FEATURE MIXING IT UP
Returning flagship dramas and special seasons – including the first major cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays to be screened by the BBC for more than 30 years – com- bined to make the spring a fruitful period
for the post-production community. David Davies spoke to dubbing mixers at Hackenbacker, 3sixtymedia, Goldcrest and Aquarium/Egg about the challenges they encountered on landmark projects.
‘Our brief was to go for it – to add an intelligent edge to the
sound styling’ Nigel Heath
It’s really fun to be able to drop the rushes’ sound and play hyper-clean Foley against score for an unusual effect – for example, to go inside one of our character’s heads before opening up the sync effects, from the rushes again, on the other side of the ‘moment’ to drop the viewer back into a grounded reality once more. In order to do this, the Foley has to be really outstanding, and our Foley engineer, Keith Partridge, has done a fantastic job of capturing really good- sounding performances. ADR was recorded in the Avid ICON
D-Control-equipped Studio 3 by Ollie Brier- ley. I love Ollie’s ADR recording – it’s so neutral and not coloured in any way. Once again, it gave us exactly what we needed for this project. As with Foley, ADR might some- times be perceived as a bit of an expensive inconvenience, but in fact it is the opportu- nity to revisit performances and iron out any technical shortcomings derived from the original recordings.
Case sensitive: in-house editors Alex Sawyer and Darren Banks handled dialogue and effects
CASE SENSITIVE (SERIES 2) HAT TRICK PRODUCTIONS FOR ITV1
Dubbing mixers Nigel Heath, assisted by Alexander Fielding Facility Hackenbacker Format Stereo Primary equipment Neve MMC 48-fader console plus various outboard
How did Hackenbacker come to be involved, and what was the brief? Nigel Heath Hackenbacker was invited to undertake the audio post on the show as we had sound-edited and mixed the first season of the series last year. While we had a differ- ent director this time around, the show remains visually exciting. Our brief was to pretty much ‘go for it’ – not in a ‘bells and
28 | Broadcast TECH | May/June 2012
whistles’ way, but to add an intelligent edge to the sound styling of the show, and to accompany the various twists and turns of the story. The sound is not the star of the show – the drama is – but Edmund Butt’s score is sensational and delicate all at the same time, and the sound is a great accompa- niment. There are some extremely stylised moments but then there are runs of subtle work, which can be really exciting – for the sound editors, that’s where the real challenges sometimes lie. The project arrived at our Bateman Street
facility in January. In-house editors Alex Saw- yer and Darren Banks handled dialogue and effects, respectively, while Hackenbacker’s dedicated Foley stage was kept busy with its contribution to the soundtrack. I like to have comprehensive Foley tracks on a show like this, which has a strong psychological angle.
Describe a particularly demanding stage in the audio post work on this project NH I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but there is a pursuit scene with great inter- cutting of a live musical ensemble in vision building to quite a climax. Then there’s a tiny moment’s respite followed by another big sound event – that was tricky. On telly, you don’t have ‘real’ loudness to play with so, for me at least, it’s all about contrast – texture, filtering, holding expected sounds out to create an effect.
How did you achieve the desired end result? NH As tends to be the case, my extensive range of vintage outboard gear proved to be invaluable. I’m not a fan of plug-in reverbs and such, being someone who prefers the choices and discoveries that hardware can offer up. Sure, some of it can be inconsistent and one unit may behave slightly differently to another – but I love all of those idiosyncra- sies. Particularly useful in this sequence was my old Eventide ‘Orville’ processor, which really hasn’t been turned off for years and is probably on every mix that I do.
www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils
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