IFTA winning sound recordist Mervyn Moore talks to IFTN on his experience working on Ron Howard’s soon to be released 'Angels & Demons', the follow up to the 2006 blockbuster ‘The DaVinci Code’ - based on the best selling novel by Dan Brown.
‘Angels & Demons’ sees Oscar winning director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) back in the director’s seat and Oscar wining actor Tom Hanks reprising his role as American symbologist Robert Langdon. The film centers on Langdon who is recruited to unravel the mystery of the Illuminati - a secret society set on destroying the Vatican City. Supporting cast includes Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting), Ayelet Zurer (Vantage Point) and Stellan Skarsgård (Mamma Mia!)
Set to be released in Ireland by Sony Pictures on May 14th, controversy has surrounded the film since its production when it received criticism from the Catholic Church and officials refusing to grant filmmakers access to its sites in Rome and the Vatican City.
Mervyn Moore |
Irish sound recordist Mervyn Moore has won two IFTAs for his work on ‘Hunger’ (2009) and ‘Lassie’ (2007) and was also nominated for ‘Becoming Jane’ in 2008. His other big screen credits include ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’ and ‘Disco Pigs’. IFTN chats to him about working on such a large scale shoot and explores the differences between American and European production practice.
IFTN: Mervyn, can you tell us about your involvement with the ‘Angels & Demons’ shoot?
MM: I was the location sound recordist for the main unit on the Italian shoot of ‘Angels & Demons’- recording all of the sound dialogue and effects on location. We were shooting for two and half weeks. The time was extended slightly because George Bush decided to drop into Rome while we were there, so all our permits were receded for a few days. We ended up dropping back into the Cinecitta, the film studios in Rome, and shot some stuff there for two days before moving back onto the schedule we originally had.
The main part of the film is shot in the Sony Studios in LA with most of the exteriors shot in Rome. We also spent a few days at Caserta, the Palace of the Kings of Naples. Basically any exterior shots of driving into buildings or dialogue outside the Pantheon exterior we did live in Rome. Very often because of the controversial nature of the film and the fact that the Vatican weren’t over eager about us filming on their property, what happened was that we would film people running up to a door and then that door would burst open in Hollywood.
We did some scenes in old buildings, like the Palace in Caserta, and in an old library building but a lot of the scenes we shot would have been exterior. The only other interior we shot, would have been in Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome.
What is the process the sound team goes through before the cameras starts rolling?
MM: If you are doing a job where you have flown gear to a country, all of the gear would be boxed and put into different cases so the initial thing is rebuilding the sound cart. Then doing tests to see whether we can interface with other departments, for example the video guys have to make sure we can get sound into their equipment and back out so that we don’t have any interface problems.
Angels & Demons |
What were the differences between working on this film and an Irish production?
MM: The major difference between a film like this and the normal scenes we would work on in Ireland was simply the scale of it. I think we had twelve camera bodies on the first unit, whereas a film in Ireland would carry two, perhaps three. It was completely an American crew apart from us so the equipment used was American. There are huge similarities in them but there are also discrepancies that kind of catch you out at times. For example, in Europe the clapper loader will ident every take and gives a slate and take number. The American’s would go slightly different in that they would go by the scene. They give it a letter, for example Scene 12 and the first shot of Scene 12 will be 12a – the next shot will be 12b and so on. Another difference is that in the post, the sound recordist is responsible for putting the ident on to the tape and not the clapper loader. There were different working practices in there which were a bit of a shock to the system at times!
Very often we would have three or four cameras shooting in any set up so this obviously made booming very difficult. We were working in some of the most popular tourist attractions in the world so we had thousands of onlookers. You couldn’t exactly go “Can we have quiet please?!” Also, the speed at which the filming moved at, as in we would have three cameras running on a set up and as a soon as that set up was finished and Ron Howard said “Okay I’m happy with that”, the camera guys would get up off those three cameras and walk to where more cameras were set up, get on to those cameras and they would be ready to go. They had an army of guys, I think we had about 32 grips, I know it’s the American system again being different as grips would do lighting as well as dolly.
There was an army of people working around the camera and three people in the sound department. So trying to keep up and trying to find out where cameras were and who was shooting what, basically just trying to get information was difficult at times. I had Danny Crowley with me, who’s from West Cork, and he was the boom swinger, and the third man was a local guy Jason Stuart-Cologgi. The key people were all American and a there was a large contingency of a crew from Rome, who were well used to big American crews coming through and filming in the city.
Ron Howard on set |
What was Ron Howard like on set?
MM: Ron Howard was an absolute joy to work with. I never saw him lose his temper once. He was always joking and completely on top of what he’s doing. He has a team around him who work with him all the time. Bill Connors, who is his first AD, has worked with him for years. Tom Hanks and him go way back to ‘Forest Gump’ and also the DOP Salvatore Totino. They are a pretty tight little group who know each other very well and work well together. I guess trust takes an awful lot of weight off his shoulders.
What sound equipment do you use?
MM: Location sound these days has gone into digital obviously but also it’s gone into multi track. I was recording on a Diva 5.8 (a ten track recorder) and a Sound Devises 744 (4 track) which is my back up machine.
You also won the IFTA this year for Best Sound for ‘Hunger’ can you tell us about that shoot?
MM: The shoot for ‘Hunger’, because of the nature of the film and because Michael Fassbender had to lose weight for the second half of it, was broken into two parts. For the first half of the shoot - Ronan Hill was the sound recordist (who shared the IFTA with me) and I did the second half – the post fasting as it were. Michael had to fast and lose all that weight over Christmas - so how bad was that???!
‘Hunger’ was basically one camera and very intense and it wasn’t expansive, we didn’t move around very much – it was a very different shoot. I worked on ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’ between ‘Hunger’ and ‘Angels & Demons ‘– and that was very fast moving. We shot a lot of two camera set ups and it was quite an ambitious piece for here.
And what projects have you recently worked on?
MM: My most recent work was a television piece called ‘Occupation’ for Kudos Film and Television which was shot in Belfast and Morocco. Nick Murphy directed it with Stephen Graham and Jimmy Nesbit.
- ‘Angels & Demons’ is released nationwide by Sony Pictures on May 14th
