Malaysian alumna wins Hollywood award
Dreams come true for Axle, who receives award for best sound editing.
Sound designer and alumna Axle Cheeng won the Motion Picture Sound Editors' Verna Fields award for best sound editing by a student film. The maker for the film Head Over Heels is the first Malaysian to receive a major Hollywood prize. Head over Heels also won the award for the best student animated film at the Annie Awards and was nominated under the Best Short Animated Film at the 85th Academy Awards.
The film is a project led by students of the National Film and Television School (NFTS) where Axle also studied.
After realising her passion for music, Axle pursued her studies at the University of Hertfordshire and graduated with BA(Hons) Sound Design Technology in 2007 and then enrolled at NFTS to study an MA in Sound Design for Films and Television. 'I quickly realised that the corporate world was not for me. After I saw a brochure of School of Audio Engineering with the big mixing consoles and all those flashing lights, I decided to study the finer aspects of making sound and music.
'The award is the equivalent to an Oscar in the sound world. A good soundtrack needs layers upon layers of sound so I had to work on the atmosphere, the character movements, the Foley, the sound design, the voices and the music from my composer.'
Throughout Axle's career to date she has worked with Imaginex Studios, the audio's post – production team from Tripod which made War of the Worlds: Goliath and many others. Axle hopes to continue her success creating more work on sounds and projects.