Sound Post for Verity's Summer

We recently completed sound post production on Verity's Summer, a new feature film by Palme D'Or nominee Director, Ben Crowe.

Verity's Summer is the story of a young woman’s journey from the security of childhood to the compromises of adulthood and moral ambiguities of love. It is also an intimate portrayal of a family coming to terms with the traumas and violence of distant war that are brought back home.

The film stars, Indea Barbe-Willson, Martin McGlade, James Doherty, Nicola Wright, and Christian Hogas and was shot on location in the North East.

'The ambiences play a big part in this film and we wanted to create distinctive 'backgrounds' for each part of the film', comments sound designer, Alex Hudd. 'The coast is ever present in the film and so from a 'sound tag' point of view I wanted to make sure the sea sounds were distinctive and repeatable if necessary in order to reinforce the scenes.'

For the ambiences, Alex spent a weekend in West Wales recording lots of different locations for the film. 'I had already spotted the film for what I needed to record but I took a rough cut of the film on my iPhone so I was able to get an idea of perspective there and then when making decisions on where to position the microphones for the best recording. I took many different sound perspectives from close up to the waves, to many hundreds of meters away, at times. I also took recordings of the countryside nearby as these also play an important part in many of the scenes in Verity's Summer.

A chance recording I made of some sea birds defending territory on one of the beaches was also very useful in several scenes during post production. I chose Wales partly because it offered the same 'sound feel' as the visuals had suggested to me but also because it is largely free of interference from transport such as aircraft, motorways and trains. In fact, recording on location in many parts of Wales is, at times like having your own outdoor studio, such is the absence of external sound interference. And I also love visiting this area, so it was a good excuse for a short break!!'

Ambience recordings were combined with other sounds in order to subtly change the mood of the film as a scene progressed. For example, we were keen to make sure we had simple but dark textures in some scenes, particularly the more difficult dialogue subjects. In others, such as Verity's garden we wanted to make the sound detailed and comfortable, as the garden is often a place of solace for her.'

Among the many Foley sounds we recorded were a variety of Trangia sounds for when one of the characters (Martin McGlade, as Castle) is eating in his encampment. Dreambase Studios' co-director Mark enjoyed a 'camping' lunch of cold baked beans and stale bread that day in order to complete the Foley recording for the scene, but once edited in it worked tremendously well and was absolutely necessary due to rain interference on the original production tracks.

Verity's Summer premieres on 21st April 2012 at London's Shortwave Cinema.

Location Recording for 'Billiam'

We have recently been on location, recording for new Swindon-based film 'Billiam'. It's a story of how one brother literally met his other brother!

The film is produced by Bald n Hairy Films (Billy Rees and Doug Kirby) and also directed by Doug Kirby.

For part of the film the superb Oxford Brooks Ferndale Campus training centre in Swindon proved itself as an excellent film set with most props on site already. The film also has a number of external scenes shot around Swindon.

Some of the other internal locations (in normal houses and flats) posed challenges both from a camera and sound point of view, partly due to very limited space and poor acoustics. Once a small bathroom has a camera, tripod, lighting and actors there's not much room for the microphone too but fortunately we managed to get some good sound in the end. Possibly the most cramped location was lying down across the back seat of a small hatchback car complete with sound mixer, recorder and leads draped on top!

A very tight, multi-location filming schedule meant that the first take was often the rehearsal, so all crew members and actors were kept on their toes in order to get it right first time.

Dialogue mics were interchanged between shotgun and hyper-cardioid, depending on the space we were recording in.

Dreambase Studios will be completing the sound post on this film later on this year so stay tuned for another Blog regarding that stage in the production.

The clip below is an out-take from one of the bar scenes in the film. Enjoy!

Recording a World Music Community Choir

Lingmara is a world music community choir which meets each week at The Cause Music and Arts Centre in Chippenham. It was set up by Elena Winch in 2006 and now has a new musical director, Sian Penlington as Elena moved recently to Ireland. The choir sings songs from all over the world, with beautiful harmonies and rhythms. Lingmara regularly performs in Music festivals and local events.

