A BAFTA Tribute to Ray Merrin

A BAFTA TRIBUTE TO

RAY MERRIN 28 JANUARY 2018

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OVERVIEW

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ay Merrin’s career in film spanned five decades, during which he brought sound to some of cinema’s most memorable productions. A skilled technician who was quick to embrace innovation and the rapid changes in film technology, one of his finest attributes was as a supportive and generous collaborator.

Sound figured early in Ray’s life. He spoke about growing up in London during the Second World War and his memories of experiencing the Blitz – the sensorial impact as a child of bombing raids, aerial dogfights and the deathly drone of the doodlebug. A short spell as a lighting operator at a cinema and variety theatre in St Leonards-on-Sea when he was 15 was an early indication of where Ray’s future career lay.

Following his National Service in the Royal Air Force, during which he became the chief projectionist of the sole cinema at his base in Aden, Ray secured a job in the re-recording room at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. A five-year apprenticeship in the role led to Ray’s appointment as resident re-recording mixer, working alongside Len Shilton and Eddie Haben, the latter having given Ray his first job a decade before. In the same year, Ray met his wife, Hazel, and by the early 1970s they had two children, Debbie and Jan. The culture and technology of the film industry was undergoing rapid change in the late 1960s and Ray was perfectly positioned to surf the crest of this creative wave. For 25 years, he worked at Elstree. He helped bring state-of-the art sound to countless box office

by Ian Haydn Smith

successes and award-winning films, as well as popular television series, such as Danger Man, The Prisoner, The Saint and The Avengers. It was on the latter two series that Ray began working with Bill Rowe and their collaboration made them an invaluable addition to any film crew. Among the many acclaimed films they worked on together were A Clockwork Orange (1971), Tommy (1975), Midnight Express (1978), The Killing Fields (1984), The Mission (1986), The Last Emperor (1987) and Memphis Belle (1990). It was on Watership Down (1978) and then Alien (1979) that Ray began working with Terry Rawlings, who had moved from sound to a successful career as an editor.

Their collaboration transformed into a lifelong friendship.

From Elstree, Ray was invited by Sir Ridley Scott to become the re-recording mixer at Shepperton. His work there saw him receive four BAFTA nominations, for Hilary and Jackie (for which he won the Music Mixing Golden Reel award) and Little Voice (both 1998), and the first two films in the Harry Potter series (2001, 2002). It was also during this time that Ray embarked on another creatively rich collaboration, with Danny Boyle.

Ray’s work, his dedication to his craft and embrace of the new and innovative helped define the cinema we watch today. But it was his warm spirit, camaraderie and friendship that made the experience of working in film richer for all.

Ian Haydn Smith writes on film and the arts, and is the editor of Curzon Magazine

M IXI N G H IS OWN SH O RT FI L M O N TH E N E VE CO NSO LE D U RI N G H IS LU N CH H O U R, ELSTREE D U BB I N G TH E ATRE N O.1 R AY M ERRI N

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SOUNDS LIKE...

AN INTERVIEW WITH RAY MERRIN Tell us a little about how you got started in the film industry.

My father convinced me it would be a good idea to be something technical in showbusiness, you know, spotlight, stage light, sound, all of that, because he experienced it himself as a moonlighter. He had worked at the Theatre Royal, Brighton and Brighton Hippodrome in the evenings and loved it. He was a very moral man and gave me the inspiration to look into it...

In 1953, I started at the ABC Regal, St Leonard’s-on-Sea, a cine/variety theatre.

My father phoned up the stage manager/ projectionist, Eddie Haben, told him I could make a good cup of tea and so he decided to take me on. I was 15 with nothing to lose (laughs). During the winter, we showed movies and in the summer season, we had all the stars of the music hall perform, from Max Miller and Morecombe and Wise to Bruce Forsyth...

I spent three very happy years there, mainly operating the spotlights, stage lighting, scenery shifting and being a general dogsbody...

