From the Silver Screen to Your Palm Screen: NYC / NJ Audio Tech Celebrates His Clients' 2025 Successes
- Brett Ainslie
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
With 2025 now behind us, I'd like to take a moment to honor the achievements of my gifted clients. Their dedication and passion have brought success—whether through award winning recognition, or inspiring and touching lives or with viewer engagement. I've been privileged to partner with truly inspiring individuals on meaningful projects that resonate deeply. I'm thankful for the trust, encouragement, and shared vision that fueled the success of last year's documentaries, reality shows, branded videos, web series, live streams, and sports broadcasts. As we reflect on the year, I want to highlight some standout production companies and partners that made 2025 truly memorable:
The Big Cheese is Audience Runner Up at Doc NYC
In 2023-2024, I mixed location sound on a heartwarming and fun documentary about cheese, the cheese industry, and the wonderful people who make and sell us cheese, and what a craft and expertise it is! In this film, "A scrappy team of eccentric American cheesemongers defies tradition to take on the world's top cheese masters at the Mondial du Fromage, battling cultural clashes, personal struggles, and melting cheese in pursuit of respect, redemption, and a historic victory." C0-Produced by Adam Moskowitz and Sara Joe Wolanksy of Fanny Pack Films, Directed by Sara Joe Wolansky, this was truly one of my favorite projects to ever work on and was extremely inspirational even before seeing the final product. Sara Joe immersed herself into the community of cheese and dairy and continues to support not only those with whom she worked but the industry as a whole; a documentary storyteller from the core. If you can find an in-person or online screening of The Big Cheese - trailer here, from the 9+ upcoming film festivals, I highly recommend it. You'll laugh, cry and get warm chills watching USA redefine "American cheese" competing for international respect and personal redemption. The Big Cheese also just won Best Documentary Feature at the Beloit International Film Festival last weekend!
Digiday Content Marketing Awards Was Busy
I've got two clients who won Digiday Content Marketing Awards this year for projects I worked on in 2025. Rich Media Play won Best Multi-Platform Video Campaign for theSkimm & the NAR Present Video Series: “Making THE Move”. NYC based modern video production company RMP meticulously creates branded content strategies for their clients which often involves video content production, podcasts and more. I mixed production sound for some of this award winning travel series. My boom pole is famous!
"Give me some playback"- Celebrity Substitute Wins a Webby and Digiday Award
Meanwhile, I worked as the Music Playback Operator / Music Recording Engineer for an episode of Amazon's Celebrity Substitute with Julian Shapiro-Barnum and Reneé Rapp. Produced by Kerrytown LLC for Amazon, the series won the Digiday 2025 Best Branded Content Series – B2C and it won a Webby for Video & Film
Entertainment & Music (Series & Channels) 2025. It also was nominated for a Webby for Video & Film, Series (Branded), 2025. You can watch my episode above! Warning: Series of Flashing Cuteness may be triggering to some.
People's Television Wins a Gold Telly Award
In Summer 2024, I proudly mixed sound on a powerful and necessary PSA / advocacy video produced by People's Television for the Clean Slate Initiative called For the Record, directed by Praise Paige. Through this public service announcement, Clean Slate Initiative "advocates for streamlining [criminal] record sealing to help those who are eligible move beyond their [criminal] record." NY / D.C.-based production company, People's Television, produces uniquely fresh branded and social justice advocacy videos and was nominated for the Webby award in the category of "Series (Branded) Video" 2024. Then, in 2025, this production won a 2025 Gold Telly Award for General Social Impact. It's nice to finally see my name listed individually as one of the winners. Let's go team!
MLS on Apple TV Growing in Viewership YoY
As an audio tech, I don't just mix location sound. This past year I've been working as an A2 for live sports broadcasts in the field at the stadiums getting audio to the trucks and in studio. I've mostly worked MLS games including for Apple TV. As a growing sport, Apple TV has been putting in great efforts to increase viewership and engagement since their partnership with MLS in 2023. They don't publicly share much of their metrics compared to other leagues but according to Football Business Journal, they've reported a 29% increase in live match viewers per week across both streaming and linear platforms in 2025 throughout the season compared to 2024. On November 13, 2025, as playoffs started, Apple TV discontinued the exclusive add on, "Season Pass", to make the sport more accessible to viewers worldwide. The 2026 season started in late February this year, and opening weekend was reported to have had a 59% increase in TV viewership above 2025's opening weekend according to MLS Soccer. As a soccer fan, and a sports broadcast A2 for MLS / Apple TV and their partner crewing companies, it's real exciting seeing this sport grow as we head into the 2026 World Cup hosted here in my local area of New Jersey at MetLife Stadium, and Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
I’ve mixed production sound on some incredible and impactful documentaries, commercials, live streams, and digital content during 2025 and already in 2026, and I’m eagerly awaiting their release so I can share them with everyone. Until then, I hope to catch you on the next project!
Brett Ainslie is a NY / NJ freelance non-union Production Sound Mixer owner/operator.
He has been mixing sound on location for Film & TV since 2010 for narrative feature films, TV commercials, corporate videos, musical and corporate event live streams and broadcasts, digital content, documentaries, sports and network reality shows. Brett has mixed sound for TBS, HBO, Showtime, Bravo, Disney ABC, Discovery, Food Network, Fox, VH1, A&E, ESPN, MTV, National Geographic, Bloomberg, Vice and more.
