Recording Weekend, The Offies and Some Inspirational Foley! (By Mariele Runacre Temple)

Mar 2, 2011

We had a great recording session this weekend. Our session started on Sunday at 9.30am (Sunday!!!) for the recording of Act II and III of Wild Elusive Butterfly by John Park. It’s a fabulously deep and complex play and we worked really hard to get it all done in the allocated five hour session (we over run only by half an hour, impressive huh?) Under the guide of director George Maddox, the technical skills of Carlos Ziccarelli, and with a huge cast waiting patiently and professionally in the green room, we finally completed our mammoth and maticulous recording schedule – of course the only decent thing to do after that was to head to the pub!

Immediately from there I had to run to catch the wonderful Off West End Awards (Offies) which took place at Wilton’s Music Hall – which is such a charming, slightly derelict but totally full of character venue and perfect for a theatre awards ceremony. The informal ceremony was hosted by the fabulous Simon Callow who was dress gloriously head to toe in plum! It was wonderful to see all those people getting recognised for all the hard work that is put in to live theatre and our dear friend Sofie Mason – the genuis behind offwestend.com put on a marvellous show. WTC were even interviewed for offwestend.com’s video! I wonder if we’ll make it. I am pretty sure I spoke at a million miles and hour and probably could only be understood by dogs. All in all a very exciting and tiring weekend.

We didn’t record any sound effects at all in the studio this weekend, we’ll leave all that to Malcolm Thorp our newest super-talented editor. It seems these days that can be done more and more. Is it a shame that we no longer need a proper foley artist in the studio with us? Our editors always manage to get the very best SFX for our productiosn.  We certaintly like to use live Foley in our Wireless Theatre LIVE recordings – it’s part of the show. We do quite basic stuff really – but take a look at this video of the ART OF FOLEY by Michael Coleman, Gary Hecker and Coleman Films – it’s incredible. We can’t stop watching it. Being a Foley artist is a real skill and we’ve still got a lot to learn from this guy. Have a look and check out a real pro!

Leave a comment

twenty + eighteen =