The Kitchen-Sound

The directors Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares’ focus was for us to capture original performances whilst giving as much freedom as possible to the actors. Some scenes like those involving Staples’ (Hope Ikpoku Jnr) bike crew, had to be very free by their nature to create energy. Each scene had a different weight between energy and exposition, and we worked as a team to approach each one to best serve the story. 

 

It also meant that we needed to give the actors total freedom of movement and be able to follow the two handheld cameras as they moved documentary style. The incredible market set was a huge area to cover for RF. We used techniques I had learnt working for Stuart Wilson on 1917 to hide antennas throughout- covering any actor in any corner. A great scene is Kamale (Backroad Gee) freestyling as Benji first enters the market, this was so organic and we just had one chance to get it. All the tech we put in place allowed us to do that!

 

There were also a number of emotional scenes that had to be shot in the real world. Art dept were fantastic collaborators in building in as much sound proofing as they could into their designs and working closely with costume was absolutely key in making radio mics sound great on futuristic costumes that by necessity favoured man-made fabrics.

 

Post sound led by Steve Single and Matis Rei have done an amazing job to pull out the performances and allow the audience to feel the emotion of our two leads Izi (Kane Robinson) and Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman) as they move through the story.

Ian Wright plays Lord Kitchener, a DJ who broadcasts to The Kitchen. We had a fantastic collaboration with art dept & Ian who had a specific vision to talk up into the mic and emulate Liam Gallagher. We put serious thought into the choice of mic for a classical sound that could work as traditional voice over and feel authentic being pumped out of the speakers into the Kitchen itself. 

The tannoy system you see in the film was made practical so that we could pump out music to make the Kitchen market feel as real as possible to the artists. It made for some fun Fridays!

 

The funeral scene is my favourite scene in the film. All the gospel singing is real. The choir were incredible, and we knew we had to capture that raw emotion, using an in ear click track to keep them in time and a combination of micing techniques to allow the edit freedom. There was real tension before the first take but as soon as the harmonies kicked and I faded up the choir, they were just so balanced. It genuinely sounded perfect. Everyone was weeping behind the monitors and that emotion translates to screen- you can’t fake it. It’s absolutely my career highlight to date!

 

In our locations, we had to work hard to embrace and record what we felt added to the world of the story. The market was actually built next to a train line in Bethnal Green- so the VFX team built that into the visual world, and I had a stereo mic running for days to get all the different train effects so that the post team had a huge range of options.

 

The vehicles were a sonic character in themselves. Especially when the bikes are revving and pulling wheelies, we had mics out on as many as possible to give Matis choice in the edit. Royal Enfield were fantastic in collaborating to hide mics on Izi’s bike during shooting and we were also fortunate for have a whole day with them at their test track getting amazing effects to really bolster the sound of Izi’s bike.

One tiny detail that perfectly exemplifies the theme of the film, is the Buena Vista cooker beep when Izi first walks into his windowless apartment. Shooting in an empty new build in Wembley- Kane accidentally pressed it and the false cheeriness of the cooker turning on slapped against how his character was feeling. So he built it into the scene and the sound made it through to the final film! It just shows the world of The Kitchen does exist in London now.

 

I want to say a huge thank you to my sound team -1AS Adrienne Taylor, 2AS Julia Hardecka, Trainee Lauren Healey who really put in the hard yards, as well as all the dailies including Liam Cotter, Laura Clough, Jack Simpson and Rute Gomes. It was a real privilege to work on The Kitchen and support Dan and Kibwe’s ten year journey to bring this story to the screen.