Music and Sound Design
Su Tais is our Sound-in-Chief. From subtle textures to full cinematic scale, Su sculpts sound and score in service of the story. Her work spans genres and formats, composing everything from punchy beats and whispering atmospheres to lush orchestration and cutting-edge synth design. Whether it's emotional nuance or sonic impact, Su builds worlds you can hear. Learn about her influences and inspirations.
Su's soundscape breakdown approach for music scoring creates a shared language, empowering artists to precisely communicate thoughts and feelings through music. This includes what we call rehearsals, inspirational sound iterations that can be fit in as early as pre-production to support story development.
Sonics
Sonics is our sound studio. A fully equipped space fine-tuned for music composition, sound design, and audio post-production.
The studio features a Nord Piano, a Moog synthesizer, an Axe-FX III, midi controllers, and a variety of musical instruments like guitars, flutes, and dulcimers. It also carries a range of studio microphones for vocals and instrument recording. Powered by a Mac Studio Ultra, it runs Pro Tools and Logic Pro with a deep collection of electronic sounds, effects, and orchestration plugins like Vienna Symphonic Library, Izotope, and other industry standards.
🖖 I'm Z...
Z Tennyson is a filmmaker, colorist and VFX artist. He has been working on animation, lighting, color and digital media pipelines since 2001.
Fun fact: Before filmmaking, Z had a long career as a Designer and UX Engineer, he wrote books on Design Thinking and was part of the Augmented Reality team at Meta Reality Labs.
... and I'm Su.
Su Tais is a Berklee College of Music alumni music composer for film and TV. She's been sounding films, TV and games since 2017.
Fun fact: Su plays multiple instruments since she was a child, with classical piano being her main. Before transitioning into film music she worked in many A.I. projects at Apple in Silicon Valley.
Questions we are always asked
How much it will cost to grade my short film?
We grade 3-10 minutes of footage / day, depending on the needs of the project. Our base daily rate is £600, minimum of two days. We also have the super low-budget DIY Setup + Masters option for a fixed £650. In this option we'll grade 3 master shots and deliver a Resolve (PRJ) file back to you with the color pipeline correctly configured, so you can DIY from there.
Keep in mind there are factors that slow things down: Multi-camera, conforming issues etc. We'll send you instructions to help you make sure your files are in good shape for supply, so we can hit the ground running and focus the time on creating production value.
How can I get a quote for VFX work?
There are two approaches to getting a quote from us on the VFX work you need.
Option 1: We have been involved since the beginning.
In this case, we will help you break down the script to find out where VFX will be needed and advise you on how to shoot scenes so they are cheaper for you and more believable in the end.
Option 2: You did your thing and need help.
In this case, you will send us a list of things that you want modified, along with references and assets you already have.
In both cases, we will send you an email with detailed instructions on what we need.
Where are you located?
We are based in the UK, 20 min from London Paddington Station. We provide fully remote color, visual effects and music services for clients worldwide.
Do you work with commercial and music videos?
Absolutely.
What files I need to provide for Grading?
You'll need a picture lock cut. No changes to edit after grading starts. This will help you save money and achieve consistency throughout the grading process.
Remote Grading:
All you need to provide us with is a lossless Prores 444 (or similar highest possible quality) render of your picture lock cut.
Grading + Conform:
If you are supplying hard drives with RAW camera footage, we will send you detailed instructions on how to groom and export the timeline for grading so we can achieve the best results possible.
How many reviews do I get?
For Grading or VFX workflows, you get two review rounds, and it should suffice for most projects. If you need more review rounds, we can provide them at an additional cost.
How Witchery came to be?
Just take a look at the disheartening post-production stories on Reddit. As filmmakers, we've been there. We've lost money, got our footage wrecked, and, in the end, had to redo it all ourselves.
Story-aware post-production work is not easy to find, and it is especially harder for low-budget productions. We want to help indie filmmakers tell their stories.
Tell me about the overall workflow.
We will be discussing story and moods at the beginning of the project and then meet for remote review rounds. Our client engagement workflow is completely automated and runs on top of widely adopted industry standard tools like Frame.io. No materials or notes are ever exchanged via email or files through third-party transfer sites. This also avoids messy, untraceable back and forth and keeps everyone informed, happy, and the project moving.