Whilst many were trying to keep businesses afloat during Covid restrictions, Brown Bear Audio was busy upgrading its facilities. Founded 9 years ago with the aim of providing the best talent and solutions to working remotely, when the pandemic hit the studios were already ahead of the game.

Prior to starting the business, owner Thomas Dalton worked mainly as a freelance sound editor and mixer and was already completing projects remotely. As new technology and cloud services emerged, he wanted to streamline the process to give his clients the best experience possible. Establishing Brown Bear in 2012 he has now expanded the facility to include a Dolby Atmos suite and dedicated podcast studio. As well as the upgrade, Dalton has also bolstered his team of remote sound specialists to include re-recording mixers, dialogue editors, sound designers, composers and podcast producers, giving Brown Bear Audio the talent and capacity to complete projects across all disciplines of audio post-production. The studios now provide a fully remote and hybrid service to customers across the world including the BBC, Discovery, Netflix and Warner Brothers.

Much of the success is down to the talented team, personal service and constant drive to give clients the best experience. Dalton’s aim to treat every project as if it’s his only project and give clients the highest level of service, both creatively and technically has kept him ahead of the game. He believes the success would be nothing without the amazing team. Constantly refining workflows ensures the studios offer the best solutions for both remote and on-site working.

Dalton started his career as a live sound engineer and mixer. Working in the live industry for 15 years taught him the skill of working with artists to understand and translate their audio vision whilst also applying an element of diplomacy and problem solving along the way. Through a desire to work less unsociable hours and spend more time with his family he transitioned into working in audio post-production full time. Freelancing for a number of studios he built his portfolio as a sound designer and mixer completing projects for clients including Nike, Millers Oil, Unilever and Adidas. What he brings to Brown Bear is a vision of where he sees the industry heading in the future and a drive to make the process of remote working as easy and seamless as possible.

Over the past couple of years Dalton and his team have been lucky enough to work with some amazing artists, actors and broadcasters. Recently they completed all ADR recording with actor John Simm, for the forthcoming ITV drama ‘Grace’. They also worked on the latest season of channel 4’s ‘Stath Lets Flats’ completing the dialogue edit across the 6 episodes, whilst Jon Clarke of Factory did a fantastic job on the final mix.  

Recently expanding the studios with the addition of a brand new Dolby Atmos suite and Podcast studio was probably one of the most challenging things Dalton has done. The build took considerably longer than expected due to two outbreaks of Covid! It was finally completed late last year after 6 months, but the wait was worth it. Brown Bear Audio now has a beautiful sounding 7.4.1 Atmos room and cutting-edge podcast studio.

The podcast studio is designed to be completely self-sufficient with everything you need to produce professional spoken word content and having a podcast producer in-house enables the studios to offer a complete podcast solution from content strategy and planning to full production. The Atmos room has created the ability to take on bigger projects and expand into the exciting format. With so many creative possibilities with Atmos Dalton believes it will only be a matter of time before it becomes the standard format for audio visual production.

The production community in Brighton and the South East is vibrant and growing and Dalton often works with many local production companies. Being a reliable resource has helped build on their success and Dalton wants to continue to support new and established companies. Brown Bear also works with many local actors and agencies to facilitate voiceover and ADR sessions, as talent doesn’t always want, or need, to travel to London, especially in light of the pandemic. 

Dalton’s vision to make working remotely a client-friendly experience has meant that he has gone to great lengths to try and achieve this. Through extensive R&D he has developed a workflow that is flexible and secure, giving client the option to work how they want to. But, it’s the creative team that set Brown Bear apart from its peers and enables it to provide the highest level in creative excellence. Whether it’s a simple dialogue edit or a full Atmos mix it wants its clients to be 100% happy and won’t stop until they are. 

Ensuring the studios offer some of the best craft talent in the industry and being at the forefront of the latest technology certainly helps maintain its success but it’s only by constantly evolving and re-evaluating will it remain successful. Having the scalability to expand capacity, depending on the workload and project, without carrying the fixed cost of large expensive facilities allows it to offer a much more cost effective solution compared to a traditional post house, which helps in today’s market of ever shrinking production budgets.

Now that the industry has adopted remote working across most forms of post-production Dalton is seeing people embrace a more hybrid workflow, with producers choosing how they want to work. He wants to continue to lead the way in remote working through innovation and artistry and help companies leverage the power and benefits it has to offer.

www.brownbearaudio.co.uk