Dr. Neil Hillman MIPS, MPSE, ASSG (born 31 January 1960, Sutton Coldfield, England) is a British television and feature film sound designer, re-recording mixer and dialogue editor, notable for his work on the Oscar-winning film Lincoln, New York I Love You and Grace of Monaco. Hillman was awarded the World Medal for Sound Design at the New York Festival for the film The 13th Day in 2010 and in November 2010, he was awarded the Royal Television Society award for Best Production Craft Skills for Sound Design and Mixing on the film Handle With Care.
Early life, education and sport Hillman was educated at Banners Gate Infants and Junior School, and Riland Bedford High School, in Sutton Coldfield. He was an all-round sportsman who represented his school at rugby, cricket and athletics, and had a long-held ambition to become an apprentice professional footballer through his association as a schoolboy player with local club, Aston Villa. Instead, and to his lasting dismay, parental intervention rejected this choice of career and resulted in him leaving school and joining the Birmingham-based American CNC machine tool manufacturer Cincinnati Milacron as an engineering technician apprentice, at age 16.
He considered this lost opportunity to play professional football to be a deep disappointment for a 16-year old, particularly as several of his long-standing schoolboy teammates went on to enjoy long careers as senior players at Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Everton, Manchester City, Stoke City, QPR and Wolverhampton Wanderers; including youth contemporaries such as Bob Hazell and Wayne Clarke.
He subsequently played non-league football for Sutton Coldfield Town, and as a 17-year old was selected for the West Midlands County side in several English inter-county football matches, playing as a representative of the Cincinnati Milacron factory football team, who competed in the notoriously brutal 'Birmingham and District Works' league. Disillusioned by his non-league footballing prospects, he ceased competitive football by the age of 21, but he has retained a life-long passion for the game. For some years after ceasing playing competitively, he coached junior school youngsters as they started out on their footballing journey.
In 1980, after completing his four-year apprenticeship in mechanical and electrical engineering, and still funded by Cincinnati Milacron, he added an extra year to his academic studies; and in 1981 he graduated from the University of Aston with a foundation degree in Industrial Electronics and Instrumentation. He had previously studied Electrical and Mechanical Engineering at Matthew Boulton College and North Birmingham Polytechnic (now Birmingham City University).
In 2017, as a mature student, he completed a PhD by Practice within the University of York’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television (TFTV), researching Emotion in Sound Design under the supervision of Dr. Sandra Pauletto.
Career
1980 - 1990
After completing his apprenticeship and foundation degree in Electrical Engineering, Hillman joined the Midlands-based Central Independent Television in 1982 initially as a sound technician, progressing to senior sound technician working on all aspects of broadcast audio.
1990 - 2000
He left Central TV in 1989 to work as a freelance location Sound Recordist, Dubbing Mixer and Broadcast Sound Supervisor. During this time, he contributed regularly to long-running BBC TV programmes, including five series of The Antiques Roadshow (where he introduced stereo location recording to the programme), travelled extensively overseas to record location sound for the BBC on programmes such as Tomorrow's World, Horizon and Top Gear, and recorded and mixed choral music on location for BBC's Songs of Praise. Overseas filming experience included location sound recording in Belgium, Cyprus, Éire, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland and frequently the USA.
2000 - 2010
In 1999, Hillman was invited to join Optical Image, a growing UK animation and video post-production company, in a new position as Head of Sound. Hillman set up the post-production sound department for a joint animation venture with Mike Young Productions, Butt Ugly Martians; a 26-part production where Hillman worked alongside Producer Bill Schultz, better known at this time for his role as a producer on US animation hits The Simpsons and King of the Hill. Hillman was the sound designer and re-recording mixer for the entire Butt Ugly Martians series, collaborating with multiple-Emmy winning sound editor, Rick Hinson on episodes 1 and 2.
Between 2000 and 2001, he both location recorded and then audio post-produced a four-part series for Discovery, called Beyond The Horizon, which documented a year in the lives of a group of RAF pilots as they attempted to qualify for the elite Red Arrows display team. The year spent working alongside such excellence, Hillman later said, would irrevocably focus his determination and commitment to achieve similar levels of quality and professionalism in his own work.
Hillman left Optical Image in 2002 to form his own audio post-production company and studios, The Audio Suite. Between 2002 and 2012, The Audio Suite worked as preferred audio suppliers to All3Media, the UK's largest television Production Group, and the Audio Suite also became trusted suppliers to the terrestrial channels of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five and the digital channels BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV4, National Geographic and Discovery. During this time Hillman and The Audio Suite worked on some of the most popular shows on UK television, including Channel Five's The Gadget Show, as well as contributing ADR (also known as dubbing) to prestigious TV dramas such as Spooks, Hustle and Survivors for the BBC.
