Latest news with #BoilingPoint
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The dialogue is king': ‘Adolescence' sound editor James Drake on the ‘chaotic and intense' first episode
'We've worked together on pretty much all of Phil's stuff, and I worked on his very first short film,' says James Drake of how he became involved in the Netflix limited series Adolescence, directed by Phil Barantini. The two have collaborated on projects including the Boiling Point short film, feature film, and television series, all which also featured Adolescence creator and star Stephen Graham. Drake discussed the buzzy Netflix series as part of our Meet the Experts: TV Sound panel. (Watch our full interview above). Drake says that Barantini first mentioned Adolescence while the two were working on Boiling Point. 'It sounded unbelievable what they wanted to achieve,' admits the sound editor. He knew from this early moment that each episode of the show would be shot in a single, continuous take, which added to the excitement. 'He explained the opening of Episode 1, going from the car to the house to the van to the police station, all around the police station. … Nothing had been done like this, at least in the U.K.,' reflects the BAFTA nominee. More from GoldDerby 'Have I said too much?' David Chase and Alex Gibney on revisiting 'The Sopranos' for 'Wise Guy' doc - and, yes, that finale Every Disney live-action remake, ranked from worst to first (updated) All the 'Mission: Impossible' movies, ranked (updated) This unique approach to the production of Adolescence meant Drake became involved earlier than usual. 'The process was different, and really early on Phil said you really need to come to set,' remembers the sound editor. He explains that he was there for the shoot of both Episode 1 and Episode 2, which afforded him and the sound team unique opportunities: 'We had this approach where post sound and production sound were working together. … We were doing two takes a day, which meant we had down time after every single take to go away, go up to the edit room, and listen to everything.' The result was 'a huge library of 600 sound effects recorded on set' and '10 takes of each episode' from which Drake could work. SEE 'It's saving lives': 'Adolescence' stars Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper on the series' stunning success The first episode of Adolescence wastes no time in gripping the audience, as the series begins with police breaking down the door of the Miller house and conducting a home search to arrest Jamie and collect evidence of the crime he is accused of committing. 'I spent a week just on the production dialogue of that first 12 minutes,' says Drake, continuing, 'I knew that was going to be the biggest challenge we were going to have, maybe in the series.' A big element of that challenge was conveying the chaos of the situation without sacrificing the audience's ability to gleam important information. 'We needed the audience to understand as much as they could about what was going on, so it was very much taking a very slow approach with the dialogues and working through and finding alt takes,' he says, adding, 'The dialogue is king … so we're always trying to keep that clear and front and center, but also … it needed to feel chaotic and intense.' Another standout scene from a sound perspective comes much later in the episode, when Jamie undergoes saliva and blood tests and a strip search. Part of creating the intrusiveness of that scene came from 'the air condition unit in the room, the room tones being more abrasive, more uncomfortable, and being able to shave those away and have this really stark and really upsetting moment of a dad hearing his son being strip searched a meter away from him,' describes Drake. He and Barantini also wanted to foreground Graham's performance as Jamie's father, Eddie: 'It should at that moment be Eddie's breath and hearing P.C. Jenkins and Jamie going through the strip search. … When the performances are that good as well, we just want to let them shine.' Episode one culminates in a long interrogation scene, where the detectives lay out their case against Jamie to the teenager, his father, and their attorney. Drake notes that an early cut of the scene featured 'a few sounds coming from the police station,' but he and the sound team quickly realized 'we want to be behind that door and be sealed off from the world.' He shares that the biggest hurdle in getting the sound design right for this pivotal sequence was separating the performances from the technical aspects of the shoot, revealing, 'There's three or four people — camera operator, two boom operators — actually walking around that room, all throughout that scene, and in real life, that's a tiny, tiny room.' The sound editor thus embarked on a 'really careful cleaning process so we didn't affect anything, but kept every performance we could.' This article and video are presented by Netflix. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby Dream Team: 'Étoile' creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino on the secrets of their partnership: 'You want to be jealous of something someone has done' TV sound editors roundtable: 'Adolescence' and 'Secret Level' 'Secret Level' sound editor Matt Yocum on using the 'punchy aesthetic' of video game audio for new animated series Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
