FEB 2010

Hi Guys

Now's the time we have all been waiting for…(drum roll)…The Loner has come to life, episodes 1,2 and now 3 have been uploaded and I just wanted to take you back a few months to remind you of our journey (from my side) up until now.

Starting with the basic formalities, my name is John Pavlakos and I'm the main engineer on the Loner Project.  I have been heavily involved in music for the last 10 yeas, Recording, DJ-ing and playing in bands.  I've spent the majority of these years in and around recording studios with bands, solo artists, voiceovers for corporate advertising, setting up gigs, festivals and live TV broadcast.

About this time last year (spring 08) I was approached by my colleague Robert Write and asked if I would be interested in taking part in a long term project that he was creating.  This was a great opportunity to work close together with Rob and be involved with this exciting project.

When Rob showed me the outline of the project I have to admit that I was a bit daunted by the size of it, especially knowing that I will be the only engineer on the sound front.   I was faced with a challenge and the more I thought about it the more it grew on me especially being such a huge Sci-Fi, action and adventure fan, which made the proposal more appealing - plus the challenge would also give me an opportunity to work on a project I have never done before.  So there you go folks, before I knew it the partnership was sealed and I was off to the studio to start work.

The next stage of my story

"Phase One" was to record the characters' voices for all the episodes.  This was intense and at the same time a great laugh as Rob and I were in the studio for days recording all the characters.  The best part for me was meeting all the actors and also building a comfortable environment to record in.  Having Rob in the studio was great as he got the best out of the actors while we were recording - he is a good motivator - he helped us to bond as a team and nerves and 'butterflies' were easily overcome by a few laughs and good direction.

By the way, we recorded all the voices into Pro-Tools, through a variety of microphones and preamps at "H6FC Studios" London.  This was ideal for me as I have my own Pro-Tools rig in my home studio with lots of effects and processor plugin (God bless digital technology!) So once all the recordings were done I could edit in my own time with seamless compatibility.

With the voice recordings done, the creative post-production and fun stuff begins - synchronising the sound effects to the animation - space ships, missiles, bombs, lasers and all the cool sound effects that one expects to hear in a Sci-Fi action adventure.  The first 2 episodes were completed within timescale and with this, I found the best way for me to work - even though the first episode gave me a few tricky problems I have now overcoming them and I'm sure the others will follow an easier path. 

I have also been working very closely with team members Guy and Tobias who are composing the music that will feature throughout all the episodes.

My collaboration with Guy is going very well and I'm sure you will all enjoy the energetic punchy backing track for the animations to prove so.  We have also worked out a good workflow between our audio platforms that give us seamless integration (Guy Is running a Logic Pro setup). As soon as Guy has the music it's straight into the mix with all the other audio effects and foley sound.

This stage is very important as the sound must complement the visuals and will influence the mood of the scene. We will all be working very closely until all episodes are scored and the final pieces are complete and in use.

I have also worked very closely with Tobias recording some of the songs that will feature through the series. This was fun as we were experimenting with crazy microphone techniques during the recording of the tracks.

And to round up - once Rob gives us the latest episode we will all meet up, create new deadlines and crack on!  I'm really happy with the team Rob has put together and especially our workflow as a team - this gives me the confidence that the next 9 episodes will run as smooth as possible and if we do encounter any problems I'm sure it will be efficiently and effectively resolved together.

So guys this is my summary of the last 6 months(ish) and I'm sure you will enjoy.

…and as an exclusive, my view about what I like about The Loner is that there are no "good guys" as such they are all good and or bad, it's just who you relate to more. There is a character for everyone and each character believes they are doing the right thing - in a funny twisted way, perhaps that's how we all perceive life in the present?? I'll be interested to hear you views too…(feel free to write in on the forums)

Catch up again later

John