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Submarine rises to the top
18 March 2011
‘Subtle sound work’ one of the great strengths of Ayoade’s debut feature film
Submarine, comedian Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut, has already proved itself a hit, setting a UK record for ticket sales per screen in its first week of release. The reward is an increase of nearly 66% in the number of theatres showing the movie, and a big thumbs up for all those involved – including Nigel Heath and his colleagues at Hackenbacker (which handled the audio post-production) and AIR Lyndhurst, where Andrew Hewitt’s score was recorded on Studio 1’s Neve console.
Produced by Warp Films (whose work with Hackenbacker includes the BAFTA-winning Four Lions), Submarine tells the story of 15-year-old Oliver Tate, who has two big ambitions: to lose his virginity before his next birthday and to stop his mother from leaving his father. Sound is an integral element in focusing the audience on what Tate is feeling, and is designed so that viewers are often listening as if they are him. For example, the room atmospheres are absent when Tate is eavesdropping on his mother, emphasizing his selective hearing.
James Feltham handled the soundtrack pre-mix on the AMS Neve Libra Post in Hackenbacker Studio Two, while Nigel Heath, assisted by Alex Fielding, took care of the final mix on the 48-fader MMC in Studio One, with automation being exchanged between the two rooms.
‘The film presented great opportunities to explore some exciting sound techniques, from a retro and very minimal, pure approach to some quite wild sonic moments,’ says Heath. ‘The soundtrack is,’ he adds, ‘a real example of the strength of subtle sound work.’
Ayoade has been a regular at Hackenbacker for nearly ten years, directing videos for the likes of Vampire Weekend, Kasabian and the Arctic Monkeys (whose Alex Turner wrote the songs for Submarine). So when it came to his first full-length feature, as he put it, ‘The brilliance and dedication of Nigel and his team [made] the idea of doing a mix with any facility other than Hackenbacker completely unthinkable.’
