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Alex Ashcroft

Senior Lecturer

Alex Ashcroft is a sound engineer and educator with extensive experience across audio disciplines including; location recording and post-production sound for film and broadcast, live music sound engineering and theatre sound mixing. His research centres around immersive sound design.

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About

Alex Ashcroft is a sound engineer and educator with extensive experience across audio disciplines including; location recording and post-production sound for film and broadcast, live music sound engineering and theatre sound mixing. His research centres around immersive sound design.

Alex Ashcroft is a sound engineer and educator with extensive experience across audio disciplines including; location recording and post-production sound for film and broadcast, live music sound engineering and theatre sound mixing. His research centres around immersive sound design.

Alex Ashcroft is a sound engineer and educator with extensive experience across audio disciplines including; location recording and post-production sound for film and broadcast, live music sound engineering and theatre sound mixing. His research interests centre around developments in immersive sound design.

Alex began his career as a studio recording and live sound engineer, subsequently running "Equal Voices", an inclusive youth citizenship programme developed by the Campaign for Racial Equality, running musical performance and recording workshops and events across Scotland.

As a production sound engineer, Alex has worked with directors including Ken Loach, Michael Radford and Leslie Manning. In 2021, his work with Shola Amoo, director of the narrative feature-film, "The Last Tree" (Nominated for the Sundance 2019, Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema and distributed by Picture House in the UK), gained him a BAFTA Cymru nomination for Best Sound. He has most recently worked with director, Dylan Williams (Men who Swim), on the feature documentary "Men Who Sing", which premiered at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and was broadcast by the BBC, and as Re-recording mixer with director, Johan Carlsen on the film "Death on the Streets", which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

As a stage sound engineer, Alex has worked as Senior Touring engineer with the Royal Shakespeare Company and as Head of Sound / Sound Specialist with Cirque Du Soleil on a number of their international touring productions. His collaborations with visual artists include Rosalind Nashashibi, Lenka Clayton and El Anatsui.

Alex is a graduate of the National Film and Television School and The Northern Film School. He is also an alumnus of the Banff Centre for the Arts Audio Engineering Practicum residency where he researched studio and location-based surround sound recording methods, working with Grammy Award-winning mentor, David Gleeson (Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Fight Club).

Projects Alex has worked on have been screened and exhibited widely, including BBC, Channel 4, MTV, Venice Biennale, Cannes, Sundance, The Guggenheim Museum and MoMA.

Alex is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

Academic positions

  • Senior Lecturer
    Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom | 01 September 2018 - present

  • Associate Lecturer
    Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom | 01 September 2017 - 31 August 2018

Degrees

  • PG Dip. Sound Recording
    National Film and Television School, UK | 06 September 2004 - 14 March 2006

  • MA Filmmaking
    Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom | 18 September 2017 - 08 March 2019

Certifications

  • Avid Certified User, Pro Tools
    Avid (United States), Burlington, United States

Research interests

Alex's research interests centre around developments in immersive and surround sound technology and their impact on the aesthetic considerations of sound design. Taking into consideration the semiotic aspect of how sound is perceived, his research asks the question, with the widespread adoption of surround and immersive technologies in audio-visual media delivery, how are sound design aesthetics engaging with the dimensional expansion of the audio canvas?

Publications (21)

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Film, Digital or Visual Media

Death on the Streets

Featured 11 November 2020 Makrorama
AuthorsAuthors: Ashcroft A, Editors: Carlsen J

His wife Sarah still believes in the American Dream, but for unemployed Kurt the sun-kissed rural Bible Belt is tinged with grey. The fact the whole town knows about their precarious situation doesn’t help his sense of self-worth much. All that well-meaning pity pushes Kurt over the edge. He flees, seeking a means to support his family.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Men Who Sing

Featured 2021 Backflip Media
AuthorsAuthors: Ashcroft A, Editors: Williams D

This humorous and melancholic portrait of a male voice choir in North East Wales begins with the filmmaker’s father, Ed, a 90-year-old widower, selling the family home and making early arrangements for his own funeral. Weekly practice is his last remaining solace, but with an average age of 74, his beloved choir is facing a crisis of its own. They must act fast or face extinction, and the hunt begins to find “brown haired men” in their 40s and 50s to keep the choir going. As their search intensifies, the group grows closer. Ed finds new meaning in his life, while Merf deals with his own bad news by focusing on the choir’s revival, and Gwyn laughs in the face of a prostate cancer diagnosis, walking the wing of a plane to raise money for charity. Eventually, they travel to Northern Ireland to perform for the first time in two decades.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

The Last Tree

Featured 24 January 2019 Prodigal Film & TV, BFI Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Hopkins M, Thomas L, Williams S, Á Nkemi M, Ashcroft A, Editors: Amoo S

Femi is a British boy of Nigerian heritage who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire, moves to inner London to live with his mum. Struggling with the unfamiliar culture and values of his new environment, teenage Femi has to figure out which path to adulthood he wants to take.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Yn Y Golau, spatial audio and performance film

Featured 07 November 2022 Vertical Dance Kate Lawrence, Arts Council Wales, Pontio, Clwstwr, Bangor University, UCAN, Disability Arts Cymru, North Wales Society for the Blind Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Ashcroft A, Brooke C, Lawrence K, Wright J, Editors: Wright J

