Ardmore Sound is one of the top sound post-production houses in Ireland, with credits including award-winning features ‘Garage’, ‘Inside I’m Dancing’, Rupert Wyatt’s latest feature ‘The Escapist’, and acclaimed TV dramas ‘Murphy’s Law’, ‘George Gently’ and the forthcoming ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’. It has produced feature soundtracks for all the major Hollywood studios and completed soundtracks for directors such as Neil Jordan, John Boorman and Charles Sturridge.

Founded in 1995, Ardmore Sound took over the former sound department of Ardmore Studios. The company began primarily mixing features, with the mid nineties boom in the Irish film industry meaning the team had an ample supply of feature films to work on. The company expanded into high end TV drama mixing, when it opened a second studio in Bray, with BBC’s ‘Ballykissangel’ the first TV series to be mixed there. It went on to mix all six series.

Last year Ardmore Sound moved the TV mixing side from their Ardmore Studios base to set up shop in the same city centre building as Egg, marking the beginning of a collaboration between the two companies that has led to their current work on ‘ Eden’. Ardmore Sound’s Managing Director, Alan Collins, explains how and why the partnership came about.

Murphy's Law

“A few years ago we were getting a lot of increased competition from post-production facilities in town,” he says. “So we decided we needed to make a move on the TV side of things and we had a discussion with Gareth. Egg needed to compete with other facilities in town, so they needed to offer some kind of sound facilities as well. It made sense, they had space coming up in this building, so we literally took our television mixing theatre from Bray and we moved it in here in June 2006. The first show we mixed was ‘Murphy’s Law’ Series Four, and it’s kind of been choc-a-bloc since then, another series of ‘Murphy’s Law’ followed, which just aired on TV, then ‘George Gently’ and ‘Running Mate’.”

Collins believes Ardmore Sound’s feature film background is what gives the company an edge in the busy Irish TV post production market.

“I think what makes Ardmore Sound different is that we come from a feature film background and when mixing TV drama we approach it with that in mind. We are the only facility in Ireland who is licensed by Dolby to manufacture feature film soundtracks, not only in Dolby but also in SDDS and DTS, as well as the only people who have large form feature film mixing consoles, and we’re using those to mix television drama. We have a great team of feature film mixers in here, so when you come here for your TV mix you’re getting someone who regularly mixed major feature films with the best directors and some of the best mixers in the world.”

Ardmore Sound's Alan Collins

The company’s feature film mixers include Oscar-winner Tom Johnson (Terminator Two, Titanic), Michelle Cunniffe (Man About Dog, The Mapmaker), Peter Blayney (Becoming Jane, Damage) and John Fitzgerald (Garage, Lassie), who has been with the company since its inception 12 years ago.

The Ardmore Sound/Egg collaboration has been a success for both parties, with directors now able to quickly and easily access their picture and sound edit under one roof.

Egg co-owner and editor, Gareth Young, explains: “For a TV series, the director might be editing the picture on episode one in Egg, and when that finishes he needs to go on to episode two. But he still needs to mix sound on episode one, so he’ll go over to Ardmore Sound to do the mixing and then pop back in here. It just means the director’s got everything around him.”

Egg is the younger company of the two, being founded in 2002, but is already recognised as one of Ireland's premier post production facilities. Egg’s owner-directors, Eugene McCrystal, Gary Shortall and Gareth Young, are all former Screen Scene editors, each having 15 - 20 years experience in the post-production industry. The company, which began with a staff of six, now has 17 full-time staff whose services include offline and online editorial, visual effects, HD color grading and projection for films, commercials and corporate projects. Young explains the thinking behind the birth of Egg:

“We saw an opening in the market for less of a factory style post-production house,” he says. “One where you’d get individual attention, and deal directly with the people you’re working with.

“We were also the first people in Ireland to make high-def format affordable. We invested Final Cut Pro Systems that were being used in America but hadn’t really been used in Ireland or Britain in any big way. So we knew that that was kind of a step further than anyone else could go in Dublin.”

In 2004/2005, ‘Eden’ director Declan Recks brought his TV drama series ‘Pure Mule’ to Egg. The IFTA winning series was a ratings hit on Irish television and became a landmark project for the company.

“It started with ‘Pure Mule’, they were one of the first dramas to shoot on high-def, and post-produce through us,” says Young. “Since then we’ve upgraded all the systems, we’ve opened up seven new cutting rooms and a new 2K Colour grading suite with 2K projection. This is where ‘ Eden’ will be graded and finished.”

Recks at the 2005 IFTAs

“Declan and DOP Owen Mc Polin came to us with the challenge of doing a complete 2K workflow,” he says. “That meant shooting on super35mm 3 perf and after final offline picture lock, scannning the neg to 2K log files.”

Egg calibrated their 2K DI system so what you see on the 2K projector in the grading suite emulates exactly what appears on the film print.

“Working with the RAW film frames in this way means you can push the grading to extremes and still deliver an accurate film print, which is not possible to do working in the video world. Also, because you are working at such a high resolution you are not compromising your original neg.”

