Voice records

Nora , myself and David Rawle

Last week we completed the first block of the voice records .

It was a lovely break away from the studio and the stresses of preproduction.
We stayed in Bray by the sea and I got reacquainted with why I wanted to make the film in the first place. Just being able to walk by the sea and and see the horizon stretching off into the distance every morning and evening was refreshing.

Will Collins joined us to help with any last minute ideas or changes to dialogue, his insights and contributions were a big help to Nora and myself.

Fionnula Flannagan was spellbinding in her roles , she recorded on the first day and it was an amazing kick off to the week. Fionnula brought such humanity to the characters and had fantastic suggestions for how to phrase and pitch her lines . She brought the calm air of professionalism and experience to the proceedings and it was much needed as I was very nervous to be finally recording the final voices after four years of writing and boarding.

The finality was a bit terrifying after the ongoing reworking I'd gotten used to with scratch voices.
But Fionnula and the other actors did such great work that I felt shivers hearing it played back on the big speakers , my challenge now is to match their performances with the visuals.

Young David Rawle was fantastic as Ben and his performance will carry most of the film.

David turned 12 that first day too so we had a little party at the end of the records.
He headed off to a premiere with his mum that night ... Chris O'Dowds new film The Sapphires.

I don't remember what I did on my 12th birthday but I doubt it could compare with Davids !

Although he's getting used to working with big stars like Fionnula and Chris he is a lovely down to earth young man and a pleasure to work with.

I'm already looking forward to the rest of the records with him next week.

We also recorded Jon Kennys characters and he brought a warmth and humour to the lines that made the characters his own.

We had a great laugh listening to his impersonations of various west of Ireland characters.

Colm O'Snodaigh was there to coach David and Jon thru the singing parts and as usual he brought his calm zen to the proceedings and coaxed lovely performances from both of them.

Nora was voice directing and was just brilliant , drawing the characters expressions on the script pages to help David visualize what was happening in the scenes, running around and jumping up and down with him to get the right energy.
As the main editor of the animatic so far and in her role as head of story she knows exactly whats needed from each scene and has spent the past week picking the best takes and putting them over the boards so we can adjust them and match them to the actors performances.

Kairen Wailloch was our coordinator for the week and made sure everything ran smoothly and without any stress.

Its six years since Kairen, Nora and I worked in Ardmore on the voices for Kells , which is hard to believe in some ways.

Ardmore is a great space to record in, a big room and no pokey little booths so we could work with the actors very organically and they could see each other and perform against each other.

David is no stranger to the place having just finished shooting the second season of Mooneboy there.

I always enjoy the aura of a live action studio like Ardmore - so much more impressive than an animation studio full of drawing tables and computers!

Here are some of my iphone snaps plus one or two taken by Will.

Updated November 1st with some better photos!