For this exercise, I wanted to do something that would challenge me creatively in terms of sound design. I knew that most nature documentaries have extensive Foley work added in post, especially when the film documents animals that really don’t make any noise, like insects, and so these Foley artists are pushed to be very creative in their compositions.
I decided on an insect documentary, as many other nature films with different animals use actual recordings of the animals, which I wouldn’t have access to; insects could be completely recreated at home. I found a David Attenborough clip following a mantis, listened to it only once (I didn’t want to have too much of a reference), and then used an AI voice separator to extract David’s voice from the rest of the audio.
I then went about recording what I thought these insects should sound like, only using items I could find at home, such as rubber gloves, tin foil, etc.

I was commissioned by a fourth-year student of Limerick School of Art and Design to create the sound and music for her final-year animation project. The previous sound designer had to leave the project quite late in the process, so I had to start from scratch on a short timeframe of just 2 weeks.
The bulk of the audio was recorded into Ableton 11 and was arranged and edited in DaVinci Resolve. The Foley was all recorded at home, as well as the music, which was mostly recorded on an acoustic guitar, both plucked and bowed. Many of the sound effects were sourced from Freesound.org, the BBC sound library, and YouTube.
The animation was nominated for the following awards at the Dingle Animation Festival 2026: Best Irish Student Award, Best Writing Award, Best Animation Award, Best 2D Animation Award, and, relevant to me, Best Original Score Award and Best Sound Design Award.