Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512183
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 61 the daily life struggles—rented housing, the need for residency documents. We chose Kazakhstan because it was the most familiar region for us, both in terms of work and place of residence. My wife Karima who is also a sound designer and Foley artist, was born in Kazakhstan. She helped us a lot with the logistics of the move and opening a company and took care of all legal nuances. We disassembled our six studios at Mosfilm and sent a truck loaded with equipment and furniture to Almaty. While it was en route, we needed to find a house, purchase all the essentials for life and work and lay down the necessary cabling for the studios. It was quite difficult to find a house suitable for both living and working. This is very atypical for traditional Kazakh family homes. Their houses are dominated by large open spaces, instead of separate rooms. However, we were lucky—a small house in a settlement built by an American company for its employees was available for rent, perfectly suited for our needs. We had to get things up and running in a very short time, so we decided to initially assemble the studios without acoustic treatment. Within two weeks, we were operational. Among those who moved was an acoustician we knew who helped us with acoustic calculations for the studios. During the weekends, we made acoustic finishing elements ourselves. To simplify installation and minimize permanent changes to the house, we assembled freestanding bass traps and we used 14cm thick foam panels for absorption. This was a good compromise. This is how Dear Silence Studio turned out. Simultaneously, we began establishing contacts with local production companies and studios. We planned to create a similar symbiosis with Kazakhfilm as we had with Mosfilm (during Soviet times, film studios were built in many republics). We needed ADR, Foley, and re-recording stages. Luckily, at the time of our move, Kazakhfilm had just started the reconstruction of their Tonstudio and we were more than happy to offer our help and consultation. As of today, the reconstruction of two ADR and Foley studios has been completed according to our suggestions. The Dolby Atmos re-recording studio is still under construction, and we hope it will be finished next year. We've already completed several projects in the newly upgraded ADR and Foley studios. Adapting to the local market proved to be quite challenging. The scale of the projects is different, with local comedies dominating the scene. Low budgets forced us to switch from an Agile approach to a more traditional production framework. The quality requirements for the productions are considerably lower and the timeframes for some projects have been reduced to just four weeks for all sound post- production. The all-Kazakh market has a population comparable to that of Moscow. As a result, revenues from local projects cannot generate Dear Silence Studio 1 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Left to right: Andrey Guschin, Andrey Kireev, Pavel Doreuli, Karima Khismatulina, Valeriy Vorobiev. Photo courtesy Andrey Kireev. Dear Silence double editing studio 2 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2023. Photo by Andrey Kireev