Killer Bits: December 2005

	Bo Ho Ho Party Party Party
	Gas Incorporates Business with Pleasure
	Fuel Becomes Two and then Three
	Stellar Opening in KL
	Your Bits - Studio News
	Christmas and New Year Dispatch Deadlines
	Special recipe request - Verity's Christmas truffles

Bo Ho Ho Party Party Party

Timms Tunes demonstrated the joy of giving in Adelaide, throwing a Christmas party for the entire industry, including other Adelaide audio post production studios. The Bo Ho Ho Christmas theme included a Punch'N Judy show, a magician, body painting and a 10 piece funk band Booty Juice featuring the talents of Timms Tunes' Justin Pounsett.

Guests were also treated to the world premiere of the Wolf Creek single "Broken and Twisted" which the studio's Justin Pounsett and Justin Astbury both collaborated on.

Sean Timms says "We wanted to kick the Christmas season off with a bang and set the standard and have everyone talking about the event for a while! "We invited people from other studios we've worked with before who are friends as well as competitors. We just wanted them to come and have a few beers, have a bite to eat and a bit of a dance on the dance floor if they wanted to and have a good time.

"Adelaide's too small to be petty. If we work together rather than against each other we can bring more work into South Australia and Adelaide and that's better for everyone."

Timms Tunes' Sean Timms, Mel Brook and Justin Astbury.

Gas Incorporates Business with Pleasure

Good Audio Sense threw a spectacular party in The Famous Spiegeltent in early December to officially announce its new name of gasinc.

More than 250 guests were kept entertained with a bizarre line-up of acts, including a female striptease magician and a half-naked male gymnast who performed acrobatics in a bath. Everyone had a great night and several stayers were still partying at 3am.

The new name for the studio follows the arrival of well known audio engineer Jason Murphy, who's bought a major share of the business from Rodney Lowe.

Jason's returned to Australia after five years working in Singapore with Song Zu and Discovery Asia.

One for the girls.	Lauren Essey (Whybins), Phil Van Bruchem (JWT), and Linda Honan (Clemenger).

Fuel Becomes Two and then Three

Stephen Renfree and Polly McGregor, formerly known as Fuel, are now re-named as gastoo to cement the relationship with gasinc. Ten months after moving into a new studio at Tide in Port Melbourne the building was sold, so the whole facility has been re-built and moved down the road. As well as a new name and a new home, gastoo has become three: award winning composer and sound designer Tristan Dewey has joined Stephen and Polly.

Stephen, Polly and Tide's Graham Pereira at The Famous Spiegeltent.

Stellar Opening in KL

Malaysia's deputy finance minister Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen officially opened the Stellar Group's new studios in Kuala Lumpur in November.

The studios are primarily for inflight division Stellar Interact but one of the four studios has been fitted out for Stellar Sound. The studios are based in a new area of KL called Damansara Perdana. The company has more than 20 clients, including Malaysia Airlines, Royal Brunei Airlines and Qantas.

Your Bits - Studio news

Paul Avery at Frodi's Mill and Laura Murray from Stellar both had a great start to Christmas. They each won one of three $1000 travel vouchers given away at the legendary RMK breakfast in Sydney earlier this month.

Timms Tunes has just finished installing several new computers and a new server to improve work flow and communications throughout the studio suites. Studios B and C now have desk-top PCs as well as their MACs, Mel has a new computer to assist in her new role as Timms Tunes' producer and the whole facility is connected through a central server which speeds up communication, allows file sharing in all studios and provides reliable back-up.

Tracks Post's sister studio Tracks Adelaide is celebrating its 6 month birthday this month. Tracks Adelaide Studio Producer Nicola Tate says local support has been great. "We'd really like to thank everyone who's worked with us this year. It's been overwhelmingly busy, but great fun." www.tracksadelaide.com.au

Song Zu's Abigail Sie has just returned to Sydney after spending three months in New Zealand working as a sound assistant on Peter Jackson's King Kong. While she was away the main studio was totally revamped. The old analogue console was replaced, the carpet was ripped up and replaced with floorboards and the old blue walls are now a bright white.

Ben Simpson, Tiger Sound's hot new engineer KO'd some tough competition on the awards night to snap up 5 AWARDs. He picked up one silver and two bronze awards for his TV sound design work on L&P and Playstation and two bronze for radio. A champion effort!

Meantime, Desktop Magazine has given the new Tiger website a big thumbs up. The site is featured as one of the best audiovisual journeys on the web. The website was designed by Soap Creative. www.tigersound.com.au

Shameless self-promoter Kearon de Clouet finished up at Tiger in early December after nearly seven years and is now freelancing as "makkinnoize." Kearon says he left Tiger to spend more time developing 3G content and working on DVDs and music videos. But he's always happy to hear from studios that need a pro-tools pro. www.makinnoize.com

Plush's Steve Hessell is spending Christmas with a growing family. Wife Tina gave birth to baby Ben in October, for a sum total of three sons.

Congratulations to Sam Hopgood and Rod Lowe from Good Audio Sense (now gasinc.) who were the first winners of the new Craft category in the Siren Awards. The spot "Hidden Bars" was for Tourism Victoria. You can listen to it on the Sirens website: www.sirenawards.com.au

Christmas and New Year Dispatch Deadlines

You don't need us to tell you that audio dispatch over Christmas gets hectic. What we can tell you is that radio networks are setting early deadlines for spots over Christmas and New Year.

The simplest way to keep deliveries running smoothly is to treat Thursday 22nd December as though it's the last full working day.

For regional stations, Regional RadioWorks has set an absolute final deadline of 10 am Friday 23rd, so it's probably wise to aim for close of business Thursday for all regionals.

If in doubt pop your spots in your Holding Pen and then we can send them for you. Please don't hesitate to call us if we can help you in any way.

Two key things to keep in mind:

1. Many networks now run two stations with one set of staff - so they have twice as much work to do during a normal week, let alone Christmas. The earlier you can get your clients organised, the less likelihood of something going wrong.

2. Please remind your agencies that there's no point dispatching audio without material instructions. Radio stations won't have time to chase missing material instructions, so if you bust a gut and get the spots there, but there are no MIs, the client's ads won't get to air.

As usual we'll be on deck over Christmas and New Year to lend a hand. The best number to call during this time is our 1800 FREAK OUT number 1800 003 155. Mobiles are: Dave - 0414 310 225 and Sandy - 0417 459 612.

Special recipe request - Verity's Christmas truffles

AudioNET® staff who shall remain nameless have suggested this recipe should be published in the Christmas spirit of giving.

450g Christmas pudding, 3 tablespoons brandy, 550g dark chocolate.

Crumble the pudding, mix in the brandy and roll into balls. Put the balls in the fridge for about 15 - 30 minutes to chill.

Melt the chocolate over a low heat. Roll the balls in the chocolate and put back in the fridge to set.

AudioNET® Thought For The Day

"Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall." - Larry Wilde.

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