2010 - 2020
Also during this period, Hillman worked as the sound designer and re-recording mixer on feature films including: The 13th Day (for which he was awarded a World Medal for Sound Design at the 2010 New York Film Festival); The Mandrake Root; The Craftsman (a finalist in the 2013 New York Film Festival best soundtrack category); Handle With Care (the film earned two Royal Television Society awards: Best Production Skills for Hillman's soundtrack and Best Short Film); and he contributed ADR services to film productions such as: Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, (re-recording the dialogue of the character Tad Lincoln, played by Gulliver McGrath) for DreamWorks; New York I Love You, (re-recording Oscar-winning actress Julie Christie with director Shekhar Kapur, who took the directorial reins following the untimely death of the original director Anthony Minghella); and Grace of Monaco.
In 2012, and in response to the changing market conditions for audio post-production facility companies, Hillman transitioned The Audio Suite from a substantial commercial work-for-hire post-production facility, with a large city-centre studio complex that included a Dolby mixing theatre with two supporting Dolby mixing studios, to a smaller, bespoke sound design practice with in-house voice recording and mixing rooms, where he worked as a sound designer, dubbing mixer and ADR recordist.
Hillman moved permanently to Australia in 2021, opening a Brisbane-based Audio Suite sister-studio. Initially overseeing both the UK and Australian studio operations, he moved each of the companies sound services online and subsequently closed the Audio Suite in Birmingham in 2023 - more than 20 years after it first opened its doors to audio post-production clients in the city.
Recent work
After transitioning The Audio Suite into a smaller and more agile sound design practice in 2012, two of Hillman's initial projects were the sound design and mixing of Pip Piper's first of three music industry related films, the record store documentary Last Shop Standing - featuring British musicians Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Norman Cook, Clint Boon, Richard Hawley and Billy Bragg - which went on to earn a maximum five-star review in Q magazine; and the sound design, sound editing and mixing of Lisle Turner's feature film Here And Now, with final mixing taking place at the legendary AIR studios (Associated Independent Recording), London.
He has contributed to a number of notable television shows and features, including Star Wars Rebels for Disney in the US, and Doctor Who, The Only Way Is Essex, Death Comes to Pemberley, Doc Martin and Peaky Blinders in the UK. His feature film work has included production sound mixing (as a location sound recordist) as well as audio post-production, as a supervising sound editor / sound designer, dialogue editor, ADR recordist and re-recording mixer.
In 2015, Hillman was the production sound mixer for the film Scott and Sid, which went on to win several awards, including Best British Film at the National Film Awards, in 2019.
In 2017, he was the dialogue editor and supervising sound editor / sound designer for the British independent film Finding Fatimah, which was edited and pre-mixed at The Audio Suite and mixed for theatrical release at Pinewood Studios.
In 2018, he completed the sound design and mixing work on the second of Pip Piper's related trilogy of documentaries on record stores, vinyl records and independent music venues - The Vinyl Revival.
The final film of Piper's series, Long and Winding Road, premiered at Bush Hall, London on January 21, 2020. It featured Radiohead musician Philip Selway talking with small venue owners and artists including Nick Mason, Adrian Utley, IDLES, Nadine Shah, Gaz Coombes, Novelist, Richard Hawley, Talk Show, Squid and Pip Blom, at venues such as the 100 Club, The Boileroom, the John Peel Centre, the Trades Club, Bush Hall, the Brudenell Social Club, The Cookie, the Moles Club, The New Adelphi Club, The Leadmill, and 229 The Venue.
One of his last production sound mixer engagements in the UK was for Philip Pugh on the Indie feature film Own Worst Enemy, which resulted in considerable critical success by winning at the Stockholm City Film Festival, Sweden, in 2024; and earned awards at the Sittannavasal International Film Festival, India; the London Indie Film Festival, UK; and the One Location Film Festival, Mexico, in 2025. The film was also selected for screening at the Symbiotic Film Festival, Ukraine, in 2025.
As well as his operational work of recording, sound designing, editing and mixing, Hillman has also consulted with production companies and broadcasters on strategic planning for sports projects with complex workflow and demanding delivery requirements. Clients for this service have included the Olympic Broadcasting Services, UEFA, the ATP Tour and World Aquatics. He worked as a commentary control liaison at the London 2012 Olympics and as an audio mixer at that year's Paralympics; he was the foreign commentary broadcast liaison for the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final; the sound supervisor for boxing at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games; a commentary control liaison at the Rio 2016 Olympics; an audio mixer on the 2016 ATP World Tennis Tour; and a technical producer during the 2017 Champions League and Europa League tournaments for ITV Sport and BT Sport, as English Premier League clubs played throughout Europe.
He was part of the team installing and operating the Commentary Switching Centre (CSC) within the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games; a Commentary Manager at the '2020ne' Tokyo Olympic games and Paralympic games; and an Audio Mixer at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
He mixed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2023 Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands for television; he was a Commentary Manager at the 2025 World Aquatic Championships in Singapore; and he Sound Supervised and mixed the Australian Grand Prix round of the 2025 FIM Supercross World Championship on Queensland's Gold Coast.