Every now and again I get the chance to work as sound recordist on films that maybe have a slightly more serious purpose than other things i have worked on - the Action for Children adverts that I worked as sound recordist on would be a good example; a film that will hopefully inspire and provoke people to do something positive. I loved the Action for Children adverts, as working on them meant i met many of the children involved, and hearing their stories firsthand was a moving experience. I take satisfaction from the knowledge that the help these kids received from Action for Children has improved their lives, and by telling their stories another child who needs some help, will hear it and find the courage to speak up.
Recently I worked with Agenda Collective on a film for the Red Cross’s current campaign for raising awareness of ‘Refugee Week’, which celebrates the important contribution of refugees to UK society. The want us to look look beyond labels to the true identity of the refugee in modern Britain; ‘Only by looking beyond the status and label of ‘refugee’, can we overcome prejudice and help people restore their sense of identity and belonging.’ It resulted in what i think is a fantastic looking and sounding film - the ever excellent pictures of David Proctor DOP, Ryan Hopkinson’s lighting, a lovely score by the composer Richard Canavan, Peter Kings directing, editing, grading etc etc and of course Matthew Share, Sound Recordist. Agenda continue to raise their already extremely high standards; i think in parts the film looks the equal of a feature film, an effect helped by the high quality primes and Zeiss Superspeed lenses Dave used. Anyway, the video is shown below so i’ll stop boasting and let you make your own minds up.
I have recently had the pleasure of filming with good friend and colleague Peter King, and the Agenda Collective. We shot a series of adverts for Three mobile entitled ‘Broadband Nan’ -
We also made an internet film with Gok Wan for Three. I always enjoy working with the Agenda Collective as they are without exception, talented and knowledgeable filmmakers. Director Peter King has an impressive CV, with his recent film ‘Karosta’ being described by Nick Broomfield as ‘beautifully photographed and observed with a wonderful humanity’ and ‘a fantastic portrait of the demise of the soviet empire’. DOP David Procter has had his own successes recently winning best UK short and film of the festival at the 16th Raindance Festival with his film ‘Red Sands’. Whenever I work with them I am impressed by their talent and attention to detail; they have the most impressive kit, ideas, and execution, and I just wish all production companies had their attitude towards filming. They are a pleasure to work with.
The latest Action for Children advert is currently being shown on television. It is another interview with a child that has been helped by the charity Action for Children. I was the location sound recordist for the interviews with the kids talking (see earlier post) and Christopher Wilson - a colleague from the NFTS - did the sound design; I think the adverts are great, and all in a good cause too. The animation is lovely and really suits the subject matter. Working as sound recordist on something like this can be a tricky job, largely due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, and the fact that the interviewees are children. Fortunately these kids have been helped by Action For Children, and i was proud to have worked as sound recordist on this campaign.
I have recently been working as sound recordist on several films for The One Show - 7pm weekdays on BBC1. It is one of many Adrian Chiles fronted programmes currently on TV, but my parents like it a lot so that’s good enough for me. As usual I don’t get much chance to see the stuff I have worked on, but the days spent working on these have been really good fun. The formula for the films is a celebrity presenting an interesting story from around the country, often with a topical or local theme. I have spent several days working with genial ‘King of the Jungle’ Phil Tufnell which has been great; I grew up watching cricket in an era where Tuffers was the best spin bowler in the country by a country mile. I remember him almost single-handedly bowling out the West Indies, I remember him being disciplined for turning up at the team hotel first thing in the morning straight from a nightclub with some ladies in tow, but most of all I remember him being absolutely peppered by Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose in the West Indies…the poor chap was nearly decapitated that day.
I have also recorded the sound for a One Show piece about a Shakespeare imposter presented by John Sergeant, who is a lovely chap and has the best stories, but has problems negotiating public places without cries of ‘you should never have quit that ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ you know John…I voted for you!’ echoing after him. Poor chap.
The latest of Mike Patersons great films about the work of particle physicists hunting for the Higgs Boson has just been put on the web - you can see it at www.colliding particles or watch it in HD below…
We travelled to Paris earlier in the year to speak to Gavin Salam who is a theorist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, and his PhD student, Mathieu. Gavin completed his PhD at Cambridge in 1996, and went on to hold postdoctoral fellowships in Milan and at CERN. His research has mostly been centred on the area of quantum chromodynamics, the theory which describes the behaviour of quarks and gluons. Together with his PhD student Mathieu he has been working on the theory side of Project Eurostar - the project designed to find the Higgs Boson that the films focuses on. Gavin was an excellent host, and one of the advantages of working in Paris is above average lunches and dinners
As you can see in the film Gavin plays the piano. Mike was interested in exploring the relationship between the work of a particle physicist and the mathematical patterns and processes inherent in music, so we filmed Gavin playing the piano in his flat in Paris.
