Grad in the Spotlight: Stacey Dodds adds Wonder to Chalice Recording Studios, L.A.
Stacey Dodds (1995/96) has worked as Technical Manager of Chalice Recording Studios since its inception. During his time in L.A. Stacey began his own company, Redsonics Inc., which recently purchased an SSL 4096 G+ series console previously owned by Motown legend Stevie Wonder. Redsonics has recently partnered with Chalice to build a 6th studio, Studio F, featuring the new console. Stacey anticipates the new studio to be up and running in a month's time. Chalice has recorded a large roster of big name artists including Pharell, Foo Fighters, Kanye West and more.

Signal Flow in Suriname
For the past 5 months, Sherilyn Sutton (2002/03) has been a Technical Advisor for Canadian Crossroads International in Suriname, South America; educating the people of the local villages about HIV/AIDS through radio. The job entailed her researching the equipment compliment of radio stations in other villages throughout the Amazon to get a radio station set up in Suriname. She also worked with the Youth Advocacy Movement, who educate youth on sexual rights in Suriname. Sherilyn trained new and existing staff in programming and radio techniques in addition to some audio production training once the station had been built. She had the following to say about the experience, “the [radio station personnel's] motivation and work ethic was amazing, having community radio experience was an asset to my job in Suriname, but being an OIART grad alone would have given me sufficient knowledge in the technical areas.”

Olympic Glory at CBC
Damian Kearns (1993/94) has had his share of creative input on a number of excellent CBC programs but recently saw his skills put to the test when he worked on the 2006 Winter Olympic broadcasts. Damian worked at CBC's Toronto Production Centre in what became a grand testing ground for AVID's new ISIS server technology with the test vehicle being the Olympic broadcast.

Damian's main responsibilities were to take pre-recorded video in AVID, add voice over, mix the items and send the mixes back to the server for download in Turin. He also ended up mixing many of the satellite interviews conducted by CBC's Brian Williams and re-scripting some of the voice-overs done on prime time and overnight broadcasts. “A lot of faith was put in my ability to direct talent, and I managed to do a decent job. Our voice over artist was good, but often nervous. I spent a good deal of time relaxing him and coaching him, to get the appropriate performance.”

Damian has worked at the CBC for 8+ years now as a Post Production Mixer and Sound Editor and has been nominated for 2 Gemini awards for his work at CBC. To find out more about his career, check out his Alumni interview.