The King's Christmas Message, 2024 was watched by almost 7 million people, making it the third most-watched programme on Christmas Day behind Gavin & Stacey (12.32 million) and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (9.38 million). Breaking with tradition, the speech was filmed in the Fitzrovia Chapel, which formerly served as the chapel for the Middlesex Hospital, instead of a more usual location at one of the Royal Palaces. It's understood that King Charles wanted a venue which would strongly connect with the topic of healthcare following his diagnosis and treatment for cancer. It was also the first time in more than a decade that the Royal Message had been filmed anywhere other than a Royal Palace or Estate which, as our Dubbing Mixer Finn Curry says, was something that the technical teams wanted to assess before any recording could take place. It might look like a case of putting a reigning monarch in front of a camera and saying ‘Action, your Majesty!’ but there's a bit more to it than that. It takes a top team, working together like a well-oiled machine to deliver this much-loved, and important festive favourite.
Oliver Bramley – Post Producer
Our partners in Sky News first approached us in late summer asking us to provide Full Post Production for the King’s Christmas Message. As ever, Sky News would be producing the footage, and it was then up to us to deliver in HDR, SDR, HD, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos. For a job as important as this, we rely on our tried and trusted team of Finn Curry (Audio), Mark Mulcaster (Grade) and Jon Slade (Online), as they’ve been across the project before. This year, we also worked closely with Sky’s Access Services team to help them make a British Sign Language version, which was a Sky first.
From the outside it looks like a relatively simple job, but really it's a project with many moving parts, lots of signoffs and, of course, an awful lot of eyes on it. It goes without saying that the Christmas Message is an important moment, not just at Christmas (for many people it’s the one immovable piece of the festive furniture) but also as part of the yearly televisual calendar. It’s a personal and a national summary of the year for people in the UK, and a look ahead to what the coming year has to offer.
I’m pleased to say that, as ever, everything ran really well. I worked closely with the Production and Craft teams, and it was a really collaborative effort to see it all go so smoothly. It turned out wonderfully and everyone involved was very happy.
Finn Curry – Dubbing Mixer
The King’s Christmas Message is watched by millions of people in the UK and elsewhere and gets massive ratings, so it stands to reason that it’s a really important job. For many people it’s a tradition that they love and is a means to hear a summary of the year as well as an inspiring message from the King. For this edition I was working with Ollie, Mark and Jon and we’ve worked together now on so many projects that we have a really good working relationship. They’re all excellent at their jobs and everyone is really level-headed so there’s never any stress regardless of how intense the job may be. The choir at the end of the piece is mixed out of house by the music recordist - a lovely guy called Simon Kiln - so I don't have to touch that.
This year the message was being filmed in Fitzrovia Chapel, once a part of Middlesex Hospital. The issue this presented was the reflective, ‘roomy’ nature of the sound in the Chapel. I was involved in some conversations with the Production team in the weeks leading up to the filming, and they made some test recordings that I could look at and work on. In this way we could finesse the recording and the Post Production process ahead of time to prove that we could achieve the sound that we wanted. If it was too ‘roomy’ then it could end up sounding a bit impersonal, and yet if the King was too closely mic'd, then there wouldn't be enough of the atmosphere to add a sense of space and gravitas. The ideal scenario would be to retain some of the sound of the room, yet also to give the voice a close and intimate feel. Sky’s Sound Recordist, Louis Ottman, and the rest of the Production team did a fantastic job in setting up the mic and the baffling to get rid of some of the sound reflections, all of which made my job a lot easier. I watched it go out surrounded by my immediate and extended family and I’m very pleased with how it all sounded.
Mark Mulcaster – Colourist
For me I always consider it a real honour to be working on The King’s Christmas Message. It’s a time of year where I like to lean into tradition, and this is one tradition that I was very pleased to be a part of. This was my fourth time working on the production with the first being way back in 2012 when we provided Post Production for the Queen’s Christmas Speech in 3D. Twelve years on and we’re now delivering multiple versions from HD 1080 50i up to a UHD 2160 50p version in High Dynamic Range.
The Grade took place over a day with both the HDR and SDR versions graded natively in 2160 50p, exclusively in Baselight. The HDR version was graded first in Hybrid Log Gamma and then a Standard Dynamic Range trim pass was created using that as a base. The two timelines were then passed on to Jon Slade in Online who then carried the finished piece over the line and created the multiple deliverables for distribution.
The aim of the Grade is relatively straightforward and consists of grading the band playing the national anthem at the start, the speech itself and then the choir at the end. The speech is intercut with archive from various events from the past twelve months which is sourced from Sky News and needs some care and attention as there is a wide range of footage from all sorts of different events across the year. The aim is that it should not jar cutting from one event to another.
Fitzrovia Chapel was warmly lit which emphasised the décor of the chapel. This meant that I needed to create a bit of separation to make the King stand out from the background which was helped by the choice of the blue suit and tie which King Charles wore for the occasion. I always like to emphasise the Christmas vibe by adding a little bit of a soft glow to the lights on the trees and candles, and a slight vignette to close the shot down and focus on our speaker.
This year I was able to step out from the celebrations at home and watch The King’s Christmas Message go out live. I’m delighted by how many people watch it.
Jon Slade – Online Editor
I was made aware that the department would be handling Final Post on The King’s Christmas Message well ahead of time. I had previously been involved on the last two occasions that Sky had hosted the production, in 2017 and 2018 for The Queen’s Christmas Message.
Back then these were edited on Adobe Premiere Pro where I also onlined and exported them for international delivery. This time around though, we would be sticking with our more traditional Avid Media Composer workflow. The Offline was taken care of by our colleagues from Sky News in one of our Sky Post Production edit suites. This was then conformed and sent to Baselight for the Grade and to ProTools for the Mix, whilst I started work on the Online. The delivery required HDR and SDR delivery at UHD 50fps which instantly means that your processing is a lot slower, as there is now 8x more picture information than HD 25fps.
The clean-up and Online was fairly straightforward. The shot from an FPV, or First-Person View drone, which flies through the palace doors and towards the band, required significant stabilisation and optical correction to remove distortion. A couple of shots were out of sync which were easy to correct.
The archive footage from the past year usually poses the most challenges and common errors would be compression artefacts, blanking issues and shots in need of stabilisation. Much of the Sky News archive is already 50p/50i, which matched in from a framerate aesthetic. There were a number of shots at 25p, which I motion-estimated new frames for in After Effects to get to 50p. A couple of these had problematic sections where the generated frames had artefacts, so these were patched using other methods. I also motion-estimated some camera flashing frames in order to pass Harding Flash Pattern Analysis.
Because Grade, Audio and Online were all running concurrently, I didn’t get graded pictures until the final stages. Sky’s Access Services team had also shot a BSL interpreter, for which I created a background and keyed in to form a Signed Version. After checking by QC, I then exported the various master files used for international distribution.
It’s a little odd working on something which is only ‘shortform’ but at the same time ends up Number 3 in the UK overnight viewing figures. Not an everyday occurrence, but our familiar workflow and internal/client relationships always ensure things run as smooth as can be.