This presented a couple of problems from a sound point of view - the acoustics of the flat were not too bad to the naked ear, but with the microphone i had intended to use - the Rode NT4 stereo mic - the late and early reflections present when i listened on headphones didn’t sound nearly as nice as i had hoped. It was tricky to position the mic effectively over the piano (i tend to use a mic position either with the XY axis of the mic facing across the strings along the open top of the piano, or a similar position underneath, giving a nice wide stereo image - i would love to hear of any other techniques people find effective for this setup) without getting some strange reflections from the walls and objects within the flat, or being in shot.
I then tried my Sennheiser MK60 short gun mic out of it’s Rycote windgag, with just a foam windgag on. It is my ‘go to’ mic in so many different situations. It has a nice open sound considering its excellent rejection off axis, and this rejection allowed me to get a cleaner recording of the piano. The music you hear played in the final film is recorded using the MK60 with the boom positioned under the piano, just out of shot.
I think it sounds rather nice, although that probably has more to do with Gavins musical talents than my mic selection!
The physicist Dr Brian Cox is a physicist at the University of Manchester gives this rousing talk at a recent TED conference on why the work at the LHC is so important;
BECTU have kindly updated their ratecard for freelancers working in Broadcast. This is a good guide to the daily rate freelancers like myself can expect for their work. I hope that the fact that the ratecard was published on April 1st is not an ominous sign, although the lack of adjustment to rates over the last 20 years might suggest otherwise.
Anyway, I don’t publish my daily rate on this site as a matter of courtesy, however maybe it would be a helpful guide for some if I reproduce the relevant section below…
A pleasant day spent on Brighton beach filming promo videos for a nice couple of chaps called Nick and Mike, who together are known as The Yeah Yous. I worked as sound recordist on location in Brighton, and we were lucky enough to have a bright sunny day. It was a fairly straightforward day of filming from a sound point of view - i had a playback kit to allow the band to play their songs accurately enough to allow the song to be dubbed over later, and also took a stereo guide track of the performances on the day to allow the sync to be as accurate as possible.
I used my old favourite stereo mic - the Rode NT4 - carefully hidden on set, and with a bit of tweaking to minimise the sound of the sea i got a surprisingly nice recording of an acoustic performance on the beach. Not hi-fi for sure, but it had a nice character and ambience - waves crashing in the background, and few reflections.
But it was one of those days i appreciate being a sound recordist - being paid to stand on the beach and listen to a band playing over and over. Like a mini-festival for a small crowd/crew. Anyway, the results of the day can be seen and heard below. Good luck to the Yeah Yous as they were a nice couple of chaps, and seem talented too.
Another shoot for the Luxury Channel – this time at the Walpole Awards in London. The Walpole Awards for Excellence are ‘to honour individuals and companies who exemplify British Excellence by their work and achievements across design, craftsmanship, business, culture and sport. The awards are presented annually at a reception hosted by British icons, most recently Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Simon Callow and Natasha Kaplinsky at The Banqueting House, Whitehall.’
I got to record a fascinating interview with Vivienne Westwood – an interestingly opinionated woman.
I have been working with a couple of my old colleagues from the National Film and Television School – Anna Higgs and Gavin Humphries. They won the pitch to film the video for Turin Brakes’ new single through their production company Quark Films. It was a three day shoot and another of my fellow alumni from the NFTS was the DOP – Edu Grau; an excellent cameraman who I am sure will go far. As you can see from the video above the premise of the film was an obsessive relationship between two girls. It was nice to work with the people I studied with at film school, in the real world, and a good tune too.
The film can be seen online through their website but was originally broadcast on CNBC, and fits neatly into the Luxury Channels remit of producing quality films about high-end luxury goods and lifestyles. In practical terms it meant that we got to spend the week filming on some of the worlds most luxurious super yachts, which was just jaw dropping. I have never been witness to such a plethora of golden taps, ermine hand towels and on-board private helicopters.
