Audio Post Facility Focus: Full English Post — Gowanus, Brooklyn

The British are coming! The British are co – oh wait, they’ve already arrived.

Anyone working in audio post stateside best be aware of Full English Post, a one-man tactical takeover of conventional mixing, sound design and VO recording for media. This solo onslaught is led by Kieran Kaye, an English ex-pat who saw that New York City audio post was ready for some rightsizing.

Kaye’s solution to make excellent post services affordable was to found a one-room facility in Brooklyn, as capable as it is compact. His gestalt for how to do it better came after mixing and sound design jobs working at audio post houses on both sides of the pond, including Star Trax for five years in Manhattan, followed by Wise Buddah and Greek Street Studios in London.

“I’ve been back and forth between NYC and England, with two stops in each,” says Kaye. “When I returned to NYC for the second time, I realized I could be a resident engineer again or start my own place – which actually seemed easier. I decided, ‘I have an arsenal of new skills and experience, I’ll just create my own space.’”

Full English Post is full-blown in one room.

A Brooklyn Breakthrough

Not long after landing back in NYC, a client he was freelancing for introduced him to his new home, Bond Collective (previously Cowork.rs). A 42,000 sq. ft. co-working space on 68 Third Street in Gowanus, the building is a former factory that was converted in 2015 to provide offices to startups and small businesses.

The common spaces of Bond Collective allowed Kaye to go big beyond his walls.

“It’s cool, industrial chic, hipster with coffee, draft beer on tap, and all the other amenities included,” Kaye explains. “I liked the space aesthetically. And when I looked at other commercial spaces like 1000 Dean Street [in Crown Heights], I saw that the rooms there are huge, plus it would have required a $40,000 buildout and additional bills. That’s as opposed to a one-stop shop here – one bill, everything included.”

His interest piqued, Kaye discovered an even bigger bonus about Bond Collective: A plethora of the other tenants there were production companies. Voila! A built-in client base. And the hits just kept on coming.

“They also have a VO booth there which is communal,” says Kaye. “I said, ‘If I move in, can I patch a cable into it so that I can send audio to anywhere in the world via Source-Connect?’ They said, ‘That’s interesting,’ so as a result, I have a booth that’s available to my clients. Other tenants at Bond Collective can use it as before, bringing their laptop in, but many of them are choosing to use it through me for more professionalism.”

The Right Rate

With his home-base worked out, Kaye designed a one-room suite that would be small but powerful, taking advantage of the managerial skills he had picked up at prior jobs while strictly eschewing the overspending that he frequently observed.

Kaye converted The Collective’s VO booth into an additional revenue stream.

“I had done some bookings,” he says, “and I started realizing, ‘OK, I can do this. I can run a company. I don’t have a client base yet, but as far as running a studio, I know the basics of that.’ There are these crazy budgets for a :30 commercial or a :10 promo. I won’t say ‘no’ to huge budgets, but budgets are getting smaller for certain things, not just ads.

“I wanted to offer value, but with lower overhead. Some studios spend $100,000 on the mixing desk with a wow factor, but do I need that kind of overhead? For post, I’m usually only mixing using two faders simultaneously to dip music and SFX under the VO. At the end of the day will a client notice the difference, and will a viewer know if it was mixed on an SSL console? I’m not dismissing the technology, but I know what’s needed for the job, and it isn’t that.”

Doing some simple math, Kaye knew that he can make a go of it in Gowanus. “If my competition is charging $600 an hour, and I’m charging substantially less for the same product, that’s better value,” he states. “Many of my clients are ad agency ex-pats, and they can see that this crazy spending is going to end. I can produce this content for fraction of the cost, and my clients are more than pleased with it.”

Finding his Lane

Kaye’s space may be on the small side – he jokingly refers to it as “The Square Mile” — but it’s attractive, fully soundproofed, and most definitely gets the job done. Running Pro Tools 11, he controls the DAW via his iPad, with a Digidesign 003 rack interface and Mackie Onyx 820i mixer at hand. Listening is courtesy of Dynaudio BM5 Mkiii and Yamaha MSP3 monitors, plus Sony MDR7506 and BeyerDynamic DT100 headphones, while available microphones include the Neumann TLM103 and Rode M3. Video editing/playback takes place on the Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle.

A streamlined audio post setup.

The majority of Full English Post’s clients so far have been on the production company side. “I was hoping to pick up some ad agencies, but they don’t give small guys like me the time of day,” he says. “I’ve been working for smaller boutique production companies like Bows & Arrows, Part II Pictures and Archrivals, which often outsource the editors, sound designers, sound engineers and more. Now I really enjoy working with production companies: They know the lingo, they’re more tech savvy, more direct.”

Projects are running the gamut from corporate video, industrial assignments for seminars, multi-episode online series, and cinematic trailers for Netflix. “I love doing stuff for online,” notes Kaye. “It’s a bit of the Wild West in terms of loudness specifications — you can have it as loud as you want, which takes some getting used to. There are no time limitations either.”

Risk & Reward

Kaye is aware that he’s taken a significant risk with Full English Post, but so far the endeavor feels right. “When you start a company, you don’t know what road you’re going to go down,” he admits. “I’ve always, from the start, wanted to own my own studio. The opportunity arose when my wife and I were moving back here to NYC — it was kind of a fresh slate. I said I can look for full-time work, or take the leap now.

Kieran Kaye — another British Invasion we can appreciate.

“Some people thought I was crazy, with so many studios shutting down and less money in it. But I did my research in the industry, and I argue that this is a great opportunity, especially for someone who has better value. My clients are happy with my rates and my company’s mission statement. It’s true that budgets are getting cut, but there’s more content out there now, and more access to it, so there’s a need for more production of content no matter where it’s going. Not all that is going to cinema or TV, it could be shown once or be a year-long campaign.

“I’m jumping into a niche where people say, ‘I want it done for less money, but it’s not a college student trying to build their portfolio.’ They don’t need the big studio or sushi lunch. I’m working to make myself known to those clients.”

Naturally, launching a new audio post facility hasn’t been easy. Along the way, Kaye has had to make strategic choices and hope that each development moves him closer to the next level. “The challenges I have are like those of any company,” he says. “Tending to finances, getting capital together. I could’ve taken a big line of credit and done a $40,000 buildout, but to me, starting small in a space like Bond Collective that is very client-friendly and minimizes overhead was the right direction.

“I’ve got a business plan for bigger and better things, and I’m a gearhead for things like preamps that I don’t technically need, but I want. I’d like to eventually move into a bigger space for 5.1 Surround, but for now it’s not needed – I’ve got other studios I can hire for surround mixing. That’s one of the biggest challenges: making do. It’s working just fine, until my clients’ needs are greater than what I’ve got. If I need that new piece of hardware for the job, I’ll get it, and that means I’m growing.”

— David Weiss

You are here — the view from the driver’s seat at FEP.

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