Sound Design & Production
(Postgraduate)(P409)
Without a sound designer to create the perfect soundscape, the film, television and game industries are incomplete. Applying the technical and conceptual aspects of sound, students become audio storytellers working alongside visual production artists to recreate the real world in a digital context. Students have been asked to create a thesis project wherein they produce sound designs for videos, online/interactive experiences, games or other large-scale audio projects in order to showcase their strengths.
2020 Graduates
"Without a sound designer to create the perfect soundscape, the film, the television & game industries are incomplete."
Broderick Ashcroft
Broderick Ashcroft (he/him/they) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work questions the makings of traditional art through a technological lens. He explores the application and relationship of several mediums to strengthen the conceptual foundation behind his work.
Having completed Sound Design and Production at George Brown College, Broderick also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Media, Information and Techno–culture, and a minor in Art History and Fine Art. He continues to investigate theoretical practices when producing various pieces of work to build unique and cohesive designs.
Soup (2020)
How does one perform under the conditions of a worldwide pandemic? This question is the foundation of Soup (2020), an immersive multimedia experience that parallels Covid’s conditioned reality. Examining the subject matter’s altered social implications, disconnection and socio-environmental shifts, the project aims to mimic the pandemic’s influence on oneself.
The video responds to prevalent themes in response to Covid, including caution, the shift of social space and environmental transformation. The proponent of sound plays with this back and forth dynamic, following the emotional scale of the pandemic’s effect. The majority of sounds are reused and morphed into “synth soup,” mimicking the virus’s all-consuming expansion. The visuals detail the newly coined lexicon of Covid’s effects. This reference shows data collection, recorded to document the virus’s occurrence.
Eliza Daly
Eliza Daly is a Toronto based sound designer and composer. Born in the UK, she has grown up internationally, studying and fine-tuning her skills in several countries. Before arriving in Toronto, Eliza spent some time freelancing as a composer in the UK and working in The Gin Factory Studios alongside professional sound designers and music producers. With a passion for video games, Eliza has spent the past two years specializing in game audio and audio programming, with the intention of moving into this field in the future.
The Adventures of Larri and Meetball
The Adventures of Larri and Meetball is a character exploration set in post-apocalyptic Oklahoma. Along with concept art, this project is a prototype gameplay built from the ground up, using Wwise and Unity, with the intention of further development in the future. This work includes ambiences, weapon design, 3D emitters, collectible items and more. Utilizing her skills in sound design, C++ scripting, Wwise, and Unity, Eliza had the task of creating original gameplay that was both visually and audibly engaging.
Michaela Doyle
Michaela is a sound and visual artist based in the GTA. She has completed her BAH in Film & Media and Gender Studies from Queen’s University. She is passionate about sound effects and dialogue editing as well as audio world building for games and sound art.
Dusk to Dawn
This piece was a challenge, both creatively and emotionally as it tackles a personal experience with mental health. Michaela actively chose to do this as an attempt to confront her own perception of herself, which helped her to understand the depth of her own experience with mental health. This work is broken into three chapters; dusk, dark, and dawn, as an allegorical descent into darkness, followed by a struggle with darkness and ultimately succumbs to the duality of light and dark. This is not to say that mental health is a singular experience with one viewpoint, but a multifaceted and individualistic experience. Michaela hopes this work resonates with others and encourages a more realistic and honest conversation and portrayal of mental health.
Harleen Kaur
Harleen Kaur is a sound designer, dialogue editor and recording engineer who works with audio, video, and custom instrument samples. She currently holds a Bachelor in Music Composition and Computer Science, along with a Diploma in Sound Engineering and a Postgraduate Certificate in Sound Design at George Brown College. Some of her credits include sound design for brands, foley, and mixing for Indian Cinema. Harleen aims to work in the Toronto film industry as a post-production editor, freelancing in sound branding. She also intends to record more traditional Indian instruments, including vocal samples, to be used by anyone from any part of the world.
INDIA | FUSION SERIES
INDIA | FUSION SERIES is a unique sample-based virtual instrument piece made using the Native Instrument the Kontakt. It features Indian vocals with piano, offering composers a creative fusion toolkit of traditional Indian singing with a western instrument influence. The three instruments included in the library, Felt Piano, Indian Choir and Raga Vox were designed with a minimalist user interface for intuitive navigation. Indian Choir and Raga Vox Library are mapped with a variety of vocal samples which can be used in many different ways to create cinematic background scores.
