Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1335892
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 65 I n the days leading up to the official government social distancing 'Stay at Home' order from the government here in the UK, the city hum that I'd lived with as the 'room tone' ofto my life for more than 25 years, just evaporated. Or to put it another way, I was experiencing the largest change in the global signal to noise ratio. I've lived with my family in Central London for more than 25 years, so I've grown used to the background city drone that anyone who's lived or visited any major city or urban environment is used to. Although at varying levels throughout that time, the background hum is a constant, along with the many sirens, helicopters, crowds, construction work, and traffic passes, it fill the background of our daily live. Over the years, I've sound designed and edited city ambiences, both modern and vintage, for numerous films and locations. That part of the track-lay almost always starts with wanting to build an acoustic environment that will help give the audience an audio map to the sense of scale, time, and movement that will help sell that large, and sometimes oppressive urban space. I've always enjoyed the process of building ambiences that help set the scene for what's to come; to put a marker down for the times you revisit that location throughout the film, and the changes that will occur when you return again. Most of the time, with dialogue and music to come, this is done with the full knowledge that I am trying to get this feeling across in an almost subliminal way: a distant dog here, an off-screen argument there, in addition to tiny details that can be used to help set the mood. At the end of March 2020, when all the schools had closed and all New Bond Street, normally busy and bustling with everyday life, is eerily desolate in London during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Photo by Alastair Sirkett