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Our Mutual Friend - sound design - Colin Guthrie

2009-11-26T15:50:29+00:00

This external content is available at its source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6iMnfbdXHg

Right from the start it was clear that the sound of water would feature heavily in the soundscape of the production - the river Thames could be considered the central character of the piece as so much of the story is woven in and around it. Drownings and near drownings, Lizzie Hexam and her father earning their living in a small boat on the Thames and the rain drenched streets of London meant that the sound of water would play a big part. One of the big differences between doing a production like this on the radio and on film is that, generally speaking, the actors stay a lot drier on radio. Having said that, on a number of occasions we set an actor in front of a washing up bowl full of water and asked them to plunge their head in and emerge, gasping for air as if with their last breath. Which, for some of the characters, it was.

For a fifteen minute episode we have half a day in the studio to record the actors and add a lot of the sound effects. The main assembly of the programme then takes place in the editing channel. In the editing process we use four different types of raw sound:

The words spoken by the actors
Sound effects recorded in the studio
Sound effects from pre-recorded sound effects libraries
Music

All of these can be manipulated in the editing process - precise editing to isolate the sections you want, adjusting volume levels, adding reverberation etc.

The scenes involving drownings are good examples of how the radio sound picture is built up using a number of different elements. The drownings all involved a struggle with two characters; so we would record the dialogue leading up to the struggle and the vocal sounds of the characters fighting and gasping for air. We might then record the sound of their feet, scuffing the pavement and some additional splashing. A lot of the picture would then come from pre-recorded sound effects - the background sound of the river flowing and the surrounding ambience, splashing and the sound of scuba breathing.

Creating the image of the characters going underwater needs precise placing of sound effects and acoustic treatment of the sound to paint the picture without the help of any dialogue to explain what is happening. A splash as they fall into the river, vocal struggling and splashing, followed by an isolated large breath from one of the characters. This breath subconsciously leads us to expect they are going underwater. As they go under, the bright sounds of the splashing are suddenly reduced in volume and the higher frequencies are taken out to give the murky, dull sounds you associate with being underwater. The scuba breathing gives us the rising bubbles and the classic underwater sound. A rasping breath signals their breaking of the surface, the volume of the splashing is increased and the high frequencies are brought back as they hit the night air. We would then add a track of Roger Goula's music, possibly adjusting some of the timing of the scene to fit the drama of the scene with the shape of the music.

I spoke to Roger about his music for Our Mutual Friend:

Colin Guthrie was sound designer for Our Mutual Friend

Roger Goula writes music for film, television and radio. His personal web site is here.
Radio 4's 20-part adaptation of Our Mutual Friend is on-air now.
Radio 4's 20-part adaption of Our Mutual Friend is on-air now and because it's part of the 'series catch-up trial' you can listen online to all the programmes in the series until seven days after the last episode airs.
We'd love to hear your thoughts about Dickens dramatisations you have heard and enjoyed on the radio. And which of the novels do you think Radio 4 should tackle next?
There are production photos of the whole cast, taken for Radio 4 by Phil Fisk, here.

Acting in Our Mutual Friend

2009-11-19T14:00:43+00:00

I asked members of the Our Mutual Friend cast four questions: what appealed to them about their character, why Dickens is so enduringly popular, what they best remembered about the recording, and why they enjoyed radio acting (if they did). Here's a recording of Carl Prekopp and Daisy Haggard talking about the production, recorded especially for the blog:

Over the next few days we'll be publishing our cast members' responses to my questions. First, Carl Prekopp:

Often with Dickens the straight man in the middle is quite frustrating for an actor as he can see all the weird and wonderful characters having a ball around him. But in 'Our Mutual Friend' the mysterious nature of John Harmon and his circumstances gives the actor an appealing otherworldliness. Having in a sense confirmed his own 'death' he is looking in on the lives of people from behind a mask of deception throughout. He is quite an empowered central character. Almost like a private detective. And the wonderful thing is no matter how front footed he is, it is still a girl who is the source of so much of his frustration.

I loved having a face off with Jamie Foreman. It was also one of the few scenes where the darker side of my character had a chance to rear it's head.

