Valhalla Audio

The intense low frequency sound of a heart thumping, the soft crunch of leaves underfoot on the forest floor or the screeching tyres of a get-away - creating a unique and inspirational soundscape is equally as important to the audience as well-executed picture editing and breath-taking CGI sequences.

Valhalla Audio provides sound design and audio post-production services to clients within the film, television, radio and animation industry. The Falmouth-based company owned by David Smithers, has thrived since the move and has retained and added to a wide-ranging portfolio of clients from outside the county.

A change of lifestyle prompted David and his partner to relocate his business from Soho in 2007. Wanting to raise a family in a more rural environment, along with the lure of leisure activities offered by having both the north and south coasts within such close proximity, drew David and his family to Cornwall.

Since then, demand for David's sound design work in film drama has seen him complete work on over fourteen episodes of 'Silent Witness' for the BBC and two series of ITV's 'The Brief'. Recently, he has worked on several BBC4 docu-features including 'Hancock and Joan', which was BAFTA nominated for Best Single Drama in 2008, and 'Lennon Naked' - a biopic on the life of John Lennon and the flagship drama of this summer's 'Fatherhood' season of films. He also recently worked on BBC1’s science documentary series ‘Inside the Human Body’ as well as a marketing project for Microsoft and a trailer campaign for Warner Brothers Studios. More locally, David collaborates with animation studio Tiger-X and eco-brand The Eden Project.

As the majority of his work comes from London, David had initial concerns with the distance to his main clients and whether or not this would pose a problem to winning work. Thankfully this was not the case. For many their outlook was:

‘...as long as you can deliver the same high quality audio work, in the same time frame as your London-based competitors, you will continue to receive work from us…’

The bulk of David’s television and film work is prepared and designed within the county and then approved by clients in London, Bristol or further afield. However he is no stranger to travel as sometimes clients like him to be on site to amend projects where necessary. David uses the train journey to London to catch up with emails and paperwork. He also communicates via telephone/email, video conferencing ie. Skype/Facetime, and uploads and downloads work projects via broadband and secure FTP. The superfast broadband fibre rollout in Cornwall cannot happen fast enough for David, as it means Valhalla will have an advantage against competitors outside the county, in terms of swiftly delivering completed work to clients.

The growth of Valhalla has also led David to share his wisdom, lecturing in location sound recording and post-production audio at University College Falmouth. He has taken on several interns to assist with individual projects and has been impressed with the quality of the graduates from the University. These linkages between the University and businesses like Valhalla have been a major determinate for the creation of a world class creative cluster in the county. This is apparent when we asked what he believed was the driving force of his success in Cornwall, David responded, “The like-minded, business focus between companies providing services in similar fields”.

And the relocation, collaboration, and hard work have really paid off when Valhalla was recently recognised nationally by winning a Royal Television Society Craft and Design Award for Sound Design on BBC1’s ‘Invisible Worlds’ documentary series in December 2010.