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James Hayday (centre) has been a part of multiple award winning productions and has now received a BAFTA for his efforts on BBC TV series Wolf Hall.
Former Mahurangi College student James Hayday has won a BAFTA at the Television Craft Awards for his work on the BBC TV series Wolf Hall.
James, aged 31, is currently working as a sound engineer in London. Describing how it felt to pick up one of the music industries most coveted awards, James said it would have been hard for us to make a mess of it.
“Director Peter Kosminsky had crafted the show so precisely and subtley,” he said. “It was a unique and collaborative mix. You don't get many quite like that so we all had this feeling that we were working on something a bit special.”
James has worked on numerous productions including Doctor Who and The Almighty Johnsons. He attended Matakana Primary School and Mahurangi College, and then Tai Poutini Polytechnic where he studied audio engineering.
“It was impossible to avoid music at home really,” James said. “Mum and Dad have been music teachers for as long as I have been around.
“I worked through a few piano and music theory grades as a kid, and that training definitely folds in to the sound engineering side of things. That and being a bit of a nerd.”James made his start on student films. His first sound job was creating sound effects for a New Zealand children’s TV show called Amazing Extraordinary Friends in 2007.
“There was huge scope to design lots of interesting sounds so it was a wicked job to get early on.”
Since then James has worked on the short documentary, Home, which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Awards in 2013. He also worked on Ellen Is Leaving, which won best narrative short film at the SXSW film awards.
“In general, there is a bit more money to go around in the UK and that means that we have more time to craft the work. There is a huge pool of very talented people, too, so it's very humbling on that level. It also means that there's a strong community, which is a healthy thing for soundies who otherwise spend their days isolated in dark basements.”
James has just finished the sound effects on a feature film The Infiltrator, starring Bryan Cranston, and is about to start working on 6 Days, Toa Fraser’s next film.
“The weather here is pretty sweet to be honest and Soho in summer is glorious. Good bye brain, see you in autumn. I'm not really in a hurry to leave. Don't tell Mum.”
