Capturing The Sound of Adolescence, Part 2

Don’t miss Part One!

LEAPFROGGING SOUND SETUPS

Three main boom ops moved through each hour-long scene: Kyle Pickford (first assistant sound), Ash Sinani (first assistant sound), and Tom Pallant (first assistant sound). Chi Limpiroj (second assistant sound) and Joanna Barcik (second assistant sound) also helped in tricky scenes, like in Episode 4 when Eddie Miller (played by Stephen Graham) goes from the lawn shed outside to the kitchen inside, then out the front door to see his vandalized plumbing van. The camera smoothly switches between members of the Miller family, following as they go inside, outside, upstairs and downstairs.

“That was incredible,” McManus recalled. “We had every member of the sound team [except for trainees Hannah Bracegirdle and Lewis Monkton] wielding a boom. We had to use one of our second assistants to boom in the garden and follow Stephen [Graham] to the house, where he was then picked up by one of the first boom ops inside, downstairs. We needed two people in the house—one upstairs and one downstairs—because you can’t follow a camera up and get into one of those bedrooms in time. You’d have missed the line of dialog, for sure. The second assistant had to run around front to catch the last bits of dialog as the family gets into the van to go to the hardware store. During that, we shot off to the hardware store with the other boom op to catch them there.”

There were also plant mics, local recorders and mixers set up in each vehicle—the police van, police car and plumbing van. “Wherever there’s a moving vehicle, you’re locally recording,” Entwistle noted. “The local mixer in that vehicle is sending a signal out to the main mixer in the production van that’s following it, so everyone can listen to what’s going on. Wherever the action is, you have a recorder. You’ve got to have that assurance of having a recorder nearby.”

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The police car was miked with DPA 6061s, as the low ceiling put the mics in range of the actors. The police van and plumbing van had higher ceilings that required more directional mics, so McManus and Entwistle chose DPA 4099s, which are similar to tiny boom mics, and mounted them on flexible arms stuck to each van’s ceiling, pointed at the actors. There were other mics, too.

“In addition to the vehicles, we sometimes had recording devices capturing the dialog locally in other locations, like in the house, since we had a lot of plant mics in there,” McManus said. “A CMIT hid in the curtains, a Sanken CUB on the banister at the top of the stairs, and another CMIT in the parents’ bedroom.”

While McManus’ sound cart, strapped down inside the production van, was always ready to follow the production on the move, Entwistle’s cart was set up at each episode’s main location: Episode 1, inside the police station; Episode 2, inside the school; and Episode 3, inside the detention center. While each had its intricacies, the school proved the most challenging. Entwistle’s sound cart was set up inside, and McManus brought a mobile rig that allowed him to capture any peripheral action, like the chase scene involving DI Luke Bascombe (played by Ashley Walters) and Jamie’s classmate Ryan (Kaine Davis).

Numerous actors in the scene were miked up, with lines of overlapping dialog. A fire alarm kept going off, and a fight eventually broke out in the schoolyard. “Quite often, you’d get lines of dialog starting before you saw who was talking,” McManus noted. “Rob had to anticipate all of that. It’s one of those terrifying things, worrying that you’ll bring up a fader at the wrong moment and miss a line. Also, some of the students who were miked up weren’t professional actors.”

With so much happening so quickly, Entwistle went through a range of mental gymnastics just to capture it all. “Most times when I’m mixing, I have my script there and I’m looking at the camera picture,” he explained, “but for Episode 2, there was no point looking at the script; you’ll just lose yourself. You’ve got to watch what’s going on. And it’s the practice, isn’t it? Each time you do a take, it’s a practice, and you remember to do this the next time, or do that, to the point where when they start talking, you’re already moving. You learn it quickly. By Friday, it was perfect!”

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Watching Adolescence, it’s easy to take for granted how flawless and refined every single moment of the production had to be. The seamless switches between characters, the sweeping crane shot that descends to follow the police raid into the house, the actors’ impeccable dialog delivery, with each line captured clearly—it’s only accomplished by smoothing out every rough edge, solving every technical dilemma, practicing each move again and again, and giving full effort for every performance. Entwistle and McManus began preparations months before production began.

“You start with the information you’ve got— the script—but then you get to the place, set up, and the camera arrives and starts moving around,” said Entwistle. “Then you have more information. Your boom ops can start working out their choreography with the camera. Everything gets revealed a bit more, and you react to that to make it better and easier for you to do.”

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE CONCLUSION!