In the second term of the Visiting Practitioners series, Kate Hopkins was the first to introduce the year.
Being one of the most knowledgeable sound editors in the UK, working with a lot of genres and broadcasts, specialized in the sounds of nature. Since her home is located in Bristol, and this same place is recon to be also the home for the BBC Natural History Unit. “Blue Planet II” and “Frozen World” are only two titles where Hopkins stars her name in the world of sound. You can also find her in Wildlife on Ones, Natural Worlds, Life in Cold Blood, Life in the Undergrowth for the BBC as well as films in National Geographic and the Discovery Channel. Throughout her career, she managed to collect a Prime Time Emmy for Sound Editing, the Technicolor Creative Technology Award for Women in Film and Television, 3 BAFTAs + 19 nominations, and 4 Emmys and 2 RTS awards. What an amazing career it must have been for Kate.
The lecture
(Hopkins is constipated.)
She started the session by revealing her first steps in the film industry. her first role was being a receptionist in a small film company in Bristol. “Endless cups of tea” (*sniff*).
She then moved to assistant editor and then to sound editor by the pass of the years. Kate fell in love with sound because of “Its capability to give so much power and drama to the image.”.
“The sound of air conditioning, for example, is fun because different tonalities mean different emotional approaches.”.
Then the digital era appeared. Hopkins had never touched a computer till that time. Editing software’s were miserable. She referred to the existence of another editing program apart from Pro Tools which was as simple as a grabbing and cutting tool. There was one of her first projects that were endorsed in Idaho (USA), where she had to work with very “clunky” pro tools on Windows 94 and she was by herself. The difficulties of those works were massive, considering Pro Tools is software for sound engineering made by sound engineers – it is not very intuitive compared to nowadays DAW’s.
Later, she got the opportunity to work with Dolby Atmos and Natural History. Apart from reality documentaries, where the sound that is heard is the representation of what the microphones capture, Natural History takes sound editing to another level, where everything counts because of every sound guides to a different end. The feeling of movement and deepness transcends reality itself, but at the same, it locates the spectator in the same place where the animal stands. ” Dolby Atmos started to come in (…) Surround sound (…) Full range of all frequencies. What the producers wanted to happen was for you to feel in that place”.
Her work is the definition of being totally in charge of the spectator’s feelings. She not only sculpts sound but emotions as well. With that comes a job in which every touch has to be meticulously applied.
“The best thing for sound is getting the best quality to be placed in the right spot.”. I reviewed this to be her principal methodology: Quality + Placement. Without one, you won’t get a good Natural History film.
Another interesting discussion was the workflows between the sound crew in the postproduction development. Kate referred: “There’s always a bit of a fight between the composer and the sound editor. It is always fun to win against them and win a little bit of silence” – both jobs have their art on a big screen like in the band there are roles to accomplish a final product, where sometimes one gets to have a solo and the other not, but Kate referred after that is all a matter of dialogue or, and this last one is more definitive production goal. Sometimes composers win territory in the image by having a full sequence with music, but sometimes the same ones give space to sound editors with silence. Nevertheless, some productions demand the imperative existence of music throughout the whole film. “It’s important to know when the sound editor can have their solo like, for example, a sandstorm. it is important to have a dialogue between both.”.
Finally, she showed us a scene from her work mixed in Atmos, called Dynasties: Meerkat for BBC, by sharing a pro tools project. For me, it wasn’t a surprise to see a lot of tracks because I’ve worked with this type of project in the past – we could say I am still working on a Spanish experimental documentary. In the last few years, I’ve been studying to be a film sound editor in ECAM (Escuela de Cinematografia y del Audiovisual de Madrid), a place focused on the production of films that correspond to industry’s standards. There I found that my preference to work with experimental and documental cineasts because of the production size. My voice as a sound artist has more importance, and teamwork is more intimate. The final result is always more satisfying. I’ve also worked in big productions, but the feeling is different. The figure of the réalisateur is more noticeable than the others, almost like a cult.