When Sound Engineer Paul Cutler was asked to mix Captain Tom Moore’s 100th birthday celebrations for a live broadcast, his first move was to hire a Calrec Brio 36 from Presteigne Broadcast Hire via Calrec’s UK distributor Synthax Audio UK – and install it into his old VW T4 campervan!
Captain Tom, who raised almost £33m for NHS Charities Together Covid-19 Urgent Appeal, celebrated his centenary in April and the celebrations were marked by a Spitfire and Hurricane flypast. Flypasts can be difficult to mix from an audio perspective, and in combination with adhering to strict Covid-19 guidelines for the duration, this was a challenging project.
“I was asked to mix the audio for the live broadcast of Captain Tom’s 100th birthday celebrations, and it was a such a privilege to be part of it! The broadcast grew and took on its own momentum because the story was so compelling – it wasn’t just a story about a national hero, but a story about people coming together in difficult times,” says Cutler.
“It was a two-camera shoot and a helicopter to capture the flypast. The flypast of the RAF Spitfire and Hurricane sounded awesome. It was the second flypast I have mixed in recent years – the first was to honour 10 US airmen who died when their plane crashed in a park in Endcliffe Park in Sheffield, UK, in 1944. Then, relatives of the aircrew and thousands of people from across Britain paid their respects, and this occasion was no less humbling.