Bloods

“This was an exciting project for me to get involved in, with new challenges in the form of Dolby Atmos. Every episode had potential to make good use of Atmos, so once the clients were happy with the stereo & 5.1 mixes, we brought the project over to our studios at Mortimer Street where we can expand the mix out into Atmos and then create the various versions and deliverables.

You have to think more about the environment when mixing in Atmos as opposed to stereo or 5.1 – the sound environment can be complex, so whilst maintaining the integrity of the stereo mix, we could add height and better perspective to various things like the Air Ambulance.   Throughout the series there were also night clubs, pubs, fireworks displays, an industrial accident and football match in a packed stadium which all had the potential to work well in Atmos.  Bloods has a lot of scope for creativity and possibility to help tell the stories through sound design, to help make the audience experience the show the way it was written.

As always, the dialogue track was king, so the focus was first on the clean-up of the location sound, whether that was removing unwanted background noise or getting rid of the rustle of clothes, to minimise the amount of technical ADR. Also with comedy, it’s obviously important the dialogue has maximum impact so there is a balancing act between selling the scenes through the soundscape and creating space in the mix where necessary to let the jokes land.

The show was a great project to work on, the team were all fantastic, the scripts were really funny but also dealt with sensitive storylines.  I can’t wait for the next series.”

“My brief from the producers, was to make the series look fantastic! They wanted the show to have a similar style to the previous series, so I rewatched the first series to understand the look and feel of the show.

I began by painting out any stray boom microphones and unwanted scenery which may have crept into shot as well as shot stabilisation. Our VFX team had composited flashing blues and twos onto the ambulances prior to starting on the project myself but I added in a few extra flashing lights when needed. This was achieved by finding a clean asset, a shot of another ambulance with flashing lights, rotoscoping a clean plate and then comping the lights back onto the moving ambulance using Flame’s planar tracker, which is a fantastic bit of kit. 

Each episode had the 2.35 letterboxes applied, which cuts out the top and bottom of the frame. I performed a pan and scan pass to make sure eye height remained level and tops of head were not cut off by the new framing.

What made this project unique was the level of detail involved. There’s really no place to hide when it comes to films shot in UHD/HDR and you have to be on top of your game to make sure your output and detail matches that of the hard work put in by the cast, crew and directors during the filming and editing process.

I worked between Avid Symphony and Flame on Bloods, Flame being the best software when it comes to creating effects like flashing lights. I had a lot of fun on this project, I do enjoy a comedy series – and I’m really excited for everyone to see what we’ve worked on.”