How Farm Soho Defined the Sound of Young Sherlock
Young Sherlock, Amazon MGM Studios’ new flagship series produced by Motive Pictures, presented a variety of fun challenges and exciting opportunities for the sound team. Head of Sound at Farm Soho, Gareth Bull, explains why the latest project from Guy Richie was a veritable sonic playground.
The sound team was led by Re-recording Mixers, Gareth Bull and Will Stanton, alongside Supervising Sound Editor Tom Jenkins and Supervising Dialogue Editor Linda Brenon. Other key creatives included Composer Chris Benstead, ADR Supervisor Chris Roberts, Foley Supervisor Barnaby Smyth and Sound Designers James Hayday, Enos Desjardins and Matt Waites.
Bull recalls selecting the bespoke team, feeling ‘it was perfect for the show and offered excellence in all areas’. He continues, ‘the opportunity to work with such experienced and dedicated filmmakers such as Guy Ritchie, Matthew Parkhill and James Herbert was a dream come true. I knew we needed a sound team that could thrive in this environment and work closely and collaboratively with the clients’.
Farm Soho completed sound post, including the majority of ADR across the series. Final mixes took place in its Great Marlborough Street premiere theatrical Dolby Atmos theatre. Stanton recalls ‘at peak times, Young Sherlock was utilising almost all of our resources’. He continues, ‘on some days we were concurrently recording ADR, premixing, finaling and creating deliverables!’ Principal ADR was recorded by Will Frances, with Stanton praising the team effort - ‘within half an hour we could have ADR shot, mixed in and ready for clients to sign off; all whilst the final mix continued uninterrupted’. Roberts recalls: ’Being brought onto the team as ADR Supervisor, I always felt part of Farm Soho rather than just a freelancer for hire’. He continues, ’good ADR is very much the result of a collaboration. Will Frances offered sensitive supervision of the sessions, calm and efficient recording/playbacks, and when Gareth and Will had beautifully blended the material into the dialogue track, I honestly couldn’t tell what was ADR - and I’d marked it all up! Young Sherlock then, for me, was a perfect example of how wonderfully this process can work’.
"Young Sherlock was a very demanding show, so to work with a creative team who could take your ideas and run with them was a huge relief for me.” Showrunner, Matthew Parkhill explains. “The team brought so many ideas of their own which enriched the show immeasurably… To work with creatives that raise your game and bring you results beyond your expectations was a real joy and a treat. I can’t thank them enough.
With such high sonic demands, it was important to establish the identity of the show as early as possible. Jenkins recounts; ‘Matthew used the word ‘analogue’ to describe how he wanted the sound of the show to feel, so that became our compass word for the series. He wasn't using the word in the sense of it sounding vintage but as an analogy for the sound of the show needing warmth, focus and to be rooted in a heightened real world without superfluous sonic augmentation’. In the months leading up to the start of the final mixes the team completed several temp mixes of the first three episodes, allowing the aural tone of the show to be established and evolve alongside the picture edit.
Whilst faithfully rooted in the soundscape of the Victorian era, Young Sherlock’s highly stylised nature, combined with dynamic flashbacks and action sequences allowed for a huge amount of heightened sonic freedom. The rich variety of lavishly diverse locations and environments enabled the team to exploit numerous aural opportunities in each episode.
Of particular interest to Bull, was the creation of the aural world for the mind palaces: a clever construction in which we are neither in the real world nor a traditional flashback.
‘This cleverly unique environment had to feel odd - as if something was slightly off - but not too artificial or one dimensional.” Bull continues, “the devil was in the detail really. We spent a long time playing with treatments on the dialogue, sound effects and foley, whilst also removing most of the naturalistic world. It wasn’t something that I immediately settled on. It evolved slowly through experimentation. We knew from Matthew’s clear brief that it had to feel grounded and analogue. It had to be strange enough for the viewer to feel the shift - but not so much that it became distracting! Subtle enough to be believable but not so subtle that it disappeared on TV speakers.’
After years of working closely with Gareth and his team, Linda Brenon recently took the opportunity to become Farm Soho's first in-house Supervising Dialogue Editor, enabling her to concentrate solely on their exciting upcoming projects. She recounts how positive and collaborative the whole process across Young Sherlock was; ‘it was so obvious what a great experience all the cast had had on set and the love everyone felt for the show. This energy flowed from production to post-production giving me the opportunity to get everything I needed in the ADR sessions and beyond’.
From the initial sound spotting sessions, it was clear that music would play a pivotal role in the show, scoring iconic characters, epic action sequences and a story spanning a variety of vibrant countries. Jenkins touched on this, noting ‘Chris Benstead’s score is an important character in the show so starting the back and forth between sound and music early on was really helpful’. He adds ‘Chris’ work is really driving and rhythmic and follows the picture very tightly. His demos were mostly very close to the final score which meant we had time in editorial to work our sounds to Chris’ music. This was really helpful, especially for the many fight scenes, meaning that by the time our tracks hit the mix stage, a lot of massaging had already been done to hone the dance between sound and music’.
This level of forethought proved invaluable in the mixes. Stanton continues, ‘at several points in the season Chris deftly toes the line between diegetic (music performed within the scene) and non-diagetic score, all within the same cue. There’s a lovely moment in episode one where a string quartet is performing in the corner of the room we enter. Chris scored this moment with full instrumentation but also provided us with a version played by a string quartet. Crucially, this allowed us to subtly move between the two versions depending on the audience’s proximity to the musicians - a tiny detail which really makes the scene for me.’
The fifth episode offered the entire sound team the opportunity to collectively flex their muscles and showcase the true power of sonic storytelling. Seen as a turning point of the series, Sherlock revisits his childhood home and uncovers uncomfortable truths about his family’s past.
“Episode 5 was a particular favourite of mine and a particular challenge - I really wanted the Holmes’ family home to come alive as a character in and of itself and Gareth and his team were able to bring that to fruition in a way that makes that particular episode a stand-out for me” - Matthew Parkhill, Showrunner.
During the entire episode the soundtrack gradually becomes more unsettling and hostile. Subtle details from the foley team (led by Barnaby Smyth at Feet First Sound) cleverly introduced increasingly creaky surfaces mixed with footsteps recorded on location in stately homes to help highlight the stresses upon Sherlock’s relationship with his family. The use of night shoots and declining weather also plays a large part in the storytelling, with the introduction of cold hostile winds, driving rain and ominous thunder building up to a dramatic climax of the episode.
All 8 Episodes of Young Sherlock are available to stream on Prime Video now.