Our Post Production team carried out full sound work on the critically acclaimed five-part thriller, Criminal Justice, made by BBC Drama Production for BBC One. Sound Designer Kian Wong was responsible for the sound design and audio track lay for episode two, whilst Dubbing Mixer/Sound Editor Paul Batchelor delivered the sound design and track lay on the remaining four epsiodes. Dubbing Mixers Steve Hudson and Chris Graver carried out the overall stereo mix, ensuring that the sound was balanced effectively and the production's creative vision was achieved.

Written by former barrister Peter Moffat, the drama centres on 21 year old Ben Coulter, played by rising star Ben Whishaw (Perfume, I'm Not There), who finds himself being prosecuted for murder after a night out on the town with an attractive young woman. Ben finds himself on a rollercoaster ride through the criminal justice system. Finding himself in prison, he has to learn to survive alongside tough inmates, including a character called Hooch, played by Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name Of The Father, Brassed Off).

Sound for the drama was complex. As many as eight separate digital tracks were recorded on location, which meant that there was a huge quantity of audio media to manage, but it also equipped the sound team with plenty of wild tracks to draw upon. In the digital world, it is possible to access all tracks throughout the entire process, so the production team had the option of making changes right up until transmission and beyond.

The second episode, where the main character enters prison, was especially challenging from a sound perspective. The directors and producers were keen for the sound to evolve and develop, rather than using a simple a blanket of sound. Post Production needed to create a prison soundscape, with many layers of background chatter, banging and shouting, to provide depth and disorientate the viewer in the same way that the main character was disorientated on entering the prison.

The production budget would not allow for a cast of hundreds, so it was important to give a sense that there were more prisoners than extras on the set. The solution was for Kian Wong to create an off-camera narrative using pieces of background dialogue recorded on location, which came with natural reverb and acoustics. He strategically and artistically placed relevant dialogue onto the prison scenes, for example in the kitchen, mess hall, cells or games room. These conversations poked through the main dialogue to provide authenticity and give a sense of what was going on with the other prisoners.

"For example in one scene you overhear a prison guard calling: 'Next one, please', 'this is your bag, this is your cell' and prisoners listening to music and being a bit rowdy to give the idea of the procedure of checking in to prison," says Kian Wong.

The directors and producers also wanted the night time scenes to have life rather than silence, so video games are heard being played and voices from other cells. Occasionally extra dialogue, not recorded on location, was created and inserted to add richness to the shots - for example 'two 99s please' where far in the background, you can just about make out a person buying ice-cream.

Steve Hudson had to ensure that in all these cases, the voices were distinct enough to make them real, but not loud enough to encourage viewers to start listening to them and interfere with the main dialogue.

In addition to a UK sound version, our Post Production team produced a dialogue free music and effects international version, which demanded a lot of foley. The drama used a lot of music and Steve had to balance this and also ensure that appropriate music was used for the UK and international versions as copyright varied.

Some of the locations were extremely noisy - such as the exterior for the police station, so the Post Production sound team used a Cedar to reduce hisses and clicks.

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