Re: The Bill

Originally posted by steve rowell
Does anyone know where the Bill is shot.
Iv’e noticed nearly every episode when they are filming on location you can hear the sound of jets taking off or landing

They record so much per week that they can’t afford to stop shooting every time a plane flies over as they would do in a conventional drama shoot in order to preserve continuity of sound for editing purposes.

It all looks seamless on the telly, but the way they shoot dramas means that they need to shoot all one actors bits first and then the other actor’s bits (assuming a 2 character scene). If the plane is only flying past during one actor’s takes then it will sound ridiculous when they cut to the other actor in the edit suite and back again, between two actors exchanging dialogue.

To get round this they add the extra extraneous sounds at the dubbing stage I.E. planes, trains, traffic etc. To make it sound like it’s there throughout the whole scene.

It’s known in the biz as adding a “wild track” and is extremely common. As The Bill’s exteriors are shot around the city, it’s no surprise there are a lot of aircraft noises in the soundtrack.