A fly on the wall
It’s a new year! We’ve all officially made it to 2025.
Hopefully that means that this will be a year of new goals, new opportunities, and changes both good and bad. Every year in late december, i sit down with my morning cup of coffee and write out a series of goals for myself, my family, and my business. I list everything from sharpening my spanish-speaking skills to attending training opportunities. It helps me get the next 12 months in focus and something I recommend for everyone. What are some of your goals for your body/mind/spirit?
The year of 2024 was pretty crazy. My wife and I had a newborn baby girl, we moved from the city to our country home out in shawnee, oklahoma and my wife graduated from nursing school after years of studying, tests, and inner torment. I, on the other hand, completed three feature films as a location mixer, did sound design and mixing for a fun suspense thriller, and even got to help the cherokee nation get their recording process established as they create cherokee language dubs for Amazon’s “The rings of power”.
i am excited to get the new year started with new clients, old clients, trying new things, and keeping the business growing to provide for the family. this year I will be expanding my offerings from just location sound mixing for various productions to more post-production sound design as well as podcast producing. (I’ve been wanting to experiment with a few fun sound design projects, so keep an eye on this website in the months ahead). last year was pretty rough, i’m not gonna lie. After covid and the sag/wGA strikes still showing the toll they’ve taken on the film industry, as well as the general slowdown of productions happening while hollywood figures out how to make a decent movie again, i was counting myself extremely blessed that we made it through without having to go into panic mode. I know so many others that have not been so lucky, and i pray this year is better for all of us.
the neat thing, though, is that I welcome all of these new challenges. Not a day goes by that I look around my home these days and i’m not overwhelmed with joy and thankfulness. Having kids is seriously one of the greatest adventures i’ve ever been on, and i’ve been on quite a few. Which leads me to the purpose of this blog…
for the longest time I have wondered what to do with all of these stories that i’ve gathered over the years during my time as a sound mixer. we soundies have a very unique situation where we are quite literally paid to listen. that’s all we do: listen. All day every day. When you do that for a living, you tend to hear moments and perspectives from every walk of life. So this blog is really just a place to put all of those stories. I’m calling this blog the only appropriate name I could think of: “a fly on the wall”.
My hope is that with these stories and the lessons i’ve learned from them, you the reader may take away some inspiration of your own. From celebrity interactions to sting operations to traveling all around the world, maybe just maybe some of these stories will speak to you just as strongly and profoundly as they spoke to me as they happened. It’s an incredible world that we live in, and I can’t wait to share more of that world with you.
Happy new year and god bless!
brian Gililland- sound dog okc