How to Have Sex On The Radio.

Saturday 7th December 2013

My project on the sound effect technicians in radio drama was published in The Saturday Times, I took a punt and showed it to Eithne Staunton who being a picture editor was thrilled and wanted to put it in front of the Magazine’s main editor, To my surprise she also thought it worthy of a real spread and in the end it got 5 pages. Here are some extracts and a few more of the images as well as a short animated version of the project with sound effects..

‘” “Smashing melons, throwing baguettes, faking sex scenes with a hole punch – all part of a day’s work for a spot effects expert

When photographer Phil Fisk first arrived at a sound stage deep within the BBC’s Broadcasting House, it was to shoot one of the biggest names in British drama. Kenneth Branagh was appearing in a radio production of Vasily Grossman’s epic Life and Fate, and Fisk had been tasked with providing some publicity photos. He was hanging around, half-watching Branagh and the other actors as they read from their scripts, when he noticed there was somebody else on the stage. “It was this woman,” he says. “First she was stirring cups of tea. Then she was slamming down phones. Then she was running up and down stairs, making all these little noises in the background. I kept watching her, frantically moving around, and I completely lost interest in what the actors were saying. I was just fascinated by what she was doing.” “” 

From Ben Machell’s accompanying article in The Saturday Times Magazine 7th December 2013.

Foley Update

The Circus project has been all consuming but I have still managed to squeeze in some Foley time at the BBC drama studios. But its time to change the front page and immerse myself in the world of sound once more. So lets start with some salmon fishing..

and to celebrate..

I Have been introduced to two new technicians at the studio, Keith and Colin and the new talent are as keen as Alison and Jenny. See if you can hear the difference..

Some New Sound Effects

I returned to the BBC radio studio yesterday and found a new collaborator called Cal. Also did some more work with Alyson and began some of the still life work which I hope will give another dimension to this project. I’m not going to say anything about these images but would love to hear some ideas about what people think is going on….

Inside BBC Radio

Last year I was commissioned to take some behind the scenes images for a BBC radio drama called “Life and Fate” . The idea was to concentrate on the stars of the show but I got very distracted by the studio itself. On first glance its very bland, but I started noticing the doors with 3 handles and 6 styles of lock and chain. Curiosity led me to open it,  to find that all that security was to prevent access to a plasterboard wall. But the real distraction, once I had the standard shot of actor emoting, was the woman using all manner of implements to create additional sound effects. I left with a seed firmly planted and vowed to return.

It turned out to be one of the easiest projects to set up, with the help of Anne Bunting who is the manager of the studios. My two main collaborators so far are Jenni and Alison the main technicians for radio drama. They have been providing me with anecdotes and favourite set ups for each shot.

For now I am going to publish the images with little explanation of the effects involved. Often they are self explanatory but I’m hoping we can get more obscure as time goes on. The aim is to set these up on their own website with the relevant sound effects added afterwards, maybe layered with extra effects from tape to complete the picture.

Alison Resting

Jenni Floating

Historical Accuracy

Aftermath.