Hello, I’m Achilles McLay !!

 When I was young, I was diagnosed with dyslexia, which led many teachers and mentors to tell me although I was creative, I lacked the words to embrace it. Being pointed down a more visual form of artistic expression, I fell in love with art. This changed, however, when I came into high school, learning quite quickly that despite being told otherwise throughout my youth, I much preferred exploring my thoughts and ideas through the written word. This led to me developing a fascination with playwrights, such as Brian Friel and Liz Lochhead. 

I later started to appreciate script writing after the 2022 critically acclaimed film, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (Dir. Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan), sparked my interest in film. At this time, I was making the hard decision of what path to take. After a push and a nudge by a close friend, I applied to the Edinburgh College's HNC in Film and TV.

Whilst originally expecting my interests to stay on the same path, I suddenly started to become more interested in sound. This persisted into the next year when I started the Film and TV HND. I started to lean more towards Post-Production Sound after struggling to make a soundscape that didn’t overpower dialogue. I wanted to learn more and develop more into an understanding that I would feel confident enough to apply it more to my projects. Whilst I’ve certainly improved a lot over the past year in the HND, I hope to only keep learning more about Post-Production Sound.