studio services - about us

Phil Lee, Partner & Director

Phil Lee, Founder and President of Full House Productions

Phil Lee is one of the founders of Full House Productions in New York City. What began as a two-man — one studio operation in 1981, Lee has grown into a 20-person, state-of-the-art, New York City-based, multi-studio, audio production company. With an impressive client list that includes some of the top advertising firms, filmmakers, publishing houses, business clients, and movie studios — Full House Productions is leading the way in an evolving industry.

Lee has been ingenious in growing his company through mergers, primarily in 1988 when well-known video-dance director and producer/editor Jeff Bush joined Full House Productions as studio manager. Together they quickly grew the studio into one of New York City’s leading audio houses.

In the mid-90’s, Lee and Bush decided to add audio books to their studio services and so they pursued an opportunity to purchase the Sun Group from award winning recording artist, Arthur Custer. Lee spent two-years mentoring with Custer, while Bush maintained operations at the main studio. In 2000 they merged the two companies in a larger studio — their present-day location on 123 West 18th Street.

Soon after setting-up in their new studio, Lee and Bush decided to approach Fran Bowen, owner of Trackwise®, a well-known audio restoration studio to see if she’d be interested in partnering. Bowen quickly brought her expertise to the group which rounded out the studio services nicely.

Before founding Full House Productions in 1981, Lee had a distinguished career as an engineer and producer. He began at Jimi Hendrix’ infamous Electric Lady Recording Studios in New York City where he worked with renowned artists Kiss, James Taylor, Blood Sweat and Tears, Stevie Wonder, and many others.

From there he moved to the nation’s number one broadcast market at WRVR-FM in New York City. ‘RVR’ was an inaugural member of the newly formed non-profit Educational Radio Network that provided the seeds for today’s National Public Radio. Lee worked as engineer and producer of radio documentaries for The Network Project, an independent group that produced documentaries for broadcast on ‘RVR’.

Soon after, he became a United Nations Sound Recordist doing location recording on documentary films throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Mexico. The films focused on United Nations initiatives and were shown around the world to member nations.

After spending five years working with the United Nations, Lee looked to broaden his horizons so he joined film trailer house Kanew Manger Deutch. There he created radio commercials for such films as Manhattan, Apocalypse Now, Fame, Raging Bull, and many others. It was from here that he left to found Full House Productions.

Lee hails from Long Island, New York, and resides in New York City. He graduated Cum Laude from Boston University in 1969 and is active in the alumni association there. Lee is a member of SAG, AFTRA, IBEW, The New York New Jersey Trail Conference, Sloop Clearwater, and the Theatre Development Fund.

George Hansen, Operations Manager

George A. Hansen, Operations Manager, has worked both sides of the audio recording business — as a recording engineer and as a studio manager.

As a recording engineer, George has recorded and mixed audio for everything from industrial and sales presentations for major corporations, to local radio spots and high profile national radio and TV commercials. He has designed sound for countless theatrical productions for both Broadway and Off-Broadway, and engineered and produced albums for the legendary producer Moe Ashe of Folkways Records. After 20+ years as engineer, he flipped to the other side of the aisle and became a studio manager where he enjoys “making it all work together.” Nothing gives him a bigger charge than putting together a large project and having it work out to perfection.

Billy Harper, Engineer

Award winning TV and radio mixer, Billy Harper comes to Full House after several years working with both Photomag and National Recording. He brings an impressive roster of clients from the ad world including, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis, Duetsch, Red Car, The Well, and Uniworld Group.

Billy mixes with a real sensitivity to texture and color, brings unusual depth to every mix, and sometimes he makes it sound good too.

Lou Verrico, Engineer

Lou is to audio engineering what Isaac Newton was to physics. Ask Ken and Ric Burns what they think of Lou and they’ll tell you — they won’t work with anyone else! Lou has been working with the Burns brothers for about 23 years doing the audio post on all of their documentaries including: “New York,” Baseball,” “Jazz,” “Civil War,” “Jack Johnson,” and “The War,” Ken’s documentary. Lou recently wrapped up post production on Michael Kantor’s, “Broadway” (www.pbs.org/broadway) and was the key engineer on all of Thomas Lennon’s projects which include “Irish in America,” “The Battle Over Citizen Kane,” and “Tabloid Truth.”

