Six Suspects: assembling the party scene (and some audio extras)
Post categories: Bombay,ÌýIndia,ÌýMumbai,ÌýSix Suspects,ÌýSlumdog Millionaire,Ìýaudio,Ìýdrama,Ìýlocation,Ìýrecording
16:35, Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Editor's note. Here is producer John Dryden's final Six Suspects blog post - this time about the process of recording the pivotal party scene - used throughout the adaptation. Fascinating. And after it (scroll down), something marvelous: eight deleted and extended scenes, nearly twenty minutes of audio all together, given to us by John for exclusive publication here on the blog. My recommendation: put your headphones on and listen to them in sequence - it's like a scary ride through the backstreets and penthouses of the story. John's post starts with the party scene itself - SB.
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The party sequence in week two - where Vicky Rai is murdered - presented a number of challenges as the sequence of events is repeated each day but each time from a different suspects point of view. The party itself was recorded in a number of different ways - Vicky's speech for instance was recorded with 'live' party crowds who he could bounce off and who could react to him. We recorded him close and from within the crowd so that we could cut between perspectives. We also recorded a lot of lines clean of the party so that they could be dropped in over the many party wildtracks we recorded.
This was mostly the case with the dialogue lines from the various suspects. We recorded a lot of crowd reactions to the different events of the party - 'anchor points' we called them. These were events that had to happen in every episode - the fireworks, the power cutting out, the gun going off, the lights coming back on, the discovery of Vicky's body. As the audience are pretty sure by now that someone is going to murder Vicky at the party (they are told as much by Arun Advani at the end of episode four), the fireworks are a kind of tease - anticipating the actual gun shot that will come later.
How the guests at the party were to react when the lights came back on and discovered Vicky lying on the ground was something we didn't decide on until late in the day. In fact we recorded the guests reacting in a number of different ways but opted eventually for the idea that they would think he was playing a joke on them. This allowed for a gradual realization that he was dead. It seemed right that they would think it was a joke at first - Vicky being the prankster type.
In terms of editing, we first of all created a master party sequence which had all the 'anchor points' but none of the perspectives of the different suspects. It was a sequence with Vicky in 'full frame' from his speech to the discovery of his death. This took quite some time to make, because it was constructed from so many different elements and we wanted it to seem like someone had turned up to a party in Delhi with a tape recorder or video camera and just recorded everything that happened there - like it was found material.
Once the master sequence was completed we used it at the end of episodes 6-10 in various configurations, dropping in the lines from the various suspects over the top. That's the sequence you can hear at the top of this blog post.
John Dryden is producer of Six Suspects
Deleted and extended scenes from Six Suspects, recorded live in Mumbai for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 adaptation:
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
In order to see this content you need to have both Javascript enabled and Flash installed. Visit Ö÷²¥´óÐã Webwise for full instructions
Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog
- The last three episodes of Six Suspects are still available to listen to on the Radio 4 web site. A Ö÷²¥´óÐã audio CD is planned.
- Read John Dryden's two posts about recording the series in India.
- The picture, , is by . Used .
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