‘The Essex Serpent’ – from Production Sound to Audio Post with Sound Supervisor Tim Barker:

The Apple TV+ hit six-part limited series The Essex Serpent – starring Claire Danes, Tom Hiddleston, and Frank Dillane – is wrapping up this Friday, June 10th. Before the finale arrives, check out this behind-the-sound interview with award-winning sound supervisor Tim Barker – who was the sound recordist on Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, The End of the F***ing World, and Baghdad Central. Barker has worked with The Essex Serpent director Clio Barnard as sound designer/sound recordist on several of her previous projects including Dark River, The Selfish Giant, and The Arbor, and has rounded out his sound team on The Essex Serpent with two other longtime collaboraters: dialogue editor Dan Green and dubbing mixer Martin Jensen.

Here, Barker talks about taking the sound from production to post, the challenges they faced on set, capturing ambiences and location effects, building nature-based designs in post, marrying their sounds with music from composers Dustin O’Halloran and Herdís Stefánsdóttir, and more!

The Essex Serpent — Official Trailer | Apple TV+

Your title on The Essex Serpent is listed as Sound Mixer. Were you involved during production? Or did you come on in post-production? When did you get started on the show?

Tim Barker (TB): My official title was sound supervisor. That’s an all-encompassing title because I was involved in the production sound recording initially. And then – this is something I’ve not done before – as soon as I’d finished shooting and we wrapped, they asked me to do some sound effects editing for them. I told them, “Hold on. I need a break. I need some time off.” And they said, “Have a week off, but we need to get something to Apple right away. We have to lock the first episode for their approval and so we need the sound to be brought up to quality.”

This was new for me, working at the offline stage.

This was new for me, working at the offline stage. I was in there right at the beginning during the editing process, doing little temp mixes in my home setup, and doing stereo bounce downs for the cuts that they were showing to the executives.

Then, when the picture was locked, I continued the sound editing role. I got involved with the sound effects editing and supervising the sound, so I was overseeing bits and pieces with our dialogue editor Dan Green, who I had worked with quite a lot, especially for this director, Clio Barnard. We’d all worked together before. And because I was there on set, I was able to continue the conversations we had there and relay those to the dialogue editor.

It looked like there was so much wind on set, especially for Aldwinter! That must have made for challenging production sound. Can you talk about your approach to capturing clean recordings?

TB: It was a tricky situation. We had a really good sound assistant George Thompson who was doing wonders with the mic placement and putting wind shields and fluffies on the microphones and double wrapping the mics with extra fluffies so the wind couldn’t get in. It was quite incredible, actually, what we got away with for sync sound.

It was quite incredible, actually, what we got away with for sync sound.

There was a point when one of the actors – Michael Jibson, playing Evansford – was on this little sea road going from Cracknell’s house to Cora’s house, and he was saying, “Oh my God, I bet they can’t hear any of this!” But we could. And the next day, the producers came over and said, “That was amazing! We couldn’t hear the wind at all on the rushes.”

So we were lucky on that occasion, but Cora’s house was right next to a boatyard and the wind changed direction and all of sudden, all the rigging of the boats was clanking away and all these wind speed indicators – these wind gauges/anemometers – were whistling and howling. Now that caused a problem and there’s nothing you can do to really mask against that. But, I think they ended up cutting that scene so we got away with it again.

Did there end up being a lot of technical ADR?

TB: With these shows, there’s always a lot of ADR. And there are a few bits of technical ADR, obviously, but much of it was for the script; the script was evolving during the edit so some things no longer made sense and we had to revoice certain elements of it.

So there was ADR. Obviously, there were some windy days we didn’t get away with but I think it was a pretty good ADR count for technical reasons.

Since you were on location, were you able to capture any of the ambiences from those locations? Were any of them usable for the show?

TB: We were filming during lockdown so the skies were empty. There wasn’t too much traffic on the roads, either. So we were really lucky to have the space available to us, which was clean of background noise. We were able to capture a lot of the sounds of rural Essex from the 19th century. And, it’s all there: the winds, the wildlife, the sound of the water, and the birds.

Some of the atmospheres that we got with the birds, especially at dusk when they’re coming down to roost, are just otherworldly and that helped create that atmosphere that we were after.

The birds are just incredible. Some of the atmospheres that we got with the birds, especially at dusk when they’re coming down to roost, are just otherworldly and that helped create that atmosphere that we were after. It’s always sitting there in the background. The birds are woven into the story, into the texture of the world. And I think it’s in the wallpaper as well. I know discussions were made regarding birds and wildlife in the production design. So the sound of the birds was key to helping that all gel together.

All the exteriors were shot on location, but all the interiors of Aldwinter were in a studio. Apple built a couple of studios over here in London, with one of them just up the road from me, which is really handy. So there’s a massive, big hanger there – a converted warehouse – and the sets were built in there. We had the freedom in there (and also the soundproofing) to allow boom operator Adrienne Taylor to get the boom mic in for a change and not have to worry about the wind.

They did a really great job with the sets! I loved all the different doors, and of course, the door sounds with all of their interesting latches and rattles and creaks. Were you able to capture any old doors for the show?

