Last year I was contracted by the team behind Big Angry Fish for the audio post production on their TV series. BAF plays on TV3 here in NZ and also across Australia and has a large passionate fan base so it was great to get involved. The production team for the show is a real example of how production workflows can exist today. The core of the team, Nikolaj, Milan, Nathan and Anne Marie are based in Tauranga. They take care of all the organising, script writing, filming and catching fish! Ryan, the editor is now also based in Tauranga although last year he was based in Wellington. We were able to work together flawlessly by communicating well and sending files back and forth.
Fantastic people to work with, the team create a show that inspires and educates anglers as well as having a strong focus on respect and admiration for the sea and it's inhabitants.
Before receiving any files at all I communicated with the team and offered advice on the best way of capturing sound while out in the boat. The overall mix ultimately relies on good location sound so spending time on this was the first thing to get right. It's not exactly a controlled environment to film in so the set up has to be easy to use and reliable.
In the end all the sound recorded for the series comes from 2 high quality wireless lavalier mics, protected well from the wind and sitting high on the chest of each presenter in their life jacket rig. These worked great, capturing dialogue clearly - but that's about it. The small amount of ambience they captured did little to create the sense of space that conveys reality and immersiveness in a video production. So I went to work creating ambiences and atmosphere tracks I could sit under these mic tracks that would fill out the stereo field and make each scene feel more real.
I made a field recording trip out on a boat similar to that of the BAF team (the 'Techno Viking') and made various recordings of all the sounds you hear while out on the water - motors, ambiences, water lapping etc. These formed a basis to work upon and I layered them with other sound effects from my library to get the atmospheres I was after.
The aim was not to go too overboard with the additional sounds, but to create a more realistic soundscape that helps to pull the veiwer into the action. The mix of course also relies on getting all the basics right - dialogue and voiceover clean, clear and consistent, good levels of dialogue, effects and music and a tight consistent mix delivered at required spec.
Along with delivering audio at loudness spec for TV in NZ, I also delivered for DVD and Australian TV, plus to TVF International in the UK for worldwide distribution. This involved providing various audio stems at specific levels so that the show can be re purposed for other languages.
The post production work on this year's series is just about to kick off, so if you like your fish big and angry - get amongst it!
