I have formed the ‘STOHO’ group in the ‘Linked in’ Network– . The aim is for production professionals living in the Walthamstow area to get a bit of local knowledge and gain local contacts. If you want to join, feel free to check out the link.
The first gathering will be at the Nags head pub, wednesday 21st July from 7:30 pm. Drop me a line if you fancy dropping by.
Cheers
Steve
Following screenings at SXSW, CANNES, and winning the Best Film Prize at the Boston Underground IFF, Red White and Blue gets its UK premier at 6:30 Pm on 30th August at the main screen of The Empire in Leicester Square as part of the Film Four Fright Fest.
Be warned this film is very disturbing. It starts slowly, giving you time to engage with the characters before events spiral out of control. I think that one of the strengths of this film is that -Unlike standard Hollywood fare- there is no clear good or evil, just very flawed people living with the bloody repercussions of their own actions. If you want to categorise it, you could draw a lot of parallels with the Jacobean strand of the revenge play genre. (so not your run of the mill slasher film) The film maintains lot of grey areas- the music remains unempathetic for many of the most extreme scenes.
I did this job through the Sonic Mix Audio Collective . So I handled the foley and dialogue edit, working alongside Vincent Watts who handled the Sound design and mix. There are bits of extrovert sound design care of Vince, but my brief was to maintain a documentary feel. The foley was kept really understated and wheras you would usually expect to replace large chunks of sync sound with polished post production, I kept as much as possible of the sync sound when handling the dialogue/sync edit. We stuck entirely to dialogue recorded on location, used no post sync looping sessions + tended towards layering up extra surround sound ambiences on top of existing ambiences recorded on set. Certain set pieces aside, the aim throughout the audio post process was to keep things sounding natural and complement the documentary feel of the picture.
Use the link below for details on how to get tickets etc.
Feel free to check out the Trailer (caveat emptor, the film would most definitely get an ’18’ rating)
Not my gig I hasten to add, but Skeletons – a film which was edited by Rachel Tunnard and Graded by Tom Balkwill – (we work together as the ‘Dirty Pretty Post‘ collective) – has won the Best British Film at Edinburgh film festival. I watched it through when I did some audio deliverables work on it (standard conversions and pitch correction). It totally deserved it. Skeletons will now get a small nationwide release and then fingers crossed from there.
Web site is:
http://www.skeletonsthemovie.com/
(Photos by Guy Corbishley except for Studio photo by Daren Bartlett.)
I recorded location sound out in Rio for this feature length documentary then returned to London to do the sound edit and mix from my own Studio. An installation with a 45 minute 5.1 field recording and music installation based around the film has been on tour round the Nike Stadiums in the build up to the World Cup, there have also been a few preview screenings of the feature before it gets wider distribution.
Bantam Films Website (Site for Cadencia Director Daren Bartlett and Producer Abigail Clarke)
Cadencia Installation Article (Newspaper distributed alongside Cadencia Sound/Visual installation that toured Nike Stadiums)
Below I’ve written a little on the location shoot and audio post process & thrown in some stereo versions of the surround ambient recordings I made on location to help bring it to life. Hope it entertains.
Documentary Crew at Rio Carniva Shootl
Here’s the crew, about to start shooting back stage at the Rio carnival for the ‘Cadencia’ feature doc. If you look at the monopod being held by the Director (Daren Bartlet) you can see we were using the latest generation of Canon cameras. They look like a stills camera but shoot in full HD. Guy Corbishley took this photo and all the other stills I have posted in the Cadencia Section. If you like his work you can contact him at <gydec@lineone.net>
The Canon cameras were great as we could get in amongst the crowds and people would act in a far more natural way. The main brief on this part of the shoot was not draw too much attention to yourself and keep moving, Primarily because we wanted to observe people and not simply have people playing to camera, secondly because having such a small camera allowed you to get into angles that would be extremely difficult with an over the shoulder number, and thirdly because while the vast majority of people were there to have a fantastic time- as with any other mass gathering in any country- there would always be the potential for someone turning up to steal what they could and disappear into the crowd. We had a tight schedule and couldn’t afford down time.
Wired for Sound (on right), John Mcmullin -Colourist/Online Editor is onLeft
In the picture above I have tiny microphones hidden in my hat so that I can record general ambiences without drawing too much attention to myself & a gun mic up my sleeve . Also radio mics and a small boom pole stashed away in my bag incase we want to pick out anything in particular or grab a few Vox Pops.
