Audio Matrix at The Refinery has scored an award at the Jackson Hole International Wildlife film festival for work completed on the Animal Planet film, Swamp Troops. Their top position in the Best Sound category was a triumph for the local team, especially considering they were up against big-budget industry top dogs BBC and Disney.
Creating award winning sound engineering for Swamp Troops had its challenges, particularly when pairing sound effects with different baboons (of all ages!), shot at numerous locations at varying times of the day.
“You can’t depend on unnatural library effects in a production of this standard,’ says Mark Phillips, sound editor from Audio Matrix. “Thanks to some great ground work by the production team at Road Media, we had access to hours of on-location sound effects which we used to create realistic atmosphere tracks and effects for the various scenes.’
The international win once again reveals that South African talent can stand its ground against the best of its international counterparts. “It was a huge honour to be nominated, let alone win,’ comments Mark, “It’s a great David and Goliath story for local sound engineers and facilities.’
Swamp Troops follows the story of competing troops of Baboons in the Okavango Delta and harsh realities of newborns as they struggle to make it to adulthood. To view a snippet of the film, visit http://films.jhfestival.org/trailers_2009/JH09_9300_SOUND_Q1.html
