Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1122868
22 S P R I N G 2 0 1 9 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y GLEN GATHARD: Foley Mixer What is your background and what other projects have you worked on? I have been at Pinewood Studios for 16 years, working my way through the sound department at different levels and am now the Head of Audio for Pinewood Studios. I have been lucky to work on some great projects throughout my career such as the Harry Potter series, Bond, Batman Begins, Rocketman, Dumbo, Aladdin, Wonder Woman, and The Division 2, amongst many more. How did you get involved in mixing Foley for Bohemian Rhapsody? John Warhurst approached us to be part of the team looking after the Foley. I have incredible respect for John as both a sound supervisor and a world-class sound engineer, so it was an instant "yes" and "when can we get cracking" from me. How much time did you have to complete the Foley and how big was your team? In total, we shot for four weeks. This was including any recuts and changes we wanted to make for technical or creative reasons. On the project, I worked alongside Jemma Riley Tolch as the Foley mixer on the project. Jemma is an exceptional talent in our industry and team, as well as a huge role model to aspiring engineers, We also worked with our fantastic Foley artists Zoe Freed and Pete Burgis, and to finish off the team, Adam Bourne was our Foley editor. Adam is a Queen mega fan, so this was incredibly handy when we were cutting and performing to music and in key. Please describe your workflow and any problems you encountered. In most cases, I would have a spotting session with our sound supervisor on the project and run through both their notes and the director's core notes. It is important that we are on the same page as there are a million ways you can shoot and engineer a Foley session and we need to make sure that the style choice is in true keeping with the rest of the sound team's workings. The biggest challenge for me was to make sure that anything that we shot with the intention to play alongside the music was not suffering from any auditory masking. It was also about identifying where our Foley involvement was truly required and when to make a call that the music is so powerful that nothing needs adding at all. I think it is important to always be thinking about the purpose of the sound you are recording and to make decisions at the record point to whether it is needed at all. Lastly, I wanted to always be mindful of the key of the music and make sure that anything that we did sat comfortably within it. Also, we needed to make sure that when editing anything that contained transient qualities, it worked in with the percussion of a track even if that meant cheating the sync at times. What was the most challenging aspect of working on this project? I think the most challenging part of working on the film was attempting to stop singing the songs! There is something incredibly addictive about Queen's music. Is there anything else you'd like to add? I would really like to thank CAS and everyone that supported Bohemian. It was a tremendous honor to be in a room with so many true sound rock stars on the night of the awards. I would like to thank the sound community for their kind words following the film's win. Lastly, I would like to thank my team at Pinewood for their incredible commitment to everything they do day in, day out at the studios. A few fun sound facts that I learned at a screening with a Q&A afterward. The majority of the vocals used in the movie are Freddie's actual vocals with only a little bit of Rami and a Freddie soundalike to fill it out. Paul Massey had access to the original 24-track tapes of Queen's music and was thus able to use the drums played by Roger, the guitars played by Brian, and the bass played by John. "I THINK IT IS IMPORTANT TO ALWAYS BE THINKING ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF THE SOUND YOU ARE RECORDING AND TO MAKE DECISIONS AT THE RECORD POINT TO WHETHER IT IS NEEDED AT ALL." – Foley mixer Glen Gathard