A BOVE: RE- M IXI N G G I JA N E (19 97) WITH D I RECTO R RI D LE Y SCOT T, SH EPPERTO N; O PP OSITE: M A N N I N G H IS ST U D I O AT H O M E (2017)

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This interview was conducted on 18 December 2017

I was called up in 1956 to do my National Service and entered the Royal Air Force. I was attached to No.8 Squadron, servicing Venoms, Vampires and Meteors, in RAF Khormaksar [in the port city of Aden in Yemen].

I was asked to run the onsite, open air Astra Cinema, as this ‘picture palace’ was continually breaking down, almost creating a mutiny among the servicemen. The hierarchy was desperate for someone who had previous experience in operating projectors and I was in the right place at the right time...

After I was demobbed, I contacted Eddie Haben, who by this time was employed as a projectionist at Elstree Studios. Eddie was my mentor throughout most of my career and we became greats friends over the years.

He said he would let me know if any vacancy arose and when this magically happened, I started in the sound department in early 1959, working in the re-recording projection room...

At the end of 1964, I was thrilled to be given the role of re-recording mixer, with Len Shilton and Eddie Haben also on the console, at Elstree Dubbing Theatre No.1. It was trial and error whether you were suitable or not. You had to be quick and artistic in combining the many tracks of dialogue, music and sound effects to make the complete final soundtrack of a movie.

I was very lucky and took to it like a duck to water – I never looked back.

I was extremely fortunate to have been involved in many iconic films, including The Railway Children (1970),

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Tommy (1975), Midnight Express (1978), Alien (1979), The Shining (1980), The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981), The Killing Fields (1984), Birdy (1984), The Last Emperor (1987), which won an Oscar [for Sound, among its nine Academy Awards]. There were BAFTA Sound nominations for Chariots of Fire (1981), The Mission (1986) and Batman (1989). I continued at Elstree until its demise in 1990 and then freelanced for about two years...

On Christmas Eve a few years later, I had the most amazing phone call from Ridley Scott, who offered me the position of rerecording mixer at Shepperton, which he, his brother, Tony, and a bank were purchasing.

I was nominated four times for a BAFTA while there, for Little Voice (1998), Hilary and Jackie (1998), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)… I stayed there until I retired in 2003, having enjoyed every minute of my

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working life. I feel privileged to have been involved with so many incredible films and amazing directors and crews.

Do you have a moment you would consider your ‘big break’?

I’ve never felt that. I entered the industry through luck – a guy got sick and I moved up a spot and that was that. He came back to work and they expanded [the sound department] a bit, so we both had a job. And it just went from there. Then the Americans marched in, because we were cheap and cheerful and better at the job than they were. The Americans remember your name and once they know who you are, you are their best friend. I was asked to work in America, but I politely declined. Nothing against America, but I’d had too many nice days here so I didn’t go.

The first film I ever worked on was called The Brigand of Kandahar (1965). I think I had two gunshots. Say the footage counter was 567,

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TH IS PAG E: A U N I Q U E THA N K YO U N OTE FRO M SI R A L A N PA RK ER; O PP OSITE: HA RD AT WO RK I N TH E REFU RB ISH ED RE- RECO RD I N G TH E ATRE AT ELSTREE ST U D I OS

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You’re normally never happy at the time. It’s only later you think, ‘My god, that worked out really well.’

I had two gunshots. It was five minutes into the reel and I was on the end waiting for the gunshots to come up. It was funny.

Thing is, you don’t know the key moments until they’ve passed. It’s only later you think, ‘I wish I could relive that again,’ months later sometimes. You know, like working with Barbra Streisand [on Yentl, 1983] or on Alien, or Blade Runner (1982). One of my fondest memories is working with [editor] Terry Rawlings: we did a rough work of Blade Runner for Warner Bros, to see what they thought of it. It took all day to do a couple of reels, on a Saturday. So, we told Ridley to clear off and Terry and I did the rest of the reels the

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next day, because it had to be in America for a preview screening. We managed to do it. It was the best experience I think we’ve both had, trying to do that and be artistic. It was amazing.

