Mix
Work by: Simon Hill
In the run up to the Dr Thorne mix, the show was described to me as a period drama with a sprinkle of comedy. It was only when I first watched the locked picture for Episode 1 that I understood what that meant and what Niall (Director) was doing with the show. Our brief from that point on was to make sure the series didn’t take itself too seriously, and to go ‘Disney’ with the mix whenever it needed it. Going ‘full Disney’ became our thing and using that fairy-tale approach to the sound on this show really gives the viewer a great emotional satisfaction throughout.
Our happy scenes are dotted with happy birds and high-register atmospheres, our evil moments are highlighted with crows and lower-frequency winds, our moments of demise are deathly silent and our feel-good scenes are filled with uplifting music (Composer: Ilan Eshkeri). Among the crafting the sound of scenes to support emotional quality, there was a significant amount of ADR on the show due to the location recordings containing an unavoidable amount of distant traffic and planes. Along with some large scenes needing re-recording in the studio for technical reasons, we were also able to use ADR to add humour to a number of scenes. We were blessed with a great cast who were always up for a laugh in the studio and several of those spur-of-the-moment coughs/breaths/giggles done in ADR made their way into the show. Working with all the ADR we had recorded was certainly my biggest challenge on ‘Dr Thorne’ but with some saturation and anti-aliasing paired with some selective Altiverb impulse response reverbs, we came away with an authentic dialogue sound throughout with a carefully constructed (and often, subtle) fairytale world surrounding it.
Software/kit used: ProTools v11 (HDX2), Avid D-Command, Altiverb, Spanner
Grading
Work by: Ross Baker
Doctor Thorne was shot on the ARRI Alexa. The brief from Niall MacCormick Director was to reflect a ‘Disney’ fairy-tale story, using this brief and running with it was a joy. In the day exterior scenes we used colour isolations to make the green and blues pop out and held back the reds for natural skin tones. We then used a beauty effect on the ladies faces to give them a soft sheen that enhance the fairy-tale feeling. Moving into the interiors we had several day and night scenes, my favourite to grade was Sir Roger Scatcherd bedroom where I was able to add a richness to the scene whilst keeping it moody with soft warm highlights.
Software/kit used: Nucoda