Standout Sounds from 2024

It’s been another smashing year at Jungle Studios. As usual, the projects have been varied, the challenges have been plenty, and the sound designers have been on hand to pull it all off with finesse. We spoke to the sound designers themselves to find out which of the many briefs that came through their doors stood out for them and why. 

TNT Sports - UEFA Finals

Chris Turner> For director Robbie Samuels' TNT Sports’ UEFA finals film, I had the pleasure of sound designing an electrifying soundscape: roaring crowds, thunderous kicks, fireworks exploding, and deafening goal celebrations. The crescendo halts to eerie silence, revealing an empty stadium pierced by a crow’s caw. The tension flips to bemused pundits as they react to Brian Cox’s wildly intense buildup. For Robbie, this was an ambitious shoot with very little time and an all-celebrity cast. The wonderful thing about working on this was that I did it in my garden studio over a weekend and Robbie came to my house; we had lunch together and then went to play basketball in the park with my son. 

Meridian - You're Not a Number (DC)

Luke Isom> In a dystopian world where everyone has a number, not a name, it was a fun challenge to make everything sound exceptionally bleak. I added discordant atmospheres that clash with the music and background crowd walla that are low whispers, mumblings, and grumblings rather than positive chatter — everything to make the scenario seem exceptionally grim.

Despite trying to create a sense of unease, everything still had to be grounded in reality to make it a believable scenario, which proved to be the real challenge. The first few passes were a bit too detached from reality.

Knorr - The Veg

Ben Leeves> The challenge of recreating unique soundscapes for the different video games was lovely. The thing about video games now is that they are fully immersive soundscapes akin to Hollywood movies — gone are the 8-bit bleeps! So, I watched a fair amount of Twitch gamers for each style of game, then created our own bespoke ones.

Tango - Warden 

Ben Leeves> Hopefully the second of a trilogy!! A foley dream! Ben (director) and George (ECD) had a real vision of how the sound should work. The idea was to highlight the movements and prison ambience to create almost a dance track that our main protagonist moves to when he is being 'Tango'ed. So, lots of time was spent in the studio recording movements. Also, our engineers jumped in to bolster the vocal wall throughout. The sirens at the end added to the feeling of dancing to everyday sounds. Then it was a case of spending a long time balancing out the sounds to give us a real depth and focus.

Jords X Christian Aid - Hold On To Hope

Sean Mahoney> It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Impero and Jords on the track ‘Hold On To Hope’. Mixing the incredible vocals of the iNSIGNIA choir was definitely a highlight. We wanted to incorporate some sound design elements that highlighted the issue of conflict and getting that balance right without it becoming overpowering was crucial. It was such a rewarding project, especially knowing it supports such an important cause and raises awareness for communities affected by conflict.

Pixar - Dream Productions Series

Stuart Allen Hynd> Over the last three years I've been recording Richard Ayoade for the Dream Productions series. It's been surreal seeing the audio come to life, as all I know are the lines we are recording without much of an understanding around the narrative, look, and feel.

So, to finally see it come out and hear the lines I have recorded now makes so much sense.

Pixar is very specific about the setup, as we need to have a camera running capturing the lip movements for lip sync purposes and a backup recording in case the main recording fails. A real pleasure to be a part of overall.

Ezra Collective - God Gave Me Feet For Dancing

Stuart Allen Hynd> Adding some additional sonic touches to this music video really felt like a full-circle moment. Having met the band six years ago on a flight back from Switzerland, it felt surreal to work on this project. The track is wicked, and Tajana, the director/ choreographer on this, did such a good job harnessing the performance; the sound design was the icing on the cake.

Tems X Essence Magazine

Stuart Allen Hynd> This collab was really cool, as the initial brief was for some music that had tonal sound design elements, with a nod to Tems and the afrobeat scene. We worked closely with director Yasser, sharing ideas frequently, to make sure we were both aligned on sound selection and feel. It was really great to see this project through from the music, sound design, and mix.

Cure Usher - The Touchable Memory

Stuart Allen Hynd> I really enjoyed crafting the sound for this film and the challenge of making a sonic bed from the point of view of someone with limited hearing and sight. Usher syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that results in a combination of hearing loss and visual impairment, and at present it is incurable.

The film is emotional and depicts what it's like to have the syndrome.