Reel Talk - Showreel Review (28/10/21)

I had my sound design showreel reviewed by Power Up Audio’s Kevin Regamey on the Reel Talk livestream this week!

I’ve been watching Reel Talk for several years at this point, but I’ve always felt nervous about putting myself forward for review as the standard of work is incredibly high, and (like a lot of people) I suffer from imposter syndrome pretty badly. However, after putting it off for so long, I realised that this was an opportunity that I simply couldn’t afford to let pass me by, so I sent in an application back in August.

Well, I’m so glad I did, as this was an incredibly eye-opening and useful experience - one that I wish I had signed up for a lot earlier in my sound design journey! I received lots of really useful feedback on my sound design pieces, my video editing choices and my overall website layout, all of which I will be using to inform and improve my work going forward.

Huge thanks to Kevin for taking the time to review and critique my reel piece-by-piece, I’m massively grateful to have had this opportunity.

Also, a big thank you goes out to the lovely Reel Talk audience, who kindly offered plenty of really great suggestions about material selection/web design as well, which I intend to implement ASAP.

So, I’m feeling really inspired and ready to get to work on the next reel - time to go find some cool clips to re-design!

Unreal Online Learning - UE4 Audio Courses

Had a couple of (exciting) work and life changes ongoing these past two months, so I haven’t had as much time to work on personal projects recently.

However, I have been having a lot of fun steadily working through some of the excellent audio resources made by Dave Raybould and Richard Stevens on the Unreal Online Learning site.

So far I’ve been through their courses on Ambient and Proceedural Sound Design, and Dynamic Audio. I’m currently working through the next two courses in the series, Sound and Space and Understanding Audio Mixing and Effects.

Here’s a short video I after completing the Ambient and Procedural Sound Design course. I created the sounds for this campfire using a combination of DSP Fantasy renders and some recordings I made of water droplets in a hot frying pan.

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I’m also chuffed that I was able to script the fish asset to do a really basic rotation too!

Futureworks Game & Interactive Audio Tutor

I am delighted to say that I have started a new role as a tutor at Futureworks!

As part of Futureworks’ school of Sound & Music, I am teaching the Interactive Mixing and Engines and Middleware 2 & 3 modules of the Game & Interactive Audio degree course.

It truly means a lot to me that I have been asked to be part of Futurework’s teaching staff and help guide new and upcoming sound designers through the course. I thoroughly enjoyed my time studying game audio at Futureworks as a student, so to be able to contribute to the learning experiences of current students as a module tutor is a big personal honour.

School of Video Game Audio - Unity Course Projects

Here’s a few video clips from some of the projects I’ve been working on throughout July and August while studying on the School of Video Game Audio’s Unity course.

Grenadier Footstep Sound Re-Design

Grenadier Grenade Sounds Re-Design

Viking Village Water Submersion Toggle

dBs Interview - Specialising in Sound Design

I was recently interviewed by Chris Mackin from Bristol’s dBs institute as part of an article about specialising in sound design.

You can read the piece here, where I talk briefly about discovering that sound design was actually a thing, and how finding out that the sound on TV programmes like Blue Planet would be added later in post (and not recorded live at the scene) was a big and inspiring revelation!