Post Five - Peaky Blinders Sound Design
The sound design in Peaky Blinders is arguably one of the most crucial elements of creating ambiance in this series. As the show is set just after the First World War, the sound needed to be designed in such a way to make the programme feel and sound 'periodic'. Of course, Peaky Blinders is very well known for its excellent sound track, but in order to research more about this series from a sound perspective, I aim to get some more knowledge concerning the challenges of SFX and Dialogue editing in this programme.
Peaky Blinders is set in the wonderful city of Birmingham, so it was clear to the writers that in order for the dialogue to seem natural, some of the lines would have to be written in pretty much mumbled riddles. Steven Knight describes "we have to defend the poetry within dialogue and not throw it away just so you can have your characters mumble, as if that proves how real they are. I try to write dialogue in a way that’s closer to how people really talk, which I think is a mixture of gibberish and poetry." Knowing this, I tried to conceptualise some of the challenges that the Dialogue Editor may have faced by reading Sound Design for Low and No Budget Films by Patrick Winters. For example, I can infer that ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) would have been used in many instances because often it would have been difficult to record clear and comprehensible speech amongst all of the action, (and the brummy accent!). Another reason that ADR might have been used in post production is, with the use of special effects and props such as explosives, machinery, etc. the quality of the sound recording may be made worse.
For my showcase presentation I have decided to redesign the sound from a scene from Peaky Blinders. I will edit the existing dialogue and create all of the Foley recording and SFX from my own library of sounds. I will refer to some of the techniques that were suggested in the book (mentioned above) as it was a really great read that had lots of good advice to be taken into our Grad Projects.
Peaky Blinders is set in the wonderful city of Birmingham, so it was clear to the writers that in order for the dialogue to seem natural, some of the lines would have to be written in pretty much mumbled riddles. Steven Knight describes "we have to defend the poetry within dialogue and not throw it away just so you can have your characters mumble, as if that proves how real they are. I try to write dialogue in a way that’s closer to how people really talk, which I think is a mixture of gibberish and poetry." Knowing this, I tried to conceptualise some of the challenges that the Dialogue Editor may have faced by reading Sound Design for Low and No Budget Films by Patrick Winters. For example, I can infer that ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) would have been used in many instances because often it would have been difficult to record clear and comprehensible speech amongst all of the action, (and the brummy accent!). Another reason that ADR might have been used in post production is, with the use of special effects and props such as explosives, machinery, etc. the quality of the sound recording may be made worse.
For my showcase presentation I have decided to redesign the sound from a scene from Peaky Blinders. I will edit the existing dialogue and create all of the Foley recording and SFX from my own library of sounds. I will refer to some of the techniques that were suggested in the book (mentioned above) as it was a really great read that had lots of good advice to be taken into our Grad Projects.
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