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 10th 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.