TV sound editors roundtable: ‘Adolescence' and ‘Secret Level'
As Adolescence supervising sound editor James Drake and Secret Level supervising sound editor Matt Yocum tell it during our Meet the Experts: TV Sound panel, their work might be intrinsic to what we experience on screen, but they have a confession. 'It's not a very glamorous job,' says Drake. (Watch the full panel above. Click each person's name to see their individual discussion.) The BAFTA nominee for Boiling Point elaborates, 'A lot of people don't realize that so much of what they hear is done by people alone in little studios, hidden away in the dark.' Even if the everyday realities of a sound editor's career are not as ritzy as other Hollywood roles, he shares, 'There are a lot of people who do the job who care intrinsically about the sound' and 'use sound to engage the audience and help tell the story.' More from GoldDerby 'The Last of Us' director Kate Herron on bringing the Ellie and Dina relationship to the show: 'It was a privilege' 'Sunset Boulevard': Will Andrew Lloyd Webber break a 30-year Tony drought? How Zoe Saldaña helped shape Pixar's upcoming film 'Elio' Yocum emphasizes that many viewers don't realize that sound editors do more than incorporate production sounds from principal photography into the final edit. Rather, they often must 'come up with sounds for sometimes these fantastical things and other times things that are more based in reality.' The Emmy winner for The Last of Us provides an example of the popular club scenes in TV shows and film to reveal, 'There was no sound during any of that, just the two main characters talking,' meaning the music, ambient noise from the bar, and beyond were all created and added after the fact. Both sound editors have worked on dozens of film and television projects and say that they tremendously enjoy getting to revisit series after some time away. 'You spend a lot of time over the course of a project getting intimately familiar with the workings of whatever the universe is that you're currently in, and you're a part of shaping the logic and the approach and the sonic character and the emotion,' and 'when you get to come back to something in a repeat sense,' you get to 'expand on those ideas,' describes Yocum. Drake concurs and stresses that sound editors bring their own life experiences and entertainment consumption to these projects, especially shows that unfold over years. He says that when you get to return to a series for a second installment of episodes, 'Your life has changed, and there's new plug-ins around, and you've heard new shows or films and they've given you a little spark of excitement. … You're experiencing new things as you go along.' Watch the full panel above to hear Drake and Yocum discuss the moment in their lives in which they both knew they wanted to become sound editors and their favorite part of the sound editing prep process. This article and video are presented by Netflix and Prime Video. Best of GoldDerby 'The Pitt' star Supriya Ganesh on Mohan 'reworking' her trauma and when she'll realize Abbot is flirting with her Dream Team: 'Étoile' creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino on the secrets of their partnership: 'You want to be jealous of something someone has done' 'Secret Level' sound editor Matt Yocum on using the 'punchy aesthetic' of video game audio for new animated series Click here to read the full article.
Buzz Feed
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Stephen Graham On A Potential "Adolescence" Season 2
Stephen Graham is still not ruling out a second season of Adolescence. The eight-time Bafta nominee made a huge impact earlier this year when he co-created, co-wrote and starred in Adolescence, a four-part Netflix drama that captivated viewers all over the world and generated a whole lot of conversation. Because of the hard-hitting miniseries' popularity, conversation has naturally turned to whether a second season could be on the horizon, which the Boiling Point star was asked about during a new interview with Variety. 'It still is a possibility,' he claimed, adding: 'If we were to go again, would I like it to go again? With a different story completely? Yes.' However, he ruled out telling the same story from the perspective of Katie – the teen girl killed in Adolescence – or her family, insisting: 'Rightfully so, if we were a conventional drama, you would look at it from Katie's perspective and we'd see the aftermath of Katie's family. 'But I felt like we'd have seen that. We've seen that many a time. We haven't really seen this side.' Back in March, Stephen told Vanity Fair there was a 'possibility of developing another story' in another stand-alone season of Adolescence, after The Sun quoted a 'TV source' who claimed Netflix was hoping to extend the show, focussing on a 'different teen issue each series'. Deadline later reported that production company Plan B was 'in talks' about bringing the show back for another outing. Screenwriter Jack Thorne previously made it clear that a new set of episodes would not continue the story of Jamie and the Miller family, saying: 'I don't think there's anywhere more we can take Jamie. So, I don't think there is a series two. 'We'd love to explore the one-shot format in another way – we'd love to tell other stories with it, but I don't think a series two of Adolescence is quite right for us.'
Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Séamas O'Reilly: We have elevated AI that almost never works as well as what it replaces
We all love a good summer read. How about Tidewater Dreams, a multi-generational family saga by Chilean-American novelist Isabel Allende, blending elements of magical realism with the themes of environmental disaster? Or Nightshade Market by Min Jin Lee, which depicts the intersecting lives of three women working in Seoul's illegal underground economy? Or Rebecca Makkai's Boiling Point, about a climate scientist who must reckon with shifting family ties when her daughter becomes an eco-activist? I mention them because the Chicago Sun-Times recommended all three as part of the 'Summer Reading List' it included within its 120,000-circulation paper last Sunday. There was only one small snag: none of them exist. The authors do, of course. Each is an internationally renowned and best-selling name in fiction, but the novels themselves were hallucinations dreamed from the digital ether by AI. In fact, of the 15 books the list recommended, 10 were invented, including works by Hamnet scribe Maggie O'Farrell, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist Percival Everett, and The Martian author Andy Weir. Reaction was swift and, as you'd expect, mortifying. The Sun-Times issued a statement saying it was appalled. The list's author, Marco Buscaglia was quickly identified, and admitted he often used AI for background in his writing, but hadn't caught the errors this time. 'I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious,' he apologised. 'I'm completely embarrassed.' I don't wish to heap more embarrassment on Mr Buscaglia, but one wonders what type of 'background writing' involves simply generating an entire article with AI and then not checking if the contents make any sense. In his defence, he does not bear this responsibility alone, since no one at any stage of the editing, design or printing process spotted these aberrations, at either the Sun-Times, or the Philadelphia Inquirer, where it also ran. Ten completely invented books, previewed in major broadsheet newspapers, which were either never checked by a single human being, or were checked exclusively by people who did not think to verify any of the ten world-exclusive literary scoops its fraudulent contents suggested. It's been two months since I wrote about AI which, as someone who detests having to write about AI, feels like not much time at all. A quick look at recent headlines, however, suggests that there is little else to talk about. Consider that the CEO of language-learning app Duolingo claimed AI was a better teacher than humans but schools will still remain open in future 'because you still need childcare'; a Finnish man was sentenced in Scottish court for using AI to create images of young girls being abused; Google unveiled Project Astra, an AI client that will sit inside your phone listening to everything you say so it can provide unprompted advice at any time; the United Nations' International Labour Organization said that AI poses a bigger threat to jobs traditionally held by women than those of men; Silicon Valley Bank reported that 40% of cash raised by venture funds last year was for companies focusing on artificial intelligence; Reuters reported that data centre plans in the US are far outpacing expected demand; and Italian researchers found that, despite all their aforementioned hallucinations, errors, and contradictions, AI chatbots were more persuasive in online debates than their human counterparts 64% of the time. If that sounds like a lot of news for two months, well, I wish this were true. Every one of those headlines is from Tuesday, May 20, the same day the Chicago Sun-Times' reading list became a major story, and the day I began writing this column. With a trickling sense of dread I realise that I could, therefore, write an article just like this one every single day, each filled with brand-new examples of AI's constant enshittification of the media we consume, factless posturing from its creators, marketing overhype from its torch-bearers, and bovine vapidity now normalised among those who use it. I will dispense with the usual throat-clearing about AI's benefits. We all know what they are at this stage, and any time some researchers make a medical breakthrough, or a genuinely humane AI tool relieves the drudgery that ordinary people face in their daily lives, I'll always be happy to commend it. But this. This new reality we have created, in all its deadening sprawl and intellect-devouring insipidity, is to be detested. Where each new day brings a dozen clear examples of Big AI's philosophical bankruptcy, societal danger, and financial fraudulence, alongside a dozen more articles offering breathless. descriptions of its magical brilliance. We have elevated to sentience a technology that almost never works as well as what it replaces, and is still