No visa. No sponsorship. No paperwork.

Why bother with someone based in Singapore

An honest answer

Australia and New Zealand both have excellent sound departments. If your shoot is entirely domestic, entirely conventional, and entirely within one city, you should hire locally and you will be well served.

Where I am worth the conversation is narrower and more specific:

• The shoot crosses between ANZ and Asia. Co-productions, series that shoot blocks in two regions, documentary that follows a story across borders. One mixer across the whole thing means one workflow, one set of file conventions and one person who already knows the material, rather than a handover halfway through.
• The location is genuinely difficult. Rainforest, water, volcanic terrain, heat, remote. Twenty years of it, most recently four months of Malaysian rainforest that ended in an Emmy nomination.
• The schedule is tight and everyone local is booked. This happens more than the industry likes to admit, particularly in Auckland and on the Gold Coast during a busy season.
• You want the Emmy nomination on the call sheet. Not a reason on its own, but it is a real consideration for financiers and for streaming commissioners, and pretending otherwise would be coy.

If none of those apply, hire local. I would rather tell you that than take a job I am not the best answer to.

New Zealand specifically

I grew up there and worked there for years before Singapore. Hunt for the Wilderpeople was shot across Auckland and Mt Ruapehu, and Oceans Apart for the BBC took me across White Island, Lake Taupo, Rotorua and Wellington.

New Zealand locations have a particular quality that catches visiting crews: the wind. Not as an occasional problem but as a constant condition, in places where there is nothing to hide behind and no way to shield an actor. That is a technique problem rather than an equipment problem, and it is learned rather than bought.

The cicadas are the other one. A New Zealand summer bush location can be as broadband and as unforgiving as any waterfall, and for exactly the same reason. I wrote about how that gets handled in Field Notes.

Australia specifically

Australian work is the part of my map I am deliberately rebuilding. The Emmy nomination is a reason to have the conversation now rather than in a year, and I would rather be honest that this is a market I am actively growing into than pretend to a depth of local relationships I do not yet have.

What I bring is twenty years of drama and documentary, a full package, no immigration friction, and a genuine regional bridge if any part of your production touches Asia. What I do not bring, yet, is a decade of Sydney and Melbourne credits. If that matters more for your job, it matters more, and you should hire accordingly.

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Also worth a look: the full credits, and the production map for what is shooting across the region right now.