Will Cohen, Sound Designer and founding partner of String and Tins, spoke to Behind the Glass about his career and what inspires him the most. He is known for his work on Netflix’s feature documentary Rising Phoenix and with brands such as Vue Cinemas, PlayStation, Audi, Sainsbury’s, Amazon, The Guardian and many more.  

Cohen has always had a fascination with music, playing instruments and singing in various bands, orchestras and choirs when he was young. “I started making my own music, writing beats and messing about with a great bit of software called Cool Edit” said Cohen. “Fast forward a few years and after I did a production course at Confetti Studios in Nottingham, I applied to every music studio in London I could find. I wasn’t even conscious of the sound industry beyond music at that point… Unknowingly one of the places I had applied to was a post production house called M2 Television, where a fantastic engineer called Richard Lambert was working. I took a job as a runner there but not long after I started, Richard moved to a studio called Zoo (now Jungle) to start a longform company called Marmalade. I ended up getting a job there and over a couple of years worked my way through being a runner, then the machine room to getting into the studio. Then after a number of years I went freelance to pursue more music alongside my sound design.”

Making the decision to go freelance was one of Cohen’s scariest decisions. “Having become an engineer all the way from being a runner at the same studio, I felt terrified of quitting that place - the uncertainty and fear of how I would make a living was tough. Handing in my notice was one of my biggest challenges! Eventually I couldn’t sustain being freelance due to all the demands - taking my work on holiday constantly etc. String and Tins came about partly out of Mike and I being able to share each other's work and support each other.”

Cohen started String and Tins with co-founders Mike Bamford and Sam Brock. “We started String and Tins because Mike, Sam and I felt we had a shared desire to do things a bit differently compared to the places we’d worked at before. We wanted to be able to offer sound design and music composition in a more even manner, rather than one with a bit of the other tagged on. It feels good when we help bring a story together sonically from all directions, so certain projects have felt like more of a success in this way I suppose. I think one success of String and Tins I’m particularly proud of is the warm, intelligent and caring team we have formed together - it makes me look forward to starting the day!”

As for projects, some of Cohen's favourites have been those he has worked on this year because of the struggles of the year so far. “I did a really surreal Three 5G commercial, then a PlayStation 5 advert with a big Kraken in it and some 3D sound stuff, and I recently finished working on a feature documentary for Netflix about the Paralympics called Rising Phoenix. It was such a moving experience working on this show - it is in my opinion an incredibly important story, brilliantly told - go watch it!”

Like many, lockdown has presented its own challenges for String and Tins. “In terms of work, like most people we’ve had to set up a lot of remote reviews and VO / ADR recordings - it’s time consuming, each scenario is different which keeps us on our toes” he added.  “Making sure everyone in the team has what they need to do their work effectively has been more straightforward as we do a lot of work remotely anyway, so everyone has their own setups at home. One hiccup was in mid-February when I took my home studio apart to re-decorate the room to try and sell my house… I had to put it all back together and re-do all the acoustic material at short notice. Fortunately I’ve had a couple of long running jobs including the Netflix show which suited me being isolated anyway so it has been ok. Work wise, other than the initial terror of us thinking the company was doomed, things are ok. I think working at home actually suits the kind of work we do and a lot of us are enjoying that creative freedom. I wouldn’t say I’ve had more time to do the work I want to - the amount of admin and extra planning behind the scenes has really stretched us I think. It has been awesome to come back to the studio a couple of times a week recently and sit in a soundproofed air-conditioned room again!”

With budgets always being squeezed, how can we stop a ‘race to the bottom’? “We are constantly reviewing what we are billing - I think things are going in the right direction. I think when there’s a perception of everything going to pot, people might agree to anything just to do a single job… I don’t think that’s the case right now. There’s a lot of work turning over in advertising land at the moment, plus the good advertising clients understand what they get back in terms of goodwill by paying people fairly. From my understanding, the landscape in longform is much tougher at the moment - I know a few film sound guys who are struggling as work has slowed down so much. But they have some support on rates and standards by the likes of BECTU which hopefully are being respected.”

Having grown up in and around London and during lockdown, Cohen decided to capture some ambiences of some of his favourite spots. “I was at work right up until the government shut down everything, so it felt important to document how different everything sounded at that moment. I didn’t really think people would be that interested, but the sounds have now been collected by The Museum of London and a fair amount of people found the recordings touching. I did further recordings in April and May too but not via public transport, to avoid coming into contact with anyone. I’m definitely going to make recordings from identical locations in a year’s time to get a snapshot - partly in order to collaborate with a student who wants to create an exhibition around the sounds for her final degree piece. There was a huge amount of field recording going on at the start of lockdown by people all over the world - check out the ‘Ambient Isolation’ and Cities and Memory’ projects which I contributed my sounds to also.”

As for kit, Cohen likes his modular synth and software like Sound Particles for inspiration and sound generation, but finds some of the more simple tools the most invaluable: “I use Soundminer and spend a lot of time trawling for sounds and looking for direction and inspiration by keeping the net wide… I know it’s boring but I would be truly lost without it.”

Cohen gives credit to those close to him who have inspired him. “There are many hugely talented and creative people in our industry, it’s the character and perspective of some of my peers who I get the most inspiration from. It was great to gain insight into how Richard Lambert worked when I was a runner at Marmalade, and Jungle’s senior engineers Owen Griffiths and James Saunders were awesome to learn from. I also have huge respect for the work of my peers: Enos Desjardins, James Hayday, Gez Lloyd, Anthony Moore and Phil Bolland at Factory, my colleagues Mike, Lawrence, Adam, Joe, Kaspar and Jim, a couple of whom have only been doing it for a short time but are smashing it already. I think close friends Mike and Jim, who are the founders of VFX company Time Based Arts, have inspired me the most in recent times through their passion, skill and work ethic.”

www.stringandtins.com