Supported by Genelec

South African wife and husband sound engineers Stacey-Lee Hellenberg and Adriaan Hellenberg were in conversation with Italian-American post sound intern Stephanie Fields

Watch the recording of the talk or read the transcript

Stacey-Lee Hellenberg is the Director of Sound 4 You, an extramural taught to school learners – primary, high school and special needs pupils, teaching sound, podcasting, DJ-ing and music production. Stacey worked as a broadcast sound engineer for 15 years at e.tv (a nationally broadcast TV station in South Africa), which included recording and mixing live news and outside broadcasts. She is also a seasoned DJ, having played at clubs in Cape Town. Stacey also currently works as an online post production audio engineer, working with various clients and colleagues globally, and will be starting to lecture sound at a local NGO film school, Film School Africa.

Adriaan Hellenberg is an audio engineer at Pop! (Media 24) in Cape Town, where he records and mixes sound for location and TV studio shows. He also does sound design and final mix. Adriaan is a graduate from City Varsity but continued his education at the University of Cape Town, acquiring an Adult Certificate in Education, and is currently doing his Masters in Arts through SAE UK. His masters research and development project is also education-based. His 20-year career has involved working in post-production, location sets, live television and educating young children at school and institutional level at City Varsity and other institutions in Cape Town. Adriaan’s top achievements include winning an international Promax Award in 2008 in New York while working at e.tv. He also worked with Both Worlds productions on Emmy-nominated and SAFTA award-winning show ZaNews/Puppet Nation, where he recorded voice artists and designed all audio and music from scratch. Before starting work at Pop!, Adriaan was an online audio producer and voice artist, working on projects for international clients recording voices and designing sound for ads, TV, PSAs, corporate and social media. Adriaan also co-founded Sound 4 You with his wife Stacey-Lee. 

The conversation was hosted by Stephanie Fields, an Italian-American post sound intern based in Italy. Stephanie is at the beginning of her sound career with aspirations to become a supervising dialogue editor for film and television. Recently graduated from San Francisco State University, she has been a post sound intern for three years at a variety of sound studios through the San Francisco Bay Area, USA and Rome, Italy. During the pandemic, she earned her first official sound credit as dialogue editor on an indie film, which led her to begin freelancing. Stephanie is currently finishing an internship in Rome where she has been challenged with a different style of dialogue editing and discovered a hidden talent for synchronization. In addition, she has been exercising her sound design skills on a series of meditations helping women who are experiencing menopause, as well as various low budget / student films as a freelancer.