OBSESSED WITH SOUND

We're delighted to speak with Simon Clark, Head of Production Sound at the National Film & Television School. Simon is a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute of Professional Sound (IPS) and a member of AMPS.

We'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Simon and Sound Team', for the recent BAFTA win for Wolf Hall'. As well as winning the Sound (Fiction) BAFTA, Wolf Hall also received RTS and RTS West of England nominations for best sound.

Simon Clark Head of Production Sound at the National Film & Television School

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IMDb Profile

Tell us a little about yourself.

Where are you based, what do you do? I'm based in North West London, and at the moment I'm both a production sound recordist and the Head of Production Sound at the National Film & Television School. This is a real departure for me, but it's fantastic and I'm having the best of times.

I've been in professional audio since I was 17 years old. I absolutely love my job, and everything to do with sound. The fantastic thing about coming to a place like this and doing what I'm doing now is the huge enthusiasm that my students have for the world of production sound. They have to go through one hell of a selection process to get here, and those who get through have to invest an enormous amount of time, energy and money.

They're full of enthusiasm, they're full of this absolute will to learn, and they just want to know more about the industry. That's enormously exciting for somebody like me, who's still into all the traditions and the knowledge and all the things that I've got, but at the same time witnessing the cutting edge of what's going on.

That sounds like an interesting dynamic. Given the traditions' of the industry and the way it's always been done (and being a practitioner in an environment where young people might want to put their own stamp on things and innovate), is that an easy thing for you to facilitate, or do you find it a challenge? I find it extraordinarily easy. It doesn't mean to say that we always get it right when they (the students) question us, and when they decide they want to do something in a different way but it is incredibly exciting. I think that it's a sort of microcosm of what's going on in the outside world really. There have been some landmark things that have happened the biggest one obviously being the transition to digital.

I find it's not a challenge at all; it's just extraordinarily exciting, and it's a very easy thing to get bound up in.

Just to go back a couple of years in that story then: how did you get into the Film & TV industry? I think it's probably quite a familiar story for people certainly of my generation. There is a tiny bit of nepotism in there.

Basically, I was slung out of school, my academic career was quite catastrophic, and I wasn't particularly interested in it but I was obsessed with sound. I'd been obsessed from the age of about nine or ten, when my father who was a film editor brought a tape recorder home. In the 1960s, a reel-to-reel (small reel-to-reel recorder) was pretty much the same as having a CD player or an iPod: people just tended to have them. I was just absolutely enchanted by the physical aspects of this thing, then as soon as he made a recording and played it back to me, that was it: I was lost for the rest of my life.

It's almost like an itch I have to scratch to make recordings and play them back. Or, if somebody else has made a recording, I have to play it back and I have to know what's on that medium. I can't help myself. So, that was it: I was lost, I made a mess of school and left under a bit of a cloud. My father went to see a man in a dubbing theatre (where he had dubbed some of the films that he'd cut), and said to him, Listen, the boy has left school. He's driving his mother and I completely mad: all he wants to do is talk about sound and tape recorders, he's spent all his money on tape recorders and microphones. Could you just take him on for a few weeks as a trainee, and knock it out of him? Make him sensible?'

So I went for 6 weeks, and then stayed for 7 years. I was in heaven! It's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Basically, I was slung out of school, my academic career was quite catastrophic, and I wasn't particularly interested in it ' Simon Clark

Tell us a little more about the journey from those early post-production beginnings to the long and impressive list of British dramas on your resume. One thing I noticed looking at your resume/IMDB profile was that the title that you have for certain productions has evolved over time I just wondered whether you could give a brief insight into these different credits (i.e. Sound Recordist', Sound Mixer' ) Basically, I'm a sound recordist'. You can call me what you want, but I am a sound recordist.

When I left the world of post-production and came out into the freelance world, I started off doing corporates' and little documentaries; things everybody starts off doing. Then I broke into the world of drama sometime in the late 1990s. Your job title may change, but it all means the same thing; it's not like you're doing anything different. AMPS The Association of Motion Picture Sound have a campaign to call Location Sound Recordists and Production Sound Recordists Production Sound Mixers'; that's what they want us to be called.

I'm completely happy with whatever it is, so there' s no journey' there really; it's purely what production decided to call me!

Looking at some of the productions that you have worked on and thinking perhaps of the environmental conditions what are some of the challenges for capturing great sound on locatio

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