TB: There was a lot of attention to detail. And we recorded doors on location and some set doors. Sometimes, the doors on set don’t sound quite right but we were able to get little elements from that. They’re all layered up – lots of bits and pieces contributing to those sounds.

We also searched through library sounds for the doors. So, it’s not all original sound. We did pull some sounds from libraries to enhance what we were after. Some sounds you just have to hunt for.

Some sounds you just have to hunt for.

And of course, we had our foley team on that too. Talking to the director, and seeing what she wanted from it, I’d relay all that information to the foley team and I brought my knowledge from being on set. So I could give an accurate description of what was required, what the floor surfaces were like, and this and that. Foley added a whole other layer. So we were really spoiled for choice when we came into the sound mix. That’s really nice.

I’m a huge fan of this foley team – Anna Wright and Rebecca Glover. They had done some amazing work on Peaky Blinders, recording guerilla foley for that show. Did they do that for this show, too?

TB: I don’t think they did on this one so much. But they have a library they’ve built up – a collection of sounds they recorded. So, it’s a combination of recording new stuff and mixing that in with what they’ve done before. It’s a really efficient way of working and they’re a really great team.

The BGs for London and Essex (when they arrive at the port) were quite wonderful – very rich and lively. Can you talk about how you created those?

TB: Well, for London, because we were in COVID lockdown, the skies were clear; planes are a big problem, usually. And there was very little traffic. So we were lucky to get a clean bed of sync sound. We got the horses and carts going past, so that was nice.

But when you get into the edit, you want to bring the whole city to life. You’ve got to try and picture what sounds you would expect to hear at that time, I suppose. You’d have bells, you’d have people in the background, you’d have horses and carriages, people shouting, and tradespeople, horses, and carts going over cobbled streets.

You can picture what the sounds there would be, and build up layers to create that world…

You can picture what the sounds there would be, and build up layers to create that world but you don’t want to have the same elements for each location. You want to vary it a bit.

There was something quite interesting in the concept stage; the director and designers and all the producers have ideas of what they want conceptually to be going on. So, for Cora’s house in London, since she’s trapped in a marriage that was dysfunctional and like hell for her, they wanted to create this sense of her house being an unpleasant place to be. In the opening of the show, when her husband Michael is dying, the world outside is pretty quiet. We cut into the interior of the house and it is as if she’s encased in this world because you don’t hear much of the outside world coming in. And we added the sound of fire underneath. So you get this sense, maybe unconsciously, that there’s this oppressive burning sound going on and it’s layered with some low-frequency rumble as well.

It’s not until her husband dies that things start to come back to life, but very slowly. So you might hear the odd little bit of bird song or people passing outside; those sounds are coming into the space.

Cora is in a very well-to-do part of London, so once we come out of this hellish world – of her living with her husband – Cora goes to the funeral and all of a sudden everything comes to life. There are people there, horses and carriages, church bells and everything. She takes that walk with Doctor Garrett and she goes to his home, and we wanted his world to be lively. He lives down by Billingsgate in East London; there’s a fish market nearby so you bring up this world of people selling stuff in a market. You start to add a different atmosphere for that world, to create a more cheerful, upbeat tone.

It’s nice to go on a journey through the crowd picking out details and making the scene come to life.

We also go to the slums, to Nev and Sali’s place. This is a whole different world down by the river so you have to introduce that in the sound with the shipyard and ships. And there was a big Chinese community down there in the 19th century. The loop group always helps with specifics. For instance, we see a Chinese woman berating her husband in Cantonese, and that’s not something you can find in a sound library. So we built that using the loop group; they were brilliant.

In Essex when Cora, Martha, and Frankie arrive at the docks in Colchester, we could really go to town. It is a big scene with lots of background artists and lots of activity. It’s nice to go on a journey through the crowd picking out details and making the scene come to life. There’s a sense of fairground excitement.

This is contrasted with Alwinter’s rural idyll. The vicarage is supposed to depict The Garden of Eden – a place that Cora is drawn to. The place is full of life, with lots of birds and chickens.

There are some underwater scenes in the show. Were you able to capture any custom underwater sounds for these scenes, because some of the movements are very specific…

TB: I did put a mic in the water to capture some movement or whatever might happen, but it was pretty unsuccessful.

I wanted this sense of travel through the water.

What I wanted was a sound for the camera going from underwater up to the surface. I wanted this sense of travel through the water. Once the camera has popped up to the surface, I’d mix the sound from underwater into the sound above the water. While you’re on set, that’s a bit of fun, but really you’re never going to use that sound; it just didn’t really sound right. So, of course, we looked in sound libraries. I wanted to create the sense of this “serpent” but not give anything away – just give a hint that it might be a whale, but only if you’re really going to go back and listen again.

For creating the underwater bubbles and tonal sounds, there are lots of nice libraries you can dip into to layer that up.

The sound design for that took several shapes throughout the editorial process. In the end, we ended up stripping quite a lot away. We went through a whole process of exploration, of trying stuff out. At one point, the underwater scene cut to a tube (subway) tunnel. So we had this big sound that came out into the tube tunnel with Dr. Garrett, who then exits the train. But that scene disappeared.

