TVBEurope speaks to sound supervisor Richard Meredith
Author:
Jenny PriestleyPublish date:
Nov 2, 2017Social count:
0
TVBEurope speaks to sound supervisor Richard Meredith
0
SHARES
There's no question The Great British Bake Off is now a key part of the British broadcast year. Those worried by the show's move from the BBC to Channel 4 have found the its ingredients stayed pretty much the same, instead of a Victoria Sponge, Channel 4 served up a fruit cake the same basic mix with Noel Fielding added in for a bit of flavour. Despite Prue Leith's Twitter blunder, fans switched on in their millions to find out who would be crowned this year's winner.
Of course, one of the key ingredients to any show's success is how it sounds. And with a show like Bake Off, recording the audio isn't a piece of cake, as sound supervisor Richard Meredith tells TVBEurope, There are several challenges in terms of sound and baking, he explains. There's the noise of the other bakers, and because it's a timed challenge you can't stop them blending or whisking.
The bakers always end up mixing dough at the same time, right at the start when the producers are trying to get their initial thoughts on the challenge. So most often the start of a bake is one of the hardest times for us to collect the audio.
We've got several rules that we try to follow, explains Meredith. We try to leave two adjacent benches distance so there's some isolation between one bakers voice or mixer bleeding across onto the radio mic of another baker. Also, when they do the presenter and judge visits, we endeavour to have a limit on how high they can have their mixer. We don't stop them, we just try and control the speed of the mixer a little bit.
Bake Off uses radio mics for all the bakers, judges and presenters. We can't boom anything because there's a big wide shot on a jib and we'd constantly be in that shot, explains Meredith. There's always a wide shot at the back just filming nice shots of the bakers going about their business. If we boomed we would be constantly in it.
Meredith oversees a team of four sound recordists working in the main area of the tent, while the sound supervisor is monitoring the audio feeds in the gallery.
The sound supervisor sits in the gallery with the director when I say gallery, it is in part of the tent, he explains. The sound supervisor is monitoring all the audio feeds from the radio mics. We record an isolated audio feed there in the gallery which ensures all the radio mics are kept separate so that when the producers get back to post production they can pick and choose what they want to hear at any point to match whatever a camera happens to be doing.
The floor recordists effectively derive a local scratch mix' which is a rough mix, so if somebody wants to review camera shots later for logging purposes, before it goes fully into post production, they have got a reference audio they can hear. If you're logging and you can see people but you can't hear then it makes it very difficult. So the floor recordists generate an audio scratch mix while we're in the tent and this mix is available if there are any floor producers who need to listen in to conversations too.
Another of the big challenges of working on a show like Bake Off is the sheer amount of footage that's filmed in the tent. Some challenges can last up to five hours, meaning the production team need all the cameras and mics to be synced to the exact time. In order to ensure all the kit is all operating correctly, the Bake Off team use UltraSync One from Timecode Systems.
There are two elements of syncing cameras and audio together. One is Timecode and the other is Genlock, explains Meredith.
Timecode is just a counting number, you're squirting into the camera and the sound recorders. So at that point the cameras and sound recorders still bear no relation to each other. They're just several devices around the set getting a feed of time code. So by giving cameras a synchronisation pulse in addition to the timecode actually ensures a high level of accuracy.
"The UltraSync One is the smallest and most economical product on the market at the moment that can provide both Timecode and Genlock wirelessly, which is essential in an environment like the Bake Off tent.
There's one more element that can lead to the show's sound falling flat: the great British weather. In almost every series, there's bound to be one filming weekend when the heavens open.
But the Bake Off team even have that under control. People say how on earth do you film when it's raining?' Well the Bake Off tent has its conical peaks on it, which have become synonymous as a visual feature of that tent, they're not there by accident, says Meredith.
That was part of the tent design, because when it rains, the rain falls on those cones and runs off. If you had a normal pitched tent roof, you would have all the rain hitting the ceiling of the tent only a few feet above the bakers. Those cones do help us with rain noise.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
TVBEurope speaks to sound supervisor Richard Meredith
