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From the Other Side – Smithy Our Sound Guy has Nowhere to Hide!

Nick Smith is our go to sound guy for every project that needs incredible effects, stunning soundtracks and that little bit extra. Full of enthusiasm despite more years of experience than he’d care to admit, we really wouldn’t choose anyone else.

This week, we’ve invited Nick to let us in on his side of the senses, with his no holds barred blog that shows how this genius composer, songwriter and musician works. Over to the Sound Guy!

One day last year my mate Harniman comes up to me and says –

“ere, you know that van of yours, how do you fancy coming on a jolly with me and a bunch of mates on a charity cycle from John O’Groats to Lands’ End? Bring the van and every time we fall off you can serve us an ice cream out of the back!”

Why, oh why did I let myself in for it?

Have you ever tried driving almost 1000 miles behind 5 push bikes? Worse still, behind cross dressing ugly blokes? The image of those pulsating a**es is indelibly etched on my visual cortex, please someone find the delete button and empty the trash!

BUT, truth be told it was a hoot and we managed to film every painful mile into the bargain. While Dr Jim, the expedition doctor and all round funny guy, was serving up tea and cakes every couple of hours, I was transferring a ridiculous number of bits and bites to my creaking, steam driven lap top, so the un-cut version has blown You Tube off the cyber planet with a 100 hour epic – and a stunning total of ZERO views!

Little did I know this was the cunning fox’s way of buttering me up for a shed load of music and soundtrack jobs later in the year, all of which have been a laugh a minute – for me that is, extracting the nitrogenous waste products from afore mentioned photographic charlatan (I’d never admit to any praise of his artistic efforts, haha 🙂

Next up was filming crazy nutters driving very fast up a vertical hill before rolling back to the bottom again – what’s that all about then??

Take a look –

It must be said; Whizzo is a top man and deserves total respect to get a priceless Lotus Buick up and down in one piece! It was great fun doing the soundtrack for this one and collaborating with fab singer ‘Zynia’ – have a listen – there’s more to come from her very soon. I know it says ‘Louella and the Elementals’ on the movie, that was a previous and now defunct incarnation, it’s Zynia’s unmistakable vocals, I promise 🙂

Then there was music or soundtracks for –

Lamborghini Aventador

Nissan Qashqai

Snow Drifting in Wales

The Engine Craftsman

It was all good fun as we plunged inexorably towards the GREAT ESCAPE – no Steve McQueen didn’t go Demented on the Harniman estate and fly his crazy cruiser over the garden gate – that was another story – another fine mess his highness conned me and my pal Tony Chance into! See later if you can contain yourself.

It turns out His Royal Highness, no, not Harniman, but proper royalty, our most gracious and noble monarch, his actual Royal Highness, King Charles II was on the run from his defeat at the Battle of Worcester on Sept 3rd and was hiding in Harniman’s back garden, cunningly concealed in a huge oak tree. ?I kid you not we have the movie to prove it!!

Luckily the parliamentarian soldier didn’t find him as anyone harbouring Royalty on the run is instantly put to the sword. I did try and give the soldier the heads up but he was far too busy crashing around in the undergrowth and Harniman got off the hook again typical 17th Century Fox! Now there’s an idea – mm 🙂

Behind the scenes – The Escape

Fast forward to the New Year, phone rings –

“It’s Harniman”

groan!

“I’m putting a shoot together mate, meet me at Lawrence’s Recycling in Kiddy and get Chancey to bring his Box Brownie!”

You’ve guessed it – we turned up and spent the day paddling in slurry run off from the biggest pile of industrial waste you have ever seen in your life – even the rats were wearing gas masks! So Chancey, the retro maniac, loads up his antique with some funny celluloid stuff and starts clicking.

Demented shoot

Who on this planet would christen their bike ‘Demented’ – no not christen -‘Satan’- that’s it -he ‘satanised’ his bike, pity he didn’t ‘satanise’ the location, which deserves it’s place in hell, worse still I never got to ‘Evil’ Knievel (pun intended) it up the effluent ramp! Me and Tony had great fun with the soundtrack though with Mr Chance gracing his newly acquired biscuit tin drum set and me sliding about on my trusty axe, we were off cruising down route 666 to hell & back 🙂

If you’ve managed to read this far, the fruit cakes are on you. Thanks for making it to the end, you deserve a medal.

Take it easy,

Nick

Please take a moment to support one of my favourite charities Reef Conservation Mauritius. Take a look at the short movie (top of the Reef videos page) I did for them a few years ago, apologies for the voice over, any volunteers to replace me most graciously accepted 🙂

http://www.nicksmithproductions.co.uk/NickSmithProductions/REEF.html

http://www.famouself.co.uk/