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Featured Corp Member: Sharpe Sound Studios & Television Inc.
Adam Sharpe
Your company motto is…
We strive to make only the best soundtracks for our clients. From the largest to the smallest projects and with our hands on approach, we’ll deliver a world class sound mix every time.
Tell us a bit about your company.
Sharpe Sound Studios and Television is the largest audio post-production facility in Western Canada and North of California. We have 5 Dolby Atmos HE mixing stages and Vancouvers largest Dolby Theatrical Atmos mixing stage. This gives us scheduling flexibility to manage multiple projects at the same time. This also allows our clients the opportunity to work on several different episodes of the same show or even different projects in the same facility.
How many staff members / freelancers do you employ?
We currently employ 16 full time staff and a plethora of top tier freelance sound editors to choose from to create the perfect soundscape our clients are envisioning. When we are near capacity we directly employ up to 50 creatives across our facility.
What are you working on right now?
We recently completed season one of Amazon’s new series “House of David” with season two currently shooting in Greece.“Earth Abides” was another Amazon project we just had the joy of working on. We also just completed Quest Love’s documentary SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) in collaboration with Network Entertainment streaming on Hulu which was a huge success at Sundance. We have a few Disney features in the works and two current series on Fox, Murder in a small town and Alert. Oh and I can’t forget about a little blockbuster called “Monkey Man” for Bron and Universal, that one was fun.
What is a favourite project that you’ve worked on, and why?
It’s hard to pick a single project, because at the end of the day it’s the clients that make the experiences memorable. Having built relationships with the same filmmakers spanning multiple decades is what we cherish the most. But don’t get me wrong, designing an incredible sounding action sequence still makes us smile every time!
What percentage of your work is with local vs. international clients?
In the past the majority of work we’ve done has been local, but over the last few years and with the countless environmental impacts we’ve witnessed like multiple labour strikes and recent fires, our international presence has taken off. For the first time in forever, post-production in Vancouver was busier than physical productions. Leaning on the capabilities of remote collaborations with our clients, the majority of our work was filmed outside of BC. However with cautious optimism, I see the city getting busy again on the production side which in the end is what we all want and need.
Are you a Mac/PC/Linux shop? Or all of the above?
Our stages run on Macs but our server infrastructure is PC based.
What software/hardware/plugins can you not live without?
Like most in our industry we rely heavily on Avid products. From our dubbers to our network servers, Avid integration keeps us running smoothly from stage to stage.
We are always looking at new and better ways of dealing with the challenges faced with less-than-ideal production audio. Acon, Izotope, Accentize, and others help keep the ADR count low. Trying out new plugins for creating compelling soundtracks is always being done. Soundtoys, FabFilter, Waves are just some of the software that finds its way into our sessions.
Are Dolby Atmos/Dolby Vision capabilities something you have or are looking into?
All of our current stages support Atmos and every stage we’ll build in the future will be Atmos. The ability to create endless levels of immersiveness for our audience is something as creatives we yearn for. I can barely envision a world without Atmos anymore.
What do you miss most about “in person” client sessions?
Actually, our in-person sessions have come back strong over the last year and it’s been nice. However we gained some incredible value from remote work in our industry in the form of trust and service reliability, but it’s been nice to see our long time friends face to face again and collaborate in person. Both have benefits that add value and significance and have their own efficiencies to a successful project.
How long have you been a VPA corporate member?
We were an original founding board member of the VPA at it’s inception over a decade ago. And we’ll continue to be a corporate member and sponsor of such a great alliance amongst some of the best filmmakers in the world.