Lingmara were the winners of the Wootton Bassett Arts Festival, Adult Chior in 2010 in which Dreambase Studios supported by offering the winners a recording session were recorded by Dreambase Studios and James Shannon earlier this year at the Cause in Chippenham. The 34 strong choir were recorded during a 2 hour live performance and Dreambase Studios produced the album, mixed and mastered in-house, providing the photography and artwork too.

 

Sound Design: Coffin Fit

We recently completed original music and sound design for award winning director, David Hawk's new film teaser trailer 'Coffin Fit'.

David's brief was for the sound to be dark and menacing, with an air of mystery and uncertainty.

We made extensive use of the excellent Sculpture soft synth found in Logic 9. Combining wind type textures with a ring-modulator; random morphing of low and high frequency string sections along with some Gregorian choir type sounds on a Gsus4/D chord, we created a menacing and brooding bed. Over this we added some flicker effects to coincide with the text effects on the picture. We also used location recordings of the coffin lid used for the filming to get some hinge creaks and lid bangs. The 'finale' is punctuated by several layers of sound including a pig squeal and a human 'ch' sound. The title script is carved into the wood at the end of the piece and actual scraping of wood was recorded and carefully processed and timed to fit with both the strength and length of each letter scratch. The recording of the struggle from inside the coffin was also made during the shoot. If you're wondering whether or not he escapes in the end, then you'll just have to wait for the final movie to be released...

The incidental music appearing over the end credits continues with the same brooding bed, only this time accompanied by a lonely piano around a C11/Bb and C#maj7 chord pattern, which in conjunction with the aforementioned Gsus4/D creates an atmosphere of both mystery and unease.

On hearing the final soundmix David commented, 'Thank you so much for this. You really made the work leap from my brain onto the screen'.

The teaser trailer has been released but the film has been put on hold for the time being whist David concentrates on another film project. Dreambase Studios also shot the 'Behind the Scenes' making of the teaser trailer which can viewed here.

David Hawk has recently won awards for his excellent short film 'Special Delivery' and we look forward to working with him again on future projects.

Sound Post for Independent Films: PT1

Over the next few weeks, we'll be posting blogs giving an insight to sound post production on the latest independent feature film by Agent Pictures, 'ELIMINATE: Archie Cookson'

An offbeat espionage thriller which follows the life of MI6 spy Archie Cookson (played by Paul Rhys of BBC Three’s Being Human, Robert Altman’s film ‘Vincent and Theo’ and Attenborough’s ‘Chaplin’). Sidelined in his job and ignored by his estranged wife (Claire Skinner, of the popular BBC TV comedy Outnumbered, Tim Burton’s ‘Sleepy Hollow and ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’) and eccentric, precocious offspring, things take a turn for the worse when he stumbles upon classified tapes that no one was meant to hear.

From the outset, we worked closely with Rob Holder (director/writer) and Ioanna Karavela (producer), to create a sound post schedule that was flexible, allowing Agent Pictures to continue with the picture post work-flow (Edit/Grade/VFX) concurrently, all working towards the films deadline. We applied our extensive experience to create an engaging soundtrack, whilst dealing with the day-to-day challenges that go with independent feature film post production.

After a few meetings with the production team, we planned the sound post using our in-house system. The film was shot in Bristol and this vibrant city was our first port of call in order to record atmos sound pick-ups for the films main scenes. We chose locations that would most closely replicate the films intended feel and in some instances, we visited the exact locations to gather the appropriate sound in surround format. Back at the studio, this sound was layered with our extensive library and wild-tracks provided by location sound recordist, Daniel 'chu' Owen. Each room and location in the film has it's own sound signature, which also changes depending on the mood of the scene.

"We're keen to create unique sound beds for every film that are realistic, have depth, and maximise the dynamics from scene to scene. The background sounds really matter in a film: it's all about the details"

For more location pictures and comments, please click here:

"Dreambase Studios specialise in bespoke sound for independent films and digital media. With our combined 25 years as Dolby sound consultants we can develop the sound on your project from concept and script to delivery, including theatrical release. By offering creative sound, technical advice and extensive industry knowledge we can tailor make a package that keeps your sound post production on track. We understand budgets, deadlines, problems and people! Please drop by for a chat and a demo of our work"