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When producer Noah Strik packed his bags for Nepal three years ago for a month-long trip, he envisioned a straightforward recording project: a compact setup featuring an EVO 8, a couple of microphones and a plan to track an EP alongside local musicians.
What actually unfolded was an unpredictable journey through earthquakes, remote villages and deep cultural connections, which ultimately launched his transition into filmmaking. That initial music trip evolved into an intense, three-year process of editing, scoring and learning the craft, culminating in a powerful 70-minute feature documentary.
With the film set to premiere at the Beholders Film Festival on 4 October, we caught up with Noah to discuss field recording in the wild, the reality of raw vocals and how trusting the unexpected changed his creative life forever.
The Origin & The Journey
When you first set off for Nepal three years ago with an EVO 8 in your bag, did you ever imagine this ambitious project would turn into a 70-minute, festival-selected feature documentary?
Honestly, not in the slightest. I had never created anything remotely resembling a film before. When I left for Nepal, I thought I was just going there to make an EP with locals. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to create, how the sessions would work and even how the journey would unfold. The video gear we packed was mostly meant for making behind the scenes footage, showing the faces behind the music you would hear on the EP.
That plan started falling apart almost immediately. On the second day, there was an earthquake, and our one Nepali connection, who was going to accompany me, had left to help out the victims in rural Nepal, before we even heard about what happened. Suddenly, my partner and I were alone in a completely foreign country, trying to find musicians and convince people to make music with a stranger.
The funny thing is that the more the original plan fell apart, the more interesting the project actually became. I went from trying to just make songs, to trying to find out if music could bring us together. Eventually, after all the sessions across Nepal, I realised that the story wasn’t really about making an EP anymore.
When I came home, I had hundreds of hours of footage and a completely different story than the one I had set out to tell, and there was a choice to be made. Do I make an EP, or do I try to tell the “real” story? It was never really a debate, because the journey had completely changed the way I view music. I had never made a documentary before, so turning that material into a feature-length film became an entirely new journey. It took years of learning, editing, re-editing and, probably most importantly, learning to be honest about what had actually happened.
So no, I definitely didn’t imagine a 70-minute documentary when I packed that EVO 8. I thought I was packing for a music project. But it was a journey worthy of all its struggle.
Studio Performance in the Middle of Nowhere
Recording audio in remote, unpredictable environments is tough. How did the EVO 8 perform out in the field, and how crucial were features like USB bus-power, portability and Smartgain when setting up a studio wherever you landed? What feedback did you get from your co-creators/village people you encountered?
The EVO 8 might have been my most underrated setup choice looking back. It was also one of the only elements that worked consistently. So many times, we had to improvise and adapt our setup, but the EVO 8 was the one thing that just… worked.
What surprised me looking back is that I never really felt like I was compromising on the quality of the recording simply because I wasn’t in a studio. It made professional recording feel portable.
In terms of its specs, I knew from the start that having a USB-powered audio interface was a must, because of how remote some of the locations were. It was important because it allowed us to operate more spontaneously, which also led to more authentic sessions, because we didn’t need a dedicated place to operate from. A lot of the best musical moments happened in places where there was absolutely no conventional recording infrastructure: homes, villages, remote areas and eventually even in the jungle. I didn’t want the technology to become a barrier between me and the people I was meeting.
In terms of the size, it was perfect: it was small enough to travel with, but powerful enough to become the centre of the recording setup wherever I happened to be. Also, it was almost absurdly robust, which was really important. With the only component sticking out being the wide main gain knob, I never had to worry in the chaotic nature of our travels that small elements would break. It was just never really a factor.
The 4 inputs ended up crucial, because although I never thought I’d need 4 inputs with the 2 mics I brought, some sessions were so big we ended up renting out extra microphones locally. It’s honestly surprising how much you can do with such a travel friendly interface. What I liked most was how intuitive it all was to operate: with one big knob centrally located, I never even really needed to look at the interface to operate it, which was important because it was very demanding to try to communicate with some of the people I worked with. So it kept my attention where it needed to be. Smartgain was also useful in those situations because I was often setting up quickly and working with musicians who had never recorded their music before.
I feel like the biggest compliment to the device’s capacity is strangely the LACK of acknowledgement/focus on it, because the process became so smooth and intuitive; everywhere we went, we just plugged in, got going and never had to worry about anything, no matter the size of the group or the location. It was just that reliable.