The Monaco Yacht Show is held every year in the prestigious bay of Monte Carlo and is a high point in the year for yacht shows, as Monaco harbour is very deep, and thus allows some of the larger boats that are simply too big to go to other shows to exhibit there. And the boats really are big - the prefix ‘Super’ is not misleading at all. We saw a variety of boats, from the smaller, faster speedboats such as the Riva, to larger ocean-going yachts that are dreamed up by enthusiasts for speed and handling, to the bloated, cashmere heavy hulks struggling against the weight of the all the gold on board. We visited a good selection of each, and despite knowing little or nothing about boats, and having little or no money, I was soon sizing up the boats like a pro, and spent some time deciding what I would spend my imaginary millions on. I decided in the end that a J-Class (the type of boat raced in the Americas Cup the 30’s) would be my boat of choice; it has the sleek lines, build quality and racing pedigree of a proper boat, without all the crassness of a Super-Yacht, yet was still luxurious inside. That or the beautiful Saudade by Wally. And maybe a Riva as a launch boat - they are just so reminiscent of that 60’s euro-cool that I always associate with David Niven and The Pink Panther films.
Grinning like a twit at the helm of a superyacht
The Riva Aquarama also has two V8 engines, and so during filming I paid particular attention to recording the engine sound as it sounds so fantastic. The twin V8’s gave such a deep, chest bellow simply when idling, but when we were ripping across the water at about 60knots they were in full roar. I got some great wildtracks as a result using a combination of my Rode NT4 stereo mic, and trying different axis and perspective with the sennheiser MK60 boom mic. We were moving across the water at such a rate that a full Rycote and windgag system was almost struggling to contain the wind noise. I say nearly - the people at Rycote such as Chris Woolf certainly know what they are doing as there was not a bassy wind rumble to be heard…hats off to Rycote.
this boat had a helicopter on the back...for when you need to pop ashore i suppose?
Ah bliss. Three days filming a corporate video in the South of France. While corporate work is not always the most exciting, the pleasure of filming at the Domaine de Lavagnac overrode any other considerations. Ambitious plans for a golf course and private residences are afoot, and I can see the attraction, I have to say.
While we were there we stayed in fantastic accommodation at the Domaine Saint Hilaire owned by Jonathan and Anne James. It is a truly beautiful place set in the wine fields near Montagnac. My wife and I returned there for a blissful week later in the year, and spent a very pleasant time picking grapes, and enjoying the wonderful results in the form of their own wine. It really is good stuff, and I cannot recommend a stay at the Domaine St Hilaire enough. It’s a fantastically well-run place in the most beautiful part of France, and the quality of the accommodation and the hospitality shown by the James’s must be experienced.
A traditional French breakfast of cat; 'chat avec muesli'
I have just returned from 10 days in Philadelphia, where Mike Paterson and I continued to shoot for the online film ‘Colliding Particles’ that he and I have been working on for some time. It is very much Mikes brainchild, and I am just fortunate enough to be asked along to do the sound. I really love working on this film as it has given me a chance to indulge my geek fascination with physics, and have been lucky enough to see some great things so far, such as the inside of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva:
Inside the LHC...
For this episode we travelled to Philadelpia for the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) which was being co-hosted with Princeton at Philadelphia University. The conference is a chance for scientists involved in particle physics and related subjects to get together to discuss the latest developments, and present their findings to their peers. It is also a chance for them all to get together and have a good chat - probably where much of the real work gets done. One of the contributors from the Colliding Particles film, Prof. John Butterworth, was presenting a talk on his work to find the Higgs Boson, so we went along to film that, and to try and show how the conference system works. You can see the latest episode here or watch the lower quality version below.
It was a good trip - Mike is excellent company, and the conference while largely unintelligible to us both, was good fun and we met some great people. The organisers and hosts were very generous with their time and hospitality, and Philadelphia is a great city. I highly recommend the sushi.
I have just completed the sound recording for a new advertising campaign for what was previously the National Childrens Hospital. It is for their name change to ‘Action For Children’, and involved travelling around the country to interview various kids who had been helped out in some way by Action For Children. Action for Children supports and speaks out for the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK, and some of the interviews were an eye opening experience. A lot of these kids had lived far more and far harder in their relatively few years than I ever would hope to. It was a fairly humbling experience listening to them talk about difficulties I had barely even imagined. Action For Children does some really good things for them, and it was gratifying to hear the improvements the charity had helped many of them to achieve.
The advertising campaign hits tv screen soon, and can be seen here or below;
It was another chance to work with a friend from the National Film and Television School, Chris Wilson. I was studying sound recording at the same time as Chris was completing his final year of the Post Production Sound course, and we worked together a few times. He is a talented chap, as shown by his successes so far.
