​Well, a curse and a blessing really. I realised the other day that my mood is directly tied to the amount of creativity I'm consuming. I previously thought it was tied to stress levels, general contentment etc. It wasn't until I was flicking through Twitter (oh, the irony) and seeing new things being released or created that I noticed my mood physically changing. 

I saw some new animation transitions for the next Android OS (see, the curse of the creative brain). I saw the band Lo Moon tweeting and made me think of their debut album I discovered this week. I saw Paddington 2 has been released, really looking forward to seeing that. The Last Jedi deleted scenes? I'll put the kettle on! Oh, and the look and feel of that Blue Zoo animated short 'Via'...it all came out of the brain of concept artist Izzy Burton. How cool is that?

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I then saw that Will Belcher of Aardman is nominated for an animation award for Shaun the Sheep. I saw that composer and sound designer Matt Bowdler invited female composers to make an album using his soundsets and sample libraries to celebrate International Women's Day and raise money for Women's Aid.

On top of that I'm busy creating. Two library albums are at the mixing stage and I'm gearing up to release my first Real World Sounds sound pack next week.

So if you need to add a spring to your step today, look around at all the new things being created. You won't have to look very far.

I have wanted to set up a way of recording and sharing real world sounds for such a long time now, and when I recently discovered Patreon it seemed to be the perfect fit. 

If you don't know Patreon, here's a video explaining how it works. What a great idea!

With my trusty Tascam DR-22WL audio recorder, I will make one royalty-free, high-resolution sound pack per month, mastered to broadcast quality. In each sound pack there will be ten tracks, some of which will have multiple versions (for instance, ambience will be one track, glasses clinking maybe five or ten versions over one track).

Whether you are a sound editor or producer looking for real world sounds to add to your production, an educator looking for resources for your students, or an amateur looking for high quality, high-res audio for your home video or audio projects, I hope you will appreciate the real world sounds you hear coming from my Patreon page.

I'll release the first sound pack on March 15th. If you watch out on Facebook or Twitter I'll be sharing more details leading up to the launch. In the meantime you can visit my Patreon page to learn more here:

www.patreon.com/realworldsounds

It was such a thrill to be invited to talk to Wez Allard on Skwigly's animation podcast series: Animation Composed. Skwigly has been my go to website for animation news for a long time, and if you're interested in animation it's well worth checking out. 

​You can listen to the podcast below (I'm around 52 minutes in, but it's a cracking podcast if you want to listen to the whole thing).

​Source (with bio info and track listing): Skwigly website

Last week saw the Scream Street production team get together to celebrate the enormous undertaking that was Scream Street series 1.

It was great to catch up with people I knew and worked with, as well as people I hadn't yet met, like animators, the CGI team, prop makers, some BBC people and more. The series needed around 60 people to happen, so it was good to celebrate the achievement with a lot of them. Fingers crossed for series 2!

​p.s. the photo below was taken later on, so beer may have been imbibed!

As an ex-teacher of key stage 1 children I've found a place as a composer that feels like home: children's media. The projects and productions I've been involved with so far in the kids' media world have been a wonderful experience, and so it's no surprise that when I first attended the Children's Media Conference in Sheffield last year I found myself surrounded by people who feel the same.

CMC is a wonderful celebration of the fantastic story telling and experiences we grown ups can provide the younger generation. Everyone seems passionate about the need for getting it right, about helping young people with certain issues, about the responsibility the industry has as a whole to give children a positive experience as possible.

That's why I'm going again this year. Of course it's a chance to have some meetings and network, but on the whole it's a chance to listen and learn, to recharge the inspiration batteries and to remember why the children's media industry is so valuable to our society.

If you're going feel free to say hello!

It's important to celebrate the small victories.

Today the last episode of Scream Street series 1 was signed off. I'm incredibly proud to have worked on this amazing stop-motion series, and thankful to be given the opportunity. Fingers crossed for series 2!