The company’s reputation for care and quality has spread well beyond their home country. The relationships it has forged with producers and performers in Asia, Africa and South America, have seen System providing sound for such productions as Cats, Miss Saigon and Les Miserables from Buenos Aries to Johannesburg, and on to Beirut. Musical events have included Placido Domingo in Hong Kong, Jose Carreras in Beijing - as well as the spectacular farewell and handover ceremonies for the British colony of Hong Kong and the Portuguese territory of Macau.
As senior sound designer and engineer since their very first job, System’s managing director John Scandrett has been at the heart of the company’s operations. Scandrett graduated from university in 1973 with an applied science degree in physics and acoustics, and no idea what he was going to do with his life. Through the agency of his sister, a dancer, he stumbled into the emerging area of theatre sound. For three frantic years Scandrett worked on dozens of productions for JC Williamson Theatres, learning the black art of invisible theatrical sound reinforcement.
Following a spell as a freelancer, he eventually banded together with two other sound vagabonds to form a partnership to which they each contributed $7,000 worth of equipment. After only a couple of years of operation, Scandrett bought out his partners and incorporated the business as System Sound in 1979. This coincided with the collapse of traditional commercial theatre in Australia, a situation that brought about a change of direction for the company.
During the next five years, the majority of System’s work came from the world of trade presentations, fashion parades, product launches and multimedia audio-visual productions. In the early 80s, this meant 35mm slide productions, so System invested in an AVL control system and a bundle of high-powered Ektagraphics projectors. They even went so far as to branch out into the business of producing audio-visual presentations for the fashion industry. This, in turn, led back to the theatre when their AV system was used for the projected scenery in the musical They’re Playing Our Song.
As demand for theatre sound gradually recovered, every penny was ploughed straight back into the company to purchase equipment for use on locally produced versions of musicals that had originated in Broadway or the West End. When the Really Useful Group’s Cats first came to Australia, System didn’t win the contract to supply the sound for the original Sydney season.
However, in late 1987, as the production was transferring to System’s home town of Melbourne, RUG approached System to handle the sound for that season. Thus began a relationship that was to continue for many years, with System providing the sound for all subsequent RUG Australian productions and many others worldwide. The company is still looking after that production of Cats, which has been all over the world in the intervening years.
Late 1987 was a turning point for System, as this also saw them engaged to engineer the sound for Cameron Mackintosh’s Australian production of Les Miserables. A few months later, System was also awarded the contract