Sean Meldrum
Sean Meldrum is a sound designer and composer based out of Toronto, Ontario. He is a recent graduate of George Brown College’s Sound Design and Production graduate program, where he was the recipient of the 2019 Opportunity Award. His recent credits include accompaniment for Tyler Muzzin’s public art installation, The Great Dark Wonder , a full sound treatment for the short , I’ll Be Back in a Week and the design for Dora-award-winning director Soheil Parsa’s production of Rhinoceros by Eugene Ieonesco. Meldrum also serves as the in-house sound consultant for Kingston theatre company, The Cellar Door Project, whose recent production of his radio play, Talk To Me, was called “a timely throwback” by CBC Arts (2020).
He recently released “Ghosts”, a confrontation of Canada’s indigenous genocide, under his musical project They’re Killing Each Other. Meldrum’s works in sound are tied closely to his extensive experience as a writer, director, and producer of stage and screen. He holds a BA with honours in Dramatic Art from Queen’s University.
Vampyr
Fascinated by how permanent objects are affected by time’s passage, Meldrum has reinterpreted Carl Dreyer’s 1932 expressionist horror film Vampyr, giving it a modern sound treatment and a brand new score. He approached the project as both a creative director and a technical engineer. While the pandemic presented many challenges to overcome, he “learned more by adapting to extraordinary circumstances than I would if all had gone to plan”. “I had a great time dragging Vampyr out of its crypt”.
Daniel Miller
Dan Miller is a dialogue editor, soundtrack composer, sound engineer, audio editor and musician with over a decade of experience working in studios in Toronto, New Jersey and Berlin. In recent months, he has been editing a number of weekly podcasts for the California-based media company, Mission.org.
Over the years, Dan has assisted producers and engineers with vocal and drum editing, synth patch design, drum programming, scoring, arranging and orchestration on over 80 recordings by over 60 artists including Lily Frost, SATE, Steven Page, Owl City and Danko Jones. He has worked on music used in advertisements for corporate clients like The Canadian Red Cross and Coca-cola. Before the pandemic, Dan had also been a touring keyboard player for a number of acts like Joydrop, Lily Frost and Digits.
B.D.R.M.
Dan Miller has provided the original score for B.D.R.M., a short film written and directed by Dylan Bulmer. B.D.R.M. follows an intruder over of the course of an evening’s startling events. Thriller?Comedy? You decide…
Deirdre Morrison
Deirdre Morrison is a sound artist, composer, and audio post mixer who works with audio, video, and 3D environments to create immersive digital settings. Deirdre edits, mixes, and composes for independent features, short films, and documentaries. Their collaborative projects have been screened at various festivals including the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film.
Deirdre produces experimental, electronic music and has performed at Pop Montreal and OXW.
Deirdre holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Ottawa and has completed programs in Music Industry Arts and Sound Design and Production. Their artistic practice is informed by an interest in new media and a fascination with the interaction between visual and auditory arts.
Life in the Boundary Layer
Life in the Boundary Layer is an audio-visual simulation of a moss ecosystem. The piece uses adaptive audio and C# scripting to calculate the viewer’s position in the scene and trigger ambisonic field recordings, synth compositions, Max/MSP samples, and real-time audio components. The visual aspect of Life in the Boundary Layer consists of a low-poly 3D environment created in Unity. 3D materials include plants of the boreal forest. Adopting a voyeuristic approach, the piece enables the viewer to float around, observing organisms rather than interacting. Visual cues are provided to guide the experience and direct the viewer’s attention to the subtle, audible movements of micro systems. Life in the Boundary Layer stresses the importance of listening and seeks to make the viewer aware of processes that are often difficult to perceive.
Anish Santo Arokiaraj
Anish Santo is a Sound Designer, Location Recorder & Post Sound Editor who turns imaginative soundscapes into reality. He did his Bachelor’s in visual communication from Loyola College, Chennai. In 2019, Anish moved to Canada to undertake PGDM in Sound Design at George Brown College, Toronto. He comes with more than 3 years of experience in the area of Production and Post-Production for Broadcasts, Short films & Documentary based Projects. His expertise also includes Digital Audio Restoration and he is known for pushing the envelope of spectacular Sound Design Integration in films.
