Pat Heigham
I reprint two letters from the Radio Times re “The Return of the Flying Scotsman”.
Graeme Aldous apparently runs a one-man band recording service in Yorkshire and has done stuff for the BBC. What he says in his reply is inherently true, but it would not have been beyond the wit of an experienced sound recordist to have mounted a couple of FX mics on the engine, radioed back to the first coach, and positioned to shield them from the slipstream? Even a baffled rifle mic out of the window of the first coach might have stood a chance of obtaining a constant run track – probably would not have heard the helicopter.
Failing that, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the library of the late Peter Handford (Transaccord), he might have had exactly the right FX of the Flying Scotsman. (Peter was a Film Production Sound Mixer whose hobby was recording steam trains).
But maybe the BBC production team were unaware of this possibility, had spent all the budget on the helicopter, and maybe didn’t even have a recordist on the shoot?
LET’S HEAR THE TRAIN
We were impressed by The Return
of the Flying Scotsman (7 March
BBC4). However, why did there
need to be music when showing
the locomotive in action? I’m
sure the majority of people would
much rather hear the sound of
the steam engine.
Jennifer Samuel Holyport, Berkshire
THE SOUND OF STEAM
Jennifer Samuel (Feedback, 19
March) quite rightly wanted to
hear the sound of Flying Scotsman
rather than music, but there are
technicalities to be considered.
Scotsman was being filmed from
a helicopter … and no microphone
can give clean sound from 150ft
above, in an 85mph wind, with the
sound of the helicopter’s own rotor
and engines. So music it has to be.
Graeme Aldous (Teeafit Sound
& Vision) Moorsholm, Yorkshire
Brian Curtis
I agree with what Pat says about "sound capture" on the Flying Scotsman. I believe the rule for sound should be "get it now, get it good" but if it is not needed it can always be discarded later.
Geoff Fletcher
Couldn’t agree more. It was almost as bad as music and commentary over the wonderful sound of Merlins and Griffons at air shows.
Pat Heigham
I worked a lot with Gordon Everett who was the Production Sound Mixer on "The Battle of Britain". He told me that Jimmy Shields (the Sound Editor), stripped the track of the aerial scenes and laid in proper Merlin engine FX for the RAF aircraft (this was because the restored aircraft did not have original Merlins).
Scotsman – if I had been on that shoot, I would have done my best to sprinkle mics around the engine for historical library capture, if nothing else – who knows if it’s going to ever run again out of York? Maybe someone did?
Having worked on a couple of Bonds, I played with the Lotus Esprit on "Spy Who Loved Me" to get as many different tracks as possible, and also the action Jet Ranger ‘copter, both on board and from ground, ups and passes. But then – I am talking about rather different budgets!
(Oh, and there was the car jump in "Golden Gun", too! That was a once only take!)
Geoff Fletcher
Interesting. It would certainly have been advisable to have done so with the Griffon-engined late mark Spits as their engines sound quite different. I wonder if he did the same with the Merlin-engined Hispano Buchons which stood in for Me.109s? (i.e. stripped off the Merlin track and dubbed on the sound of Daimler-Benz DB601A motors.) It has been a while since I watched the film now, so I’m not sure.
I worked on a film for a French company which featured Mark Hanna’s Hispano Buchon and Spitfire at Fowlmere and Duxford some years ago.
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I don’t have a copy of Diamond Swords – I would very much like to have one. I doubt if I had a credit, not that it matters, as I was UPM only on the UK shoot – 2 weeks planning and 2 weeks shooting. I supplied 2 film grips. the gaffer, best boy, lighting crew, genny, and two sound crew. The film company was Bluebell Films based in Paris and the camera crew were Czech, with an Isreali First Assitant Director. He was the best I ever worked with – a great guy in all respects and totally on top of his job. I had worked on a prog in Israel, so we had some common ground, and we got on very well. The lead character in the film was loosely based on a WW2 Luftwaffe fighter ace named Marseille who got the chop in the Western Desert, Another odd coincidence was that Mark Hanna’s Spitfire pilot was a Norwegian guy who’s grandfather flew Spitfires in WW2 with the RAF Norwegian Wing. At the time, my neighbour was AVM David Scott-Malden RAF Retd who was Wingco i/c of the Norwegian Wing and the Spitfire pilot’s grandfather flew as his wingman on some sorties. Added to this, Scottie was based at Fowlmere in the early days of WW2 as a young PO and had told me of hot summer days spent laying in the shade of his Spitfire wing chewing on a piece of grass waiting for the scramble to action.
One day when the crew broke for lunch, I found myself alone on the airfield doing exactly the same thing. It was an oddly moving experience, and I wrote a poem about it after the shoot. It’s not a very good poem but it expresses what I felt at the time. I’ve never shown it to anyone before, but I feel among friends on this site so here it is:-
Filming At Fowlmere
Today is a day of dreams and wonder
Of endless sunshine and the snarl of Merlins
Of eye screwing brightness
Staring up into a sky of impossibly perfect blue
Searching for the tiny cross
Spreading its banner of sound behind it
Tearing calico high above me
Standing transfixed upon the summer grass
I cannot but smile in sheer delight
As I watch that tiny cross
Wheeling and dipping against the blue
In some strange way I seem to share
The clean pure joy its flyer feels
Man and machine melded together in the morning air
But now the distant shape comes curving back
And sinking swiftly downwards to the earth
Rides in the sun upon its surf of sound
Grows fast towards me above the troubled grass
The Merlin’s shout of power like crackling thunder
Slams by touch close – a brutal blur of green and brown
Then climbs away back to the freedom of the blue
Today is a day of dreams and wonder
With sights and sounds that reach me from the past
The crew set up the day’s first shoot around me
Today they seem unreal and out of place
Strangely insubstantial, their chatter far away
Like the distant sound of playing children
I am silent and alone among the busy crowd
All I can hear is the music of the Merlins
All I can see is fighters on the grass
Young men talking, laughing in the sunshine
Young men dozing in the shade of wings
Playing cards and listening to the wireless
Passing the priceless time of their lives’ bright morning
Waiting for the “Scramble!” shout to come
I feel them still here with us as we roll our cameras
And call the litanies of film across the Fowlmere air
Watching with wry and half amazed amusement
As we dramatise their all too harsh reality
Making fiction of the lives they lived for real
Today is a day of dreams and wonder
The wall of time become a pane of glass
Keith Salmon, Mike Giles
Wonderful poem – paints the picture beautifully. I was right there with you and the wartime flyers.
Albert Barber
I too was appalled by a very poorly made production that had all the shots but no one who could piece a programme out of it (“The Return of the Flying Scotsman”).
I doubt if there was much experience in the production area and as an ex producer I can’t understand why the team didn’t consult any of US in how to achieve things. I doubt if the crew attended a proper planning meeting which with expertise could have resulted in something worth viewing.
Pat Heigham
Given the interest shown in past historical events, wouldn’t it have been a great idea to pull out all the stops on this maybe ‘last’ run of an iconic engineering marvel? (£Millions were spent on recon, and time!) (Maybe a doco unit was monitoring? I did one for the Shakespearean Globe Theatre).
Were the footplate I/V’s recorded with a dedicated sound person, or left to a single cameraman?
Ian Hillson
Considering the number of GoPro (?) cams on the footplate – someone must have been stopping/starting/changing SD cards – so why no mics? There’s usually Gricers hanging mics out the windows on such steam events – so why not give an interested sound recordist a free ticket (some would kill for this opportunity) and let them bring some radio mics along?
