What kind of company would you picture if we told you its work picked up a Ciclope, Shark, British Arrows, Creative Circle, D&AD, and Music & Sound awards? The final one gives away the kind of work the company does, sure, but it doesn’t tell you that two years ago the company didn’t even exist. Meet King Lear, a creative music and sound design company that hit the ground running before it even had an official studio space.
The company might be new to the industry, but its founders certainly aren’t. Sound designers Jack Sedgwick, Dugal Macdiarmid, Ed Downham and music supervisor Sarah Giles, have decades of experience between them which, with the help of strong industry relationships, has translated seamlessly into award-winning work. Their story starts with what makes the company today fresh and interesting: friendship. “We were all good friends for years before we decided to collectively give this a go,” says Jack.
Collaboration and creativity are the two words at the forefront of King Lear’s mind and that reaches across to its approach to music and sound. “We are not just a sound company, or just a music company, we are one and the same, that’s really important,” Dugal emphasises. Setting up the company was a huge risk the four confessed. “We felt that we wanted and needed independence and autonomy whilst keeping the collaborative element,” says Sarah.
Another big question was, what kind of projects did they want to work on? “We all have a lot of experience in advertising, that’s where we grew up, but there’s a bigger world out there that we can be a part of too,” Jack adds. “Independence means we can be flexible with what we work on, even if it doesn’t directly serve the bottom line.” In practice this looks like working with clients like NCA, Mother, W+K, Uncommon, BBC Creative and Droga5 NY on commercial projects for the likes of Formula E, Apple, Meta, Greenpeace, Women’s Aid and Ikea. It also means working on long-form projects like the ‘Poor Things’from director Yorgos Lanthimos (which won the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Film Festival); Adjani Salmon’s ‘Dreaming Whilst Black’ for A24; Edward Lovelace’s BFI documentary ‘Name Me Lawand’; and Oliver Hermanus’ Sky Atlantic show ‘Mary & George’.
“We didn’t want King Lear to be an advertising sound company or an advertising music company. We’re a sound and music company that works across different mediums,” says Dugal. Independence for King Lear is the freedom to experiment and try new things without restriction, to branch out and not feel constrained by expectations set by anyone other than themselves. Ed adds: “For a long time there was a sense that you work with one sound person, one music person, and that’s it. Working together for two years now has pushed us all to develop our skills and be more open. Ultimately, it’s given us a much stronger platform to make good work.”
Craft is King
It’s an attractive proposition for clients: a group of craft-obsessed experts under one roof, who not only can, but actively want to, work closely together. The craft element is vital to King Lear’s philosophy. All four are quick to say that they want to feel proud of the work they’re creating and putting out into the world. Interestingly, they’re not just trying to impress audiences. “Everything we put out there is going to be seen by our peers and that’s why we want to make it as good as it can possibly be,” Dugal says.
“We’re such a bespoke company right now that we do take our time to create and experiment, to give projects that extra time they sometimes need,” adds Sarah.
Working on music and sound under one roof is not only fun for the team but comes with tangible rewards for the final projects too, like in the case of FCB London’s ‘Skoda Kodiaq’ and Mother’s ‘Great Journeys Begin with Trainline’ where the team handled it all. “It’s always nice to be able to walk out of the sound studio and talk to the team when we need a piece of music,” says Dugal. “You have more control when music and sound are done in the same place; you can really narrow down where the big moments are, for example, and enhance those by speaking to the composer openly about the structure and story and how music and sound can help each other,” adds Ed.
The team’s laser focus on the work – and the rate at which new work keeps coming to them – means that when the awards did start pouring in, they were completely surprised. Most recently the team picked up a gold, silver and bronze at the Creative Circle for the work on Formula E, Zara Origins, and Meta respectively. “We’re incredibly appreciative, and not just for the awards” says Dugal, adding, “I know how hard and risky it can be for clients to place their trust in a brand-new company. For some of those first jobs, we didn’t even have our own studios, so we were running around dry-hiring spaces to get the work done.” It all paid off with the team picking up a British Arrows award for sound design for the work on Formula E which was created and mixed in a “tiny music studio in London Fields,” the team fondly recalls. Even on the features side, Sarah recalls sitting in the library breastfeeding a very young baby whilst working on Sebastian Lelio’s ‘The Wonder’ for Netflix. “It was quite a stressful time, and we didn’t really know anything about running a business but ultimately people still trusted us to do our jobs, it was a very affirming show of faith!,” she says.
What the team learned in those very early days is that it’s not necessarily about the swanky studio, a proper office space, or the right messaging on your website, though none of those things hurt. It’s about the skills and expertise of the person you’re working with, the trust between people and a shared understanding of what it means to do really good work.
It’s worth mentioning though that the team does now have a fantastic facility in East London and outfitting it has been a labour of love and a team effort of course. So far there are two Dolby Atmos studios with a third beginning construction in January 2024. “We wanted the space to be welcoming, easy-going, inclusive,” says Ed. Essentially, all the qualities the team personify themselves. Though the dust hasn’t yet settled from the whirlwind of King Lear’s genesis, the team is comfortable and confident in their home. They’ve also since boosted their numbers with senior agency producers Suzy MacGregor (EP) and Natalie Curran in production; Kaya Pino in music supervision; Diana Amado as studio assistant; and runner Rowan McIvride.
Beyond the work, King Lear has a strong desire to “support the industry and the people who work in it, whilst offering opportunities to those who wouldn’t necessarily be thought of,” says Dugal. That sense of camaraderie stems from a real passion for the industry and from the way other music and sound companies reached out to them at the start with words of kindness and advice, offers of studio space and old furniture, or a little bit of everything. “String and Tins, Clearcut Sound Studios, and Soho Square Studios were all incredibly supportive,” says the team. Now, they’re paying it forward: “Anyone we hear of, who is building a studio, we invite in for a chat to show them around, and to share our learnings,” adds Sarah.
King Lear is that curious mix of freshness and proven industry experience. It means the team is willing to take risks because everyone has the experience and expertise to pull it off. Meanwhile, its independence also allows it the time to really home in on the projects the team wants to pursue. In King Lear’s world the future is open-ended and full of possibility while craft and collaboration drive its every move.