BROADCASTING ON CHANNEL 5

Legend's End (renamed to 'Enigma') was broadcast on Channel 5 in March 2023. It's available on My5 and will be broadcast repeatedly over the next couple of years. It will also appear via 5Star, 5Select, 5USA, and 5Action. 

The programme is also available in other territories including Australia (SBS) and Japan (NHK). 

We're delighted to be officially working with Espresso Media International on the distribution of Legend's End. The team at Espresso are specialists in international factual distribution and have already secured deals for the film.

It's been an exciting year for our development projects, with a number being driven forward. This early stage can be equally challenging and rewarding. There is a lot of joy to be found in the discovery phase. We're always open to documentary ideas, so please drop us a line if you'd like to have a chat. 

We're delighted to have been selected to take part in FOCUS Bootcamp - a course aimed to equip young screen companies with the skills, knowledge and contacts that they need to grow and thrive.

Click here to find out more. 

Bass Rock Films is focused on continuous improvement - both in our creative content and in the way we do business. We aim to continue to grow and thrive in Scotland's screen sector, and we're excited to begin this journey with FOCUS.

We're delighted that 'Our Fathers' is now available on BBC iPlayer, following its broadcast on BBC Scotland. We've had some lovely feedback - plus a variety of print and radio coverage in the last few days.  

Zoe and Kieran also took part in a zoom call with the SDI to chat about making the film. You can catch it here:

https://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/masterclasses/making-our-fathers/

Huge shout-out to the wonderful Zoe Hunter Gordon, Thomas Hogben and Erike Iesse - and everyone at the Scottish Documentary Institute, Screen Scotland and BBC Scotland. We hope you all enjoy watching the film as much as we did making it. 

'Our Fathers' will premiere at Glasgow Film Festival - before it subsequently broadcasts on BBC Scotland and BBC iPlayer.

Tickets for the screening on 3rd March are available here: 

https://glasgowfilm.org/shows/right-here-long-live-livitime-to-flyour-fathers-nc-15

For more information about the SDI's Right Here initiative, click here: 

https://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/2020/02/03/right-here-gff/

Colour is a principal element of visual storytelling. It can convey tone, mood and theme. A good colour grade can take a film to the next level. 

The West Coast of Scotland is incredibly rich - with wonderful natural colours to work with. We shot in 10 bit V-Log to capture the maximum amount of colour for our post-production workflow.  Although the image initially appears flat - the actual colour is hidden in there. It just needs a good grade to bring it out. 

Working with the superb Thomas Hogben in DaVinci Resolve we created a colour palette to reflect the Isle of Rum's natural beauty. See below for some of our before and afters! 

Production has just wrapped on ‘Our Fathers’ - a new 30 min documentary for BBC Scotland. The film follows two Nigerian priests who have been sent on a mission to serve a series of remote parishes in the Scottish highlands. Fathers James Anyaegbu and Maximilian Nwosu are warm and joyful characters and it’s been a pleasure to make this film with them.

In January we head into the edit with Erika Iesse and deliver it for broadcast in March 2020. Made with Zoe Hunter Gordon and produced by the Scottish Documentary Institute as part of their Right Here initiative, the project has been a great note on which to end 2019.  Thanks to all our friends for their support this year. Have a great Christmas and see you in 2020! 

Filming has just wrapped on the Isle of Rum for Bass Rock Films’ new short documentary ‘Outlying’ after being successfully commissioned by BBC4 and the BFI. 

Rum is one of Scotland’s most isolated and breathtaking islands. At 40 square miles it is home to red deer and golden eagles, with basking sharks and killer whales inhabiting its waters. The ferry runs three times a week, providing a lifeline to its 30 permanent residents. Remarkably, however, Rum is embarking on a super-fast fibre-optic broadband rollout. 

2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web and to celebrate, ‘Outlying’ is one of a number of short films commissioned as part of the Born Digital series. The film will premiere at the BFI Southbank and then be broadcast on BBC4 in March 2019. The film has been directed and produced by Kieran Hennigan, with cinematography by Thomas Hogben and sound by Pete Smith. 

