The Apple and Biscuit Show

In this episode, Neil and Jason talk to Russ Hughes , who founded the Production Expert blog nearly 20 years ago. Now it attracts over 7 million viewers a year: and all of them drawn to the Expert website by the blog's justifiable reputation for trustworthy, relevant and topical free content for audio-post and music studio professionals. Five years ago, in the midst of Covid, Production Expert ran...

Over a 30-year career, UK indie Producer and Director Pip Piper has Produced nine feature documentaries, including 'Mountain Biking: The Untold British Story' and 'Bicycle', both with two-times BAFTA winning director Michael Baig-Clifford; directed six feature documentaries, including the music industry trilogy 'Last Shop Standing', 'The Vinyl Revival' and 'Long and Winding Road'; and Exec Produce...

Jonathan Glazier is one of the television industry's leading lights in television Light Entertainment. Over a 40-year career, Jonathan has directed and produced some of the most popular TV shows, such as 'Stars in Their Eyes', 'Gladiators', 'The Weakest Link' and 'Asia's Got Talent' (and he has the awards to prove it). He has the rare experience of firstly consulting to, and then leading, one of t...

Mark Franken is the double Emmy-winning creator of the sound editing software tools EdiCue, EdiLoad and EdiPrompt; products that since their inception in 2007, have come to be indispensable to dialogue editors, supervising sound editors, ADR recordists and re-recording mixers working in the sound for moving pictures sector. They are now the industry standard protocols for the organisation, exchang...

Dr Iain McGregor is an Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University, specialising in interactive media design and auditory perception research. His PhD in soundscape mapping examined how sound designers' expectations compare with listeners' experiences.   With over 30 years of experience, he has worked across film, video games, theatre, radio, television, mixed reality, robotics, and auditor...

In the last of his mini-series of three documentaries recorded on a recent trip to the UK, Neil visits the home of the National Film and Television School at the historic Beaconsfield Film Studios in Buckinghamshire. On his visit, he is given unprecedented access to the workspaces, students, lecturers and visiting professionals that make NFTS such a unique establishment.   Neil talks to Stephen Ho...

In this documentary, Neil looks at the emergence of location sound recording for cinema and one of the significant technological developments that enabled this.   Starting with the Italian neorealism movement of the late 1940's, the desire for dialogue authenticity gained hold in 1950's Hollywood films. This and the artistic truth of French New Wave filmmaking in the 1960's led to the indispensabi...

In this episode Neil and Jason speak with Dr Jesse Budel, a composer-performer, sound artist, academic and arts entrepreneur based in South Australia. As a composer, his works are for diverse media and spaces, ranging from concert works and installations to community and interdisciplinary collaborations. Jesse's PhD research at the Elder Conservatorium of Music focussed on adapting soundscape ecol...

In this documentary, Neil travels back to his home town of Birmingham to learn more about what he considers to be the city's best kept cultural secret – Grosvenor Road Studios: the family-run sound facility that came to be known as 'Birmingham's Abbey Road'. Still in operation today, the studios were founded 80 years ago by John Taylor, and his business partner Charles Hollick, to record music - w...

In this episode, Neil and Jason talk to behaviour analyst Michelle Mills-Porter, about the challenges faced by creatives: particularly freelancers who work in ad-hoc teams and find themselves having to adapt to others' behaviour. Through understanding our own driving forces, Michelle explains how we can realise the powerful potential within us all to reap the rewards of our own unique, valuable, a...

In this episode, Neil and Jason talk to the prolific British composer David Lowe about his rise to success and his musical milestones along the way—from work experience at BBC Radio Birmingham to composing the BBC theme that has heralded the corporation's global news output for more than 25 years. With familiar theme tunes for internationally syndicated TV programmes such as 'Grand Designs' and '5...

In this episode (Part 2 of 2) Neil and Jason talk in-depth and 'totally technical' about the musical Wicked with the Oscar-winning Production Sound Mixer Simon Hayes and on set music editor Josh Winslade.  We discuss the creative decisions behind Simon's sound recording strategy, his timing and justification for switching to digital radio mics and the low-down on how a great relationship with the...

In this episode, (Part 1 of 2), Neil and Jason talk in-depth and 'totally technical' to the Oscar-winning Production Sound Mixer Simon Hayes, and on set music editor Josh Winslade, about their complex and unique playback and recording arrangements for capturing live vocals and authentic performances from lead actors Cynthia Erivo and Ariane Grande; as well as providing an insight into how to keep...

Dr Mark Deeks is someone who likes to challenge our assumptions about music, and in particular Heavy Metal, which he suggests has more than a passing resemblance to folk music (as someone with a Ph. D. from researching Heavy Metal music, he's able to say). But not only is he a Heavy Metal performer with his band Winterfylleth and as a solo artist, he's also a piano teacher, a musical director for...

British Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Stephen Griffiths is responsible for some of the most intelligent and entertaining soundtracks of the last two decades or more, seamlessly moving between multi-million-dollar movies and high-end television dramas. In this episode Neil and Jason are in conversation with Stephen about his role in helping to create one of the most complex yet subtle...

In this episode (part 2 of 2), Neil and Jason talk to the Oscar-winning Production Sound Mixer Simon Hayes about the work-ethic he learned from filming with his father, Production Sound Mixer John Hayes; other Production Sound Mixers that have inspired him; the importance of a life lived outside of the film business (to both your health and your finances); and his close and long-standing friendshi...

In this episode (part 1 of 2), Neil and Jason talk to Oscar-winning Production Sound Mixer Simon Hayes about his demanding work on location film sets and deep-dive into Simon's philosophy and approach to modern location recording techniques. We discuss the importance of a fully-digital signal chain, the understanding with directors he establishes at the beginning of each project and the very diffe...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to the Oscar-winning supervising sound editors and sound designers, Nina Hartstone and John Warhurst, about their work and specifically, in-depth about the sound design considerations for the feature films Les Miserables , Gravity , Cats , Bohemian Rhapsody and the documentary of David Bowie's life, Moonage Daydream . Whilst the David Bowie vinyl album cover o...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to 'Mr. Loudness', Mike Thornton, about the issues of television programme loudness and dialogue intelligibility. Why is the background music too loud? Why can't the viewers hear what the actors are saying? And why are films so loud in the cinema? In a comprehensive and compelling journey starting with radio transmission concerns in the 1930s, to the present-d...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to emerging Australian sound designer Andrew Dean about his work, in particular the award-winning films 'Mud Crab' (written and directed by David Robinson-Smith), 'Gorgo' (directed by Veniamin Gialouris) and the forthcoming feature film 'Salt Along the Tongue', (directed by Parish Malfitano), that Andrew sound designed and mixed. Andrew describes his journey f...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to  Julian Treasure , the author and presenter of several of the most viewed TED Talks of all time, including 'How to Speak So People Want to Listen' which has been viewed more than 150 million times. A self-proclaimed 'listening evangelist', Julian shares remarkable insights into the ways in which conscious listening brings about positive change both in perso...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to American indie filmmakers Sebastian Pigott and Lizabeth Yandel about their latest film,  Bring It All Back Home as it nears completion. They delve more deeply into the challenges Sebastian as the director and Lizabeth as the sound editor faced in production and then subsequently in post-production. It's an experience to inspire all filmmakers! (Explicit lan...

In this episode , Neil and Jason talk to Philip Belcher about his career as one of Australia's most successful, but possibly least recognised, technology sector CEOs. Philip's behind-the-scenes stories and strategies when managing multi-national companies such as NEC and Cisco Systems makes riveting and relevant listening for sole traders, freelancers and small companies alike; as does his fascina...