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Mike Higham's work as a supervising music editor on The Ali G Movie, recently released, saw him closely involved in the creation of parts of the soundtrack. The more up-front parts include a new release from So Solid Crew, plus tracks from Oxide & Neutrino, Mis-Teeq, Ja Rule and Shaggy.
"We needed someone to write the underscore but it had to be something that wasn't going to stand out too much from all the contemporary rap and two-step music," Higham explains.
"We all came to the conclusion that it needed to be different so Adam F was approached." By January the pair were in Sony Music Studios recording a 72-piece orchestra and a 40-piece choir.
"We recorded the whole orchestra into Pro Tools, for the speed and flexibility of being able to edit cues and compile it very quickly," Higham notes. "It had to be done very quickly because we were mixing the entire film the week after.
"Because Adam had programmed all the material, I had to make sure that the orchestra were going to play to the programmed MIDI material incredibly accurately, otherwise it would end up sounding like a road crash," says Higham.
Using a program called Cue. Higham prepared the 'streamers', lines on the film that give the conductor important cue points. Then there was the click track, as Higham explains.
"I don't normally use this software to program my clicks but I found it incredibly good, and because we were running MIDI - any changes I needed to make were instant. Due to some of the new features in Pro Tools 5.3 the ability to program clicks is really good. It meant that the orchestra were playing at exactly the same tempo as the programmed stuff, so we could marry it together when it came to mixing."
Next stop was Higham's favourite place to mix - Out Of Eden, the all-digital 5.1 room at Eden Studios. Armed with the disk from the Pro Tools used on the recording session, Higham set about mixing around 52 tracks of MIDI with 61 orchestral tracks and six tracks of choir. Then it was off to Theatre 2 at Pinewood, where the film was dubbed.
Higham has just taken delivery of a Pro Tools|HD 2 system, which he bought to use on Stephen Frears new film for Miramax, Dirty Pretty Things. He is looking forward to be working with old friend, composer Anne Dudley.
"I think we'll record straight into Pro Tools at 96k," Higham plans. "192 is probably too much but 96 is definitely manageable. When we recorded the orchestra for Ali G straight into Pro Tools it worked like a dream. The HD system, running on this new fast G4 Mac that I've bought; it just seems the sensible step. I'm convinced about its stability, and there will be no transfer time.
"Absolutely fantastic" is Higham's take on the GearBox service. He admits he wavered over the new purchase for a couple of months before calling Andy Brooks. "I called him on the Tuesday evening and said 'Can I have it tomorrow?' By Thursday morning, I had it up and running. That's pretty impressive: less than 36 hours and I've got a brand new Pro Tools system," Higham enthuses.
"Service like that is crucial to me. Without some of the equipment, I'm kind of useless. I've called Richard [Eastwood] and woken him up at 6.30am on a Sunday morning but he was so cool about it!" Higham relates.
"I said 'Richard, I'm having a nightmare, I need a piece of gear by 8.' It was there. That's what impressed me. In the past I've bought from other places but GearBox is a one-stop shop really." - Respect.
For further information please visit:
United International Pictures
Ali G