Kate Hopkins
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The Interview I couldn’t actually see where my hand was relative to the lion, but I had Tim in the back of the car saying, ‘You’re fine, you’re fine, he won’t bite it off…’ Kate Hopkins NIGEL JOPSON meets Sir David Attenborough’s favourite sound editor ate Hopkins has worked on some of I get a mute picture — there is usually no sound before it goes into a mix. Basically, what I do is the most prestigious natural history on it at all. What I do is to create layers of audio make a whole lot of decisions about what you TV ever: Blue Planet, Wolves at Our which articulate the picture — to make it sound are going to hear. KDoor, Planet Earth (for which she won as realistic as it possibly can — so the viewer a Primetime Emmy), Life in the Undergrowth, feels as if they are actually ‘there’. If the shot is In movie terms, then, your role is that of a Great Migrations, Life, Human Planet and of the Serengeti, one single piece of audio will sound designer: the nature documentaries Frozen Planet (for which she was awarded a not do it. You need layers: the sound of insects, you work on have very little production BAFTA in 2012). The top four most-watched TV the sound of wind, trees… if there’s a storm you sound recorded ‘on set’! programmes in the UK in 2017 were the four need rain. Rain is not just one sound, you can We do receive ‘wild’ tracks recorded on episodes of Blue Planet II, with around 13-14 hear large drops nearby, and a general more location. Occasionally I might receive an million viewers tuning in every episode. The distant sound. In the Serengeti, you would have on-camera mic track. However, most of the Sunday Times reported the Sir David the sound of wildebeest, their honks and audio has to be done in post. This is because Attenborough-narrated nature doc was snorts. Every single sound that could convey the recording of specific animals takes years. If immensely popular globally, attracting around the story has to be considered, and edited, I want the ‘waa bark’ of a chimp [a single bark 80m viewers in China alone — a boost so large, it temporarily slowed down the country’s internet. Together with Tim Owens, Hopkins won the 2018 BAFTA Television Craft Award for the series Blue Planet II. Recently Hopkins has been responsible for the sound design on Disneynature (yes, it’s an independent Disney subsidiary) feature films Earth, African Cats, Chimpanzee, Bears and Monkey Kingdom, Rise of the Warrior Apes for Keo films, Planet Earth II (more awards for her and Owens) as well as BBC Earth’s Enchanted Kingdom and Earth’s One Amazing Day. We caught up with the nature sound design maestro at Wounded Buffalo Studios in Bristol. How did you get your start as a sound editor? I started in admin, but luckily I was not a great typist, my boss at the time was a picture editor (who hated doing audio) and I turned out to be much better in the cutting room than at the typewriter. My first audio job was working on animation, doing frame counts — going through the dialogue and naming all the frames — some of my first work was for Aardman Animations and for a Channel 4 animated series Sweet Disaster. My real passion for audio probably came when I went freelance — 35mm drama for HTV — I started by assisting on picture, and then moved to sound. I found I had a lot more freedom to do my own thing with audio: there were a lot of gunshots, cars and tyre squeals, I really got into painting a picture with sound. I became a fully-fledged sound editor working on a drama series called She Wolf of London. It was great for doing sound because it was a sort of science-fiction/horror drama, and I got to be sound effects editor on six episodes. When did you realise your destiny was in natural history? When you’re freelancing you tend to take whatever work presents itself, and I did love working on drama. But I live in Bristol, which is where the BBC Natural History Unit is based… hence there was an awful lot of work on nature programmes! Once you’ve got established in a genre, you get to know what works and what doesn’t work — I enjoyed doing dramatic sound editing — pushing the ‘story’. What does being a ‘sound editor’ for natural history TV involve? H9000-Ad-JUNIOR-SOURCE EDIT.indd 1 28/08/2018 13:54:20 September 2018 / 31 / Natural history Pro Tools sessions are… packed! of defiance from a victimised chimp, warning so I have to search through a lot of archive what I actually wanted more than anything was his aggressor that he will not submit], the recordings to find a recording which is the sound of them running, on a reasonably recording from the camera mic will probably dramatic enough and has the right perspective. hard surface, but not making too many honking be too distant, it will not have enough impact, noises. They were migrating, so we drove Have you been out in the field to add to your around until we found a track with the right library of natural history recordings? surface, and I just recorded them for about half I don’t usually get to go on location, but I did an hour as they ran past. I also managed to go to Africa with my co-worker Tim Owens, record some vulture wing beats [near] a very because the production company thought it old kill [where] there were no hyena or other would be a good idea. The best part was that animals around. The vultures were being — as a sound editor — I was able to record reasonably quiet apart from when they took off, exactly what I wanted to hear. so I now have isolated wing beats which have proved very versatile. It was probably the I can see some “Mara lion breath” on your smelliest thing I have ever been close to! Pro Tools screen mixed in under another sound… Do you layer animal sounds to increase impact? Anything with ‘Mara’ on it I recorded! Big lion For sounds such as wing beats, if you have a roars we have enough of, I wanted to record close-up image of a large bird, it’s unlikely to be some detail: I wanted lions breathing and the original audio from the bird: it won’t cut panting, more subtle stuff. The lion we followed through or sound dramatic enough. You would around to get his breathing has been very layer with maybe some bass-ey wind that has useful, time and time again. It was a mating been edited to fade in and out, generating a lion: they mate, walk a few steps, then they sit ‘whoosh’ sound. down and have a rest. We got within about six foot of the lion and I leant out of the car door Foley alone is not enough to dramatiae the with a Sennheiser 416 in my hand. I was closest, natural world? because it was right underneath the bonnet of If a body falls, Foley on its own will not do it: if the car. I couldn’t actually see where my hand it’s a lion crashing into an antelope, that’s very was relative to the lion, but I had Tim in the difficult to record in a booth. I have some back of the car saying “You’re fine, you’re fine, proper drama ‘body falls’, which I would add in he won’t bite your hand off…” It was very close! for the low end. Antlers crashing together Those sort of recordings are gold dust. I have — field recordings will never sound big enough / Blue Planet II — the most-watched UK TV show in 2017 lots of archive recordings of wildebeest, but — especially as most of these type of shots are 32 / September 2018 / Interview over-cranked [e.g. picture at 24pN with 60fps — shooting at a higher frame-rate than your base gives motion options]. With antler crashing I might use all sorts of different elements: there might be the beginning of an explosion, a nice clean wood hit, plus some real antler hits as well. Even for a sound that seems simple, like a wave crashing on the shore, I might use four or five audio elements; you’ve got the spray, the hit, the low frequency wump as it comes in, the sound of the wave pulling back — that could be made from a river or rain — and perhaps a few real wave crashes mixed in! It has to make you feel like you’re actually there, it shouldn’t just be white noise. What techniques do you use to make the conforming process as smooth as it can be? It used to be very tricky, re-positioning audio to a new picture edit. Now I use some software called Conformalizer to generate a new EDL. It’s not quite as simple as just pressing a button: if I have a re-edit and it’s been away in the cutting room a week, there could be 100-150 new edits. Although this type of software can put all my sound into the right / Kate Hopkins at Wounded Buffalo Studios, Bristol place, there are now a whole lot of new picture edits — my sound is just cut to ribbons.