I spent the day at the BBC working on Eggheads for BBC2. I like working at Television Centre – you always have the feeling that you might take a wrong turn and find Wogan necking with Anne Robinson, or fall into Noels gunge tank or something. I might be suffering from an overactive imagination, but that’s the effect it has on me.
A lovely week in Madrid working with James Tomalin of Oxford Digital Media, and Fred Davis of the Said Business School. Although it was an educational film, it was a lovely trip to a beautiful city, and the food was good too. The principle difficulty workwise was the change in radio mic frequencies necessitated by working in Spain. In the UK we are licensed (well, those of us who pay for our licenses!) to use channel 69 for wireless radio mics. I thought this was the case in Spain too after checking online, but when I got there I had dreadful problems with RF signal breaking into the link between transmitter and receiver, and spent a lot of time trying to find clear frequencies. A good excuse to try harder with the boom, and it sounded better as result.
I have been lucky enough to be asked to work on a film funded by the STFC about the work currently being done in Geneva on the Large Hadron Collider built at CERN. It is a fantastic opportunity to go and film in one of the most incredible pieces of engineering ever. I won’t try and go into the complexities of the work done there too much, but will settle for an explanation given by one of the scientist we interviewed whilst there; ‘It’s like wanting to know how your watch works – you want to know what is inside, so you smash it open with a hammer and see what comes out’. A nice analogy for hurling particles around a 27km loop at just sub-light speeds before smashing them together at a potential 14tev…
Mike Paterson filming inside the LHC
On a practical level it meant that director Mike Paterson and myself got an amazing tour of the facility by various highly qualified scientists involved, and even got to go inside some of the experiments such as Atlas and ALICE which in a few months time will be unpenetrable due to the magnetic fields generated. As you can see below the sites are all incredible pieces of design and construction, which hopefully will lead scientists to a deeper understanding of the state of particles moments after the big bang. The discovery of the fabled ‘Higgs Boson’ is the ultimate aim for many of the experiments, but it is important to also recognise the other advances this undertaking has given us – the internet and CAT scanners are just two examples.
While I was there I caught up with an old school friend of mine from Cherwell School in Oxford, Jamie Boyd. Jamie is part of the Atlas experiment, one of the largest experiments at CERN designed to find (or not!) the Higgs boson. He seems to have a nice life at the base of the Swiss Alps and it made me wonder why I hadn’t paid a little bit more attention in school!
The films are being made by Mike Paterson, a good friend of mine and an excellent filmmaker. All the films are available at www.collidingparticles.com so please be sure to have a look, and subscribe to future episodes.
I am still working with Richard Manton and Steve Fish - we have started shooting on the new series of ‘Lewis’, the ITV follow-up to ‘Inspector Morse’. It’s a bonus for me, as many scenes require shooting in my hometown of Oxford. The concept of cycling to work is an attractive one after several weeks of driving to London 6 days a week.
The show stars Kevin Whately as Inspector Lewis – now filling the role in Oxfords police force that his previous boss and friend Inspector Morse once filled. Kevin Whateley is joined by Laurence Fox as Hathaway;
As well as a great supporting cast including one of my teenage heroes Rebecca Front -
It’s a great show to be working on, and the crew are all good friends from previous series
Having finished working with Dick and Steve I am back to solo PSC location sound recording. I miss the daily contact with a big crew, but it is nice to be the one in control of the faders again!
First up in a job in Holland for the International Criminal Court. We spent four days filming inside the court itself and around Den Haag. We needed to recreate a desert scene (part of a piece about the ICC collect evidence for their trials) and so went to a place called Soeste, which is a series of sand dunes inland, about 40 mins north of Den Haag. It was a beautiful day, and the scene worked really well.
The only problem was the sand – it was so fine that it got into all my kit, and I fear for the damage it might do. Professional audio equipment does not generally like sand very much, and it can really gum stuff up – I had to thoroughly clean the boom as every time it was opened or closed I could feel tiny granules scratching the pole. I will have to attack the kit with a soft paintbrush and some canned air.
Getting into the International Criminal Court with a digibeta camera, radio mics, and vast amounts of filming equipment was not the easiest of obstacles. We had to have most of our kit searched, logged, weighed, and then transported to the shooting location. We were slightly limited with what and who we could film, as the court has been the location for the Slobodan Milosevic war crimes trial amongst other things, and so is fairly security conscious. It is due to host the Sierra Leone war crime trials later this year.
Look out! The sun can be damaging to unprotected skin...
