They met in the Foundation Visual Art & Design program at VFS, but it wasn’t until they took the Sound Design for Visual Media program together that Iryna Kucherenko and John Kochanczyk’s partnership solidified. Now they’re planning a months-long field recording trip in Africa: the first step in getting their new company, WaveBreach, off the ground.The pair will graduate from VFS in October, and their ambitious plans - which also include documenting their African journey on film - will kick into gear soon thereafter.We’ll let John explain:Maybe you could describe how you met and arrived at the decision to collaborate and launch a new company?We originally met in the Foundation program. We knew that we liked the entertainment industry, but still had little idea about the specific skills we wanted to learn, let alone searching for our career passion.After completing a successful year, it became clear to both of us that sound needed to be explored. It wasn’t until around the 4th term [in Sound Design] that ideas started flying around about recording and how we could tie that further into our work.Thus our little big trip started forming, which we initially thought was way outside our possible scope and current skill sets.But once we started looking for advice on which methods and ways that should be considered, we received huge support from all of the instructors, which only got us more excited to continue and push for the best we can do.What’s in the works for WaveBreach? What are your hopes for it?WaveBreach was founded primarily as a sound recording company, aimed to supply sounds from particular geographic locations and for the requirements of various productions. Our current goal is to actively record as many safe locations as possible, capturing the current era of each country before globalization manages to change everything.Our dream for WaveBreach encompasses a continually expanding international production company. Recording is the starting block, for all intents and purposes.8 months in Africa - it sounds incredible.Africa… Well, our purpose for the trip is to record the specific cultures, music, technology, geographics, wildlife, and anything that actually sounds cool. The trip itself is overall 8 months; however, this is broken down into two four-month segments representing the northern and southern areas of Africa.The first leg of the journey will be touring the southern ring of Africa, traveling through 15 countries with a hopeful average of around two to three weeks per country. This will be followed by a little break, just to give us the chance to breathe and to start mastering the library-to-be.The second four-month excursion will be around the northern ring of Africa, touring 13 countries and ending with Egypt. Totaling 28 countries in all. This is excluding all the countries with problems such as civil war, or other disputes that deem them unsafe.“Sound Design” encompasses so many different disciplines - what draws you two to the recording side of things?It’s the diversity of skills required to be a Sound Designer that has really got us hooked into sound.You have to be aware of what is going on in multiple other processes and procedures in terms of videos, animations, etcetera, let alone keep track of your piece of work and help tell the story in the best possible way.The recording side of things comes from working with the massive libraries of sound used to create great videos. It’s great to work with, but there’s no real sense of how the sounds interact with their environment and how they sound in real life.Which is why we are heading towards the recording side to start with: we both really want to experience and manipulate original recordings to experiment and determine the absolute best techniques and ways to record huge varieties of sound well, let alone appreciate a well-done recording. Instead of trying to improve upon what’s already been recorded and mastered, we want to start at the very root of sound, which has to be recording.Besides, recording is awesome: you get to break stuff, play with toys all the time, and travel as far as your psyche allows.Thanks, John! Good luck to you both on the trip, and we hope you’ll keep us updated on your progress!