SS-GB
Pat Heigham
Oh dear! Just 15 mins into the first episode of this new BBC drama, and already I am irritated.
Another wobblycam production.
see Wobbilicam – 2
Dave Plowman
Yes. I do like the feel of handheld, and if done by a decent operator, that tiny amount of movement which is inevitable is just right.
But like all such things, it’s down to taste. Unlike mumbling where you can’t understand what’s being said.
I’ve been watching the “Good Karma Hospital” on ITV – on up against “SS-GB”. This week’s episode started out with Amanda Redman carrying an abandoned baby. Clutched tight to her ample bosom – and her radio mic: with rather predictable results to the sound. Very obvious when she put the baby down.
Makes me wonder if there is anyone at all ever listening to the sound these days on location or even in post. Or perhaps they simply don’t care.
Sara Newman
The smoking! I know every one smoked but this did seem excessive. It could still have had realism without all the fags and it sure messes up the continuity, something that irritates me with the “Tracy Ullman Show”.
Graeme Wall
I don’t like the lead actor either in “SS-GB”, all monotonous hoarse voice, quite difficult to understand what he’s saying some of the time.
Geoff Fletcher
Just to add – an immediate put off for me, as a late mark Spitfire was used in the opening sequence, supposed to be in 1941. Now, where did I put my anorak?
Graeme Wall
A Mk IX, but I suppose they had to use what was available.
Ian Hillson
Not just the Mark 1X Spitfire (1943 on) but the boy’s line "it’s a Jaguar"…
Twitter was awash with comments:
"…In 1941 the Swallow Sidecar company had a car called the SS Jaguar (appropriate!) – in 1945 the company changed its name to Jaguar …"
and
"…Listen very carefully SS-GB I shall mumble this only once!…"
Tony Scott
Why does yet another TV drama have mumbling dialogue – and what’s the solution?
Following the backlash against the BBC series “SS-GB”, the "Radio Times" investigates the return of “Mumblegate”
Ian Hillson
And a map in the “Daily Telegraph”:
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prompted the comment "…Their ultimate defeat was entirely due to the fact they couldn’t spell Lyme Regis…"
Best headline this morning (20 February 2017) in the “Metro”, reviewing “SS-GB”: "Back to the Führer…"
Blogger Dom Robinson said of the DVD:
“ … Watching this as a preview with no subtitles, it’s difficult to make out all of the dialogue without them, and that also occasionally leaves some English dialogue spoken with a German accent sounding a bit like Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, who couldn’t pronounce the letter “R” … or something verging on “‘Allo ‘Allo” …”
Geoff Fletcher
Herewith – said SS Jaguar. I saw this wonderful beastie at a Jaguar rally at Sudeley Castle in summer 1976. I was there with Jules Greenway, who currently owns and runs a beautifully restored XK 120.
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Ian Hillson
London wartime registration too (says this pedant).
A couple of other pedants said "…So, with all the accusations of whispering acting I assume it’s going to be renamed Sssh-GB?…"
Bernie Newnham
Obviously in this alternative reality Spitfires were developed more quickly, and Jaguar also got ahead.
Great American Railroad Journeys
Mike Jordan
On yet another popular topic, I was watching the very excellent latest Portillo series last week (Feb 2017) where he went to a station and found a whole music event happening on the platform (Kankakee).
It was obviously shot with his usual very good “proper” single camera and something like a mobile phone as most of the shots with him in were soft, burnt out on whites and blurry. However others were crisp, well balanced even though being used for wide angles and close-ups of the groups.
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Horrid!
Must be a different sound crew this series as one can see the personal radio mic just hiding under his shirt!
The Worst Witch – CBBC
Roger Bunce
Just before we decide that all BBC Dramas are crap – has anyone apart from me discovered “The Worst Witch”.
One of the things which annoys me about the current Corp is the Age Apartheid, which forces children’s programmes onto different channels, so that Old Gits like me don’t get to see them. (I suspect that many kid’s shows are better than the endless antiques, cookery and make-over rubbish they throw at adults.) However, there have recently been some trails for children’s programmes on grown-up tele. I saw one for “The Worst Witch”, it looked promising, so a decided to record the first episode.
My excuse was that I was recording it for my Grandson, although, deep down, I knew that my Grandson wouldn’t like it, because . . . well . . . it’s about Gurls! . . . I mean, what self-respecting 9-year-old boy would want to watch a programme with sissy, pink Gurls in it?
