This month marks five years that Monkeesee has been open for business.

Although for some of us life in studios has been a daily reality for many more years it’s important for us to acknowledge how sound design and its application has evolved over this time – especially if we are going to make our 10^th birthday.

When we began TV and radio advertising where our predominant ‘jobs’ although we also did a fair share of ‘corporate’ videos and short films. Indeed we have been sponsors of the St Kilda Film Festival for five years – individually for even longer.

Today our sound design covers museum installations, where we have done major projects for Museum Victoria, the National Sports Museum, Scienceworks and the Victorian Arts Centre. Computer games on a range of platforms from handheld to online with casts ranging from 5 to 91 actors, feature films, documentaries, animations, Youtube and Vimeo sound beds, websites, election campaigns, podcasts, IVR’s and sound designs for bus shelters and info kiosks!

As technology provides us all with hand held, desktop, laptop and iPad connectivity so the march of sound design has extended into realms we perhaps never anticipated. As one of Melbourne’s smaller post production studios we are lucky to be able to flex with short notice to meet these demands, however what should never be underestimated is the ability of our producers and more importantly our engineers to understand the new platforms that our sound design is utilised in

From small speakers hidden under marine displays at the museum to giant live screen ads at the MCG it’s the final application of our work that is changing. But it’s more than that – the process of reaching intended audiences has evolved incredibly particularly in the last 5 years and we are continuously uncovering new and exciting platforms where sound design is applicable.

The rise and rise of social media has stunned the advertising world with its uptake and far reaching implications. As broadband continues to roll out around Australia this will only keep evolving and be further enhanced by the release of Google TV here in 2011.

So our job as sound designers has changed, continues to flex and move and our daily ‘jobs’ are now broader and more wonderful than ever. We still make TV, radio and cinema commercials, I think we always will. It’s just they are becoming only a part of the armoury that advertisers, strategists and communicators use to reach consumers.

It’s March since we last ‘spoke’ and we have just completed the sound design on Lily – a film by Kas Burgess Winner of last years St Kilda Film Festival Monkeesee Award for best musical composition. This year’s festival is almost upon us with Opening Night at the Palais on May 25^th.

This weekend saw the first active Groovin The Moo festival in Bendigo, a project our new venture d.tail has been working on since the start of the year. Pleased to announce it was a sell out with 15,000 happy punters as are Maitland and Townsville with only limited tickets available in Bunbury and Canberra.

The tenacious Jessica Watson is also close to sailing into Sydney Harbour. Another of d.tails social media management projects this has been an amazing and inspiring journey to be a part of.

In the studio we have had the Department of Transport, commercials for the Army , Adriatic, Nandos and lots of trade shows amongst other campaigns.

Much has been written about the changing nature of advertising, in particular the disbursement of advertisers spending across of variety new media and ofcourse in the regard the impact of social media networks. No doubt internet speeds will have a dramatic impact on all media streams and in particular free to air TV and radio. We are already seeing major issues arising in publishing,  most specifically newspaperrs and the book industry.

With a long history in the music business we know first hand how quickly the end arrives. At Monkeesee we are endeavouring to structure both our work practices and fees to match the changing requirements of our clients.

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Yep it is……March already!

The Australian Open dominated life in the studios through December/ January and yet again the tournament broke records with an estimated extra 50,000 + tickets sold. Congratulations to Tennis Australia and McCann for a stunning and extremely successful campaign. We look forward to 2011!

Also been working on the Federation and Davis Cups, IGA and their new campaign through Resolution Media, lots of interesting campaigns through those heroes of media Agent Creative the new Department of Educations, On Track campaign.

As always we are pleased to host the clever approach from Nando’s with everyone including Bernard Tomic in their sights, Adriatic, CRV and welcome back our friends at Visual Identity with Carpet One.

Our new venture d.tail has been growing and we now welcome Jessica Watson and GTM into our stable of clients. It seems every where we look the growth in social media is having a distinct influence and we are proud to have gathered so much momentum at an early stage from our background in music management to apply across this format.

