Adam Hills: Foot Fault

In this one-hour special, Adam Hills tracks his efforts to bring more awareness to the sport of Para-Standing Tennis. The comedian, who was born without a right foot, was a professional tennis coach before pursuing a career in stand-up comedy. However, while he may have left his desire to be a professional sportsman behind, he nonetheless remains a lover of the sport – although he’s noticed it might not quite love him back as much as he hoped. 

While there has been growing attention for Wheelchair Tennis – with fixtures in the Paralympics and Grand Slams – there is little room for those who have the ability to walk. 

Hills meets with former Grand Slam winners and heads to some of the most famous tennis locations in the world as he aims to make some noise about the growing popularity of Para-Standing Tennis and the need for better inclusivity. Adam also gets stuck into some serious competition along the way, with the aim of achieving his life-long dream of becoming a World Champion. 

Noah Media Group asked Sky Post Production to provide final post on this 1 x 60’ programme for Sky Documentaries in HD/5.1 to also run on Sky Sports+ and NOW.

Oliver Bramley: Post Producer 

Noah Media are known for creating fantastic and engaging content to an incredibly high standard so welcoming them back into Sky Post was, as always, very exciting. The documentary was in for final post but I’d been speaking with the production team since edit began so we could ensure that, once they came in to finish the piece, we could deliver on everything they wanted. 

We were on a quicker turnaround for this one, starting on the Monday and delivering two versions to Sky by the Friday, and our creative talent were talking with Production in the weeks leading up to delivery so that they could hit the ground running. When it came to the final post week the technical supervisor, re-recording mixer, colourist, online editor and I were all in constant communication to ensure we were on track to hit all deadlines and to deliver to the highest standard possible. 

Mark Mulcaster: Colourist 

I was excited to collaborate with the team from Noah Media again having graded the boxing documentary Hatton with them last year. This time the film would centre around tennis, the comedian Adam Hills' love for the game and his quest to have the various federations adopt a more inclusive game in Para-standing tennis. 

The initial conversation with director Emma Everitt was about the general direction of the film. The look we wanted to capture was one that was positive and upbeat without being heavily stylised as the film was observational in nature. 

Having studied a rough cut of the show I began to form an idea of how I wanted to approach the grade. There was some beautifully shot tennis action which I felt would lend itself to a slightly more high-end look, like a Nike or Adidas commercial, with a nice filmic grade that wasn't too dark and dense. We wanted a vibrant image with the colours leaning slightly more towards a pastel look whilst skin tones drifted towards a warmer healthier tint but still feeling grounded and natural. 

The wildly different tennis environments including the grassy lushness of Wimbledon, the dry dustiness of Barcelona and the brightness of Australia, required a treatment that would bring them all together. In addition, there were also pre-cut and pre-graded montage shots which needed to be blended into the overall edit. It took some time to smooth those out and get them to sit in the overall grade nicely but I think it works well and the client was very pleased. 

Emma also wanted to explore a flashback treatment for two short sections, so we played around with a few different looks but, in the end, favoured a subtle bleach bypass with soft highlights and a slightly lower contrast. Sometimes you don't need to overthink a look. If it works, it works!

Adam's stand-up comedy act was graded to stand out with a heavier contrast and cooler bluer tint to the shadows. This was, in part, because the stand-up scene was lit with blues and magentas and also because we wanted to create a slightly edgier look that would contrast with the rest of the film. The scenes in Adam's home were then kept on the slightly warmer side of neutral and that was enhanced when he returned to Australia to visit his mum. The scene is reflective so we opted for a warmer look to the grade. 

Despite the faster turnaround I was happy with how everything turned out. I think the grade really compliments the tone and cinematography and, along with Tom’s brilliant audio mix, creates a well-considered and poignant film. 

Tom Nursey: Re-recording Mixer 

Adam Hills: Foot Fault follows Adam on his journey discovering para-standing tennis, an all-inclusive sport for paraplegic people who want to play tennis but don’t want to or can’t use a wheelchair. As a tennis player for many years, Adam takes part in multiple tournaments while also trying to get the sport more recognition, primarily with both Wimbledon and the Paralympics. 

I was delighted to be asked to mix the show. I think documentaries, especially character pieces like this, are of increasing interest to people these days. And with Noah Media behind it, I knew it was going to be a top-quality bit of TV. 

My main preparation for this project was to request and study the rough cut. This gives you a window into the documentary before day one when it all drops into Pro Tools. Not only does it allow you to plan some techniques ahead of time and prepare a selection of sound effects, it also helps you immerse yourself in the story so you can start thinking about the style and overall objectives of the mix. How do I want to make the audience feel, and how can I emphasise that through sound?  

The audio needed to be immersive for the viewer. It’s always a balance between naturally emphasising and bringing certain points into focus while not distracting the viewer from the story. With documentaries that have no voiceover such as this, the characters drive the story through their interviews, so it’s vitally important to make the dialogue as clean and cohesive as possible. Adam’s interviews throughout the documentary are from various locations around the world, so smoothing these out across the whole show helped it feel like a continuous but evolving story. 

I worked alongside my audio colleague Tatjana Radivoj who handled the sound effects and sound design. This allowed me more time to focus on the dialogue during the early stages and, once I imported Tatjana’s sound effects, I was able to mix them in with little need for adjustment. As always with Sky Post Production, this was a seamless endeavour. Working out of the same Pro Tools template and using identical Pro Tools systems meant that combining Tatjana’s session into mine was a ten-second breeze. 

The main challenge was making the dialogue feel seamless across various locations and cutting from talking head interviews to shouted conversations across the tennis court. I used my rock-solid Pro Tools template for this project, which meant I already had my set of dialogue processing tools ready to go. My dialogue chain consisted of various plugins that can be enabled and allow you to fine tune the dialogue throughout the show. This is mainly through filtering, EQ, compression, and de-noising using Supertone Clear—a fantastic new noise reduction tool that, when used carefully, allows you to remove a lot of unwanted noise from the dialogue recordings to produce a really prominent voice. It also helped massively with tidying up some of the tennis court conversations, allowing them to sit alongside the talking heads much more smoothly. I also experimented with some multi-band compression, which allowed me to remove unwanted frequencies across the entire dialogue—further enhancing the smoothness. 

I absolutely love mixing TV, and projects like this really allow me to combine my love of tech, audio, and creativity. The fast turnaround inevitably added some pressure, but timekeeping and time management are such vital skills in this role, so you always have to be adaptable to changing deadlines and shrinking schedules.