Spent the day (my birthday) up to knees in Somme-like mud filming scenes for episode 2.3 of Primeval in which a sabre-tooth tiger is running amok in a theme park. So far we have battled (filmed) sabre tooth tigers, raptors, co2 breathing worms, and a futuristic shark hybrid. All in a days work you know.
I have been doing a lot of booming, which is a different skill in a drama setting like this, opposed to say documentary. Whereas for factual you are more concerned with getting as much as you can as well as you can, in drama there is a more nuanced approach. Headturns can catch out the unwary boom op, lines and actors movements need to be learned before shooting, and dropping into shot causes the entire crew to fix you with a steely gaze of irritation when a retake is called.
Dick Manton uses Sennheiser 416 mics for exteriors, and lovely sounding Schoeps capsules for interiors. With the addition of a Micron transmitter for a wireless boom, the whole setup is not too heavy, but with the boom fully extended, and long dialogue scenes it can get become slightly like a test of endurance. The voice of Dick over the wireless headphone link telling me to ‘steady there’ is a sure sign the shakes have started.
The 'Primeval' cast
Primeval will air on ITV1 in January 2008, and stars Dougie Henshall, Andrew Lee Potts, Hannah Spearritt, Lucy Brown, Ben Miller and Karl Theobald
I have just started work as Sound Assistant on the ITV show Primeval made by Impossible Pictures, the company behind ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’. It is the Saturday night ITV answer to BBC1’s Dr Who and is based around the adventures of a team of scientists who have discovered ‘anomalies’ that allow a variety of CGI dinosaurs to be transported to the present (as well as occasionally sending people the other way, into the past/future). For practical purposes this involves running around booming scenes in which a variety of actors fight/run away from/look scared at nothing. This nothing will later be transformed into a variety of terrifying dinosaurs and creatures by the clever people at Framestore – the same visual effects people currently handling the new Batman Film – The Dark Knight Returns. It can be quite an entertaining experience watching actors acting at an empty space, but there are also a fair amount of scenes involving stunts and special effects. So far I have seen people riding motorbikes around a shopping centre, vast amounts of slime hurled in peoples faces, and watched in a mixture of horror and admiration as the steadicam operator, Roger Tooley, clipped himself and the rig to the lead actor Dougie Henshall (who plays Cutter) and slid down a zipslide, filming all the way.
It’s great fun, and I have the pleasure of working with Richard Manton and Steve Fish – sound mixer and boom op respectively – who are both excellent sources of information, experience, general knowledge, and great stories. I am very lucky to be working with soundmen of their skill and experience, and hopefully some of their talent will rub off on me. It’s a change of pace for pace for me – drama schedules are usually based around an 11hr shooting day, with 12 day fortnights worked by all. The crew end up doing long hours, and someone is always doing something on the set. It’s not always you so many hours are spent being whiled away together. I am more used to working in small fast moving shoot environments, so I’m taking a bit of time to adjust.
Dick Manton, grabbing a snack in the Cretaceous period
I have spent the week filming a documentary for Five which explores the classic and revered architectural guides of Nicholas Pevsner through the eyes and mind of architectural historian, Gavin Stamp. The film was produced by independent production company Wag TV.
It was a pleasure to work on, as I have lived in Oxford for most of my life, but was given a tour and explanation of the architecture which revealed a very different city to the one I am so familiar with. So many fascinating aspects of the architecture were explained, and it made me look at my hometown with very different eyes. The crew were extremely nice, and a pleasure to work with. Cameraman Neve seemed to be enjoying making a beautiful city look even better.
A rare and affectionate behind-the-scenes tour of a fascinating architectural landscape.’ - Sunday Times
‘A serious exploration of architecture… this was absorbing television.’ - Daily Telegraph
‘Exactly how I want my architecture served up!’ - The Guardian
‘Sensitive and understated.’ - The Sunday Telegraph
It was the first outing for my brand-new-secondhand, fully paid-for kit of SQN 4S series III mixer, and Sennheiser MKH60/MKH70 boom mics.
I was really pleased with how it went – the mixer is an old favourite, easy to use and very reliable. It may not have all the nice flashy LED’s of the SD442 (or indeed the virtually total lack of background hiss) but I can use it without looking as I know where the buttons and faders are, which can make small adjustments whilst booming a lot easier!