Daisy was a wonderful leading lady. And from the readthrough it became quite obvious she was going to be fun in the studio so all scenes with her made for a good day at work.

Dickens pays unbelievable attention to detail, so much so that once you have finished one of his books, that story is a part of you as though it is a memory. You can see the people, the streets and the feeling that comes with each event as though you were actually there.

I enjoy doing radio because it is left to the power of the imagination. It's good old fashioned story telling giving everything over to the audience. We as actors can create the world in our own minds, forgetting we're in our normal clothes and holding scripts in a windowless studio and the more we use our imagination the more the audience will create their own images of the geography of the play and how the characters and their world may look. No two audience members will have the same image of any one play.

I also love radio because there are no physical restrictions on the parts we can play. And in this age of beauty before talent it is quite liberating. I have in my time played a endorphin-addicted body builder. People that know me will understand that this is a part I could never play in any other medium.

Jessica Dromgoole is a producer at BBC Radio Drama

Radio 4's 20-part adaptation of Our Mutual Friend is on-air now.
Radio 4's 20-part adaption of Our Mutual Friend is on-air now and because it's part of the 'series catch-up trial' you can listen online to all the programmes in the series until seven days after the last episode airs.
Look out for further blog reports on the recording process, with contributions from composer Roger Goula, studio manager Colin Guthrie and other members of the cast.
We'd love to hear your thoughts about Dickens dramatisations you have heard and enjoyed on the radio. And which of the novels do you think Radio 4 should tackle next?
There are production photos of the whole cast, taken for Radio 4 by Phil Fisk, here.

Producing and directing Our Mutual Friend

2009-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

Editor's note: the second instalment of our series about this year's big Christmas adaptation, Our Mutual Friend, is by producer/director Jessica Dromgoole:

5 May 2009. Behold London! Behold Oxford Circus tube station! Behold Broadcasting House! Behold 60a! The studio is primed for nine days of wonder. Ordinarily, four weeks of Woman's Hour Dramas would take twelve days to record, but we're ambitious for the economy of scale; creating complex equations of cast size, cast calibre and time spent on the episodes. Jeremy and I have been poring over the recording schedule for longer than is healthy, with an eye to clustered threads of story, locations, the actors' availability, and the Studio Managers' and our own sanity. Matilda and James - the broadcast assistants - have been negotiating with contracts, agents, the actors themselves, the actors' childminders, and the radio rep coordinator, keeping up with our ambitions, and often exceeding them. They're extraordinary.

The first day is daunting. Jeremy is directing. I'm sitting in, absorbing as much as I can. Everything the actors do today will hold fast for the series. Their vocal choices, the level of their articulacy, the breadth of the comedy, the dynamic of each of their relationships. The strongest boldest performances are already working really well. The actors are loving the script. Outside of the leads, the world of Our Mutual Friend is such a melting pot of front-footed characters, ambitious, driven, delighted with themselves, it calls for size and clarity, and the cast are delivering beautifully.

6 May. My scenes today are new territory, on the whole. The Boffins with Rokesmith. Jason asks whether Mr Boffin knows who John is yet. None of us know. He demonstrates the difference it makes to his performance, which is huge, but not revealing. We decide that yes, he does know, or he's 95% certain, and he's testing Rokesmith by showing him round the old house. Colin (Guthrie) and Anne (Bunting) - the Studio Managers - are working beautifully together, creating a London that is very true and simple, and doesn't feel clichéd Victoriana at all. Lee Ross gives us a variety of Weggs. He's not happy with the voice yet. He'd painted him huge and primary in the readthrough, setting a fantastic bar for everyone else there, but wants to find something else. We record the first encounter with Boffin over and over, trying to hit the dynamic which will persuade us that these men belong to the same story, and when it happens, it's a delight.

The actors at the Jolly Fellowship Porters get the giggles every time the Inspector sucks on his pipe. I don't get it. It's been a long day. How Colin and Anne look so fresh is beyond me.

