‘Erwin’ premieres this Saturday 24th April 1pm at the QFT as part of the 10th Belfast Film Festivals Short Film Competition.

Written & directed by Stephen Petticrew and produced by Gavin Halpin ‘Erwin’ follows Erwin Schwartzer, a dark lone figure in a dystopian Belfast, grooming himself before one of his frequent visits to the city’s prostitutes… As he prepares, he reflects on a previous encounter.

Look out for some seamless CGI as well as outstanding performances from Brian Milligan (Hunger) and Karen Hassan (50 Dead Men Walking)

The Sound House is increasingly the studio-of-choice for Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) in Ireland.

ADR is the re-recording of dialogue that cannot be used from a location sound track. Actors emulate the delivery of the line to vision in sound studios - or in some cases - record an entirely new rewritten line to match the movement of their mouths in the scene. Alternatively a sound alike may be used - entire casting agencies specialise in finding voice alikes for famous actors when their schedules prohibit them spending time in studio after production.

This painstaking and exacting craft is used in varying degrees depending on the nature of a film - but most often in 'action-adventure' films where the sets are notoriously noisy (think of explosions and crowds of people running around set). Interestingly many of the spaghetti westerns from days gone by had 100% ADR.

It can be painstaking work. But with 80% of sound in modern films happening this way – it evidently enhances quality. It takes an experienced engineer and the best equipment to work smoothly – particularly when you're recording Amanda Peet in Belfast for the movie 2012 with director Roland Emmerich speaking to her from a studio in LA.

Working across oceans to get the best delivery from an actor means that technology should be seamless – it can’t get in the way of a director’s communication or an actor’s delivery.

At The Sound House, our voice booths are ideally set up for ADR sessions with plasma TVs and Neumann/Sennheiser shotgun and clip mics - and with Protools HD driving the audio over a comprehensive ISDN connection, the actor can feel like the director is just on the other side of the glass - regardless of where in the world they are at that moment.

Some of our Recent ADR Projects are detailed below…

We recently filmed a Spar UK campaign on the RED Camera System.
Keep an eye out for the campaign from July, but here’s what we think of the RED in the meantime…

‘Red's creation threatens to make 35-mm movie film obsolete.' - Wired, Technology Magazine.

'This is the camera I've been waiting for my whole career: jaw-dropping imagery recorded onboard a camera light enough to hold with one hand.
- Stephen Soderbergh, Filmmaker.


Production:
From a producer’s point of view this is a joy. Excellent picture quality akin to 35mm but with the flexibility and cost effectiveness of a digital process on set.

It worked beautifully with the DS Nitris workflow at the Picture House.

Resolution / Image Quality: The Red shoots at 4k, four times the working resolution of a traditional feature film and sixteen times that of SD Television (eg Digibeta)! This results in images of pristine quality with no perceptible grain.

Frame rate: Red shoots at frame rates from 1fps to 120fps making slow-motion shots as easy as on film, but without the increase in stock costs.

Post Production:
DS Nitris is one of the few suites that can deal natively with the files that the Red captures. DS loads the raw camera files at full 4k resolution without having to downconvert them to SD or HD. Just like in a traditional telecine, the full range of image data captured is available while grading in DS. All of the controls the DOP used to shoot the files can be accessed and tweaked within DS. The particular look the DOP created on location can be retained or a completely different look can be created from scratch in DS all while monitoring the look of the piece on our 2k grading monitor.

These factors, in addition to DS's already powerful grading and compositing tools, offer a production the ultimate creative flexibility in finishing and special effects creation.

Grading: The 4k files that Red shoots are way bigger than SD or HD. Their dimensions are 4096x2048 at a bit-depth of RGB 4:4:4. This is 4 times the size of the files used in 90% of feature film post-production. This size and colour resolution means that not only do the raw images look stunning but they allow tasks like grading and compositing to be performed with greater precession and flexibility than other formats.