Unfortunately the nature of many of the pieces to camera meant that it was largely radio mic stuff. ☹. The presenter (a smartly dressed man at all times) wore a stiff shirt with tie and jacket. This is almost my least favourite outfit for fitting radio mics to (after the worst – waterproof outdoor jackets), as there are so few options. Hiding the capsule under the collar has the advantage of giving the mic a little air which helps the overall sound, but it is tucked under the chin too much, sounds quite throaty, and can be a little too off-axis if the presenters turn their head too much. The option of looping the cable up the back, around and under the collar, with the capsule buried in the tie knot makes more sense in terms of central positioning, but again can be regarded as a little too high and close to the throat. Also, dependent on the fabric of the tie, this can be a scratchy option, and if the capsule slips back up into the tie it can become quite muffled. I opted for the best sound, but most problematic solution which was to work the capsule into the jacket/shirt around the mid-chest area. This is hard as this are of the body/clothing moves a lot when walking and talking, and the capsule is hard to conceal here.
I spent the day working on a Portuguese television advert for ‘Modelo’ which involved Cristiano Ronaldo posing as an airline pilot, flanked by hordes of attractive air stewardesses. It was a strange day really, as I got to watch firsthand the current world footballer of the year doing tricks with a football whilst wearing flat-soled leather shoes on a tarmac runway. Dammit he was still too good. And smug. But you can’t really blame him, as he drives his sports car away with a few of the stewardesses still inside with him. In his position I would be beyond smug I think. Anyway, I turned up to the shoot with a small Sound Devices 442 location mixer, a couple of sets of AudioRMS 2020 radio mics, a 416 in Rycote, and an HHB portadat with timecode; I was the entire sound department on my own. When I was introduced to the camera team, I was introduced to over 15 people! It must be a reflection of the skills of the average camera op I suppose – quantity not quality
Anyway, I must remember to take more kit to advertising shoots. Everyone takes all their toys, lays them out proudly on the ground like a male-peacock displaying its finery, and then struts about the set, jerking their necks and warbling. Nobody ever uses more than 10% of this equipment, but that is just missing the point isn’t it?
I have just finished filming a documentary on the 1967 discovery of pulsars for Irish company Independent Pictures, called ‘Northern Star’. It was a fascinating shoot as I got to meet Jocelyn Bell who many believe should have won the Nobel Prize for her work, as well as Professor Anthony Hewish who was the eventual recipient of the award, and Jocelyn Bell’s supervisor at the time of discovery. The film will be broadcast on BBC1 Northern Ireland later this year.
There are many different roles to fill in Sound for Film and TV, so here is a brief explanation of some of them;
Sound Mixer
This is usually the title given to the person who sits at a sound desk/trolley on a film or tv set, and presses the record button and moves the faders, and is generally in charge of the sound team; often a 2 or 3 person team (comprised of sound mixer, boom operator/sound maintenance and sound assistant/second boom). A sound mixer is different to a sound recordist; both have the primary function of recording high quality location sound, but a mixer is often more likely to concentrate on the recording and mixing aspect of the sound acquired on set by the boom operator, as well assume overall responsibility for the sound team. Mixers may also be involved in pre-production planning aspects of the sound such as radio mics concealed in costumes or location choices.
One of the UK's top Sound Mixers. With trolley.
Sound mixers will often work from a trolley - this is because the trolley allows them to have equipment such as a flatbed mixer and recording device attached at a comfortbale height to work at, in a portable system. They will often be working with many channels of sound from separate sources, and so mixing them into a form that is useful to the post production audio process is vital. Sound quality is paramount, but if you can mix 8 different actors mics down into 2 channels of neat, smoothly faded sound then it is a great help to the audio process. It is also great fun - one of my favourite bits of the job. I enjoy the satisfaction of following a scene and managing to seamlessly shape the dialogue to the flow of the action. Sound mixers will often own their own kit, including the mixer, mics, recording device etc and hire themselves and their kit to a production, as well as bringing along their own staff.
I have spent the last few months travelling between Manchester, Whitchurch and Worthing working as sound recordist on a series of films for Five TV about people with emotional issues that have led them to seek help for the behaviour it has led to. The three people involved then follow a course of treatment to hopefully help them to… yup…’Beat It’. The film is for my old boss Nick O’Dwyer of Landmark Films. I worked as a production assistant for Nick at Landmark Films for several years before I went to study sound at the National Film & Television School. He is an extremely good filmmaker – the best interviewer I have worked with – and a thoroughly nice chap with it. I was very grateful to him for using me for these films.
I think the films themselves will turn out well, and wish the participants all the best. Without revealing too much I was impressed at modern techniques that are available for issues such as stammering, and the changes that cognitive behavioral therapy is able to achieve. Below are links to some of the organisations involved in the series.
