Goldcrest mixes Acts of Godfrey rhyming couplets

Goldcrest Mixer, Mark Paterson, had the opportunity to work on, ‘Acts of Godfrey’, the first UK film written entirely in rhyming couplets – the poetic style made popular by Shakespeare. The film marked scriptwriter/director’s Johnny Daukes’ debut and premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London on 30th September.

This hilariously clever black comedy started off as a poem written in a Glasgow bar in 2006 and suffered its fair share of setbacks as it sought funding --understandably a bit of a challenge given its incredibly unique script.

Paterson says “Acts of Godfrey was such an interesting project as I've never seen anything like it. Being a poem, my priority during the mix was that every single dialogue line was as clear as possible as it's vital not to miss any of them. It left very little room for compromise when it came to other areas of the sound but I think we found the balance. Johnny's musical background made him very susceptible to the sound and very easy for me to communicate with. It's always a pleasure to have that level of understanding with a director and speak about what you are trying to achieve in geeky sound language. He produced most of the music as well so we all had a very clear out line of what we wanted the film to sound like before we began. That along with sound design from Adrian Rhodes made it a very enjoyable project to work on".

“The thing that lets so many low budget films down is sound, it's almost as if people think to only spend money on things they can see. Much like a good cut, a good sound mix is invisible and creates a sense in the viewer of knowing exactly where they are and why. LoFi pictures and a great sound mix is delicious, the opposite is atrocious. We were incredibly fortunate with Acts of Godfrey to have the benefit of Adrian Rhodes’ brilliant and imaginative sound design and Mark Paterson's flawless mixing. It helped that I'm a fellow ProTools weenie so we all got on famously and discussed plug-ins and latency until the wee small hours. Our mix is deep, rich and despite having no ADR whatsoever, every word is crisp, clear and placed.
Lovely work, lovely people........lovely.”
 
Johnny Daukes
Writer / Director