The Grim - Sound Design

This show was rooted in horror and used evolving underscores and themes to create tension throughout. Often the sound world would influence the real world. The soundscape had a dark feel, born out of working with a piece of cello music in the rehearsal room. The low cello drone became a constant throughout the show, being warped and manipulated throughout. It was weaved into arrangements of Fontaines D.C. music as well as used thematically throughout the show to build tension.

We had a studio session to record whispers and vocalisations which were peppered throughout the show, coming in and out of focus as the characters find themselves surrounded by the supernatural. I spent a long time editing the vocal recordings and playing around with spatialisation, giving the feeling of being completely surrounded. Secret Stage Reviews wrote that the ‘whispers circle the audience. Flickering bulbs and murmured voices are standard horror tools, but in the tight confines of The Little, with the actors inches away, the hauntings feel uncomfortably close. You do not watch the characters being spooked from a safe distance. You feel as if the same environment exists around you.’

The aim of the game was to be punchy, eerie and scary. Dark synths with lots of compression and distortion acted as the foundations, with low frequency hits and abstracted metal hits for impact. The design was very successful in creating a foreboding sense of danger.

We had an onstage spot speaker for a 1960s telephone effect as well as a radio which would spark in and out throughout the performance. Throughout I used binaural recordings of room tones to build atmos, slowly fading and cutting at impactful moments. This really helped physicalise the silence.

This show was so wonderful to be part of and to collaborate with a wonderful writing and directing team from the first fringe version to the off west end version was a real pleasure.