Five TV page for ‘Beat It’ - http://www2.five.tv/factsheets/beatit/
John McGovern who is featured in programme 1 – ‘Addicted to Asda’ is Head of Clinical Psychology at Cheadle Royal Hospital, Cheshire. He has put together a fact sheet on help for compulsive buying, which can be accessed by clicking on the link below. John is an Honorary Lecturer at Manchester University and is interested in hearing from people, particularly those in the North West, in order to gain a greater understanding of shopping addictions.
Contact: info@affinityhealth.co.uk
Fact sheet address: www.affinityhealth.co.uk/pdf
I was amazed at the progress of the stammerers at the Starfish project. Anne & David Blight who founded the Starfish project featured in the programme can be contacted at:
Email: anne@starfishproject.co.uk
Website address: www.starfishproject.co.uk
For national enquiries please contact:
The British Stammering Association
15 Old Ford Road
London E2 9PJ
Email address: mail@stammering.org
Website address: www.stammering.org
Dubbing Mixers (also known as re-recording mixers - an americanism maybe?) work with all the sound elements; dialogue, automated dialogue replacement (ADR), foley, sound fx, atmospheres and music to create the final soundtrack. They are primarily responsible for ensuring that film sound is correct both technically and stylistically.
Balancing levels and blending a variety of sounds requires skill and a technical knowledge of sound and how to manipulate it. Good dubbing mixers can often save a film that has bad location sound. Dubbing mixers may also work as sound designers to ensure a consistency of the sound and to save on budgets!
Dubbing/re-recording Mixers like most other sound roles often work on a freelance basis. They work extremely long hours under considerable pressure, and usually work on both film and television drama productions. They work in at large mixing consoles, mixing and smoothing out (cross fading) the sound, often adding a temporary music soundtrack prepared by the music editor. Dubbing mixers must be able to work quickly, to extremely high standards.
Today soundtracks are often mixed in many languages and surround sound industry standard. This process can take between 2 and 12 weeks depending on each film’s scale and budget, and so dubbing mixers are often still working in the final days of a films post-production. They also spent so much time inside that their skin is almost clear, their eyes enlarged, and they are able to survive for long periods on nothing but coffee and Miso soup.
A sound editor is responsible for selecting and assembling sound recordings in preparation for the final sound mix or dub. They cut, mix and fade dialogue, music and effects to create a consistent overall sound. Sound editors often specialize in only one of these areas, and some productions will have separate dialogue, effects, and music editors. In smaller productions sound editors are expected to know how to handle it all, often crossing over into dubbing mixing as well.
Dialogue editing is where the editor takes the original sound recorded on the set by the sound recordist, or location sound mixer and boom op, and using a variety of techniques ensures the dialogue is understandable, as well as smoother, so the listener doesn’t hear the transitions from shot to shot (often the background sounds underneath the words change dramatically from shot to shot. This used to be done in analogue by chopping up quater iinch tape, and splicing it back together as needed, but is largely done on digital non-linear software packages such as Pro-tools, Logic and Nuendo.
A sound recordist is usually the person responsible for all aspects of sound in small crews, such as documentary and current affairs. They will usually carry a bag containing a location mixer, radio mics, external recording device such as DAT or hard disc recorder, toothpicks, batteries, several pieces of fruit, and a small notepad for drawing pictures of other crew member during particularly boring takes. Sound recordists usually work on their own as befits a smaller crew and so have responsibility/control over most aspects of the sound acquisition. The primary role of the sound recordist is to record appropriate sound for picture and the final film, to a high standard and free from unwanted noise. This might sound relatively straightforward, but in reality this means battling the madness of location managers and directors who want to film in the outside lane of the M25 or the centre of a V8 engine, or inconsiderate airlines that insist on continually flying over your shoot causing the rest of the crew to stare impatiently at you until you say ‘i think it’s ok now’ before the next one arrives precisely 1min 33 secs later. This is why all television filmed in London is restricted to takes of no more than 90 secs. Ahem.
One of the UK's...practitioners of sound recording. And a fine director.
This is my primary role in Sound. When working as a sound recordist i spend an awful lot of time turning off peoples fridges and computers to remove hum, bribing workmen to halt their drilling for 10 mins, and generally asking people to stop making the noise they are often required to make as part of their jobs, in order for me to film a man talking at a camera. That may be simplifying it somewhat, but controlling unwanted background sounds is often the most challenging aspect of the job.
