Audio Media - September 2008 - (Page 32) STEPHEN BENNETT offers up a big thank you for the music to Mamma Mia’s sound guys, Simon Hayes and Tony Lewis, and finds out how they took the musical script from stage to silver screen. t’s all Ben Elton’s fault. While you could apply this statement to many things in life, the reason I mention the former ranting comedian is because he was the man behind the first London-based show to take the simple idea of marrying a brace of classic well known songs alongside an original plot. The idea is such a simple one and was bound to generate sure fire hits, it makes you wonder why no-one had thought of it before. The runaway success of We Will Rock You, featuring the songs of Queen, has been followed by a string of hit shows in a similar vein – the latest of which features the music of, arguably, the world’s most famous band, ABBA. Mamma Mia has made the transition from stage to silver screen with the help of Production Sound Mixer, Simon Hayes, and Music Editor, Tony Lewis. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd and starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, and Pierce Brosnan, it’s the story of a bride-to-be searching for her real father and features ABBA’s memorable songs alongside the more traditional dramatic narrative. “All of the songs were re-recorded for the movie,” says Lewis “and Benny Andersson used pretty much the original ABBA backing band at Monovision Studios in Stockholm”. Unusually for this type of project, the album was still being mixed while the the post production team were working on the film. “Benny was getting the stereo and 5:1 mixes sorted, so the first couple of months they got on with creating the soundtrack album and we got on with the film,” says Lewis. “Then our two worlds started to combine and we began to conform what they had produced and to lip sync these recordings.” I MAM MA M I A Director – Phyllida Lloyd Production Sound Mixer – Simon Hayes Supervising Music Editor – Tony Lewis Supervising Sound Editor – Nick Adams Supervising Foley Editor – Alex Joseph Supervising ADR & Dialogue Mixer – Tim Hands Report – Stephen Bennett 32 Another unusual element of the production was that the post production music crew were on set during the shooting of the movie. “My role was looking after lip sync and the associated technicalities involved, and I worked closely with Simon Hayes to obtain exactly what was required from a post production viewpoint,” says Lewis. Martin Lowe, the Musical Director of the original West End stage show was the primary contact with the talent, and it was he who coached Streep and the other cast members to refine their performances as they lip synced, or performed live, their particular ABBA track. “I sat with the Director and her crew and was able to comment when I felt the lip sync was questionable and perhaps suggest a retake,” says Lewis, “I obviously have more experience of what can and cannot be fixed in post than most of the others working on the set – especially those who don’t work in post!” he laughs. Lewis was on site to argue the case when he felt that a particular take didn’t look convincing. “You need to bear in mind we had a massive crew and various weather issues out in Greece, so we had to carefully choose our moments when we asked for another take,” he says. “We still had a couple of issues back in the studio, but I strongly believe that because we were involved from the outset that we had less problems in post.” Lewis then had to contend with the ongoing saga of getting the actors to look as if they were actually performing the songs live and the not inconsiderable challenge of Post O n Location cutting these famous songs together alongside the picture. “One of the di cult things we found in post was that we had tunes such as Dancing Queen and Super Trouper, all of which are strict 4/4 time yet which we had to t alongside an ever malleable picture. Of course Benny and Björn are very proud of their ABBA heritage and wanted to be involved at every level – so basically we found that if we wanted to do anything we had to call them rst!”, says Lewis. As he is usually based very much in post production in the studio, being able to persuade the producers to have them on board from the o meant that the task of sitting in a cutting room in front of Pro Tools all day and sorting out problems was greatly simpli ed. “It was a brilliant opportunity to be involved in the initial creation process so we could attempt to sort out problems before they arose,” says Lewis, “Obviously things do happen as people change their creative minds and other problems occur, but it was great to see the fantastic talent of Streep and her supporting cast in action – it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.” The lm’s most famous star turned out to be very adept at facing the challenges of performing in a musical, as Lewis explains. “Streep loves ADR,” he laughs. “She is one of those actors who can see exactly what it’s for and understands what it can do for her performance – she doesn’t make a meal out of it and just gets on with it rather than, as some others do, go on about why the sound person hasn’t done their job properly.” The lm required a lot of vocal rerecording partly to make sure the performance and lip- sync were just right, but also to make sure the movie retained a somewhat live feel. “The Director had a vision that the singing should have an ‘essential liveness’,” says Lewis, “If you see the lm it’s quite raw, but has this amazing life – everyone looks like they are enjoying themselves tremendously.” There was a lot of re-recording of both lead and crowd vocals and the lm had backing vocals in all the locations of the shoot – again to maintain this live feel. Per formance Capture Hayes’ task was also complicated by the Director’s unusual requirements, “Phyllida explained that she wanted the film to actually appear as if the actors were singing live and asked me if this were achievable – to which I of course replied yes!”, he explains. “So if an actor is performing some physical task, we wanted to incorporate this into their performance.“ The singing was recorded live alongside the backing tracks using Sennheiser and Schoeps boom microphones and, more importantly from Hayes’ viewpoint, DPA tie-clip lavaliers. “The ABBA guys had suggested we use DPAs as they found from their experiences with the Swedish stage show, they cut better alongside pre recorded tracks,” says Hayes. “Luckily, we were already using DPAs and found them more useful than the boom microphones – which had to often be placed quite far away from the action due to the multi-camera nature of the shoot.” Clothes rustle, which can be a major problem in movies with stark backgrounds, wasn’t considered too much of a problem in this film, “When you have Meryl Streep climbing up the side of a goat shed and singing, you’re bound to AUDIO MEDIA SEPTEMBER 2008
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