The version we did is supposedly still around, although no one can find it. I’d love to put it up against the final version.

We won’t ask you to pick out your favourite film, but are there any scenes you’ve worked on that you are particularly proud of?

Funnily enough, you’re normally never happy at the time [when mixing]. It’s only later you look at it and think, ‘My god, that worked out really well.’ It’s because you’re sitting back and are relaxed, whereas when you’re doing it you’re all hunched over (laughs). I remember going to Odeon Leicester Square to see Star Wars (1977) at the premiere, and the difference [between edit suite and cinema] was amazing. I wasn’t involved in that one, so I think it allowed me to see it from a different point of view.

But you never see it at the time. Sometimes you’re just glad a scene is over. There’s a scene

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in one of the Harry Potter films that we’d run so many times we were fed up with it because we didn’t know what the director wanted. They do try to answer you; sometimes they can be very specific and sometimes they don’t know themselves, so it’s difficult. And then you hit on something, like I brought an echo in rather than a normal fader, and everyone’s like, ‘Ah, there you go – fantastic!’ and you cut right across the scene.

How would you define the work of a re-recording mixer?

There are three elements to doing a final soundtrack, although it’s never final because they always want to come back and redo.

Dialogue is the first thing – you strip all the dialogue, with anything either side of the dialogue stripped out and put onto an effects track. Sometimes you have to redo the whole lot because it doesn’t fit acoustically. Once all

the dialogue is stripped, then you premix that to the right levels.

Then you have all the effects that wrap around it, the atmospheres. Everything has an atmosphere. This runs through the scene the whole time. It drives one cut into another, so you don’t get any bumps on cuts. It smooths it all out, so it seems like it was shot seamlessly in one take.

Then there are single things, such as gunshots, car skids, police sirens, they’re all separate items you can add.

The music normally comes at the end.

They normally shoot far too much music.

They’ve paid Abbey Road and the London Philharmonic Orchestra [for example] so much money, they don’t want to lose it. You then have to convince [the film-makers] whether the music works for their movie.

I’ve had a few ‘discussions’ with people about that over the years.

WO RK I N G WITH TH E ST U D I OÔS N U M ERO US AU D I O R ACKS

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What have been the most challenging films you’ve worked on?

I’m not sure ‘challenging’ is the right word, but The Killing Fields, The Mission... Good films, both Roland Joffé films. I did City of Joy (1992) with him, too – it didn’t do anything at all [at the box office] but I always quite liked it. It was an honest film and Om Puri was a really good actor. Films like The Killing Fields are challenging because you’re trying to put the story together and there are all these horrible things, which actually happened. You can’t help but get involved in it and not in what you’re doing…The Last Emperor was one of the biggest endeavours I worked on, too…

We did a film called Tommy, which was the loudest sound I’ve ever dealt with. They reckon when it opened at Leicester Square and people came out of the cinema the place seemed quiet in comparison (laughs).

Are there any film genres you did or didn’t like working on?

I’m not too keen on crash-bang-wallop [films], because you get so many of them and it gets worse as it goes along. You make a loud sound and things bounce around onscreen. You become eager for a good dialogue scene, with some good acting. That’s what it’s all about really, you want the beginning, middle and end to work in the right way. Every genre needs that, good actors. You spot them early on these days, but they don’t always make it, they often don’t get the opportunities.

What assets do re-recording mixers need?

The ears, definitely (laughs). Patience. You have to be patient. I liked the responsibility. Some people shy away from that, but I loved it. The more I got involved, the worse it should have become really, but it never did, so I was quite happy about that.

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FRO M TO P: YENTL (1983); TH E K I LLI N G FI ELDS (1984); TO M MY (1975)

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into re-recording mixing?

Find someone who knows what they’re doing and talk to them. If you’re good at what you do, you have a chance.

Finally, what does it mean to you to receive this BAFTA Tribute?

