BREAKING NEW GROUND FOR SOUND
After years of negotiating the fraught planning process, PitStop Productions announced last month that construction will soon begin on its multi-million pound Sound Design Creation Centre. Richie Shoemaker talks to a relieved John Sanderson about what the facility will mean for game audio services in the UK
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John Sanderson, Founder PitStop Productions
ccording to John Sanderson, there’s not really been a joined up approach to facilitating game audio services in terms of skills and
career development. He would know, of course, as the founder of PitStop Productions, the Barnsley-based audio services company that this year is celebrating its 25 year anniversary. The seven figure “reassuringly expensive” investment is not just about having 12,000 square feet of office space in the shadow of the Peak District, or a brand new building to eventually house 50 new employees, but to create a “better way of getting new people into the audio gaming arena, in terms of their professional development.” “We’ll be working closely with universities and
colleges to evolve a process whereby we can onboard new talent, we can give them genuine experience and at the same time, start trying to improve the whole pipeline and the process, which has never really been done in the game audio sphere before.”
44 | MCV/DEVELOP April 2022 The new facility, which will take a year to build
and another six months to become operational, will stand on prime greenbelt real estate in Barnsley, which suggests why the local council have been hesitant to grant permission for the construction to go ahead. Sanderson is understanding of the issues that Barnsley council have had to consider and says that the authorities have been very accommodating over the two years since plans were first submitted.
SOUND BARRIER “The biggest issue was actually finding a space,” he says. “The site is set on a hectare of land, and a hectare of land in the UK now is pretty rare. That was the challenge. We had to argue, successfully in the end, ‘look, we’re trying to create quality jobs in a growing evolving industry, and stabilise some employment in Barnsley, where those opportunities are not so available.’ It was a battle, really, of arguing
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