2011 in review

It has been an amazing, if a tad difficult, year. I feel very lucky (and somewhat proud).

The work

At the start of 2011 I decided not to say "no" to any work. Whatever it was, I had to find a way to do it, preferably avoiding working for free. For the most part this happened, and the year saw anything from three-day projects all the way to the end of a three-year one. All word-of-mouth (my credo), it was also quite diverse, ranging from TV station branding, through sound-art, to iOS interactivity; as well as the usual - short films, sound for CG/animation.

Excluding some under NDA, here are a few projects that deserved listing:

№1 most challenging - "The Silverstone Chase" (INK)

Created for Santander/McLaren F1 Team, I was happy the incredible people at INK brought me in to fill a triple role: on-set sound recordist, post-production sound effects editor, and music composer. Every detail on this was fascinating, but my favourite is a fond memory of casually sitting on some stairs in the sunny town of Ruse, Bulgaria, shooting the finished mix files up in the cloud. That's how I prefer to work: Clear brief and assignment, lots of trust, then let me do it whenever and from wherever. Watch on Youtube

Most fun to do - Ogilvy Lab "Soundshower"

What do you do if you're given an ultrasonic super-directional loudspeaker and access to a heavyweight advertising agency's marble offices? Spray that space with the sound of birds, crickets, and all sorts of other romantic, non-business creatures and things, not found in the city soundscape, of course.

Unexpectedly fruitful - "The Future by Airbus" (Clay Interactive)

Beats me why ad agencies fail to budget sound in, but they sometimes do, and then it's down to the smaller studios to sort it out, and when they get in touch, I'm having to ask that we think of a way to make this happen. Clay not only listened, they also passed the message on, came up with the budget, and allowed me to contribute to an iOS app they did for Airbus.

Top remote project - "Afterlight" 3D (directed by James Uren)

Never underestimate the power of a good script, to get everybody through, without lengthy face-to-face discussions, talking about the work, instead of doing the work. Maybe the fact that there were sound notes, and that James understands the sound angle perfectly, helped a good deal. Plus he was patient.

Most demanding: "Silverstone: The Wing" (INK)

Much as I can sympathise with clients referencing scores from $200M+ films, and expecting to pay in very few digits, it's a great shock when a visual editor temps with a similar scale score, then I get video masterfully cut to truly special music, which I have to replace, after I've quoted for both music and sound design. Temp love at its worst. Watch on Vimeo

Looking back

The year also saw me put on a project manager hat once. That fence is not a spot to my liking as usually one gets stuff thrown at them by both client and team. But that same spot allows one to figure out vital things about budgeting and basically man up in no time when it comes to pitching, organising, and doing the work.

Finally, late in 2011, I had a project fail halfway through. It was a complex affair and blame could get thrown around a lot, but it made me realise how unprepared (but also how unwilling) I am to fail a client. The last time anything similar happened I made a conscious decision to solidify and straighten my knowledge, and never let anything similar happen. But these things do happen; to my surprise the creative studio were nice to me, and I learned that sometimes it's out of my hands (though I'll never stop believing it wasn't).

In hindsight, when everything is much much clearer, I could have avoided a few of these things by just listening to my gut more closely, saying "no" on time, and not saying "yes" to so many things. But as I said at the beginning, saying "no" was last resort throughout the year.

I think not saying "no" made things great, but only so much. It also allowed me to get a good feel for when I should be saying "no". Hopefully I can now fulfil my next year's resolution: Focus

Looking forward

I am not only optimistic for 2012. I'm certain it will be the best yet. 90% of making this happen is avoiding the mistakes of 2011 (and 2010, 2009, and so many other). The other 10% is luck and meeting people. True, the year has been successful, but going forward I'll still shake things up a bit:

• Take the first few months easy. Sounds crazy given the economy, right? Not really. How do you focus without slowing down? I want to shake off December's stress, and allow my mind to think clearly.
• Follow my instincts more. Avoid things like working for free, meeting crazy deadlines or silly demands. Seriously, so often my gut knows better than I do, it's embarrassing.
• Put a fresh showreel together. I generally take it as a good sign when someone hasn't got a fresh reel (they've been busy), it has been far too long.
• Get into interactive projects. I know how to program all sorts of things. And I've learned to distinguish between actually being creative and merely coding.
• Record more sounds.
• Run a short-form blog. (Class this text as huge now.) Not an easy decision, as I thought I have nothing to add to the dozen(s) of sound blogs out there but have gradually changed my mind. I'll make sure I don't repeat anything already said.