GCRS' Munzie Thind Picks Up Silver Award at Creative Circle

GCRS sound designer Munzie Thind picked up a prestigious Creative Circle Silver Award in Sound Design for what looks set to be one of the defining projects of his career, National Autistic Society: Sensory Overload.

Throughout 20 years working at leading Soho sound facility GCRS, Munzie has been responsible for delivering audio excellence to critically acclaimed work such as BBC Music’s ‘God Only Knows’ music video and Lucozade’s ‘The Wild Ones’ spot.

Career highlights include giving Elvis a voice in ‘The Amazing Line Up’ spot for BBC Radio 2 – winner of six major creative awards - and declaring war on summer allergies for Benadryl’s ‘War’, which won Gold for Sound Design in the Creative Circle Awards.  

However, the Sensory Overload film challenged Munzie to create something starkly different from the majority of commercial work out there. The project came to Munzie through long-term collaborator and acclaimed director Steve Cope, who had personal experience of autism and wanted Munzie to help him tell the story as authentically as possible.

Munzie comments: “The great thing about this project, from a sound design point of view, was that I was brought in at the start of the creative process. I felt it was vital to start by researching the experiences of people with autism, so that I could strive to put myself in their shoes and create something that would truly reflect the challenges they face everyday.

“Instead of aiming for the beautiful, I wanted a soundscape that was really annoying. The sounds were looped and manipulated to disrupt the listener. By doing this we wanted to make them feel uncomfortable and alien - the repetitive and atonal audio is meant to strike a chord with the audience, communicating the message in an unnerving manner.

“I messed with the tempo of recorded and library sounds to add that arresting factor. In order to achieve a stark contrast with the rest of the film, I cut it dead at the end to surprise the viewer, as the film cuts to a shot of Chile, who has autism in real life.

“I am very proud of the award for Sound Design but what makes me even more pleased is hearing from real life autism sufferers that I got their experience spot on. That’s something that will always stay with me.”