Photo credit: Sébastien Roy

Jean-Yves Munch of the Hope College music faculty is part of the team that created the short film “Patterns,” which won honors earlier this month during the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal, Canada.

Munch, who is a lecturer in music at Hope, did the sound design and audio spatialization for the film, which won the Immersion Award during the Oct. 5-16 festival.

Founded in 1971, the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma features independent films from around the world.  Attendance is estimated at more than 160,000 people each year.

“Patterns” was directed by Pierre Friquet, who is based in Montreal, and co-created by Ando Shah, who was technical director, with music composition by Mourad Bennacer.  Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s universe, the 30-minute film follows the main character, Walter, as hypnosis helps lead him through his repressed past and to a monster in his ancestral home.  It combines 3D videogrammetry and 360-degree video techniques, and is being adapted as a virtual reality expérience for HTC Vive. The project was part of the residency program offered by La Societe des Arts Technologiques in Montreal. [SAT] is a non-profit organization recognized internationally for its active, leading role in developing immersive technologies, augmented reality and creative use of high-speed networks.

Munch is a professional sound recordist working with classical ensembles, contemporary musical forms and audio visual arts.  He has been a member of the recording arts faculty at Hope since 2011.

As principal location sound mixer for feature and documentary films, he travels and records sound around the world. His initial studies in film sound engineering and acoustics were conducted at Ecole Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière in Paris. He established his studio home-base, Studio du Marais, in Saugatuck in 2007.

His work has been cited for numerous other awards, including those presented at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, Columbus (Ohio) Film Festival, Katmandu International Film Festival, and the International Mountain and Adventure Filmfestival Graz (Ö), among others. Since 2005, he has served as principal recording engineer for the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra.

Some of his recently released audio recordings include: Mississippi Gabe Carter’s “Midnight Dream” and “Until they drag me down” (CDBY), “Narada Burton Greene – Live at Kerrytown House” (NoBusiness, 2012) and “Philip Sawyers: Symphonic Music for Strings and Brass” (Nimbus Alliance).