If you can believe the silly local media, New Zealand was apparently hit by a ‘weather bomb’ this weekend. For some reason newspapers and news media websites picked up the phrase and ran with it, subtitling every photo of a…

Prompted by Nathans post about rattling windows I thought I’d dig some files out of my library/archive that are related, but self generated rather than naturally occurring. But first the back story as to why I made these sounds…. Back…

I needed to record some trampoline jumps for the Cirque film and one of the sound effects editors went & got some great material from a big trampoline, but I also wanted to isolate the spring sounds, so we have…

There is one resource every sound designer & sound effects editor needs and thats a favourite props store. I don’t mean a hardware store, (although they can be invaluable as well) I mean a straight up junk store – preferably…

HISSandaROAR Blow Holes release April 14… Tortured Piano release April 28 btw at Castlepoint those were just two random strangers “just being nosey’ – I gave them the headphones, while I boomed for them….. “sounds like thunder!!” Funny thing was…

It rained & drizzled & rained all Saturday, so much so that Pihas Lion Rock occasionally disappeared   Frustrated at not being able to record the sounds I was here for, I reverted to shooting photos… but in the back…

Rain has so much character, but you sometimes only really appreciate it when you are away from your usual environment. Rain in Wellington tends to be either light & mildly chilly when its Northerly, or icy cold when its from…

Recording wind drafts approx 11pm – above photo was taken the next morning… The wind was hitting the front of the house and if I left the front slider door open a bit, and then opened the window the mics…

    I arrived at Castlepoint about an hour before I took the photo above – I’d carted all my gear into the house I was renting, made a few drinks & then noticed the sky was kinda red outside.…

This was stage one of what turned out to be a seriously delicious coconut curry! Recorded with Samu at Manunu Village in Samoa… Suspect I might have to buy a copy of this award winning book Me’a Kai to learn…

I did a few lengthy recordings of night in Samoa eg rolled for 2 hours when I went to bed, set an alarm for 3am, rolled for 2 more hours, set an alarm for 5am, rolled through dawn… This is…

The variation from these blowholes was huge – here’s a waveform grab of a four minute sequence: Having been there for a while you could predict how big each blast was going to be, by the height of the approaching…

What worked and what didn’t? What got used lots and what didn’t… What was critically important and what wasn’t… What did I take & never use, and what did I not take ? Maybe to start off with I should…

I shot this video not because it is a fantastic sounding ambience – the roar from the reef is fairly dominant & diffuse – I shot it because it was such an amazing place to go for a swim on…

My morning ritual: transferring data off four devices. First to the laptop, then cloning to two external drives…. Alofaaga Blowholes, Taga Village – I was looking forward to recording these and I sure wasn’t disappointed! I timed it right for…

Spent an hour or so at Tufutafoe, Falealupo Peninsula, Savaii (No sound was recorded here, but the memory is indelibly imprinted – eerily quiet & still) Was listening to Codex off the new Radiohead album while transferring these photos… The…

Bliss! These buses are the main form of transport in Samoa for a lot of people and they make me smile every time I see one approaching; apart from the great paint & decorations they always, and I mean always,…

Talofa! So far I’ve been in Samoa for five days, recorded 84GB of audio, shot 307 photos, and have a LOT of stories to tell! But some photos will have to suffice for now… This is why I always sit…

Crossing time zones is a funny, disconcerting concept – I’ve always enjoyed arriving… & then savoured the psychological adjustment of actually arriving. A few hours of time lag is fun – you can instantly stay up (or get up) a…