Andor Season 2 coming in 2025! Had the fortune to work on this and very much looking forward to it coming out! Can't wait!

 

 Thanks to The Broadcast Bridge for this write up about myself and others on how we achieve the sound we do on set. Supported by Sennheiser, here is a link to read it-

https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/20560/location-sound-recording-with-the-experts-part-1

 

The Marvels (Additional Photography)

Director Nia DeCosta 

Working mainly in Longcross and Pinewood Studios in the UK we finished filming of the film The Marvels. 

My boom 1st Assistant Sound Kyle Pickford had the boom from a deck when we were shooting in the Hoopty ship due to its size and height.

Kyle Pickford 1AS being rigged with harness and gear to boom from height.

Jim Hok 1AS doing radio mics was working hard to make every details work for dialogue and radio mics would be placed on super suits.

This is a picture of the original super suit and a very delicate suit. We put the mic behind the main breast plate.

 Marvel's Secret Invasion we shot partially through the covid years in many locations around England.

Shooting in Halifax and we all got papped for the local news that day. For some reason the only photos of me are next to a bunch of bins

Shooting on location in London town. This is the set up with Aaton Digital's Cantar X3.

The shoot crew at Longcross studios. My guys! 1AS Kyle Pickford, 1AS Jim Hok, 2AS Mo Concas.

This is a film by Aneil Karia director of the Long Goodbye which was the Oscar winner for Best Live Action Short Film. Surge is about a man on the verge of a breakdown played by Ben Wishaw and you have the frenetic energy throughout the whole film as his character goes into a spiral downwards. 

The whole thing was shot handheld and in a frenetic way to encompass what Ben was doing in his performance. Scenes were done in one takes and spanned various locations so it was shot fast and logistically challenging. I had various mixing recorders to grab the dialogue that I moved between during scenes if they spanned large areas. Often I just needed to be fast on my feet and move quickly between sets. Various boom operators were used to be able to cover areas where it was dialogue heavy. It was a challenging yet really rewarding!

Here is the official video-

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10suikzwcjw

 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness won Movie of 2022 from People's Choice Awards.

Well done to them and great to be part of it. I was the Production Sound Mixer on the film and it was a treat to work with Sam Raimi who is a legend at what he does.

As a Sound mixer it is my job to oversee all aspects of sound and make decisions on what to use. I used Schoeps Super Cmit microphones as the sets were large and this gave me the best opportunity to gather the dialogue.

They are digital microphones that can be very helpful on large sets with their increased directivity. We worked mainly in domed stages with high ceilings so it helped to have great suppression of the diffused sound.

One of the more complicated and yet amazing sets at Longcross Studios was the New York City street set which was a huge build spanning around 200m in length. In construction I had a Voice of God set up at the top of each of the buildings- point source and horn speakers were installed throughout the whole length of the street on both sides. This meant running cables throughout the length of the street, and doing this by accessing each building from under the ground. The cable was laid underground and had to be installed in advance of the set going up so lots and lots of cable! This enabled Sam Raimi to communicate with the cast anywhere across the set.

I also had to think in advance how to cover the whole of the set with RF for the radio mics and boom microphones we needed to capture the dialogue. The four cameras being used were often spaced along the length of the street and could be hidden in shop fronts, behind vehicles or at different ends of the street from each other. I needed to have coverage along the whole length of the street so I set out combined antennas throughout the street back to me 100m away to be able to capture any dialogue in any location. Phew!

New York City street set and the horn speakers installed.

 The makeshift ADR booth we had set up at Longcross Studios for promo dialogue recordings. 

The various versions of attire during working through covid.

 The Long Goodbye by Aneil Karia. Featuring Riz Ahmed.

This was a hard drama to do the sound for as it was shot fluidly and constantly moving from shot to shot.

We achieved this with many radio mics and plant mics. 

The Long Goodbye won Best Live Action for a short so it is great to have been part of that process.