What I do

I’m part of a team that records dialogue as cleanly as possible. I’ve done a lot of Disney and Marvel productions, including Star Wars, Men in Black, Outlander, Black Widow, Eternals, and I’ve also spent time working on Batman and Maleficent. I help set up the equipment, including the boom microphones, the radio microphones in the costumes that the cast wear and I make sure the mixer – my head of department who records the sound – is receiving everything.

Around the set I listen for, and manage, sounds that we don’t want. I am also involved in setting up the ecosystem of communications, so that the producers and directors, etc, can listen to what we’re recording live. Ultimately, we record that and provide it to post-production, who combine it with the video.

I’m freelance, so work is never guaranteed. Films can take three or four months, and then high-end TV work, for example like the Star Wars series last year, can take nine months. I don’t have an agent. Once you work with someone, you will stay in touch and once they know you’re a good person, a hard worker and you’re good at your job, they will then ask you to work with them again.

Hear more about Jordan's role by watching the video below...

How I became a technician

It was never my intention to get into the industry – it happened by chance. At school, I wanted to be an Architect. I’d planned to go to university for seven years to study architecture. I went to sixth form college and for my A-levels I did Maths, Physics, Graphics and Film, as a fourth option, just because I enjoyed it. During college, the British Film Institute (BFI) did a regional academy, and I went there every weekend to learn about making short films. Each week, there’d be someone from a different department who would talk through and demonstrate what they did.

One week a sound recordist came in and he asked who’d like to hold the stick, and I took it from there. When I was 17 years old, we made a short student film at the academy, and I did the sound for it. From there, I began to meet people who also made short films in their spare time. I did a second BFI academy, where I met more people.

I quit college and for a year-and-a-half I travelled around the country making short films for free because I enjoyed it. Then I heard the BFI were doing a paid traineeship scheme on film and I applied. I went through a series of interview stages over several months and I got the job. When I walked onto the first sound set, it was Star Wars! I was so lucky, as it normally takes years to get to that level, but through that I met a lot of people, and I’ve been doing it for five-and-a-half years now.

If you decide to go into this industry, there are so many jobs and roles, and you can meet people and learn what other people do, and it’s quite an exciting world.

A typical day in my
working life

Normally, it’s a very long day. I get to work pretty early if I’m working somewhere like Pinewood Studios, in order to set up the sound kit. Once all the kit’s set up, I try to capture the best sound possible, so I’ll put things like carpet under the actors’ feet, if they’re not in shot, so you don’t hear footsteps. Obviously, I often tell people to be quiet. I’m usually the ‘techie’ guy in the department, so I make sure everything’s set up and everything’s working, so if something goes wrong, then I fix it. There are a lot of departments that make up the whole, but my department has to be really up close and in the action.

A little more about
my everyday role

What I love most about my job

When I work on films or high-end TV, for companies like Netflix or Disney+, I get to go into a different world every day. From the outside, that world seems really glamorous, with high-profile actors and celebrities, and you get to work on cool sets. No matter what you were into as a kid, you’ve watched a film and said “Wow, that’s very cool”. Every now and again, I step back and appreciate what I’m doing. The sets are amazing, there’s something new every day, a different location, access to places the public doesn’t have, you work in different countries, you go to work and you’re suddenly on a different planet (e.g. Star Wars). It’s very exciting.

The best bits about working in a team

In all the departments on a film there are different roles, and the lowest role is always a trainee, so you’re part of the crew and you’re learning, but you don’t need any formal qualifications for it. I’m normally part of a three-to-five-person team, which makes up the sound department, and there are other departments that are also involved in the making of any film. More women are now entering the industry. One of the assistants who I call my ‘work mum’ has been a boom operator for about 35 years. The last three trainees I’ve worked with have all been female. The good thing is it’s changing, and it is much more diverse – we come from all walks of life and it’s great, really good.

My favourite piece of equipment

There’s so much stuff, it’s hard to choose. We have a lorry full of gear, just for our department. My mixer, the head of our department, has a rig of four or five feet high that has racks on it, so all the audio gets processed into the right things. He also has monitors so that he can see what’s going on. Everything is portable as we can be set up in a studio for a while, but we can also be out on location. You learn it all as you go along.

My advice to
someone younger

You don’t need to know exactly what you’ll do for the rest of your life. I didn’t know I’d be doing this until I was doing it. Technically, you need no prior experience. It can be a very physically and mentally draining job, but as long as you come to work willing to listen and learn, then essentially anyone can learn how to do it. You start as a trainee with the rubbish jobs, and from there you learn. As long as you’re a likeable person with the right attitude and you’re willing to work hard, you don’t have to have an expensive media degree.

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Jordan Feemster