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Although there’s been very little activity here on the Sound Spot Blog, the same cannot be said of out in the real world.
Since the new year I (Chris Box) have been tirelessly working and trying to settle myself for the rest of the year.
So far this year I have been involved in quite a few projects with a wide scope. In January I was second boom operator on one of Touchpaper’s shorts for ‘Coming UP’. Although we shot through the London snow and in tiny locations, it was a pleasure to work with mixer, Billy Quinn, and got to finally get to have a look at the illusive Aaton Cantar hard disk recorder. There’s something to be said about having all that gear and your disposal, it definitely makes life easier, no work arounds needed.
Also on the production end I landed a nice little week long gig at the National Theatre Studios recording sound for Mighty Dog Tv’s ‘Muse Of Fire’. This was very different to most documentary stuff I’d done before. I was covering an actors workshop of around 14 people with different guests for every session including Sir Ian McKellen. So strategically placing radio mics on those in the center of the sessions (ie guests, performing actors), my boom operator Aykut Evin was constantly running around the floor over two cameras covering the remaining 10 people, not a challenge I’d like to do every day.
In post Production: I am currently mixing a series of charity promos for Global Stories which should be available shortly.
I am also deep into providing sound design for a WW1 film titled ‘Deserted’, this film takes place on the homefront in a small village which slowly looses all of it’s men. What is great about this film like so many I have worked on, is that there is very little dialogue. I get to create meaning and texture in the film by other means, through the surroundings, the characters themselves and namely the letters which play a central part in the story. More on that soon…
Since the end of March, I have taken a short term contract at Inflight Productions, as a audio transfers engineer. I know this is a little out of my comfort zone, but I do get to listen to Universals back catalogue as I digitise their tape masters which is quite cool (except for the scores of Chuck Berry records that never seem to end).
Also news just in, I have been offered a contract to head my own audio department at a facilities house, with a look to joining their crew pool within 18months. Things are still a little early yet so no names, but if all goes ahead I will get my own department and spend all day and night playing with sound gear and really get to grips with all things hardware.
Finally, Aykut and myself are tinkering away at building a purely Sound Spot project which will involve countless hours of location recording and will be available solely through sound-spot. More details when we are underway, but this should be exciting.
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I’ve finally sat down with the web software wix to try out there flash site service to create a showreel site, and after a short time of tinkering this is what I’ve come up with.
Chris Box, Mixtape, Palani Bala, Radio, Short Film, Sound Design, Sound Spot, Uncategorized, Vimeo »
We are now in the midst of research and development for an interesting new project.
This project is, and about Northern Soul, following the scene through the eyes of 2 young DJs. My first and only concern with this project was that it could have taken the typical cop out approach of many period and scene based films, that it would have the usual rom-com-rock-biopic-struggle to overcome Hollywood narratives. My worries were quickly quelled and was assured that this is a film about the scene and not a film that happens to be there.
For anyone unfamiliar with the scene here is a great documentary on the Wigan Casino
There is already a great deal of work been put into this trailor, it has some good names linked with it and an abundance of dancers trained by the one and only ‘Keb Darge’.
Without giving to much info the trailor will consist of a field report from a northern soul club (Wigan Casino was mentioned but not sure wether or not it will be clear in the trailor) and studio interview with a young DJ and dancer. In the studio an old time BBC presenter interviews these guys and then a feature of the music and dancers. However the TV show attempts to turn their passion into a novelty act and a fight between the DJ and the presenter ends in a headbut and a storm out.
I have began developing a strong idea about how to go about recording and designing the soundtrack.
The real focus on this from a sound perspective is to try and develop and strong sense of authenticity, I really want the sound to feel as close to how it would have been done at the time.
With the research so far I have formed an approach which will take us through production and post production
Production: we will record digitally, pref onto a Sound Devices unit, so we have the option to take create a more conventional soundtrack if needed. For the field report the 4 track will include a handheld interview mic (i’m trying to find a used Electro-Voice 635) used by the reporter. On a second track we will boom mic with an omnidirectional mic.
The decision to go with an omnidirectional mic is that A) we are interviewing a que scene and would like to get some mumbling and shouting from the que without dubbing, B) the scene will be one shot and one take so background sound continuity is not so much an issue.
In the studio a similar method will be used with the interviewer having a handheld mic, the boom will become usefull to capture the chaos of the fight in the studio. I want to capture the chaos with the boom by drifting on and off mic on the characters. tracks 3 and 4 will include playback of the music.
We will also get some wildtracks of the crew mumbling and shouting to add in over the fighting.
Post Production: By this stage we will hopefully have plenty to work with. To really get a sense of the era I plan to run the sound through a tape unit and then redigitse. My intial thoughts were to hire a Nagra 4:2 and play with gain and speeds until I have what I want. However from my research I have also found that the Ampex 601 was often used and videotape in the studio. I will try to do some tests before we begin production.
I will continue to add material into the comments section, and I would be extremely gratefull for any further contributions that would come in handy
