My
name is Oliver Hollis and this fall I worked with the folks at Studio Unknown,
shadowing the engineers and producers of feature film production audio and music
recording. Studio Unknown is a full fledged recording, foley, and mixing
studio. For about a year now I have been heavily interested in sound production
and I reached out to Jason Sloan, head of MICA’s sound concentration, and asked
him if he knew about anybody this coming year that needed free help in a
recording studio. He directed me to Studio Unknown.
The
two people I worked most closely with were Mandisa Henry, the office manger,
and Stephen Antonelli, the owner of SongBuilder Studios, which shared the space
with Studio Unknown. I am interested in Music production and mixing and worked
closely, for the couple of months I was there, with Stephen. Stephen works with
artists from rap to country to music production for film trailer. He is a
versatile producer and engineer and I learned a great deal from him. If there were
no clients in the room, he would always walk me through his process during
production or mixing and while there were clients in the room he made me feel
welcomed and integrated. The environment of a recording studio is supposed to
be a relaxing place in which people can let ideas flow seamlessly. Stephen
would always do whatever he could do ensure the customers comfort while working
to achieve the sound that they want. I am most proud of the knowledge I gained
so quickly. Walking in to Stephens studio on the first day while he was working
with a band, I hardly knew what any of the hardware and terminology they were
referring to was exactly. After my time there, the last couple session with artists
I found myself able to inject some of my own input and suggestions confidently
because I knew about what Stephen wanted to achieve and a better overall
understanding of production terminology.
I
feel confident in my career as an audio engineer at some point. I think that
even though my educational background is not geared directly towards that,
there is a lot to be said about the wholesome creativity that GFA has provided
me and then taking that to a very specific environment like a recording studio.
At first, I was very in the dark, but after being able to relate things in the
process of music production to things like painting and photography and seeing
how I work in those things and translating them to audio, I saw an endless
palette that can be fueled from
tons of different directions.