It’s wonderful. I’m thrilled. I was thrilled for Terry [Rawlings, who was the recipient of the 2014 Tribute]. It really came out of the blue. •

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INSPIRATION

CONTEMPORARIES AND COLLABORATORS CHRISTOPHER HA MPTON

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Ray was exactly the kind of person a fledgling director wants to have at his elbow – particularly in helping to guide me through what were, at the time to me, the arcane mysteries of sound mixing. Always tactful in the face of ignorance and a genuine collaborator, he made a vital contribution to what I look back on as two of the happiest times of my career – my first two films as a director. My congratulations to BAFTA for their discernment – and I thank Ray for his many outstanding contributions to our industry.

Christopher Hampton worked with Ray Merrin on his first two feature films as a director, Carrington (1995), which was BAFTA-nominated for Outstanding British Film, and The Secret Agent (1996), both also penned by Hampton.

Among his many writing credits, he has won a BAFTA and Oscar for his adaptation of Dangerous Liasons (1988) as well as two nominations for Atonement (2007), in the Adapted Screenplay and Outstanding British Film categories

CA RRI N GTO N (19 95)

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OFFER THEIR MEMORIES OF WORKING WITH RAY MERRIN

TH E H O U RS (20 02)

NINA HARTSTONE I had the pleasure of working with Ray on several projects and I count those times among the highlights of my professional life. This is not only on account of his work producing some of the most memorable sound mixes in feature film, but also because of his wonderful character – philosophical, funny and consistently unflappable – qualities that kept us all going through many a long day on The Hours. Incredibly supportive of his collaborators, he was always extremely generous in sharing his vast experience and was an inspiration to all who worked with him. I am thrilled to see BAFTA honour Ray with this Tribute, which is so thoroughly deserved.

Nina Hartstone is a supervising dialogue editor and automated dialogue replacement (ADR) editor who worked with Ray Merrin on The Hours (2002), which was nominated for 11 BAFTAs including Best Film, winning two (Nicole Kidman for Leading Actress and Philip Glass for Original Music). Her filmography is a wealth of critical acclaimed and universally popular films, including Beauty and the Beast (2017), Gravity (2013) and An Education (2009)

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GRAHA M DANIEL I started working with Ray in 1969 at Elstree Studios. It was a pleasure to watch him mix so many iconic films and he was integral in the testing and launch of the Dolby Stereo Cinema format. After leaving Elstree, we enjoyed many freelance mixing adventures around Europe and in 1995, Ridley and Tony Scott invited us to join them at Shepperton Studios. We worked on some amazing projects together.

Ray was a very generous man and shared his knowledge and experience with everyone.

He was instrumental in the growth and development of many careers and his work continues to inspire people today.

Graham Daniel is a re-recording mixer who worked with Ray Merrin on many films over the years, including receiving four BAFTA nominations with Merrin for their work on Little Voice, Hilary and Jackie (both 1998), and the first two Harry Potter films (2001, 2002). Since Merrin’s retirement, Daniel has worked on such films as Millions (2004), V for Vendetta (2005) and My Brother the Devil (2012)

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HA RRY P OT TER A N D TH E CHA M BER O F SECRE TS (20 02)

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28 DAYS L ATERÉ (20 02)

GLENN FREEMANTLE I first met Ray in the early ’80s at Elstree Studios and I knew immediately that it would be the beginning of a great working relationship. With Ray, it was a collaboration, he put you at ease and always had your back. He was a rare mix of inventive, creative, hardworking, warm and intuitive, and together we produced some of the proudest soundtracks of my career. His theatres were relaxed and inclusive... and let’s not forget, he made a great cup of coffee.

He wasn’t only a talented mixer but also my friend, and we had many great lunches down The Turk’s Head, putting the world to rights and sharing anecdotes. My crew remember some really great times on their mixes with Ray and they all learnt a lot from him, as did I. What they remember most is that Ray was someone who treated everyone equally and with respect.

