Big Bang Post Production - The End

Talking to Fred in the week (see day three) I discovered that Bristol caters for a large amount of wildlife production companies and programmes we see in the UK. London at the moment has a lot of drama based productions and I believe in the next year Bristol may well be producing more drama and game show based programmes.

Talking to Fred also made me think about what led me to the media industry. I take pleasure in making films, editing and observing audience reaction to the films I make and that others make. Each personal opinion is important to each piece of work that production companies complete.I guess we all have our callings in life but there is something about media communications that is constantly changing, evolving and developing that excites me to keep pursuing it as career.

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Big Bang Post Production - Day Four

Today involved a lot of running about delivering and receiving equipment from the BBC. Things such as hard drives, DVDs and tape decks were exchanged several times throughout the day. After the lunch run I sat in with Ben again to watch him edit on the Pyramix software. Toady he was editing Barney's South America, which is another wildlife programme. As it was Friday there wasn’t a huge amount of work for me to do so I just observed the edit.

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Big Bang Post Production - Day Three

Today was a great start. I had something planned out for me which excited me. I first started the day with obvious runner tasks cleaning kitchens and making teas & coffees.
I then met with Fred at 10:30 to oversee the colour grading process of a programme called Barney's South America.

I then sat in with Frank the online dubbing editor. His job today was to get the finished video edit, levelled and compressed for broadcast. The maximum level for broadcast in this country is -10db so the channel that is broadcasting the programme has enough headroom to gain/trim the audio if needed but also so that the sound does not distort on home televisions. Each track in the mix has to be levelled separately. Each run through of the mix is observed on a monitor so that the editor can see which sounds need to be increased or decreased. Each run through refines the mix so that the dialogue, music and effects can be heard accurately. Each sound has a dedicated track in the mixing software allowing other countries to dub in their own dialogue meaning that the production can be sold worldwide.

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Big Bang Post Prodcution - Day two

The second day brought responsibility, enthusiasm and interest as I was allowed to sit in and speak to one of the sound editors in the second building working on a CBBC wildlife programme called ‘Deadly 60.’ The editor Ben was using audio editing software that I had never heard of before called ‘Pryramix.’ The room was kitted out with expensive equipment. The main bits in the room consisted of two monitors, the first showing the video and the second showing a huge catalogue library of sounds and effects to dub the video to. The video which Ben had to dub, barely had any audio except dialogue and the occasional atmosphere track meaning that he had to be quick at finding the right sounds for the job. I found it interesting to watch him find, cut and refine each sound for the visuals that came up on screen. The programme was wildlife based therefore each sound had to be a genuine recording of that animal.

The software allowed him to dub various sound effects, vocals and animal noises (mostly silverback gorilla and the olive gorilla in this episode) in a variety of formats and styles.
Ben started out at bath UWE studying music technology and managed to land this greatly satisfying and rewarding job. The train journey home made me review my own goals and possible opportunities for the future at Bristol.

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The Big Bang

Today was my first day at Big Bang Post Production in Bristol. A warm welcome from Laura the receptionist started off the day when I entered the building, followed by some general probing chitchat about myself. It was a relativelylaid back day as most of the production company was busy with their Monday morning tasks. I was first assigned as a runner to sort out the teas and coffees, which didn’t take long. I then met Rosie who is also a runner to get food for the clients and members of staff.


Big bang consists of two buildings. The first deals with Big Bang productions only. Each room is filled with stereo equipment, monitors, computers, mixers and even their own couch!...Cushti. The second building is mainly for the clients of Big Bang. The clients of big bang rent out the edit suite rooms to complete post production. My job was to make them feel comfortable by getting them refreshments and food. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and making yet more drinks which was soul crushing to say the least but I tried my hardest to be enthusiastic and to ask as many questions as possible.

I hope that tomorrow will bring responsibility and insight into the company so I can really experience what its like to work for Big Bang.


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