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SA Sound Mixer up for Emmy for 24: Redemption |
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24: Redemption, the Fox feature film special, shot in South Africa with Moonlighting. It’s competing for five Primetime Emmies, including Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries or Movie, thanks in part to the work of South African sound mixer Colin McFarlane (Diamonds). “I thought it was a hoax at first,” Colin says about receiving his email notification of his Emmy nomination. “It was one of those kind of emails. I was about to send a reply when another congrats arrived.” Colin says it didn’t sink in immediately. “I’m still in a pinch myself kind of situation. Emmy nominations are not part of our world. For us, it’s something that happens to people on the other side of the ocean. ” The sound mixing nomination is all the more impressive because Colin overcame freak weather conditions that included gale force winds and bucketing rain. “They came to sunny South Africa, but that lasted for the first day and a half. Then it turned into the most horrendous weather. If we hadn’t been bolted in Sir Lowry’s Village, we would have landed up in Grabouw. There were gale force winds of up to 50kms a hour, so it wasn’t conducive to shooting sound at all. It was frightening. There were times when there was so much wind coming through my headphones that I couldn’t bandage them to my head, so I was hearing everything twice. Luckily, we got a useable product.” Moonlighting producer Theresa Ryan adds, “For Colin to have received a nomination in those conditions is absolutely incredible. We had wind, we had bucketing rain, and we had mist. We actually had to add on three extra shoot days due in part to the weather conditions.” Since sound is “the Cinderella of the film industry,” Colin says the conditions didn’t buy him much sympathy. “You just have to produce the goods.” Colin says a number of people have asked him how he achieved such great sound, but he struggles to answer the question. “I don’t really know. You have to come and watch me. It’s become instinctive.” On the show, he used a radio/lapel mike on the cast’s clothing, as well as a boom mike. “It might be the way I put the mike onto the person, or being able to use both microphones, or the way I cover the microphones, or the way I put a certain filtration on the recorder. But there’s never time for thought about what you’ve done.” He works with a six-track record machine. “Each artist has an isolated track as much as possible, so I give each actor a tape recorder of their own, and a radio mike for each person." "These are captured on an eight track mixer, then transferred into six track and two track records, so you effectively get eight tracks of recording.” Funnily enough, Colin still hadn’t seen the final product when I interviewed him. He’s been too busy. At the time, he was weighing up whether or not he’d be attending the awards ceremony in September. “I would dearly like to be there, but it’s difficult to juggle with work.” Theresa says the shoot was incredibly exciting to be part of. “24 was one of the first shows to come into South Africa that was already an established brand. It was jampacked, a fast and furious 15 days. It was tough but everyone loved it. I’d do it again and again.” 24: Redemption bridges the gap between the sixth and seventh seasons of the award-winning show. Kiefer Sutherland was nominated for a Golden Globe for his role as Jack Bauer, and is also up for an Emmy for Best Actor in a TV movie or miniseries. Jack is laying low at an orphanage in Sangala, a fictional African nation, but he has to use all his skills to save the children of the orphanage from becoming child soldiers when he finds himself in the middle of a military coup. Theresa admits that they initially thought they’d need to shoot in Kwa-Zulu-Natal, but director Jon Cassar was able to recreate traditional Africa in and around Cape Town, with some help from South African production designer Henri du Rand. “What he did was incredible. He turned the streets in Salt River into a downtown African city, and Sir Lowry’s Village and Stellenbosch into rural Africa.” Apart from the director, the DOP and the first AD, all the crew were South African, as were the majority of the cast. South Africans Sivuyile Ngesi and Siyabulela Ramba stood out as Thomas and Willie, while Hakeem Kae Kazeem was cast in Los Angeles to come back and reprise his stereotype as an African thug. Director Jon Cassar raved about the experience. “Shooting 24: Redemption in South Africa was the highlight of my six years on the show. It was nothing short of exhilarating.” Watch the trailer here. Kevin Kriedemann | |||
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