Bloods
The BAFTA nominated comedy follows street-wise Maleek and over-friendly Wendy and the crews of South Hill Ambulance Depot as the contrasting paramedic dynamics are explored over this hilarious series.
Release Date
16 March 2022
Services
Production Co.
Broadcaster
Behind the Post Production
Find out what our talented creatives had to say on this hilarious project.
Ben Ormerod, ENVY Dubbing Mixer
“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.”
Luke Carter, ENVY Online Editor
“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.”
Envy Credits
Sarah Yeboah
Nicola Whitehead
Grading / Colour
We have six Baselight TWO colour grading suites all with the latest Dolby and Sony monitoring allowing our grading team to work at resolutions from HD up to 4K HDR. All suites are connected to a high-speed SAN and supported by a Baselight Assist, allowing imports/exports to happen in the background without interrupting the session.
Grading Team
Online
Our online team operate across ten Avid Symphony suites and two Autodesk Flame systems all connected via high performance shared storage, working at resolutions from HD up to 4K HDR and beyond if required. They offer the latest plugins from both Boris and Sapphire, as well as the highest quality broadcast monitoring available. The team are highly experienced in large-scale multi-episodic productions as well as fast turnaround ‘day of transmission’ style projects.
Our Online Editors
Audio
Our Broadcast division has nine sound studios, all with VO booths alongside two additional Audio Prep rooms. All our studios are 5.1 capable with three studios being Dolby Atmos 7.1.4. All suites run the latest ProTools 20.12 software with the latest plugins. As well as mix, we also offer ADR, Foley and remote voice over.
Our Audio Team
Visual Effects
Originally operating within the commercial realm, circa 2015 saw the studio begin collaborations with filmmakers and content creators across feature films and episodic productions. Absolute have crafted effects across feature films featuring Hollywood stars such as Mads Mikkelsen (Return Of The Goat), Jude Law (The Nest) and Emma Stone (Maniac). Meanwhile, their episodic portfolio boasts solutions for BBC (Great Expectations), Disney+ (Super/Natural) and Prime Video UK (The Rig), whilst How To Be A Person for Channel 4 won a BAFTA.