Having recorded it, I decided to watch it. My wife pointedly said she’d be doing something else, in another room. But once it started, she stayed, and was gripped. So, then we tried it on our Grandson, he announced, forcefully, that he didn’t want to see it. But again, once it started playing, he was fascinated – despite being an all female cast. It has just the right mixture of comedy, mystery, suspense, plot twists and character interplay.
Since then, we’ve watched every episode, and I’ve been enjoying them so much that I haven’t even been looking out for crossed eyelines! Which says a lot. And I can hear most of it!
Dave Mundy
British ‘kids’ drama both on TV and radio have been superb for years. I still remember Children’s Hour dramas from my kiddyhood in the late 1940’s which still send a shiver down my spine!
Nick Ware, Graeme Wall, Dave Plowman
Bet you were a “Journey into Space” fan. It’s just completed a run on R4E – for the nth time!
Dave Mundy
… and before that ‘Dick Barton’ – I still shudder at the sound FX of a man in a chair being forced backwards and his back breaking! Not true of course, but in radio you made up your own pictures which were far more graphic than on TV, that’s why the ITV Goons series never worked!
Roger Bunce
Not to mention ‘Paul Temple’ – also being repeated on Radio 4 Extra.
In the old days, on the ‘Home Service’, when the episodes were broadcast once a week, the plot holes were less obvious. Now, when they broadcast them daily, you realise what a load of rubbish they are! Nothing hangs together. Virtually every story has the same plot structure, with chunks of dialogue lifted verbatim from one to another. And why is the Head of Special Branch reporting to Paul Temple – a civilian author?!
But I still love them. Something about the atmosphere, the nostalgia, and that signature tune – and Steve.
Pat Heigham
I certainly was a fan of “Journey Into Space”.
One could listen in the holidays, but this was denied at boarding school. But I was in hospital for an appendix op. and was just about to hide under the bedclothes with the hospital headset to listen, when my parents turned up to visit. They were not welcome!
I have all episodes of the three stories recorded off the R4Ex broadcasts.
Soundwise, childrens’ programmes could be more testing than mainstream drama or LE. Mixing “Blue Peter” could throw up virtually every situation in one half-hour!
Antiques Roadshow
Mike Jordan
“Antiques Roadshow” Sunday 23rd April 2017 what a mess!
Every interview/valuation bit was interrupted on what must have been an edit point, by a very brief cutaway of usually totally irrelevant video – to cover duff shooting with insufficient cameras needing whip-pans between talking?
I know Senate House with its huge stone halls is an acoustical nightmare for sound guys (do they have any now?) but the first interview was almost totally inaudible due to echoes in the hall being picked up on a personal (radio) mic. Subsequently, when using the big hall set, they did seem to have placed the mics better and kept the noisy audience away but every time the interviewee was about to speak, the background noise was noticeable as he was faded up ready.
No disrespect to the crew but what a nightmare show!
My experience of Senate House is from mid-1970s when I was in BH and we had to go to the roof room where there were seven GPO audio pairs to BH used when SH was the main central London microwave link receive point to get the video on to Switching Centre. We even had our own roof key.
Barry Bonner
I watched it and got the impression that they transmitted the rough cut! As regards the poor sound I think they didn’t mix the interview sound, just left all the mics up – thus the very loud background. No place is an "acoustical nightmare" – just a challenge!
Brian Curtis
Spoken like a true sound person!
Pat Heigham
Does Roadshow use sound guys?
My old colleague from TVC in the 1960s days, Pete Rose, is probably turning in his grave. He handled the audio for years from a proper scanner – R/M’s on everyone, and the cameras were cabled. I think there were 3 at least.
I had a job way back to shoot a historical doc on Roadshow, at Highclere, and made contact with Peter at that time. Sadly he passed away and I went to his funeral. I was appalled that there did not seem to be any representation from the Roadshow production staff. (He always did a super job – well, he was properly trained!)
Keith Wicks
Not all guys (in the original sense of the word), but there were seven of them:
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Nick Ware
So, a pretty experienced sound team.
Several points mentioned in this discussion set my hackles rising a bit, I’m sorry to say. I saw about 50% of this week’s AR, and I agree it wasn’t up to the usual very high standard. It’s all too easy to sit at home and criticise, in blissful ignorance of whatever circumstances may have led to a less-than-perfect show. A couple of things come to mind:
During the Peter (Piggy) Rose years, I was occasionally there as sound recordist for the usual two camera PSC support unit. We worked totally separately from the truck (apart from liaising on radio mic frequencies, so that we had access to their presenter and expert mics), picking up impromptu items as and when spotted by the researcher/runners or requested by the director. It struck me yesterday that maybe on this occasion, a PSC crew not used to the programme flow had been used.
