E4 Remote Comedy from The Paddock
by Blink Industries
A four part comedy showcase recorded during lockdown from homes of comedians, animators and artists around the world for E4 on YouTube. Featuring 16 acts, and 4 animators.
I was responsible for the sound mixing, composition, sound design, music supervision, and coaching the acts on recording from home. A big part of the job was also repairing and taking home recorded audio to broadcast quality. We all had a really good time.
Cast: Lolly Adefope, Rosie Jones, Claudia O’Doherty, Sam Campbell, Jamie Demetriou, Demi Lardner & Tom Walker, Jon Pointing, Cat Cohen, Ellie White & Natasia Demetriou, Aaron Chen, Babak Ganjei, Richard Gadd, Leo Reich, Nick Mohammed, Phil Wang
Production Team: Charlie Perkins, James Stevenson Bretton, Brid Kirby, Will Kay, Millie Tennant, Ellie Britton, Nicky Green
A really good time
Composition: Jamie Demetriou and Nicky Green
Working with a team of 6 we met on video calls with each act individually to talk through recording from home. I advised on recording technology and, alongside Technical Manager Will Kay, put guides together for the acts to turn their homes into TV studios.
We stayed in close contact with the acts via WhatsApp as they shot their shorts.
For this song, for example, Jamie send me a rough voice recording of the tune and lyrics and I produced and made the track we all know and love today.
Music Supervision & Mixing
I love using music to really accent the comedy by diving into a certain theme or trope. Dramatic silences or sound effects can act as subtle punchlines or using the perfect song can make the viewer feel like they’re watching something authentic.
For Rosie Jones’ short I thought it would be fun to soundtrack it like a horror picture to really bring out the drama of the most mundane situation possible. Nick Mohammed, Leo Reich and Phil Wang went for really strong TV style shorts so it was important for me to make them as realistic as possible for it to work. For Leo’s, changing the song/genre drastically every 3 seconds seemed to be a good method for recreating the drama of a reality TV show. As well as a reverse cymbal swell at the end of every sentence.
Sound Design for Animated Interstitials
Sebaldo - Floating Cats. Composition & Sound Design: Nicky Green
Michael Marczewski. Composition & Sound Design: Nicky Green
Katy Wang - The Mango. Music Supervision & Sound Design: Nicky Green