Who Is McAWilliams

Well as im sure some of you are aware by now, my name is John Williams or as folk on the web know me McAWilliams. This is my little place on the www for me to share with everyone. I have written a series of questions followed by answers to inform you better of thing that may enter your head, but should you have anymore questions contact me at mcawilliams AT gmail.com and I will answer promptly.

So why mcawilliams.com?

This is a long story but basically all the males in my family sort of inherited the name Mc Ardle hence mca, it is not a double barrel name and can be used if I so wish and I decided it was time to use it to my advantage, you do know there is a very famous composer out there with the same name so chances of me getting that domain would be slim.

So tell us more.

Well I am 38 years of age, 6 foot 4 and shrinking for some weird reason, brown hair (which has greyed), smoker, light drinker and live in Dublin, Ireland, and have a beautiful daughter and son Rebecca and Paul.

What do you do?

Well as you can see I enjoy computing and photography but these are just hobbies, I am actually a fully trained sound engineer.

A Sound engineer?

I am the dude who pushes buttons that you may have seen on music videos when the band is in studio.

So you record bands?

I used to but not any more what I do now is sound for TV ads, Radio ads, TV programmes, Multimedia and more recently films. Someday soon I hope to put up a portfolio of some of the work I have done for all to see.

Have you done anything I should know?

Well since looking at the international flavour of who visits this site, probably not, but I have worked on a magic show for RTE (Ireland’s national broadcaster) called “Close encounters with Keith Barry” of which both series 1 and 2 have been sound engineered by myself. I have also just completed the sound for another RTE commission called “Chain Reactions”. The reason some of you may have heard of Close Encounters, is because the show has since been sold to 26 different countries most recently the UK satellite channels “Living TV” and “Bravo” and is doing very well getting my name out there. I have also completed 5 other tv series for RTE and TG4 “Karl Spain wants a woman”, “Liffey Laughs series 2″ and “Ceart agus Ceor”, “Chain Reactions” series 2. More recently I was responsible for the sound on “Frongoch” on TG4, “So you want to be Taoiseach” and “Soupy Norman” for RTE. I have recently started to do a WTCC highlights show for racing car driver Emmet O Brien for TV3, there are so many other projects I have worked on but after 15 years doing this I dont want to have to make you scroll down the page for an eternity.

So is there anything else we need to know?

Well no that’s me. I suppose I could tell you about my interests, as I’ve said before computing now plays a big part of my life, be it doing silly pages like this or playing one of the many web games out there. One such game szlamp.com is probably the reason I got into computers, and would be a game I would recommend to anyone out there who has a bit of time on their hands and wants to learn more about the web. You can find out more by clicking above or the link on my links page.

Since upgrading my cameras from the compact Canon Ixus V2, to the Canon Powershot G6 then to my first SLR in the Canon EOS 350d and now to the Canon EOS 40d photography has crept into my life and has become a big part of it. I know very little about exposure, f stops and bracketing etc but I am learning and since this is the 5th version of mcawilliams.com, I’ve decided it will provide my content for this web page. You can find out more about All about the camera equipment John Williams uses here.

Music and audio obviously would be what I have always enjoyed and my music tastes are, I suppose, quite weird as I do not like one specific genre of music, it could be classical or it could even be death metal, I would have a very varied range of Cd’s in my collection.

Fishing would be a pastime I try to do as often as possible be it course angling to sea angling, you can often find me beside a river or on a pier somewhere in Ireland.

Lastly as sad as it sounds, gardening is my way of relaxation, since purchasing my own house years back, I attempted to create my own 32 foot x 17 foot piece of tranquility in Ireland, and all who have seen my efforts were pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately in December 2004 I moved house and I had to leave my pride and joy behind, I did have a new blank canvas to work on, and in 2009 decked the whole of the back garden by myself!