The film wasn’t just about the Carnival- the aim was to look at core elements of Brazillian culture and put them in a wider social and historical context. In the shot above I am recording the Roda de Caxias. I edited the sound on Darens previous feature ‘O Zelador‘ which gives the story of this particular group in far more depth. It felt strange to be amongst people I had only seen and heard in my Studio back in the UK.
Wheras O Zelador had been shot over many years, Cadencia was turned around end to end in a matter of weeks, so in instances like this it was simply a case of getting a briefing on what the director wanted , grabbing a taxi, setting levels on the fly and going for it. For a lot of the shoot I had to react very quickly to get the best recording of whatever I found in front of me. In this instance It was clear that I couldnt put a stand down as it would probably receive a flying kick from one of the capoeristas, also they were performing in a square surrounded by traffic, so I had selected a microphone that would record a 90 degree stereo angle around me, then a shot gun which I could use to pick whoevers turn it was to be the lead singer, record it in Left, Centre, Right and mix down/ master in post production. All things considered I was pretty happy with the results. I’ll need to make a few phone calls to check all is OK with the group but am hoping to make a CD demothat they can sell/distribute at their meetings and maybe post an audio clip on this blog as- silky Capoeira moves aside- they sing and play really well.
To the left is yours truly back in the UK doing the Mix and Sound Design in my studio. On most features I work as part of a larger team, but in this instance the turn around and nature of the shoot meant that I was in the best position to complete on schedule (I had recorded the sound and lots of wild tracks so was on top of where to find rushes.Vincent Watts– my usual partner in crime- had his hands full mixing the 45 minute sound installation using the sound I had recorded.
The microphones you can see in the foreground were set up to do foley- Daren wanted to heighten the drama in the film by contrasting the preparation for events (eg 10 months of costume preparation by Clovis groups- Rios very psychedelic version of clowns) with the vibrant recordings the events themselves; crowds at football matches, fireworks and massive PAs that make your fillings shake. When people gather in Brazil, there’s usually some kind of music playing in the background which made editing things pretty tough in places- in some instances I took sound props home with me (eg kites) and got clean recordings of them fluttering, or devised foley props of my own to stylise or heighten the sound when the film slipped into a dream state.
Hello! I am Stephen Goldsmith (otherwise known as Mr Steve) and this is my website.
The tabs at the top supply info about me Feel free to have a poke about for more information on kit lists, verification of film track record via my IMDB profile, skill sets formal or click to download my
CV etc
The links on the left give updates on films I am working on a
The blog feature and extras tab are an informal way of distributing side projects and field recordings to friends, family and anyone whose boat it floats. Also I’ll give plugs to projects that I’ve stumbled across through work that I have enjoyed.
Am hoping that once I get the formal stuff out of the way + give a bit of background on who I am, I can fade into the background and concentrate on writing about films and audio stuff that are of more interest.
I actively got into music when I found a trumpet in an attic aged 6. Several days of train impressions later, I had harassed my parents into shelling out for music lessons to make the bad noise stop. I am now 34 and I have my own sound proof bunker where I make noise for a living.
I got a music scholarship aged 11. Took up the double bass (another burden for my long suffering parents to cart around) and promptly used the free weekly music lessons to avoid maths lessons for a year.
After school I took a BA in English Lit, got a rudimentary sampler+ sequencer set up and blagged my way onto as many subsidiaries in electronic music/ experimental music and composition as possible without getting lumbered with writing pastiche Bach Chorals. This lead to a PG Dip and MA in Sound Design for the Moving Image.
I Started working professionally in audio post production in 2000. After proving that I had no flare for tea making I got a break doing mag transfers of the BBC sound archive, then worked my way up through at large Soho facility house over four years, mostly working on Paramount titles as an audio mastering and restoration engineer .
I then teamed up with Vincent Watts to form Sonic Mix, an audio team specialising in independent features) forming my own company – Mr Steve Productions Limited- and subsequently building my own studio.
Together we have completed 20 films so far, an increasing proportion of which are winning prizes.
My trumpet playing went down hill when I left school, my sister has since borrowed it indefinitely and uses it to teach 6 year olds how to annoy their parents.
