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1970. The newly discovered one-inch, eight-track recordings feature previously unreleased music from rock legends such as The Grateful Dead, The Band, Janis Joplin and the unforgettable Sha Na Na.

-www.streamaudio.ca

-www.postmodernsound.com

-www.tattersallcasablanca.com

-www.zerodb.ca

-www.metalworksstudios.com