Blog: Like Radio 4 With More Explosions

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I got up at THE CRACK OF DAWN (well, about half past seven) on Saturday morning in order to make a journey to The Centre Of ROCK... or Derby, as it is otherwise known. For LO! I was booked in for a day at Snug Recording Studio in that fair city, there to make a start on the sound effects for the Dinosaur Planet album.

After a healthy STRIDE through the city centre I arrived to find Messrs Collins and Newman already set up and RARING to go - INDEED, I had barely sat down before they had their copies of the SCRIPTS out and were cueing up the first song ready for working on. They seemed to be quite EXCITED about it all - I'd set them some homework that last time I'd been there, a long long list of ALL the sound effects I thought we were going to need, and by golly but they had been busy SOURCING them. It was all rather lovely, I felt like a teacher in a STORYBOOK who returns from the summer holidays to find an eager crowd of BOARDERS overflowing with joy at the PREP they have done.

We began pretty much at the beginning, with the scene in Norwich Police station. This has already been wrangled around a bit, as Mr Phil Wilson lines were recorded down in Devon, several hundred miles away from Dean Street, London, where most of the rest of it was done. It was to be further WRANGLED to within an inch of its life, however - we put down a BED of Office Noises (gentle), applied appropriate ECHO to everyone's voices (including a rather fantastic BIG NARRATOR voice to Mr J Yeah), sorted out various changes of scenery, volume, and character placement, and spent a long while debating the best version of various footsteps, police sirens and GRAVEL.

The more we did the more we realised MORE was needed, and so we moved to the realm of FOLEY. FOLEY, as I am sure all students of RADIO and FILM are aware, is the process where you add in physical sound effects - it usually gets explained by someone making "Walking In The Rain" by stomping around in a bucket of water, or INDEED "Horses Approaching" with coconuts. Rich did "Paper Rustling" by... er... rustling some paper, then I did "Not Quite Audible Telephone Conversation" by going "PHWARR PHWARR PHWARR" in TWO (ACTING!) different voices, before Robbie recorded Standing Up And Stepping Forward From A Squeaky Chair by,... well, I'm sure you can guess.

It was GRATE fun, and when we'd finally got it all working it sounded AMAZING! We carried on for the rest of the day in a similar vein, creating a SPACESHIP in a FOREST, a LOT of DINOSAUR noises (they'd somehow FOUND some roars, although we did have to inject a bit of ELEPHANT at the start of them main Theme From Dinosaur Planet to make it sound TERRIFYING enough.

The SCARIEST thing we did was the introduction to Here Come the Dinosaurs. Again, this has been very gradually put together, with Mr Bob Fischer EMAILING (modern!) his bits and then The Clip Clop Of My Radio Horse Shoes popping in a couple of months ago to add HER bit. This had EXPLOSIONS, screams, and HUGE dinosaurs added onto it, along with some frankly HORRIFYING sounds of someone being DEVOURED. It's amazing how convincing it all is though - even though I'd sat there gradually slotting it all together, when we listened back to it I was STILL a bit scared at the "Oh my God! Here they come!" bit when the dinosaur does his first HUGE ROAR.

The very last thing we did was a Creative Idea from Rich, which was to have a tiny bit of HOLD MUSIC for when Professor Peter Probersite is on the phone with The General. "We thought maybe a MIDI version of Strangely Attractive or something?" he said. "OR!" I replied, EXPLOSIVELY, "If it's a University, surely Literature Search is what we're after?" ZOINKS! Off he went and DID it, and it sounded a) FAB b) precisely the right level of ANNOYING.

It was a GRATE afternoon of a) work b) FUN, and the chaps were SO good at it, and so full of IDEAS, that I suggested they simply carry on and finish it off THEMSELVES. Not only would this get it DONE much quicker, it would also give them a bit more CREATIVE INPUT into THE PROJECT. And, as a side issue, would save me a few hundred quid in train fares! They READILY agreed to this idea, and so are going to try and do it all over the next month or so, so that I can go back in December to finalise it all.

When I got home I played it to The Waves In My Sound Signal SEVERAL times. "It's Amazing!" she said, and I was forced to agree - I glued together most of what we've got so far into a single FILE, so I could send out a copy of it all to everyone else who's involved with it, and it sounded INCREDIBLE. We've only done a BIT of the dialogue, and there's loads more work to do mixing songs and blending everything together, but I'm starting to think that this ridiculous idea might actually work! In fact, I think it might be the best thing we've ever done!

The last time I was THIS excited about what might happen when people finally HEAR what we've been up to was many many years ago when I sat a Mastering Studio in London's Soho, cutting the very first AAS single, listening to Clubbing In The Week thinking "This is going to be a NUMBER ONE SMASH HIT!"

All right, I may have been a bit wide of the mark there, but still: I'm incredibly proud of what we've all done on this daft idea, and wish there was some way of getting it HEARD by everyone else MUCH quicker. It looks like it'll be a good while yet before it's all done, but MY GOODNESS, it really is going to be worth it, honest!

posted 19/10/2010 by MJ Hibbett

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Big Narrator! My native american name...
posted 19/10/2010 by Jonny_yeah

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