News| Jul 29, 2016

Ausfilm recently sat down with Trackdown’s General Manager Elaine Beckett over a pink donut and coffee to chat about what Trackdown is working on and the collaborative process they offer filmmakers…

Ausfilm: What does Trackdown offer to filmmakers?
Elaine: Trackdown is a complete audio and post-production service company, offering everything from sound design, ADR, music supervision (including licensing & creative), music editorial, scoring and mixing. We also do project coordination for audio and music services. Within the Trackdown studio we offer dry hire suites which allows us to service production offices & post-production offices comprising visual effects through to editorial.

Ausfilm: Tell me about Trackdown, what is the company’s history?
Elaine: Trackdown started from humble beginnings with two guys, a band and an available garage. In the early days of the 80’s we were a 4-track recording studio rented out by local bands at the time like INXS and Midnight Oil. As the business grew the studio diversified into both a music recording and an audio film and television post-production facility. In the early 2000’s we set up shop on the Fox Studios Australia lot and we have been recording, scoring and editing on local and large-scale international feature films and television series ever since.

Ausfilm: What has Trackdown worked on recently?
Elaine: We completed the score for Columbia Pictures’ The Shallows starring Blake Livley, and have just wrapped audio, music, licensing and recording for an upcoming Aussie feature called Safe Neighborhood, directed by Chris Peckover. In the past few years, we have had the pleasure of working with some amazing directors and producers on large scale feature films such as Gods of Egypt, The LEGO® Movie, Walking With Dinosaurs 3D, The Great Gatsby, Bait 3D, Happy Feet 2, and Knowing.

Ausfilm: How does Trackdown work with its clients on creating the perfect score?
Elaine: Each score is a unique and collaborative process which requires Trackdown’s services in a multitude of ways. We tailor our services to meet each production’s needs. Everything from temp music edits, to prepping material and music supervision where we work to come up with creative choices for source music in order to deliver a soundtrack that enhances the overall cinematic experience for audiences.

Ausfilm: What is one of the most memorable productions you have worked on, and why?
Elaine: Probably the most memorable, just because it’s different, was the dialogue recordings we did for George Miller’s Happy Feet 2. George wanted to record the cast as an ensemble, commonly with animations they usually put each actor in a booth and record them individually, but George wanted to have the actors all on set working together. So, we transformed the Trackdown scoring stage into the largest recording booth that has ever been used in Australia! This involved turning our very ‘live’ room into a very ‘dead’ room. Utilising the space of our scoring stage allowed us to have the ensemble cast in the studio with all the camera crew they required as well as the directorial and support staff. As a result, the cast were able to have the most collaborate dialogue recording situation possible. It was also a nice change for the Trackdown team as we are normally in post and this time we were in production.

Ausfilm: What is most rewarding for the Trackdown team when working on a project?
Elaine: The most rewarding thing about working on any project is collaborating with our industry colleagues to deliver on a creative brief. There is always a journey involved in doing that, you go through the ups and downs together as a team, but the reward of having that final product at the end of the day is an amazing feeling for the team.

Ausfilm: What’s up next for Trackdown?
Elaine: All good things…we are currently working on some large scale feature films, which are very exciting (which we can’t announce yet). We are also in early stages of production on a music based feature film, which means we get to start at the head of production before they have even started shooting in order to prepare the onset playback material!

What to know more about Trackdown?
Contact:
Elaine Beckett
+61 2 8353 2765
elaine@trackdown.com.au

or visit www.trackdown.com.au