I also wondered whether we were seeing a re-run of a cost-cutting experiment that the Producers had tried about ten years ago, where there would be no truck, and it was all to be trolley-based PSC. I was asked to help put together three Urstacart trolleys, one for production, one for lighting, and one for sound (the latter, basically a Soundcraft mixer, a comms system, and a bunch of radio mic receivers): it was in effect a truck on trolleys, but without the cost of the truck and all that that entails. I seem to recall that we had four timecoded and genlocked cameras, recording onto onboard recorders (HDcam). Cameras cabled back to the sound cart, because that was where the comms, timecode and SPG originated. We provided what had been asked for, and shot three shows in all, and in my view it was a shambles, coddled together in ‘Post’. Thankfully, they abandoned that idea. The show txed on Sunday 23rd April 2017 had a similar look about it.
For what it’s worth, here’s the three-cart “Antiques Roadshow” setup. Imagine plugging that lot up every time you move location. From the picture, I’m reminded it was 16×9 Digibeta and September 2004.
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Dave Mundy
Horrendous! I hope there was something nice in the orange mug! Reminds me of the OBs ‘fly-away’ kit but much worse.
Ian Hillson
Are you sitting in a butchers shop – or next to the urinals?
Nick Ware
Close. It was the Gents’ changing room at the Victoria Baths, Heathersage Road, Manchester. A fabulous piece of Victorian architecture. Sadly, in a terrible state of decay in 2004. Didn’t smell too good then either, which might explain why they all look so miserable! You can’t accuse them of dull locations, though.
Dave Plowman
On “The Bill” I was once based in the condemned cell of the old Oxford prison (now an hotel). One of the few places I’ve ever felt was spooky.
Nick Ware
In his later years, “Antiques Roadshow” was the only show Pete Rose regularly worked on, and he did a consistently good job, of course.
I think it’s a mistake to use the phrase "properly trained" in the context of today, because the implication behind that is that 1960s’ Evesham was the only training worth anything. A good start in life for sure, but that’s all. In today’s environment, you might as well forget that primitive training, because technology, production techniques, data management, and non-linear workflow have changed everything beyond all recognition. What Peter Rose had, wasn’t just "proper training", but a lifetime of experience and continuous learning. To infer that anyone working in the industry without "proper training" has by definition "no training" is unfair. There are countless perfectly competent technicians around who never went anywhere near the BBC, let alone Tech Ops or Wood Norton. The "proper training" we knew was second to none in its day, but wouldn’t get you very far today. The flaw in that argument of course, is that it would have evolved, and it has, but not in the BBC: Today’s proper training is alive and well in places such as the NFTS, Southampton, and the IPS. The good thing about the IPS, should anyone be interested in joining and learning about audio, is that it isn’t a course of finite duration, it’s forever, there to help and advise, and it’s always bang up to date. Long live "proper training"!
Dave Denness
I totally agree with that. There are some contributors here who do not believe that anyone who started their careers anywhere other than the BBC can possibly be any good. There are many highly competent sound technicians and engineers who never set foot inside the BBC. One of those, Steve Williams, died recently from a brain tumour. He was a first class music mixer, sport mixer and communications expert.
Chris Woolf
These comments are entirely valid – "proper training" is a lengthy business. It was epitomised by the Wood Norton style training in its day, which is why it is still admired (despite having some unfortunate failings). But the benefits it gave – and would have continued to give if it had not been jettisoned with so much other training – were to reveal an overall view. The connectedness of all the various elements in the production chain, and the underlying engineering, was openly explained and given value. That is rarely found nowadays.
That broader vision is still available, but trainees (of all ages) need to go looking for it, and have the time and money to make use of it. The difference between then and now is that the bulk of the industry were given training as a free gift then; now it is something that only the most dedicated can acquire. The vast majority have to make do with a few days of specific familiarisation, on-the-job scratchings from both highly skilled, and also utterly incompetent operators, and whatever they can glean from web-based sources – again, not vetted for competence.
Indeed, one should actually admire those who have acquired their considerable skills in more recent years because it has been far more difficult for them.
Dave Plowman
Very much so. I value the insight that gave me into the jobs of others I worked with as much as any for my actual one.
As regards “Antiques Roadshow”, I usually recognise a couple of the sound names from my freelance days, and know them to be very competent.
I sort of assumed it was made with a number of PSC units these days and then assembled in editing, because that’s how I’d make a similar programme. Can’t really see why you’d need a scanner.