Glenn Freemantle is a sound designer and editor who has won two BAFTAs and an Oscar across his work on Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Gravity (2013). One of his first credits is as assistant dubbing editor with Ray Merrin on Yentl (1983). He then worked with Merrin on numerous other films as sound editor, including 28 Days LaterÉ (2002) and one of Merrin’s last features, Johnny English (2003)

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FILMOGRAPHY (SELECT) As re-recording mixer, assistant re-recording mixer or sound department…

2004 2003 2002 2002 2002 2002 2001 2001 2001 2000 2000 1999 1999 1998 1998 1997 1996 1996 1996 1995 1994

The Blue Butterfly Johnny English The Hours Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 28 Days Later…

The Count of Monte Cristo Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Strictly Sinatra Bridget Jones’s Diary Greenfingers The Beach Mansfield Park eXistenZ Hilary and Jackie Little Voice G.I. Jane Brassed Off When Saturday Comes Trainspotting The Neon Bible Shallow Grave

1994 1994 1993 1992 1990 1990 1989 1988 1988 1987 1986 1986 1986 1986 1985 1984 1984 1983 1983 1983 1983 1983 1982

Tom & Viv Being Human The Baby of Mâcon City of Joy Memphis Belle Everybody Wins Batman The Land Before Time The Lair of the White Worm The Last Emperor An American Tail The Mission Clockwise F/X Return to Oz Birdy The Killing Fields Yentl Never Say Never Again Krull The Hunger Local Hero The Dark Crystal

1981 Chariots of Fire 1981 The French Lieutenant’s Woman 1981 The Great Muppet Caper 1980 The Shining 1979 Alien 1979 Quadrophenia 1978 Watership Down 1978 Midnight Express 1977 Cross of Iron 1977 Jabberwocky 1974 Stardust 1974 Murder on the Orient Express 1975 Barry Lyndon 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975 Tommy 1971 A Clockwork Orange 1970 The Railway Children 1968 The Birthday Party 1968 The Devil Rides Out 1965 The Brigand of Kandahar (uncredited)

BAFTA AWARDS NAMED NOMINATIONS (All in the Sound category)

LIT TLE VO I CE (19 98)

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2003 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with David Randall Thom, Dennis Leonard, John Midgley, Graham Daniel, Rick Kline 2002 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with John Midgley, Eddy Joseph, Graham Daniel, Adam Daniel 1999 Hilary and Jackie, with Nigel Heath, Julian Slater, David Crozier, Graham Daniel 1999 Little Voice, with Peter Lindsay, Rodney Glenn, Graham Daniel 15

WITH SPECIAL THANKS Ray Merrin Hazel Merrin THANKS Katie Battcock Ray Butcher Dick Guttman Amy Sparks Champagne Taittinger CONTRIBUTORS

EVENT PRODUCTION

Stuart Baird Michael Caton-Jones Graham Daniel Glenn Freemantle Brian Gilbert Christopher Hampton cbe Nina Hartstone Hugh Hudson Eddy Joseph Walter Murch Tony Palmer Sir Alan Parker Lord David Puttnam Terry Rawlings Marc Samuelson Sir Ridley Scott Barbra Streisand Anand Tucker

Event Host Ian Haydn Smith

Director of Learning & New Talent Tim Hunter

Event Producer Cassandra Neal

Learning & New Talent Interns Abigail Teflise Lydia Heathcote

Published by British Academy of Film and Television Arts 195 Piccadilly London w1j 9ln T: 020 7734 0022 E: info@bafta.org www.bafta.org

Film Programme Manager Mariayah Kaderbhai Learning & New Talent Officer Julia Carruthers

Filming Producer Ryan Doherty Photography Director Claire Rees Event Photographer Jonathan Birch

BROCHURE Editor Toby Weidmann

Design Joe Lawrence

Image credits: AF archive (28 Days Later, The Killing Fields); Archives du 7eme Art (Carrington); Courtesy Everett Collection (Yentl); Pictorial Press (Tommy); Moviestore Collection (The Hours); ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). Little Voice image courtesy of BFI. Portraits by Jonathan Birch.

All other imagery courtesy of recipient.

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