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CASE STUDY


TAMING THE BEAST T


he Midnight Beast is a comedy music group from London that


shot to fame after posting a parody of Ke$ha’s 2009 single TiK ToK on YouTube in December 2009. In early 2011, the founding members, Stefan Abingdon, Dru Wakely and Ashley Horne, recorded a non-broadcast pilot for Channel 4 comedy com- missioning editor Nerys Evans, who was so impressed she ordered a six-part series. As well as slipping into music


videos, the series charts the band’s failures and successes as they try to make their way to pop stardom through a set of curious obstacles and unsavoury characters. Their day-to-day challenges include sharing a dingy East London flat, trying to impress girls when they have no cash, and working out who has to sleep on the kitchen floor. Written by Jason Hazeley (That


Mitchell And Webb Look), Joel Morris (10 O’Clock Live) and debut writer Tom Edge, the series was directed by Ben Gregor (The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret) and overseen by producer Mary Burke (Submarine, Bunny And The Bull).


Full post Splice has previously post-produced promos and short films for Warp, but the The Midnight Beast is the first drama series the producer has posted there. Overseen by producer Matt Squires, post-production was completed at Splice’s new Shoreditch facility, which houses a fleet of new Avid editing suites, all of them with full HD capability. The series was shot primarily on the Arri Alexa. Senior colourist Chris Rodgers used Baselight to


44 | Broadcast TECH | May/June 2012


set the show’s look, with the two distinct worlds of the show – every- day reality and music promos – reflected in the grade. For example, scenes of the band in their flat or at the local café were not overly treated, and a decision was made not to drift too far from the look that was established during shooting.


AUDIO


Splice approached the audio for The Midnight Beast as a combi- nation of comedy and high-end promo. As the episodes are all very different, dubbing mixer Neil Whippey used a variety of sound design and mixing techniques, from elegant reverbs to comedy effects. To create a sense of space,


these were applied on a scene- by-scene basis and the dialogue was left as clean as possible. Pitching effects were often used on vocals during the sound design, each with a unique feel. There are no generic treatments used on the show; each moment called for its own comedic thought pattern – for example, double- tracking some of a characters’ words with a pitch down to high- light their pretentiousness.


The Midnight Beast’s pop parodies have been viewed more than 38 million times on YouTube. For the comedy trio’s switch to E4, production company Warp Films turned to East London post facility Splice


www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils


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