Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1259912
50 S P R I N G 2 0 2 0 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y and loudspeaker design. But I really enjoyed sound design and mixing. After I graduated, I decided to try and get into sound for TV and film. Moving to London seemed like the obvious place to start. How did you get started in the industry? CB: I met a top mixer called Tony Dawe who took me on as trainee and, thankfully, onto some fantastic major motion pictures over the years as his boom operator. He really is responsible for some of the big ones for me, films including About a Boy, Troy, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. JG: I had been in little punk bands since the age of 13. When I was 18, our band (The Ordinary Boys) were signed to a sub (B-Unique) of Warner's UK. We toured the UK and Japan and had good chart success in both. We did four albums. I was lucky to have recorded in Olympic Studios, Townhouse Studios, Jacobs, and Metropolis, working with producers and engineers like Steven Street, Cenzo Townsend, and Tom Stanley. Working with those people really inspired me to want to follow a career that put me in a recording studio or a dub suite. DD: I started as a runner in a post-production house making tea and coffee and running tapes around Soho. I would sit in the studios on my lunch break or after my shift had finished and watch the mixer at work to try and pick up what I could. What was your first big break in the industry? CB: Well, I would say it's all such valuable experience and all roads led me to where I am. That said, working on a movie like Troy really did a lot for me—especially as I was still relatively young. But as a mixer, the breaks have been incremental. Fleabag is one of those game changers and certainly to be honored with the CAS Award feels like a leap to me. But, everything at its own speed. JG: I got my break from a mixer called Scott Jones (re-recording mixer on Moon). He needed an assistant after his current one had left to pursue a music composition career. The facility was transitioning from an AudioFile DAW system to Pro Tools and I was fresh out of a college where I did my Pro Tools courses. I could build templates and interpret his requests to find solutions to help him get up to speed with Pro Tools. I owe Scott a lot. I'm very grateful he trusted me. DD: I'm not sure I had one big break or defining moment that changed everything. [Instead] lots of good moments along the way, which have led onto better things. Though I guess a notable moment would be when I was premixing a show called Tooned for another mixer and I didn't have many of my own credits. I got to know the clients and when the next series came around and the original mixer wasn't available, I was asked to mix the series. [And], I've been lucky enough to work with a number of talented mixers across a range of genres. For the last five years, I've been working closely with two excellent mixers, Richard Davey and Glenn Calder at Jumbuck Film and TV. Well, congratulations on your CAS win for Fleabag! #2.6. CB: Thank you! I'm absolutely thrilled. JG: That's very kind. I am very lucky to have worked on both seasons. Sometimes a show just hits. When I worked on the first season, I knew it was such a special show. Full credit to the amazing performances, writing, and directing that make Fleabag so good. DD: Thank you! Was there a guiding concept for the approach of the show's sound? CB: We wanted to capture the realism of the situations. For comedy like this to really be captured in its full glory … we work hard. This includes just simply being as efficient and cohesive of a team as possible. I firmly believe we are there to service the possibility for our artists to explore and play within each moment of the cameras rolling with as much freedom as possible. Nurturing that is up to each department in their own way. JG: In a BBC comedy show like Fleabag, ADR is kept to a minimum to save performances. Christian did a great job on set so ADR becomes a luxury rather than a necessity. DD: Fleabag has such fantastically written dialogue. I think it was always important that what we were doing was in some way improving or helping the humor or the emotion and not distracting from it. I think as a mixer when you watch a show, you get a feeling for stylistically how it should sound and feel. Was there anything unusual about this show in comparison to the norm? JG: Not really. I just knew that we had to get the most naturalistic performances possible. So perhaps instead of focusing on whether the actor is standing in front of the mic and hitting sync, I would concentrate on letting the recording [go] longer and [start] before the cue. [That way] practices, repeats, and rehearsals of the lines had a good chance of being captured and used. Just trying to create a relaxed environment where the actor feels safe to try and fail and try again. It's all about the performance. DD: I would say how collaborative it was. There was a willingness to try out different ideas. We had a microphone set up in the dub and Phoebe would record impromptu new ADR lines, or myself and other members of the team would perform crowd shout outs or reactions where and when it was needed. We would often share a video call with the composer (Isobel Waller-Bridge, Phoebe's sister) from the dub to discuss musical ideas or arrangements.