Recent Stevens graduates, Sergio Scardigno ‘21 and Martin Trogani ‘21 have co-founded The Birdhouse, a music production company based in NJ that features live music performances and interviews with artists. The company launch is a result of Scardigno and Trogani’s work at Stevens for their Music and Technology senior thesis projects
“The Birdhouse is a production company that aims to capture the magic of a live music performance you wouldn’t get in a recording,” said Scardigno, “During my last year at Stevens for thesis, I had the idea to do a live video session with an artist or band, recruiting my friends from my hometown to help with the filming.” Trogani got involved at the start of the project through “handling everything audio-related,” according to Scardigno. For their senior thesis, the pair made a video with Phoneboy, a band spearheaded by Stevens students, which is now known to be The Birdhouse’s first video.
“I actually play a few roles within Birdhouse. As it stands, I handle all visual editing/post-production, and act as director on set,” said Scardigno. He is also involved with PR and outreach for The Birdhouse. Trogani is the company’s producer and primary audio engineer. Also on the Birdhouse team are Stevens students Khianna Byrne (graphic designer), Aaron Lerch (audio engineer), Whitney Dyer (interview personality), as well as David Vincent (cinematographer) and Danny Rinaldi (director of photography) from Montclair State University.
Lurch explained, “My role at The Birdhouse is A2, or second audio engineer […] This includes choosing and placing mics appropriately, working with the band to get them whatever they need, troubleshooting audio issues, etc. […] Being part of the team also means helping out with whatever needs to get done.”
Byrne, who is a Visual Arts and Technology major, is responsible for The Birdhouse’s graphic designs. She said, ”The main logo used for all of the Birdhouse social media, videos, stickers, and business cards was created by me.”
The team works together to create videos of artists performing live, as well as interviews with these artists to provide insight to fans. According to Scardigno, “some artists just have that extra special thing about them you can only experience live. What we do is shoot these artists on video doing live takes of their music, in an attempt to capture that special thing in an intimate way.” In comparison to other production companies, Byrne views The Birdhouse as “something similar to Tiny Desk Concerts or Audiotree Live. They essentially want to promote music artists—large and small scale—by filming them in live sessions.”
Quality and authenticity are highly valued by The Birdhouse, as their goal is to “bring people super high-quality content of their favorite artists,” according to Scardigno. “We want to really shrink the distance between fans and the artist by bringing the audience something intimate and special.”
Although the production company hasn’t hosted events yet, they are looking to in the future. They are also planning for more sessions with new artists, both full-length and small-scale.
Students interested in The Birdhouse can follow them on Instagram @birdyhousey and follow the link to their YouTube account at youtube.com/thebirdhousey.
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