For this month's blog we decided to ask the brilliant Lucy Watt to answer one of life's biggest questions... what exactly is sound design!?

LUCY:

Well, for me, sound design - much like adding VFX or a grade to the image - brings life to a piece of work and can help to tell or steer the story. 

Though it takes many guises - FX EDITOR, TRACKLAY, DUBBING EDITOR, SOUND DESIGNER - call it what you will, we're all doing the same thing: using sound to tell a story. Sometimes we're enhancing reality - take something like BBC Scotland's River City for example. If the sound recordist on set is doing a good job then they will be mic-ing the actors as closely as possible to ensure a good recording of the dialogue.  My job as the FX editor is to put all the 'real' sounds back in to aid the storytelling.  Whilst a scene might look like someone's 'tenement flat in Glasgow' it might actually be recorded in a big warehouse studio in the middle of nowhere.  In order to sell the location to the viewer I need to make it sound like it lives somewhere.  

For a recurring drama such as River City we build up a library of sounds that we use for every episode.  These are sounds that, whilst the viewer may not be aware are added in, would notice if they weren't there. Flimsy set door slams are replaced with real door slam sounds and so on.  In these instances, if a Sound Designer is doing their job well, you won’t necessarily know they've even been there at all!

In other instances, I might be using sound design to create a mood or steer the telling of the story.  The easiest example of where you might notice sound design is in the horror genre.  Low drones and eerie sinister sounds are layered up to create tension and fear, then can be taken away - luring the viewer in to a false sense of safety, only to be smacked in the face with an over enthusiastic door slam or car crash signalling the next scene. 

So, how do I begin? 

Firstly, if the project time allows (and believe me, often if doesn't) I will meet with the director to discuss their ideas and desires for the sound design of the film. I recently worked on indy horror film 'Far From The Apple Tree' directed by Scottish director Grant Mcphee. The film was shot almost entirely using analogue material - super 8, 35mm film, vhs etc. and Grant was keen that the sound design reflected that.  

The next step

Once a concept has been decided upon, I set about gathering a palette of sounds to work with.  I tend to start with a small amount and then build up from there.  I do this for two reasons, the first being that you'd simply run out of time trying to use a different effect for every single thing, but also, the piece would sound disjointed and erratic if you just chucked everything in your FX library at it.  I tend to veer towards 'natural' sound FX - that is, sounds of things that you hear in real life. I find that 'synthetic' sounds tend to be less enjoyable, hence less integrated, to the ear. 

Working with composers

Often sound design will have a bit of a cross over with music in places and this can be both a joy and a nightmare at times!  I love working with composers.  I find that we're often on the same page creatively and it can be a really great way to share ideas. I often try to tune my sound design to work harmoniously (or not - as the case may be) with the music. I pitch shift drones, drums and siren wails to work with the composed music underneath.  

Last year I worked on indy horror film 'Matriarch' with composer Phil Curran.  His music was beautifully composed and texturally lovely and so I weaved my sound design around this to add harmonic layers and, in many instances, eerie dischord throughout the film to direct the viewers’ attention. The difficulty comes when you spend time doing this and then the director tells you 'oh, that isn't the final music'!! Then you find that when the final music does come, it's in a different key!! Ha! Hey ho, we begin again. 

The final stages 

Once you're happy with the tracklay, you pass the session over to the dubbing mixer.  I always balance my FX, creating a mix that I am happy with. Not every mixer likes you to do this, so it's always essential to check with them first.  

Or, if you are mixing the whole thing, you go back to the start and do a Dialogue Edit (that's for another blog!). Then, once you've done that, you go back to the start once more, and do a final mix pass on the whole thing.  That's when you hear it all come together beautifully and the fruits of your labour can be loved and revered by all! HA or, if you're lucky, just a few pages of notes for changes!!

You can follow Lucy on Twitter here.