Anthony Moore: At the centre of the sonic boom

The universe is sound, so they say, and the cosmos a vibration. And down here on planet Earth, the 7.73 hertz of the Schumann resonance is the underlay, the electromagnetic hum of the planet.  

We can’t hear it, but it’s there, like some interstellar door chime, spreading out into space. And way down here on the ground, in a soundproof suite on Margaret St in Fitzrovia, once the bustling centre of the rag trade, the designers and engineers at Factory are busy creating and arranging sounds that will tell stories, unleash emotions, memories and connections – all with a global reach.  

For Anthony Moore, CCO and owner of Factory, “sound design is such a huge part of the storytelling and believability of a world. The right approach makes those experiences come alive.” He was originally its employee number four, starting out as a studio assistant after a chance meeting at a barbecue. He’d already worked as a DJ, mixer and at BBC Radio, learning his craft using tape machines, editing with a razor and pieces of chalk. “The BBC trained me up,” he says. “We were editing on tape machines, doing live mixes and bouncing everything down to tape. You really used your ears back then. You listened closely because you had to commit to things.”  

Wind forward some 27 years, and tape is a museum piece, and Factory has expanded from a start-up doing radio commercials and DJ mix albums (“We were often the DJs behind the big names – they put their name to it, we did the work in the background”) to become, with its sister company Siren, one of the key sound design, post and music supervision behemoths of the industry.

“When I started out, I had no idea advertising and sound design was a thing,” says Moore. “This was the mid-to-late 1990s.” And if he thanks anyone, it’s Mother. “It was a really exciting time. We had a bunch of mates at Mother, which had just started. All of a sudden we were working in advertising, and from then it exploded. We were their go-to people for the first 10 or 15 years, and lots of our clients today come from those Mother days. It was such a creative crew, a great gang of people who were in it to have a laugh and make the best work that we could.”

It was also a pivotal time of change across the industry. “In the 2000s the old guard had moved on, and there was a more collaborative spirit in post, in agencies and in creativity. Everyone’s input was valid, wanted and needed. That’s why some of that work with Mother was so groundbreaking. It was a fresh wave of creativity coming through.” 

After that crew had flown Mother’s nest for other agencies, Factory began to spread its own wings. “We went from being Mother’s little secret to the new kids on the block – over the course of about a decade,” recalls Moore. “What I’m really proud of is always trying to push forward and being ahead of the curve over those three decades. We’ve tried to set a standard in how we operate, our culture, working with people who want to work with and collaborate with us. We want to deliver each job in the best possible way and give our collaborators and clients a playground of sound to work with. You get the best out of sound and music when you invest the time to prepare and dig deep into the sonic story you want to tell. And that’s been key in our breaking into new areas of work.”

As AI tools begin to reshape the architecture of sound design, platforms have changed from radio and television into multi-platform digital, headphone-first environments, as well as into the physical world via digital immersion. “We’re working on immersive experiences and non-linear sound design,” says Moore, “worlds that react to different inputs and scenarios, creating soundscapes that live in a physical environment, and worlds for people to live in and step into and experience.”  

They’re also about to deliver their first big sound design and music project for a theme park attraction, an innovation that Moore sees as central to Factory’s legacy – always pushing forward into new territories.