Sound Advice
23rd July 2016
We’re caught in a trap, we can’t get out. You make films for BBC 4 in the knowledge that the audience are discerning, but that that quality comes with age. Most are 60 plus, sensible and likely to sit near the telly to hear properly, and near to laptop, the better to dash off a complaint to the last name in the credits when levels are too low, the VO too high in the mix, the music ill-chosen or present at all. That’s right – I’m talking to you, Elizabeth of Maidenhead.
Dubbing with Michael at Evos Great Pulteney Street last week, I mentioned a mix for ITV that was, in contrast, likely to make your ears bleed. He told how he’d been called in to advise colleagues about to go into combat for One Born Every Minute. “It was easy” he said “Just one bit of guidance. Keep the levels right up in illegal until the head appears. Then push it another notch further.”