PRODUCTION FEATURE THEATRE SOUND
“Each space shares this similar sort of palette but they feel different as you walk through them.”
Stephen Dobbie
have a deep sort of durational sound come in every 10 to 20 seconds, so nothing that you would recognise as a rhythm.” Moving down from the top
floor, Dobbie explains how each descending space retains some sonic characteristics of the upper floors but with enough differentiation to create a unique identity. “Each space shares this similar sort of palette but they feel different as you walk through them. It’s very much variations on the theme based on the environment so you don’t feel like you’re listening to a five-minute loop,” he explains.
SONIC NARRATIVE As much of the production’s narrative is told through the emotive dance sequences choreographed by Punchdrunk’s Maxine Doyle, the story arc can be hard to follow and frustrating for those not used to the company’s style of work – an issue that has been brought up time and time again during Punchdrunk’s history, and one that Dobbie has been addressing through sound design. With little to no acoustic
The soundtrack for The
Drowned Man is Dobbie’s most ambitious project yet with 33 different sound zones playing out a total of almost a day and a half of sound. The ‘show’ – and I use this term lightly, as anyone who has taken part in one of Punchdrunk’s productions knows it is a much more active experience then any typical theatre show – clocks in at just over an hour and is repeated three times to allow participants to see as much of the narrative as possible as they wander freely around the location. On the final loop, an additional eight minutes of audio are played out as the actors perform the final minutes in an epic choreographed dance sequence.
www.audiomedia.com Dobbie explains how his
first task was to create what he calls a ‘sonic palette’ from which the audio aspects of the production were pulled. This ‘palette’ acts almost as an audio style guide, ensuring there are common sound elements that run through the entire space. “We had these two worlds – the studio and the outside – and they have a clear differentiation,” says Dobbie. “The outside world is this dusty, gospelly, semi-spiritual world, while the inside world of the studio is much more romantic, more kind of sophisticated and smoother.” “On the top floor [the beach] there was this idea that there is a factory in the distance so we made these very slow, rhythmical thuds. We’d
treatment and 6mm ply or curtains as the only separation between spaces, Dobbie was tasked with mixing the show so no matter which path an audience member chooses the sounds won’t clash. “If there’s a sound that people hear, they’re instinctually drawn to it,” explains Dobbie. “So it’s this constant battle between getting the levels just right so they’re not too loud, but that it’s enough to tweak people’s ears and drag them off somewhere else. It’s audience control as well, helping people navigate the system. Or at least point them in a direction.” Effectively, the soundtrack is the core element of the show with all other aspects of the production feeding off it. The lighting is triggered by the audio track via MIDI and with no curtain or side stage, the actors take all of their cues from what they hear. Yet despite being charged with creating something so
CREATING TEMPLE STUDIOS
The Punchdrunk team had a limited time frame in which to transform 200,000sqft of an old sorting plant into the world of Temple Studios. In the end, more than 170 different rooms and locations were constructed, all of which required some unique audio element in order to maintain the atmosphere of the production. “Just in the town space alone we’ve got nine or ten soundtracks playing,” says Dobbie. “There’s the drug store, radios playing in all of the motels and various shops, there’s three outside spaces, and then the tavern and the tabernacle. “The sound design really is there to charge the space – there
may be no performance happening but we’ll have 200 people walking through a space, so it’s making it as engaging and interesting as possible by establishing some sort of base atmosphere.” For the installation and implementation of the sound
system, Dobbie relied on Mike Walker, a technical associate at the National Theatre who provides consultancy, project management, sales, and installation services for theatres through his company Loh Humm Audio. Walker’s original brief for Temple Studios was for
multizone playback across all of the rooms, with each requiring a specialised speaker set-up ranging from multi- speaker spaces to rooms with practical speakers installed into vintage radios and other 1960s props. According to Walker there is over 17km of two-core 1.5mm speaker cable and 2km of four-core 2.5mm cable in the building, all of which is connected to five amp rooms with 200 channels of amplifier driving the near 380 loudspeakers in the space. During past performances, Dobbie would transfer the final soundtrack to multiple ADAT systems for playback, but he decided to try something new for this production. The set-up now includes multiple Mac Minis running QLab 2 sessions with Yamaha DME64s providing processing. “The whole thing about all of the sound for the show is
that we don’t want people to see where it’s coming from,” says Dobbie. “We want people to walk into the room and have the sound just swallow them.”
www.loh-humm.com
Stephen Dobbie, sound designer Photo: Toby Hudson
integral to the Punchdrunk experience Dobbie is quick to point out that the company’s model has always been one of democracy, with all departments, from sound to choreography to prop making, given just as much attention and detail. “Deep down there’s always a real excitement and
satisfaction in knowing that what you’re doing is a part of this much bigger picture. As much as sound does lead so much of what people experience, everyone comes and makes their own experience – we just give them a framework in which they can explore.”
www.punchdrunk.com
October 2013 33
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