Tomorrow I head into work to finish the mix on a 360 I’m working on called ‘The Shearing Game’.  It’ll air early next year and is about shearers and those that work in the shearing industry from a town in central west NSW called Hay.

View Larger Map

For the program I travelled to Wagga and Hay and spent a week talking to anyone and everyone about the shearing game.  In Hay I stayed with shearing contractor, Lional ‘Keeno’ Garner in his big Queenslander home with about 20 other shearers.

The program is my first full length 360 and has turned out really different to how I imagined but I’m pretty sure I’m happy with it… in a couple of weeks when I let the dust settle I’ll know for sure if it’s any good (fingers crossed..) but in any event I’ve learnt so much about the shearing industry, country towns and of course those who live it.  If anything I hope the piece will be an eye opener and insight for city dwellers.  The city/country divide is huge.

I’m mixing with the award winning Phillip Ulman for the first time and the process has been very different to other docos I’ve made, Phillip has a distinct way of working which has taken a little while to adjust to but I think I’ve worked it out.

This piece turned into a real production in the end.  The idea I had for the narration involved a bit of acting – it would be set in a chiropractor’s office and I would be telling the story to a chiropractor (having obviously just returned from helping out in a shearing shed).  A lot of thought has gone in to trying to make it engaging, sound good and not be too naff, cliche or cheesey.  Hopefully listeners aren’t freaked out by this element.

Another thing which was different in the production involved a binaural recording.  Binaural recording is when get two small microphones and insert them in your ears (or a dummy head’s ears).  By doing this you are trying to capture (record) the exact sound someone would hear if they were there themselves.  Maybe I haven’t explained that well… I’ll just explain what we did.  We put special earbuds that were microphones in our volunteer, Phillip’s head then Claudia shaved his head.  We were trying to get the sound of having a hair cut so we could make a surreal bit when a shearer explains how he shears a sheep.  When the listener listens to that section (with headphones on) they should feel like they are getting a haircut!

Still confused?  Put some headphones into your computer and listen to what I’m talking about…(here’s the raw audio of how we did it)

Two photos in the studio (256).  Steven Tilley (who plays the chiropractor in the doco) and Phillip Ulman trying to get some generator buzz out of an interview I did with a shearer in his caravan.