Lou's the guy in the middle.

Dave Weissman, Engineer

Dave has been in the business of audio for nearly 15 years. If you count his musical childhood, you can say he has been in it his whole life. Dave picked up music at an early age, studied guitar intensely, and fell into the life of a rock-n-roll musician. Nobody really knows if his long hair & tattoos preceded his love of rock-and-roll or vice versa. Dave studied audio engineering at the Institute for Audio Research in New York City, and has been a working engineer ever since. Dave’s clients include, New York University; Rocket Pictures, “Surprise by Design with Rebecca Cole and Robert Verdi;” Furman Roth; and High Noon Productions, “All American Festivals.”

Consultant to Full House Studios

Matt Verzola

Matt came to Full House Productions after graduating from Full Sail with degrees in Recording Arts and Entertainment Business. He quickly fell in love with the great people and “relaxed but professional” work environment that Full House has to offer. Not only does he have a keen ear for sound, he’s also developed a sense for performance, and how to help the actors do more than read words on a page.

In addition to recording audiobooks and voiceovers at Full House, Matt has mixed the MTV reality series “The Shop” and has done the sound design, music composing, and mixes for numerous independent films and documentaries. He’s also done mixes for Wal-Mart and Pepsi.

Matt’s happy to play with sound, but he also has a passion for photography. He likes candid shots of people in the city and his camera never leaves his side. His dream is to travel the world, take pictures, make music, and work with creative people. To see his pictures, just Google him!

David Merrill

David Merrill was born into a musical life. His mother, Marion, was a Julliard pianist and his father was the famed Metropolitan Opera Star Robert Merrill. David's musical career started early playing piano and spending 5 years singing with the Metropolitan Opera's Children's Chorus. In High School he moved onto electric guitars and bass, playing in various local bands. His college years at Sarah Lawrence saw him getting involved with avantgarde music making, leading to work in experimental theater, including New York's downton La Mama Theater and Theater for the New City. After school he began engineering at Master Sound Productions, where he met famed rock writer Lester Bangs and formed the band Birdland with Lester Bangs, recording one album at Electric Lady Studios. After parting ways with Lester, the band became The Rattlers featuring Mickey Leigh - Joey Ramone's brother. The Rattlers spent 6 years touring all through the Northeast and Midwest. David eventually came back to studio engineering, spending the next twelve years on staff at Master Sound, which was located at the Kaufman Astoria Studios Complex. There he worked on many Broadway cast albums aand TV shows as well as artists ranging from Placido Domingo to Keith Richards. David also does a lot of live concert recording and became a proud member of the Full House Freelance Engineering Staff 5 years ago. The folks at Full House are delighted to have such a talented, creative individual on their roster.

Arun Pandian

Arun Pandian has been working as a producer, guitar player, and engineer in New York City for the past 10 years.

Arun played on the 5 Time Grammy Award Winning album 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill' which sold over 12 million albums worldwide and was nominated for 10 Grammys. He also shared lead guitar duties with Al Anderson (of Bob Marley fame), on her 1999 Miseducation of Lauryn Hill World Tour. Some other notable artists Arun has had the privilege of performing/recording with include: Carlos Santana, Mary J. Blige, NAS, Savion Glover, Gavin Degraw, Jared “Choclatt” Crawford (Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk) and Dan Dyer (Lenny Kravitz protégé on his label Roxy Records). He has also made numerous T.V. appearances including: Saturday Night Live, The Grammy Awards, MTV Music Awards, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, Billboard Music Awards...

Arun currently runs a project studio in the Lower East Side, and can be seen performing with his band Overnight in and around the city.

Additional Consultants to Full House Studios