Stephen Frost creates audio such as voice-overs and background music for television from his Richmond-based sound studio. (Photo by Ash Travis)
When you think of your favorite cartoon, what comes to mind first? The characters? The story? How about the sound? From the audio cue of a door closing to the emotional impact of mood-setting background music, this is what the Richmond-based audio production studio Stereo Couture creates.
“Anything you hear when you are watching is something we are responsible for,” says Stephen Frost, who started Stereo Couture in 2016 and has been creating sound for cartoons, animated series and commercials for clients all over the world. Every sound — from the actors to voice-overs, sound effects, background music and full post-production — is the work of Stereo Couture.
It’s not exactly the career trajectory Frost envisioned during his days as a musician in a Led Zeppelin tribute band in 2011. But he couldn’t find an outlet for the music he was composing and decided to seek out his own clients. In 2015, his persistence with late-night cold calls paid off. “The people awake at that time were in Australia and Singapore. I ended up producing the music for a children’s show in Singapore.”
The show, “Ollie and Friends,” was an experience Frost never envisioned. “I got the job because I just kept calling them,” he says. “The music company they were working with couldn’t get it over the finish line. They were in a tight spot, so we went from being told there was no work to picking off 44 of the 45 songs the company needed for ourselves.”
After securing a bid to compose most of the songs, Frost traveled to Singapore in 2016 to assist in the sound production for the show. “It was surreal, all these children on the other side of the planet singing and dancing to your music.”
The project led to a 2017 recruitment by nonprofit Dynamic Catholic for another show, “Blessed,” a seven-hour, straight-to-DVD animated production. Beyond songs, Frost was tasked with hiring actors as well as producing sound effects and post-production work. “That’s when I went back to Mills Godwin, my high school, and was connected to the theater director Todd Coolidge. He knew how to find actors and direct them. Those actors … formed the core of who we now work with. We built out a great roster of actors and are still building. We found a lot of wonderful talent here in Richmond.”
Coolidge left Godwin and joined Frost in building the company. Stereo Couture received a boost during the pandemic, as studios and agencies were trying to rush through projects before lockdowns closed businesses. As work has grown, the studio has added more collaborators and several high-profile clients, including NBC Sports and ABC Australia. Frost’s initial series, “Ollie and Friends,” is on Discovery Kids.
For Frost, his dreams have come full circle, just not as he expected they would. “I always wanted to be a professional musician, singing my original songs.” He wrote and sings the theme song for the Netflix show, “Lil Wild,” now in its third season. “I have done the things I dreamed I would do. I just didn’t realize that it would be this way,” he says with a laugh.