Kadhal Kanave
The explanation for picking Audio Post – Production as my final project is to demonstrate that an individual can do all the sound works which incorporate S Dialog editing, Foley, Ambiences, SFX, and Final Mix & Master within a restricted time frame for short film-based ventures. This also enhanced my inward abilities to be a sound post editor. Considering that films are dialogue-driven, excellence in dialogue editing is essential to storytelling. I may begin my profession as a Dialog Editor and move towards becoming a re-recording mixer in the future.
Deepinder Singh
Deepinder Singh is a Toronto based producer and sound artist. He has completed Audio Post Production from Fanshawe College, London, Ontario and Sound Design & Production from George Brown College, Toronto. Over the years of his education, Deepinder Singh has gained experience in editing, foley, sound designing and scoring. He has also done field recording and post-production for short films. His ultimate goal is to work as an audio engineer and start his own production studio.
The Trip To The Moon
For his capstone project, Singh chose to score different genres using copyright free clips. He worked as an editor, foley artist, engineer and sound designer throughout this and other projects and has always wanted to pursue scoring in his portfolio. He is grateful for the supervisors who helped and pushed him when the times were difficult which helped to hone the skills he will continue to create with.
David Sutrin
David is a Toronto based sound engineer and music composer. He produces a variety of independent radio pieces and works as an audio editor and mixer on several weekly podcasts. He earned his B.A. in Radio and Television from Ryerson University in 2017 and completed his studies at George Brown College in the Sound Design and Post-Production program. While his interest in storytelling through sound design has led him to his current role, he has experience working personally and professionally as a sound recordist for film, music composer, sound artist, and record label assistant. David’s current work explores Java Script web coding and data-based audio programming. He is interested in further exploring non-linear music production using both traditional and contemporary programming languages.
Birth-Tone
Birth-Tone is an interactive frequency generator that uses planetary locationdata to produce a unique tone based on the birthday, time, and location of the user. Each frequency is produced using a conversion system that assigns a frequency(Hz) valueto each of the 12 zodiac signs. While there are many ways to link the zodiac to sound, Birth-Tone uses a system called “The Astronomical Scale” created by Roel Hollander. The Astrological Zodiac divides the calendar year into 12 parts. Each part correlates with the 12-Tone EqualTemperament. However, because the zodiacal constellations (i.e. signs) vary in size and shape, each of the 12 intervals varies in size/length. The data used for the length of each of these intervals was calculated by Juan Anthony Revilla and Pierre Bacchus in “L’Astronomie”(1979). With that data, you can assign a tone-span(1200 cents) to each interval.
Instructions-If you already know your birth chart: plug the data into the selection boxes.-If you do not know your birth chart: create one below.-Please make a selection for all boxes before clicking ‘Submit’.-Use the ‘Unknown’option if you’re unsure or do not have data for any selection box.-After submitting, your mouse position will act as a frequency modulator for your Sun Sign tone. Place your pointer the upper right corner of the screen to return to your neutral frequency.-Click the red button once to begin recording. Click again to stop recording. Click a third time to save your recording as a .wavfile.
Anita Yung
Anita Yung is a Sound Designer for animation and video games, based in Toronto and Vancouver. Anita’s work includes independent animation productions like Around The Block, and video games like SilkRoad. After working on the anime series, Black Jack(2017), and NHK’s WakuWaku Be Ponkickies, Anita was inspired to pursue animation audio collaborating with directors, animators and other sound designers. The creative experimentation of building a world from scratch is a challenge Anita has grown to love with each project. Originally a voice actor, Anita uses her former training as the foundation when working with talent and constructing the essence of a sound piece. When not sound designing a production, Anita, along with an animator, can be found writing and producing independent animated projects.
Around The Block – Episode #01: “A Secret Code”
Category: Animation, PSA Running Time: 1 minute Ages: 8-11
“Around The Block” is a pilot animated PSA series for children, created in response to COVID-19’s racism levels towards the Asian community and the Black Lives Matter movement. Inspired by CBC’s Heritage Minutes, this series promotes cultural appreciation and respect for the multi-colored fabric that makes up Canada. Through fun cultural facts, “Around The Block” encourages a child’s curiosity in cultural exchange, while breaking down barriers to create ethnic diverse friendships.