Crafting the Score & Voiceover
You single-handedly scored the entire film and recorded the full voiceover. How did the clarity of the Audient preamps and the 4-in/4-out capability help you capture both native musical connections and polished narrative vocals?
The interesting thing about making the film completely by myself is that the boundaries between filmmaker and musician basically disappeared. I was filming, editing, composing, recording and doing the voiceover all simultaneously, so the sound of the film became another part of the storytelling.
The preamps were particularly important for the voiceover. The narration is very personal: I’m essentially letting the audience into my own head, so I wanted it to sound intimate and natural rather than overly processed. I kept adding and adding processing elements, but eventually removed all of the processing. I realised that the recordings were already clean and natural enough that processing was actually making the voice feel less authentic. So now, there’s no EQ, no compression, and the voice overs are entirely raw.
For the locally recorded samples used in the score, I wanted to preserve/embrace the character of the original settings. We often had to improvise in less than ideal acoustic conditions, leading to somewhat noisy background audio at times. However, I felt like it added character in comparison to the versions where I polished out those imperfections, so I chose to keep them in.
The Premiering Milestone
Having your world premiere at the Beholders Film Festival on October 4th is a massive achievement. What do you hope audiences take away from Project Nepal and the way music connects people across cultures?
Having a premiere planned feels quite surreal because this project has completely consumed my life for so long. For years, it existed almost entirely on my hard drives and in my head. Nobody knew about it. I didn’t even know if, when it would be finished, it would get something like a premiere, let alone at a film festival. Imagining a venue full of people watching what I made feels equally flattering and frightening, and surreal either way.
As for takeaways, I first and foremost hope to show people how powerful music can be. By showing the stark contrast in our cultures in the film, followed by us still managing to find connection, I hope to inspire people to try and connect more with each other. To listen more. We often describe music as a universal language, but I experienced that idea very literally in Nepal. So I’m hoping to share the power of music as a tool to bridge gaps and connect people, instead of the status quo as a commercial product.
I also hope people in the audience can be inspired by my personal side of the story. It was an incredibly personal journey, built on dealing with broken dreams, finding your place in society and trying to find meaning in hardship. It shows how maybe some dreams are not meant to be, but following your heart opens new doors. I’m hoping some people can recognise themselves in that.
So if people leave the cinema either feeling empowered to connect more with the people around them, or feel recognised in their personal struggles, I would be honoured.
Looking Back
If you could go back to the start of the trip and give yourself one piece of advice about filmmaking and mobile audio production, what would it be?
I would tell myself: stop trying to control the outcome. Embrace the unknown.
That applies to both filmmaking and mobile audio production.
When I left for Nepal, I was obsessed with getting the result I had imagined. I wanted five sessions, I wanted an EP and I wanted everything to work according to plan. I could almost hear the exact sounds I wanted to record. But Nepal taught me very quickly that this is not how the creative process works, especially in collaboration: In fact, it would make the entire project boring and superficial if it had worked out that way. Because what would I then be there for? To learn, or to extract? The most exciting things happen when you completely embrace the moment and actually open yourself up to the unknown. But you have to make peace with potentially coming all this way, and leaving with nothing. That’s what it takes. Had I known that, then I think I would’ve had so many more amazing experiences, unexpected moments, intimate conversations.
The same applies to filmmaking. Some of the moments I initially considered ugly and unimportant became the most crucial parts of the film. They were literally shot from the hip on an iPhone. Similarly, some of my most epic, cinematic shots didn’t even make it into the edit, because they added nothing to the story. But I guess that’s filmmaking.
In terms of the audio production, I’d also tell myself to trust simplicity, but to be bold with the usage. So take the equipment you actually need, make it portable and automate the workflow, so you can record even more spontaneously. Looking back, it would’ve been so cool to go as far as to have mini sessions on the streets, inviting strangers to come and play. But I think that’s something I wasn’t quite mentally ready for yet. Maybe next time!
Final note (from Noah)
I saw this statement on your website:
“Our mission: To make professional audio quality available to everyone through the power of technology.”
The more I look at it, the more I feel our visions are remarkably aligned. It’s so interesting to see how this vision has (coincidentally) manifested itself so clearly in my project!
We are immensely grateful to Noah for sharing his remarkable journey and letting Audient play a part in bringing his vision to life. Everyone here wishes him every success for the premiere on 4 October and looks forward to seeing where his newfound passion for filmmaking leads next.