‘Eden’ was filmed this summer on location in Tullamore, and depicts the troubled relationship of married Midlands’ couple, Billy and Breda, as they approach their 10 th anniversary.

The movie was shot on 35mm and transferred for editing at Egg. Once the offline is finished, the EDL will be sent to Technicolor to be transferred to 2K data files which are sent back to Egg for grading and finishing, making the drama the first 2K film to be finished in Ireland. So what are the benefits of this new format?

“Your standard domestic TV set is 625 lines and HD television is 1,080 lines,” explains Collins. “2K, which is for features and post-production, is essentially 2000 lines. It’s an equivalent standard to the 35 mm film. You can shoot on 2K, you can shoot on 35 mm film and you won’t be able to tell the difference in the picture quality.”

Eileen Walsh in Eden

“We are kind of doing a first on ‘ Eden’ because the film is shot on Super 35, which is very unusual to do in this country,” adds Young. “The film goes to Technicolor in the UK to get developed, as there’s no place in Ireland that does it. It then gets sent back to us, and I cut the film here.”

“After that, instead of it going to a negative cut, the EDL [editing decision list] from here goes over to the UK and they scan in the negative 2K file. They then send a hard drive back to us with all the files scanned in from the movie. We put it all together and grade it, and then we send them a new file with the whole film on it, so it’s all electronic. It goes back to the UK and they laser that file to a new negative and then print from that new negative.

Young also believes a major advantage of this digital route is that you never cut your original footage. Digitally working on 2K means the filmmaker can attain the valuable 35mm quality which has been less affordable, until now.

“The way we see it, it’s the next step and most projects will follow in a similar way,” he states. “With 2K there’s no loss in quality - you shoot it, laser back to your negative, and it’s exactly as it would be, probably better, because you’re not grabbing dirt. Every time you put a negative up you’re exposing it to dirt and dust, so now you don’t need to do that.”

The new technical achievements with the 2K process are a highlight of the ‘Eden’ post, but not the only special feature that makes the project stand out. DOP Owen McPolin has shot the two main protagonists in different styles, subtly altering light and colour throughout.

“There’s a distinction between the two characters on screen, visually and audibly,” says Young. ”We are trying out a lot of different visual techniques on ‘ Eden’, so in post-production we are expanding on that.”

Sound post-production is scheduled to start on ‘ Eden’ in mid October, with the feature hitting Ardmore’s mixing desks in January. Patrick Drummond, whose sound credits include the Hollywood hits ‘As Good as it Gets’, ‘Father of the Bride’ and ‘Dick Tracy’, will be supervising sound editor on the project.

“We have a new sound design room, and Patrick will be working there primarily,” says Collins. “Once the sound editing is finished it will go to Bray and we’ll mix it there. We mix all our feature films in Ardmore Studios as it is the only film mix theatre in the country.”

The Running Mate

The creative relationship that Declan Recks has with Egg and Ardmore Sound has recently produced four part bi-lingual series ‘Running Mate’, currently screening on TG4.

“Sometimes I think we read each other’s minds,” Young says of Recks. “Sometimes the two of us come out with exactly the same thing at the same moment, there’s a good synergy between us I think. Declan is very open to trying things out, and we are constantly bouncing ideas of each other. He has said that he doesn’t want to work anywhere else, he is really happy with the environment here. He finds it the best place in Dublin for him to be working in, both in Egg and in Ardmore Sound.”

And the busy times look set to continue with Ardmore Sound currently working on Lance Daily’s Irish feature ‘Kisses’, while in mid-October they start work on Irish-French co-production ‘Dorothy Mills’. Other projects in the pipeline include a new series of RTE’s ‘Single Handed’ and ITV 1’s series ‘Rock Rivals’, both currently in production in Ireland. The company also record all the ADR for ‘The Tudors’. Next year sees Company Pictures back with ‘George Gently’ ’s return to Ardmore Sound as well as ‘Desperadoes’ a six part series shooting in the new year. This confirms Ardmore Sound as the choice for quality driven soundtracks.

Collins is wary of large posting houses that put quantity over quality, and believes the intimate nature and friendly service at Egg and Ardmore Sound is what wins their clients over.

“Egg is a similar style company to ourselves,” says Collins. “We both offer a bespoke service, it’s very hands on. We meet the directors and producers that come through the door, and it’s myself and Gareth who see the projects through to the end. It’s not like a big machine where the work is shovelled in one end and spat out the other. We’re there all day every day, we see the clients, so if there’s any issues we’re there to deal with them straight away. It’s the personal service provided that clients want and appreciate.”

‘ Eden’ is due to be completed by February 2008, and will hit our screens next summer.

• For information about Ardmore Sound contact Alan Collins. Tel: +3531 286 5868
• For information about Egg Post Production contact Dee Collier. Tel: + 353 1 6345440
• www.ardmoresound.ie | www.egg.ie