intellectually, morally, and creatively redundant when it does. Cobbled together from guesswork and plagiarised material, via processes that scorch the environment as they enrich the worst people on this quickly dying planet, the craven psychopaths making billions of dollars on false claims of its future viability, borne by distinctly bubble-shaped bluster about its current, constant, ever-increasing profitability. It is this, AI's main swizz, that irks me the most. Because its packaging as a cure-all for everything is the surface flash of a cruise ship magician; its real function is being a limitless cash trap for credulous investors, and a replacement for labour in companies – and, yes, newspapers – who worry less about the quality of their product than the costs of paying humans to deliver it. If what we're left with is slop, who cares? The pigs will drink it down. It's an abhorrence, based on a lie, rapidly remaking the world in its own tedious image. It all puts me in mind of a novel I read about recently. It was featured in a summer reading supplement. It's called The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir. It is, apparently, 'about a programmer who discovers that an AI system has developed consciousness and has been secretly influencing global events for years'. This book, like the consciousness it describes, does not exist. But at this point, does anyone care?
7NEWS
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
A US newspaper just released its summer reading list. But the books don't exist
A US newspaper released its recommended reading list on Sunday, two weeks ahead of their summer starting. The problem? Most of the books don't exist. The Chicago Sun-Times confirmed on Tuesday that several of the titles had been generated by AI and don't actually exist. Heat Index: Your Guide to the Best of Summer, was created in part by a freelancer who works for a third-party company, according to the Sun-Times. 'To our great disappointment, that list was created through the use of an AI tool and recommended books that do not exist,' chief executive of Sun-Times owner Chicago Public Media Melissa Bell said in a statement. 'We are actively investigating the accuracy of other content in the special section.' The AI flub comes as industries like journalism fear that the rapidly developing technology could encroach on jobs formerly occupied by humans. The Sun-Times recently cut 20 per cent of its staff, according to Axios. While it has come a long way in recent years, AI is not a flawless technology and some iterations have been known to generate fictional or inaccurate information — an issue also called hallucinating. Some institutions have found uses for the growing technology, including the health care field, education and marketing. However, there is still much pushback from some consumers who are hesitant to trust AI. And like all forms of journalism, AI still requires fact-checking. While several of the books listed by the Sun-Times do not exist, the authors attributed with writing them do. There is no Tidewater Dreams, for example, but Isabel Allende is an acclaimed Chilean American writer. The Chicago author Rebecca Makkai is credited with the fake book Boiling Point. And author Min Jin Lee is listed as having written the nonexistent book NightShade Market. Toward the bottom of the list, some real books appear, such as André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name. Bell has also released a statement on the paper's website. She said the list came from distributor King Features, a company the paper regularly partners with for content. 'King Features worked with a freelancer who used an AI agent to help build out this special section,' she said. 'It was inserted into our paper without review from our editorial team, and we presented the section without any acknowledgement that it was from a third-party organisation.' At least one other paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, also used the third-party list including the AI-generated book titles. In a statement shared by the Sun-Times, a spokesperson for King Features said the company has 'a strict policy with our staff, cartoonists, columnists, and freelance writers against the use of AI to create content'. 'The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance content creator who used AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI. 'We are terminating our relationship with this individual. We regret this incident and are working with the handful of publishing partners who acquired this supplement.' The Sun-Times said it had removed the list from its digital publication, and the website had a banner on the homepage leading to Bell's statement as of Wednesday afternoon. The paper will now identify in print when content comes from a third-party distributor, and is currently reviewing its relationship with third-party contractors to ensure they meet the standards of the newsroom, it said.