7 May. Jeremy today. Episodes 6-10 already! Some great work with Daisy (Bella) and Carl (John) this morning. Making the series at this pace, it feels too early for John to declare his feelings for Bella, but of course, listening at only fifteen minutes a day, it'll be about time. Lizzie and Jenny Wren are a lovely partnership. Both voices are light and clear, but the actors are heading in different directions - Lizzie's is clouded by difficulty, Jenny's luminous with confidence. As Jeremy prepares for the Eugene/Bradley confrontation over the billiard table, I say 'Oh, my favourite scene of the whole series'. A look of panic crosses Jeremy's face, and I wish I hadn't put him under the additional pressure. It's a difficult scene to pull off, because our enjoyment of it depends so strongly on the sightlines and eyeballing of the two men. This is achievable, and Patrick and Neil are really in harmony, but it's not easy.

8 May. Great day. Episode 9 is a break away from the feel of the series so far, and Jamie (Rogue) and Carl (John) are relishing the prospect of a substantial scene. Carl admits afterwards that he was nervous about playing the hard man, out-Jamie-ing Jamie, but they work well together, feeding each other and timing beautifully. It's almost disappointing that they get it so right so quickly. Favourite exchange of the day: 'That's a good table' ... 'It's a dead table now'. We record the drowning. I love drownings on radio. Love them. Topless actors with their heads in washing up bowls of water, surfacing for each line. The method is crude but the effect is fantastic. The washing up bowl comes out. Jonathan (Radfoot) blanches. He's got a cold and didn't know he'd be asked to put his head in the water. We warm the water for him. He's very game. Each element sounds great, but we'll have to wait for the edit to see how they fit together.

11 May. I can't be in studio today. Too much else to do. I've got a studio (for In Mates, an Afternoon Play) at the end of the month and need to turn the script around in time to cast it. I live so resolutely in Our Mutual Friend, I'm aware that I'm trying to cast In Mates like an Our Mutual Friend reunion*. Jeremy is recording Rogue's drowning, Wegg's first turning of the Boffin screw, and the Wilfers' anniversary dinner, cooked by Bella. I email-pester Matilda and James asking for progress reports. I send two texts to Jeremy by lunchtime. I'm an Our Mutual Friend stalker. Absence is focusing my mind exquisitely. I'm done by four, and hot foot it to Broadcasting House, and back to the oxygen of filthy old London. I'm sent straight into studio to be an extra in the Jolly Fellowship Porters. I'm rubbish. People wish I'd stayed away. *I do, and Pauline Quirke (Mrs Boffin) plays Michelle, Lizzy Watts (Lizzie) plays Kirsty, Malcolm Tierney (Old Harmon) plays the father-in-law, and Ben Askew (Sloppy) plays Pavel.

12 May. Busy studio today. A lot of short scenes. A lot of movement. Something strikes me about the third week of the series. The third quarter of the book, too. The characters are set, and there is little time to delight in their foibles and quirks. Their journeys are at their most complex, and they are - for the most part - facing the worst of their troubles. Individually the scenes are exciting, witty, beautifully turned. Together the day is enormous. We fail to record all the scenes on the schedule. We've been breaking our backs to keep to the schedule, and plug at each scene until we're perfectly happy, and it's a horrible feeling to be responsible for the one lapse. It's a sad day, too, because characters are beginning to leave the series. Saying goodbye to Nicola (Jenny) is unnecessarily hurried because of my schedule guilt. We'll see her on Thursday at the aftershow drinks, but the studio will be smaller without her.

13 May. Jeremy's day, full of exquisite two handed scenes - Rogue and Bradley, John and Bella, Bradley and Charlie, Eugene and Lizzie. The actors are so sure of who they are by now, and so compelled by the paths of their own stories, Jeremy is directing them so simply, and Colin and Anne are approaching them with so little clutter, sitting in the cubicle is a privilege. It's fascinating how Dickens has moved his characters - his leads - from uncertainty, questing, fecklessness, superficiality, towards something more driven, more sure, more in line with the bigger, bolder characters who have peopled the world they move in.

