Location Recording for ‘Billiam’

I’ve recently been on location, recording sound for new Swindon-based film ‘Billiam’. It’s a story of how one brother literally met his other brother!

The film is produced by Bald n Hairy Films (Billy Rees and Doug Kirby) and also directed by Doug Kirby.

For part of the film the superb Oxford Brooks Ferndale Campus training centre in Swindon proved itself as an excellent film set with most props on site already. The film also has a number of external scenes shot around Swindon.

Some of the other internal locations (in normal houses and flats) posed challenges both from a camera and sound point of view, partly due to very limited space and poor acoustics. Once a small bathroom has a camera, tripod, lighting and actors there’s not much room for the microphone too but fortunately we managed to get some good sound in the end. Possibly the most cramped location was lying down across the back seat of a small hatchback car complete with sound mixer, recorder and leads draped on top!

A very tight, multi-location filming schedule meant that the first take was often the rehearsal, so all crew members and actors were kept on their toes in order to get it right first time.

Dialogue mics were interchanged between shotgun and hyper-cardioid, depending on the space we were recording in.

I’ll be completing the sound post on this film at Dreambase Studios later on this year so stay tuned for another Blog regarding that stage in the production.

The clip below is an out-take from one of the bar scenes in the film. Enjoy!