Grammy-winning cinematic album has Stratford connection

Stratford resident Michael Fisher was the video director of the Grammy Award-winning immersive album Immersed.

At the Grammy Awards on Feb. 1, 2026, Justin Gray from Toronto became the first Canadian to be nominated and win for Best Immersive Album. An album is considered immersive when it utilizes a format like Dolby Atmos to create a 360-degree surround sound experience. The album is also available as a feature length film which was directed and filmed by Stratford cinematographer Michael Fisher.

Fisher grew up in nearby Baden and spent post-secondary at Conestoga College studying robotics and automation. He moved to Stratford in 2008 where he started a video company: Fisher Media. He has been a director and cinematographer on many video projects specializing in live performances, but this one, he admits, was his biggest.

In 2014, Fisher met Justin Gray and brother Derek Gray in Toronto, collaborating on a music video at the Canterbury Music Company in Toronto. Their creative synergy was evident from the outset, with Justin specializing in audio and Michael Fisher in video production; both are also accomplished musicians. Justin, a sound engineer and a professor at Humber College, has remixed and mastered albums for the immersive format for artists such as Snoop Dogg, Arkells and Olivia Rodrigo. Approximately four years ago, Justin initiated the creation of an immersive album featuring both audio and visual elements with the advanced sound format of Dolby Atmos. Michael Fisher was his clear choice for the film production component of this project.

“Yes, Justin’s resumé is amazing,” admits Fisher, “and I am so honoured he asked me to collaborate on this new project where listeners’ ears are in the centre of a 360-degree audio experience. But what I love is that we are growing together and discovering together. That’s what’s most important to me.”

Fisher said yes to the title of co-director and director of photography of the video album simply called Immersed but admits he needed time to prepare and wrap his head around this scale of a project. Fisher spent the next year and a half transitioning to new equipment and developing new methods to prepare himself for a project intended for cinema, which included training directly from Dolby.

What is immersive audio? Most people know that “mono” has one channel/speaker and “stereo” has two. Immersive audio allows channels to be mapped in a “dome” shape and play through as many speakers as are available, creating a 360-degree sound. The listener feels like they are in the middle of the experience. To give you a better idea, Fisher said there were often 14 microphones or more on each instrument during recording.

Fisher had two assistants help him with the filming, one of whom was his 19-year-old niece who lives in Kitchener. Over a total of 30 days at the Humber College studio, they recorded eight songs with over 30 musicians, working typically between 16 and 18 hours each day. The project generated 300 hours of video footage totaling 72 terabytes, which required additional backup on external hard drives.

Immersed is available to experience in cinema, Blu-ray, and can be streamed on Apple Music, but you need to have the available technology and speakers to get the full effect. Average listeners won’t have Dolby Atmos sound systems which are available in some premium cinemas.

“Skywalker Sound studio in LA, which is the most prominent sound stage in North America, has asked to do a viewing of the video,” Fisher says. “As well as some Dolby cinemas such as in Berlin and New York City. It’s very exciting!”

So if you want to get the full effect of this Grammy award-winning album, you may have to wait a few months. Fisher said he is working on a screening opportunity for Stratford residents this summer.

Immersed is also nominated for a Juno award, set for April in Hamilton. When asked if he would attend, Fisher did not hesitate, “You bet!”