About HISSandaROAR

HISSandaROAR is an independent NZ business 100% owned & operated by Tim Prebble, a Film Sound Designer based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Tim Prebble
Film Sound Designer – since 1991, 40 feature films
Film Composer – since 2011, 3 Feature Films
Field Recordist – since 1989, from Nagra to SSD

LIFE 1:
1990 Film School
1991 Sound editor & foley recordist for TV
1997 Sound Designer first feature film, freelance
1997 Established Substation Sound Design Studio
IMDB – 40 feature films + hundreds of hours of TV
Faves: BOY + THE ORATOR + 30 DAYS OF NIGHT
WORLDS FASTEST INDIAN + THE PRICE OF MILK

LIFE 2:
2010 Launched HISSandaROAR
2013 Artist Residency: Shodoshima, Japan
2013 Artist Residency: Waitakarere Ranges, NZ
2013 Moved to Karehana Bay

LIFE 3: in development

I grew up on a farm in South Canterbury, New Zealand and have always had a deep love for sound. As a kid I had piano lessons which developed my ear in a musical sense, but I have fond sonic memories of playing in the empty grain silos on my parents farm, creating thunder by jumping on the floor.

This taught me at a young age that sound is not passive, it can be created.

My first field recording experiences were achieved by borrowing a Nagra 4.2 and MKH416 shotgun mic from the local university film department, where I also sneaked into a screening of Wim Wenders film WINGS OF DESIRE. That film changed my life – I quit my studies towards an Electrical Engineering degree and enrolled in Film School with the sole aim of becoming a sound effects editor for film.

A work experience placement evolved into an ongoing job as a sound editor, working at a studio that in 1991 got the first Digidesign ProTools v1.0 into NZ. We suffered through every version as ProTools slowly developed.

After gaining enough experience, including a stint on Peter Jacksons first studio film The Frighteners and witnessing the genius work of Randy Thom and Phil Benson, by 1997 I was freelance and completed my first feature film as sound designer & head of department.

From there I established my own sound design studio, SUBSTATION, collaborating with up & coming local sound editors to complete sound post on feature films, TV series and short films.
My IMDB credits are a timeline of my work history, peaking with international films such as 30 Days of Night, The Emperor etc

My love of field recording developed as I grew to appreciate what a vital role it played in creating the unique resources required for sound design for films, and such projects included field recording throughout New Zealand, as well as Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Japan.

In 2006 I attended the Berlinale Talent Campus and one of the most interesting workshops I attended was ‘Online marketing for indie film’ by Peter Broderick. He outlined what web 2.0 represented and asked if anyone had a 2.0 website. I was the only person to put my hand up. At that point I was running an online forum NZ Sound, primarily to help the transition of film production sound to multitrack digital recorders and the workflow to sound post. I left the workshop with a new mantra: ‘every creative person should have their own blog’ and soon after started MUSIC OF SOUND blog which continues to this day.

At first my blog felt like I was shouting into the void, but slowly people began to find it and a community slowly developed, leading to me launching the first-ever crowd-sourced sound effects library.

As the community around my blog grew, I launched the first ever crowdsourced sound library. THE DOORS was and was recorded by 75 field recordists scattered across the planet. The resulting 124GB library was too large to distribute online, so a series of hard drives were couriered off with each recordist taking a copy and forwarding it to the contributor closest to them.

In 2009 I began researching the idea of sharing my field recording work by establishing an online sound library business and in April 2010 HISSandaROAR v1 was launched. With the support of an international community of sound editors and sound designers, HISSandaROAR has developed to the resource that you are currently visiting.

During the evolution of HISSandaROAR, technology has also rapidly progressed with access to better microphones and recorders. But it is important to always remember it is not gear that creates new ideas and new work.

Every HISSandaROAR sound library involves considerable human effort: research and development, access to locations and props, weeks of recording, editing and preparation along with online implementation and administration. All of which is only possible due to the support of the creative community surrounding HISSandaROAR. For this I am eternally grateful, and in turn I aim to relentlessly work hard to innovate and develop new sonic ideas and methodology, always with the aim of helping you achieve your best work.

In 2013 I successfully completed two Artists Residencies, and these have directly contributed to my approach to LIFE 2: to create my own work & make it my primary focus.

Along with HISSandaROAR I am constantly working on projects involving:

• Instrument x physical sound effects device development
• XPAN panoramic film photography
• Dark room printing
• UAV aerial photography
• Music – modular synth-based dubtech
• Music – minimalist electroacoustic
• Gardening & propagation

“Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process
where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
Arthur Koestler