Professional audio lessons

Winnipeg Free Press

2 days ago

There's a building in Winnipeg's St. Boniface neighbourhood that celebrities such as Hilary Swank, Liam Neeson and Mark Hamill have all visited for work. But if you're not looking for it carefully, there's a good chance you'll miss it.
Located on Marion Street between a dental office and strip mall — and mostly hidden from view by a massive spruce tree — is Precursor Productions.
Friends Andrew Yankiwski and Chris Wiebe started the recording studio as a dedicated space to work on their own music projects. Since then, it's become a hub for audio post-production (the phase that occurs after the initial capturing of sound) for film and TV projects.
The business has worked with many of the world's biggest entertainment brands, including Marvel Studios, HBO and World Wrestling Entertainment.
'It still is a bit of a stretch for most people here (in Winnipeg), I think, understanding this as a legitimate profession or a realistic one or a pragmatic one,' says Yankiwski, 54. 'And I was definitely amongst the skeptical people back in the day.'
When Yankiwski and Wiebe started taking clients, the mostly self-taught recording engineers were producing, mixing and mastering music.
Today, music accounts for about 10 per cent of the company's business. Training aspiring recording engineers accounts for another 10 per cent, recording audio for corporate projects (like voiceovers for training videos) accounts for 15 to 20 per cent and the rest of Precursor's work is in film and TV.
Yankiwski is currently doing audio post-production on a docuseries about Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. That means editing dialogue and music, adding sound effects and mixing everything together into the final product people will eventually hear when they watch the series.
If you're watching a movie or TV show and you recognize something's wrong with it, but you can't quite put your finger on what the problem is, it's often in the post-production elements, says Adam Smoluk, executive director of Film Training Manitoba. Great post-production, whether it's the sound or picture, is supposed to be seamless.
'The sound editing aspect of film is an absolutely critical element (for) the viewer or the audience taking in a project,' Smoluk says. 'The fact that Andrew is such an experienced person and has so many clients that are high-end clientele says a lot about him and Precursor as a company.'
Yankiwski was a University of Manitoba student when got into audio production in the early 1990s. The drummer in his grindcore band moved out of province, so Yankiwski learned to program a drum machine prior to recording an EP in a local studio.
Around that time, Yankiwski met Wiebe. The two struck up a friendship, bonding over their interests in bodybuilding and music.
Wiebe received a $10,000 inheritance and spent it all on recording gear. The duo set up a makeshift studio in Wiebe's childhood home in the Winkler-Morden area.
During the week, Yankiwski pursued a law degree at the U of M. On weekends, he and Wiebe headed for the Pembina Valley to record the industrial metal music they were writing.
Yankiwski recalls playing some of their recordings for a fellow student in between classes and the student asking him if he'd ever want to own a recording studio some day.
'I said, 'You know, I would, but I have to be honest — I have no idea how you'd make money with that,'' Yankiwski recalls. 'And if I'm honest with myself, I still don't really know how I'd make money with it. But it seems to happen every month.'
By 1996, Yankiwski and Wiebe were releasing music independently and performing at raves, warehouse parties and club nights as the techno/house duo FLFK. Wiebe had finished law school and was called to the Manitoba bar, but lost interest in working as a lawyer.
In 1999, he and Wiebe decided to create a space in Winnipeg — just for one year — where they could work on music. They had dreams of finding a hip loft in the Exchange District, but when Wiebe stumbled upon a building at 218 Marion St. he thought could be suitable, they rented it instead.
After converting the former hair salon into a recording studio, the friends soon realized the project might be worth pursuing beyond the one year they had given themselves. They opened Precursor to the public in September 2000.
Almost from the start, the duo were offering training courses to aspiring recording engineers. Although they were largely self-taught, they wanted to offer people the kind of hands-on training they wished they'd had access to.
In 2005, Wiebe decided to leave the business to live abroad. Yankiwski kept grinding, teaching LSAT prep classes on the side.
'It took until about 2009, I'm sad to say, until we were really profitable in any meaningful sense,' he says.
In 2012, he bought the property. In 2016, he completed an addition to the back of the building that includes a loft — finally giving him his dream space.
Yankiwski employs five assistants. They do the majority of their work remotely on laptops, but Yankiwski will typically ask one to come to the studio when he's recording a celebrity to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Swank recorded the narration for the 2022 documentary Becoming Annika at the Winnipeg studio. Neeson (Schindler's List, Taken) visited to re-record dialogue for his 2021 thriller The Marksman. Hamill (Star Wars) dubbed parts for his role as Mervyn Pumpkinhead in the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comic book series.
Natalia Dyer re-recorded dialogue for a couple episodes of the fourth season of the hit series Stranger Things, and the wrestling tag team known as the Bella Twins stopped by to record speaking parts for a WWE app.
When he isn't working, Yankiwski shares his expertise as a board member at both New Media Manitoba and Film Training Manitoba.
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'He's been a massive community-builder … He wants to see the industry flourish and grow and all his actions support that notion,' says Louie Ghiz, executive director of New Media Manitoba. 'He's someone that we're definitely very lucky to have in Manitoba.'
Yankiwski says he never bought into the idea he had to leave Winnipeg to find success. 'I was determined to prove that we could punch above our weight — that we could be as good as any jurisdiction.'
Precursor Productions will mark its 25th anniversary in a few months, and Yankiwski is looking forward to celebrating.
'It feels validating,' he says when considering the quarter-century milestone. 'It feels validating to know that we could make a go of it.'
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Aaron EppReporter
Aaron Epp reports on business for the Free Press. After freelancing for the paper for a decade, he joined the staff full-time in 2024. He was previously the associate editor at Canadian Mennonite. Read more about Aaron.
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