Feel free to contact us if you wish to discuss implementing this approach into your branding and marketing planning.

But don’t wait, next it will be June..

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This is the second year we have sponsored a major prize in sound design for the 48 Hour Film Project. Last night saw over 400 people at the BMW Edge Theatre at Federation Square for the Audience Favourite Night. It’s quite amazing the growth in this festival in two short years. The crew at Barnash Productions should be congratulated for the level of interest, participation but particularly in the high quality of production the Festival presents.

The 48 Hour Film Project originated in Washington DC in 2001 when founder Mark Rupert first posed the question ‘would films made in only 48 hours even be watchable?’

After 8 years there have been over 100 competitions held globally, representing over 7000 teams. 27 took part in Melbourne this year between November 6 – 8 using a prop, a line and a character as set requirements for the film.

A fantastic idea that looks set for further growth in 2010 with even more sponsors and support coming on board. Look out for the Awards night, Friday 27^th November, at ACMI.

It’s heating up and we are heading straight into the next Australian Open tennis campaign. Great music, yet another fantastic program of entertainment from Tennis Australia and the worlds greatest players; it’s always a pleasure to be involved.

Also had two different animation productions inhouse. Multiple talent has seen the big studio set up in old time radio play format. Just need someone on the piano and a 2 piece drum kit and it could be 1950! We love it and the performances glow in this environment.

Also commercials for the Department of Transport and Department of Justice, Greening Australia, Silver Star Motors, AEC Trade Shows around Australia amongst our regulars.

Some if you will know more about d.tail now. This is forming as a strong growth area for our business with a musical bent but a far wider application.

On the musical side Paul has been on tour with English superstar Seal around Australia. Pete Murray has been in the big studio recording demos for his upcoming album and the prince of ABC TV has been in but we can’t mention his name. Hell, we even had Warwick Capper in for the afternoon yesterday.

Now there’s a man you can’t tie down

Its all tulips, horses and the Royal Show in here – must be Spring!

Lots of radio and TVCs for Country Racing Victoria, the Melbourne Show and the Tesselaar Tulip Festival come through the studios at this time of year and we love ‘em!

Also productions for the Victorian Parliament, Telstra, a special on Ron Barassi filmed by Axis in the big studio and more and more commercials for our chicken lovers at Nandos, the folk at Adriatic, the Education Dept. GRL and more.

We have also recently started a new venture; dtailnoisemakers.com.au. Although primarily aimed at the music industry we are finding applications and interest from our advertising agencies for some of their products and services and are about to begin rolling this out with one of our major clients. Stay tuned!

Also just beginning work on an animation series for Ten which we can talk more about next time. This week we also welcome back the Australian Open for their sixth season with Monkeesee.

Guess this means summers next!

Well it seems that the dreaded GFC hasn’t reached the ‘dizzy lows’ we were promised in Australia – consumer confidence surged in July to its highest level in a year and a half, the predicted dip in house prices hasn’t occurred and whilst the number of new commercials coming through seems to be down in comparison to the re-issue of those pre-existing, the studios in here have been humming.

A 10 part animation series produced by Publicis Mojo for Freddo featuring a bright young cast of 6, a new DVD for the TAC with Renegade Films, campaigns for Nu Energy, more and more and yet more Nando’s taking the pee out of everything, the beginnings of a new CRV campaign, TVC’s for the Building and Home Improvement Expo and to top it all off Paul got to close the Sacred Heart Mission concert at the Palais with Icehouse.

Gotta love Melbourne in winter, sure it’s cold but nothing seems to stop, football, winter sales, eating and certainly drinking and whilst there are inevitable slow days around the end of financial year we have put together our new website and a showreel highlighting some recent work as well as some of the more diverse projects that we are lucky to work on.

Hope you like it, you can find a link to it here. www.monkeesee.com/showreel-09.

Here is a short reel of our recent and more diverse work.

To see more visit our website at www.monkeesee.com