14 May. The last day of full cast recording. I mustn't give away the story, but there are scenes and moments, and performances I will treasure. A double drowning. Two brimming washing up bowls. Two discarded tops. My favourite thing, twice. Bradley's justification, which Neil and I worked on until it had barely an inflection at all; Rokesmith's wild moment of clarity on the street with Mortimer, where Carl manages to suggest that he is working with only the top 5% of his brain; Wegg's counterattack at the moment of his comeuppance, which Lee gives with utter conviction, silencing the room and possibly delivering the message of the book; these come once in a blue moon ordinarily. To get to work on them all in one day is utopian. We end on Lizzie's song, which feels lovely and obscure, carrying a lot of the tone, but none of the narrative of the series, and then repair to the pub for drinks with as many of the cast as possible. Carl and Neil are both appearing in theatre, so don't make it, and are missed, but the atmosphere is very positive and celebratory. I leave as Nicola is offering Jamie a wheelchair lift to his home in South East London on her lap.

15 May. Alex Jennings. So completely at ease with Dickens, Mike's writing, the microphone. He's a joy. He's disappointed to have been such an outsider to the process, having called in to studio the day before and 'felt the love', but we can tell how crucial his voice and his interest will be to the pieces as a whole.

Jessica Dromgoole is a producer at BBC Radio Drama

Radio 4's 20-part adaptation of Our Mutual Friend begins on Monday at 1945
Jeremy Mortimer, Executive Producer, wrote about adapting Our Mutual Friend here on the blog last week.
Look out for further blog reports on the recording process, with contributions from composer Roger Goula, studio manager Colin Guthrie and members of the cast.
We'd love to hear your thoughts about Dickens dramatisations you have heard and enjoyed on the radio. And which of the novels do you think Radio 4 should tackle next?
There are production photos of the whole cast, taken for Radio 4 by Phil Fisk, here.

Adapting Our Mutual Friend for radio

2009-10-27T12:00:00+00:00

Of course making a Hollywood film, or directing at the National Theatre may be all very well (I wouldn't know as I haven't done either) but there are times when there is simply nothing more rewarding than being in the radio studio working on a really meaty drama serial. Over the last few months I've had the chance to work on the twenty episode dramatisation of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, and the Radio 4 Blog people thought it might be an idea for us to share some of the behind the scenes stuff about the making of a big radio drama. So here is my diary of the work that went into the first, crucial part of the process - the scripts.

And you can listen to a short conversation between me and writer Mike Walker here:

October 2007. The last day of recording Dombey and Son. We are doing the Dickens narrations with Alex Jennings, and he asks which Dickens we're going to do next. Mike Walker (writer) Jessica Dromgoole and I (producers) have been having snatched conversations about this, but haven't reached a conclusion. Mike and I have worked on four Dickens dramatisations for the R4 Woman's Hour drama slot - Nicholas Nickleby (2001), The Old Curiosity Shop (2003), and David Copperfield (2005). Dickens' novels seem to fall so naturally into short episodes - possibly because he wrote them in serial form. The characters seem to be perfectly formed for radio, and the audience has responded well to the brilliant Dickens mix of comedy and high drama. So what next?

May 2008. The decision has been taken, and we have sent the proposal to Radio 4 Drama commissioner Jeremy Howe. We have gone for Our Mutual Friend. We're a bit nervous about this because it is Radio 4 Controller Mark Damazer's favourite Dickens. But we're excited by the challenges posed by Dickens' sprawling novel (his last complete work) in which corpses, identities and reputations rise and fall in the tidal reaches of London's great river.

July 2008. We get the green light. Our Mutual Friend will be broadcast in twenty episodes starting in November 2009. We have already done a breakdown of the story into the four weekly parts, but now we have to break it down into its fifteen minute episodes, making sure that no episode uses more than seven characters. It is quite a challenge. We book the drama studio in Broadcasting House for nine days recording in May 2009.

September 2008. Over the summer we have all been re-reading the book. Mike submits a revised episode breakdown and we have a long meeting in which we sort some key questions about the plot, and try to get to the bottom of the character of John Rokesmith - the Mutual Friend himself.

