Re: audio on videos -confessions of a gram swinger.

Years ago I worked as a assistant dubbing mixer for BBCTV. A dubbing mixer combines all the film sound tracks prepared by the sound editor into one, the assistant adds in any extra sound fx which are missing, usually 'on the fly'. Typically these would be from disk (record), many were still 78's and there were around 20,000 to chose from, most of them in the dubbing theatre itself so you had to know what was on all of them. The last resort was to play the label'- it's amazine the range of sound you can get away with not having by just playing the label. We had specially converted disk players which had instant start up and so on. Disk players in the UK were called gramophones so we earned the title of 'gram swingers'.

On one occasion we were working on a 'Horizon' program about train crashes and most of the film came in mute (ie no sound). So for the next three days yours truly pulled the disks out and we inched forward at a slow pace. Remember that in TV if a coach door slams shut at a certain point, the sound has to be heard at exactly the same point. So it's precise work made more difficult because the film and sound editors didn't have a clue and the cue sheets for the sound tracks were blank!

Anyway after three pretty exhausting 12 hour days the job was done and the film was broadcast nationally later. The only comment we received was from a disguntled old phart who complained that we had used a London North Eastern railway whistle on film of a Great Western engine and that we were a discrace.

Which to me proves that if something isn't 100% right, someone will find a reason to complain.

Mark Kasprowicz