Online editing for the project Yn Y Golau. Yn Y Golau (‘In the Light’ in English) is based on research initiated by photonics scientist Ray Davies and Vertical Dance pioneer Kate Lawrence. It has been made possible by the curious work of many collaborators and generous support from: Arts Council Wales, Pontio, Clwstwr, Bangor University, UCAN, Disability Arts Cymru, North Wales Society for the Blind.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Honeycomb Lodge

Featured 03 March 2015 Laughing Stock Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Hopkins M, Kochar S, Harris S, Editors: Manning L

Honeycomb Lodge is a collection of stories through the use of flashbacks that lead victims of domestic violence to one common place, the Safe House. The film depicts an insight into the impact that domestic violence can have on adults and children alike.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Pinochet's Last Stand

Featured 26 March 2006 British Broadcasting Corporation Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Baynes J, Hetherington L, Editors: Curson-Smith R
Film, Digital or Visual Media

Ghosted

Featured 24 June 2011 Motion Picture House Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Friend J, Editors: Viveiros C

A story of survival inside a British Prison.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Chacun son cinéma

Featured 12 May 2007 Elzévir Films Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: O'Brien R, Beckett R, Editors: Loach K

A collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feeling about Cinema.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Leila

Featured 14 September 2010 Fifteen and a Half Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: McFie K, Harvey J, Editors: Manning L
Performance

Romeo and Juliet

Featured 23 October 2008 UK Tour Royal Shakespere Company Publisher
AuthorsBartlett N
Film, Digital or Visual Media

The New Ten Commandments

Featured 28 June 2008 Lansdowne Productions Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Higgins N, Editors: Jones A

The film was produced by Nick Higgins from Lansdowne Productions and Noémie Mendelle from the Scottish Documentary Institute and has 10 film-chapter directors for each of the 10 chapters of the film - Kenny Glenaan, Douglas Gordon, Nick Higgins, Irvine Welsh, Mark Cousins, Sana Bilgrami, Alice Nelson, Tilda Swinton, Doug Aubrey, David Graham Scott, Anna Jones. The film's unifying theme is human rights in Scotland with each chapter illustrating one of the "New Ten Commandments" - 10 articles chosen from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 10 film chapters of The New Ten Commandments 1. The Right to Freedom of Assembly - Director, David Graham Scott 2. The Right not to be enslaved - Director, Nick Higgins 3. The Right to a fair trial - Director, Sana Bilgrami 4. The Right to freedom of expression - Director, Doug Aubrey 5. The Right to life - Director, Kenny Glenaan 6. The Right to liberty - Directors, Irvine Welsh & Mark Cousins 7. The Right not to be tortured - Director, Douglas Gordon 8. The Right to asylum - Director, Anna Jones 9. The Right to privacy - Director, Alice Nelson 10. The Right to freedom of thought - Directors, Mark Cousins & Tilda Swinton.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

Flawless

Featured 26 September 2007 Magnolia Pictures Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Anderson E, Greatrex R, Editors: Radford M
Film, Digital or Visual Media

1 Way Up: The Story of Peckham BMX

Featured 03 July 2014 Shine Global Publisher
AuthorsAuthors: Hecht A, Editors: Mathieson A

1 Way Up in 3D is the story of the Peckham BMX Club and two teens on the road to the BMX World Championships. They hope to escape one of the toughest gang neighborhoods in London with the only thing they have - a bike. Defying all odds, they race to the top of the BMX ranks and off the streets. The film challenges stereotypes of youth born into poverty and proves it's not about where you're from but where you're heading that defines one's character.

Film, Digital or Visual Media

It's a Free World

Featured 24 August 2007 Sixteen Films
AuthorsAuthors: O'Brien R, Laverty P, Editors: Loach K
Performance

Othello

Featured 30 January 2009 UK Tour Royal Shakespeare Company Publisher
AuthorsHunter K
Performance

Corteo

Featured 22 February 2014 South American Tour Cirque du Soleil
AuthorsFinzi Pasca D, Leduc P, Bonzanigo M, Côté J-F, Hewett R
Performance

Zaia

Featured 18 May 2008 Macau Cirque du Soleil Publisher
AuthorsLaliberté G, Vignola N, Corradi V
Performance

Varekai

Featured 30 November 2009 Madrid Cirque du Soleil Publisher
AuthorsChampagne D, Corradi V
Performance

Alegria

Featured 12 March 2007 Worldwide tour Cirque du Soleil Publisher
AuthorsDragone F, Dupéré R
Performance

Days of Significance

Featured 27 October 2009 UK Tour Royal Shakespeare Company Publisher
AuthorsAlberg M
Performance

The Tempest

Featured 19 March 2009 UK Tour Royal Shakespeare Company Publisher
AuthorsHoneyman J

Current teaching

  • Making Stories
  • Specialist Workshops 1
  • Specialist Workshops 3
  • Specialist Workshops 4
  • Documentary Film

Teaching Activities (4)

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Course taught

Documentary Filmmaking

28 January 2019

Course taught

Specialist Workshops 1

28 January 2019

Course taught

Specialist Workshop 4

31 October 2018

Course taught

Production

24 September 2018

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Alex Ashcroft
21449