November 2008. The first ten scripts come in. Always an exciting moment. How will the characters behave - do we care about them. It is clear immediately that Bella Wilfer is going to be a star. Feisty, funny and impetuous. We're still not so sure about Rokesmith. Who is he?

December 2008. With recording just a few months away the pressure is on. We now have 15 of the scripts, but we know they will need to go through a couple more drafts. We're confident that Mike can do it. He seems to be able to live and breathe Dickens. He doesn't so much adapt the books as re-make them for radio. Every episode needs a cliff-hanger, and every character needs their own moment in the sun.

January 2009. 2 January 2009. My email to Mike Walker:

I think you have done a grand job in pulling it all together - and there are some truly excellent scenes. But I reckon that for draft 2 we need to do quite a bit of honing and polishing just to keep the listeners on track, and we need to underline the two key romances of the story so that they know whose lives they are following. I found that the Riderhoods, and to a degree the Wegg/Venus stories slightly got in the way at times, and I found my attention wandering. Also lost track of Bradley and Eugene. Really hard to underline without being too obvious, but we can use Dickens more, and I think that it is about getting the nuances right in the story.

We now have first drafts of all twenty scripts. We need a long script meeting to sort out the key moments in the climax of the story - a business of multiple revelations.

February 2009. Second draft scripts come in thick and fast. We still need to make more of the Dickens narration. We are strict with ourselves in the use of this. It is not to be used to tell the story - that's the role of the drama. But we want the listener to be able to see how the characters affect their creator. Dickens has written that his characters tend to write themselves. He watches their antics and is often surprised by what they do.

March 2009. Third draft scripts come in. All the stories now interweave in a way that we think the listeners will be able to follow, and the various denouements seem to work. There are some exciting action sequences which will be tricky to pull off in the studio, but we're up for the challenge. Jessica and I have started a scene breakdown, which will become a vital tool as a recording schedule.

April 2009. The Radio Drama Company - a small team of actors contracted to the Radio Drama Department - is a crucial resource for us, and we have now cast quite a few key roles from the company. Music is also crucial to the production. I have just been to a showcase of graduates from the National Film and Television school and was very struck by the work of a young composer, Roger Goula. Jessica and I listen to his work and invite him in. Roger appears undaunted by the challenge of writing music for twenty episodes of a radio serial, or by the fact that we want him to present us with key themes before we start recording.

1st April. We get the good news that Alex Jennings is free to take the role of Dickens. Of course his availability might change, but it feels like a good start.

On the day that we receive the final scripts (9th April) we start casting in earnest. Our wish list is a mix of old friends and new actors we have never worked with before. We start sending out scripts.

20th April. Our first choice for the part of Jenny Wren is Nicola Miles-Wildin, who Jessica auditioned over the phone. Nicola uses a wheelchair and some of the production team need to complete wheelchair evacuation training in Broadcasting House. We spend a few hours lowering each other downstairs in a chair with caterpillar tracks.

22nd April. The recording schedule has been completed. Over eight recording days we will be recording a new scene every twenty minutes. Jessica and I will direct on alternate days.

1st May 2009. 10.00 am. Twenty-two actors assemble, together with Mike and Roger, in a windowless room in Bush House for the readthrough, which will take most of the day. Everyone is nervous, but excited. Alex Jennings starts:

Behold! London. And the river - silver and black under the moon - silver and silent... A big man, hunched at the prow - grizzled hair - wind blown face... peering up-river at the coming tide.

Jeremy Mortimer is Executive Producer, BBC Radio Drama

Look out for further blog reports on the recording process, with contributions from Jeremy's fellow-producer Jessica Dromgoole, composer Roger Goula, studio manager Colin Guthrie and members of the cast.
Radio 4's 2007 production of Dombey and Son
A fascinating account of the serialisation of Our Mutual Friend in 1864 and 65 by Robert L. Patten at Rice University and of the great dust-heap from R.H. Horne.
We'd love to hear your thoughts about Dickens dramatisations you have heard and enjoyed on the radio. And which of the novels do you think Radio 4 should tackle next?
There are production photos of the whole cast, taken for Radio 4 by Phil Fisk, here.