In the age of video i often end up recording directly to tape, which requires a connection to the camera. This can be 2 x xlr cables, a hirose cable or a wireless link depending on your finances, but the former often involve being dragged around by a camera operator, and getting glared at when you don’t move fast enough, and the latter involves panicking madly when you realise no sound is actually being sent to the camera as MI6 are supressing all radio waves in your area (see filming near the MI6 building…). Sometimes however it is necessary to record on an external source such as DAT or a hard disc recorder, for example when shooting on film. This requires the sound recordist to ensure that the sound and picture are able to be easily synced by the editor in post production. This is achieved either through use of a sync clap, or timecode. If timecode IS the format of choice then the sound recordist usually sets this up, as jam-syncing timecode between two or more devices is often beyond/beneath the understanding of camera ops who are far too busy measuring photons with their clever little light meters
Sound engineers are often the people who sit behind the glass in record studios - recording music usually. They record in controllable studio environments and are responsible for producing as high quality a recording as possible. I don’t know so much about this branch of sound, but the ignoramus’s friend - Wikipedia makes this note about subdivisions of sound engineers which is probably worth repeating:
There are four distinct steps to commercial production of a recording. Recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. Typically, each is performed by a sound engineer who specializes only in that part of production.
Studio engineer could be either a sound engineer working in a studio together with a producer, or a producing sound engineer working in a studio.
Recording engineer is a person who records sound.
Mixing Engineer is a person who creates mixes of multi-track recordings. It is not uncommon for a commercial record to be recorded at one studio and later mixed by different engineers in other studios.
Mastering Engineer is typically the person who mixes the final stereo tracks(or sometimes just a few tracks or stems) that the mix engineer produces . The mastering engineer makes any final adjustments to the overall sound of the record in the final step before commercial duplication. Mastering engineers use principles of equalization and compression to affect the coloration of the sound.
Game audio designer engineer is a person who deals with sound aspects of game development.
Live sound engineer is a person dealing withlive sound reinforcement. This usually includes planning and installation of speakers, cabling and equipment and mixing sound during the show.
Foldback or monitor engineer is a person running foldback sound during a live event. The term “foldback” is outdated and refers to the practice of folding back audio signals from the FOH (Front of House) mixing console to the stage in order for musicians to hear themselves while performing. Monitor engineers usually have a separate audio system from the FOH engineer and manipulate audio signals independently from what the audience hears, in order to satisfy the requirements of each performer on stage. In-ear systems, digital and analog mixing consoles, and a variety of speaker enclosures are typically used by monitor engineers. In addition most monitor engineers must be familiar with wireless or RF (radio-frequency) equipment and must interface personally with the artist(s) during each performance.
Systems engineer is a person responsible for the design setup of modern PA systems which are often very complex. A systems engineer is usually also referred to as a “crew chief” on tour and is responsible for the performance and day-to-day job requirements of the audio crew as a whole along with the FOH audio system.
Audio post engineer is a person who edits and mixes audio for film and television
You are the monkey on set who makes the tea and coils the cables for the rest of the sound crew. You might get the opportunity to do some second boom work, particularly during dialogue scenes where a dual track of both sides of a conversation are useful to the sound post team. But mostly you will make tea. And stand there. And stand there. And stare. And ponder how when you are the sound mixer you will enjoy watching the sound assistant stand there. and stare.And then do whtever the mixer or boom op need you to do. Well, within reason, depending on how eager you are to progress.
One of the UK's top practitioners of standing and staring
No, it’s the first foot on the ladder, and a very necessary one. You learn how to behave on a set, how the processes work, how to make tea, how to stand still for long periods while the camera team setup, and other useful things.
I am a freelance sound recordist with over 8 years experience in television, film & radio with numerous broadcast credits. I trained in location sound recording at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield, and am also experienced as a dubbing mixer; I have a small studio for post production dubbing and mixing.
I also teach Sound in various forms at the London Met Film School in Ealing Studios, and at the National Film & Television School, Beaconsfield.
I am based in Oxford but work largely in London; I have my own full location recording kit, transport and a clean driving licence and am available for work across the UK and worldwide.
This site contains a blog about my work as a location sound recordist, as well as articles related to sound and film, lots of information about careers in sound and pro audio equipment, advice on filming and sound techniques, a glossary of audio terms and lots lots more. Please drop me a line and let me know what you think, or if you want to contact me for work please click on 'Contact' or call me directly on 07980 910873.
@IanEason - i was indoors so the connection was excellent - bluetooth bouncing off walls etc. I used it as my main link to camera - flawless #2009/08/05
