Jon Stojan
Discourse defines post-production sound engineering as a creative and technical process where a specialist, through editing, manipulating, and layering sound, enhances the overall experience of broadcasting, films, video games, and TV shows, integrating various elements to create a cohesive, impactful project. For Jacco Fransen, Post Production Sound Engineer and Founder of Aborisound, this craft is more than that; it’s an art through which he conveys emotions, communicates, and makes new realities come to life.
An industry veteran with over two decades of experience, Jacco has found his niche in broadcast, where, working alongside content directors and other experts, he directs and refines voiceover recordings. This passionate professional has also assisted with the production of Dutch and international TV programs, films, and documentaries, ensuring that, regardless of the message, genre, or audience, they emanate the desired feeling and enable viewers to experience entertainment more purposefully.
Central to his philosophy is the notion that, said in the right tone and accompanied by the right audio, even one uttered, whispered, or shrieked sentence can say more than a hundred words. This belief is personal, rooted in Jacco’s deeply engraved love for music. Growing up, he played classic piano for more than a decade, later nurturing that passion at Utrecht School of the Arts, where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Technology. What started as dreams of a music career transformed into an infatuation with sound, leading Jacco into the world of audio engineering.
His professional industry venture began at an audio studio in Amsterdam where Jacco was hired to perfect the sound of documentaries. There, under the tutelage of a foley artist who managed the studio, Jacco got to learn the art of mimicking everyday sounds – like footsteps, clothes swishing, and breathing – by using a kaleidoscope of props. Through this experience, the sound engineer learned the importance of intricate details, realizing that nuances are where people find ambiance and authentic emotions.
To hone his skills, Jacco enrolled in sound design and editing courses, dedicated to elevating the landscape with realistic productions that connect with viewers on an emotional level. Throughout his career, Jacco has been leveraging his musical nature, finding many parallels between the two worlds. “As a musician, you go to a conservatory, someone gives you notes, and you need to be able to play,” he adds. “Audio engineering is similar; instead of notes, we have dual systems, digital workstations, and complex machines but, at the end of the day, the goal is the same – to create sounds that resonate with the hearts and minds of people.”
After years of working for some of the most renowned studios in the Netherlands and completing projects globally, Jacco enlocked his first-hand industry experience, sheer passion, and comprehensive audio understanding in Aborisound. Founded in 1999 under a different name, the company is an all-encompassing, well-equipped studio offering voiceover recordings, creative sound design solutions, an extensive sound effects database, an opportunity to
transform audio into broadcast MXF, and more.
Despite its ethos of quality and realism illuminating the journey since the start, Jacco encountered the innate challenges of owning a small business along the way, forced to temporarily close down. After picking up the pieces and returning with Aborisound, he looks back on what he once considered a failure with gratitude: “Sometimes to fail is a blessing in disguise. When you fall, you can figure out what went wrong, recover, and try again, smarter and stronger than before. That’s exactly what happened, and now the past me, the stubborn little boy always wanting to do it all on his own, is truly proud.”
At the helm of Aborisound and as an independent Post Production Sound Engineer, Jacco’s portfolio is incredibly vibrant, spanning global projects in diverse areas of expertise. In the Netherlands, he mixed the sound for BBC nature documentaries, Zodiak Media’s On the Run, documentaries for the Discovery Network, and a Dutch youth drama series, where Jacco created the entire soundscape and cut out the original Dutch dialogue allowing countries to buy the series and fill out the missing dialogues using their own languages.
The last experience instilled in him a passion for international projects, guiding him to other places, where he replaced audio in English documentaries and programs with dialogue and sound recorded in local languages. While navigating the area between cultures and dialects, Jacco found a new creative outlet. Here, he forges new realities, designing sound that, though matches the same motion picture, hasn’t been created before.
At Aborisound, Jacco leverages a ‘big to small’ methodology, starting with establishing primary sounds by asking questions like ‘Where is it filmed? Is it by the sea? Is it in the forest? Is it the middle of the night somewhere remote?’ After determining the main setting, Jacco moves to the details, from the sound of leaves grazed by branches in a windy storm to faint footsteps in the distance and the raucous of an action shot. As he says, the intricate details are what separate a good engineer from a great one, creating true realism on screen.
“Sounds are common to people. The daily noise we hear on walks in a park or while sitting on the beach blend into one, and we rarely think about all the elements that create it,” Jacco muses. “It’s not until a sound is missing that we realize the deafening space it leaves. That’s why audio engineering is so much more than manipulating and layering sound; the ultimate goal is to empower audiences at home to immerse themselves in a new reality, one that grabs attention, touches hearts, and helps the story flow.”