The idea was to make it appear as though a lot of these strange events were in people’s heads.

So, I was trying to get the sound of the whale going into this hissing of the train going through a tunnel. And it was rather nice. I think little elements of that were kept and used for the scene with the girls at the very beginning when they see something in the water.

The idea was to make it appear as though a lot of these strange events were in people’s heads. So if you’re drawing from sounds that are naturally occurring and twist them slightly, maybe the sound of the wind is hissing or the water is splashing in a certain way, you think it might be a monster. But it’s not; it’s just natural sounds.

The opening was really tricky to work on, getting that tone right, and being under the water was part of that.

The music adds an important flavor to this soundtrack. And at times, there are these low drones. I’m not sure if those are music or sound design, but they add an ominous, creepy feeling to the marshes around Aldwinter…

So you can put those ominous tones into the wind as the camera moves. But is it the wind? Or, what’s making you feel like that?

TB: During the track laying stage, you want to layer up lots of sounds, and sometimes you don’t have music for a particular section and so you end up overcompensating. But I think a lot of those ominous drones came from the music in the end. There’s a certain amount I can do in the room with drones and then when the music’s on top, I felt the sound was really muddy. So we ended up thinning a lot of those tonal rumbles down because the music was doing such a wonderful job with it.

But, there are places where it was just sound design doing those bits. So you can put those ominous tones into the wind as the camera moves. But is it the wind? Or, what’s making you feel like that? It was all about using the natural sounds as a starting point and enhancing it.

What was the most challenging scene for you in terms of sound so far (*Ep. 4 at the time of this interview)?

TB: I’d have to say the fishermen on the boat in Ep. 3. That came back to me several times. We were struggling in the cut to make that work. The scene kept getting chopped up and I had to recut all my tracks to make it work.

The challenge was trying to create that sense of fear for the fishermen on board that boat. And then having this thing come from beneath, hitting the boat and shaking it. So that was pretty tricky, trying to get that right.

The challenge was trying to create that sense of fear for the fishermen on board that boat.

Episode 4 was also tricky, with the whole music and dancing scene during the birthday party. Trying to get that to work was quite a challenge. The music was playback on set but we didn’t have the right music for it, so in post, it went through some transformation.

Even if it was the right piece of music on set, you’d still want to re-record it. So we all went back into the studio. I felt it was my responsibility to get it sounding as natural as possible. So we re-recorded the music, added some handclaps and foot stomps, and had the lead actors in to revoice their bits and pieces, and we got some wild tracks to use to rebuild the scene.

They had that folk-punk energy that the director was looking for and so we asked them to redo this birthday party scene…

I thought it sounded fantastic, very life-like. But the director said that it all sounded a bit tame. She didn’t want it to sound like an ordinary costume drama; she wanted to have some punk energy in there, to be wild. Luke Garrett and his doctor friends have come for this party and there should be a lot of energy. So we went back to the studio.

In Ep. 2 during the wake scene, we have this guy playing guitar and a singer playing concertina; it’s a band called Stick in the Wheel. And there’s another scene in the pub in Ep 3, a big riotous scene with Naomi and Samuel. Stick in the Wheel was playing again in that scene. They had that folk-punk energy that the director was looking for and so we asked them to redo this birthday party scene and they brought something new to it. So, we replaced all the instruments, added all our handclaps and whoops; it was great. It brought a lot of energy to that scene.

In terms of sound for the surgery scenes, did the director have specific tastes on how gory they should be? What went into the sounds for those scenes, especially the heart surgery…

TB: They wanted just the right level of gore. We didn’t want to go over the top. The director was after the most natural and most truthful depiction of what’s going on, to get as naturalistic as possible.

We added a bit of tension in the scene as well. There’s a heartbeat in there, which you wouldn’t necessarily hear naturalistically but it was good for adding a little tension. And then when they lose the patient, the heartbeat stops.

L-R: Martin Jensen, Re-recording mixer; David Sendall, Assistant Re-recording mixer; Tim Barker, Sound Supervisor; Herdís Stefánsdóttir Composer;
Dustin O’Hallloran, Composer

How was working on the sound of The Essex Serpent a unique experience for you?

TB: It was a great experience for me. It’s rare that I’m able to take a project from start to finish. And this is the only time I’ve been able to work during the offline stage. I’ve been working with the director for 20 years now, working on some of her early films, but this is her first TV series.

But it’s rare that I get that chance to see a project all the way through.

I’ve worked with dubbing mixer Martin Jensen on nearly all of Clio’s films, along with Dan Green, the dialogue editor. We’ve got a close team that works together well with a shorthand in communicating; we know what each other can deliver. It’s an efficient way of working, really.

But it’s rare that I get that chance to see a project all the way through. Quite often I’ll just do location recording or occasionally just do sound editing, but this has been a fantastic, rewarding experience to go through from start to finish.

A big thanks to Tim Barker for giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the sound of The Essex Serpent and to Jennifer Walden for the interview!

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