The Gallows Pole, a period drama about an 18th-century counterfeiting gang released by the BBC, is Meadows’ latest masterpiece, and was worked on by Spool’s sound team, headed up by Supervising Sound Editor, Susan Pennington.
The show stars Michael Socha as ‘King’ David Hartley, who’s best known for his role in Meadows’ magnum opus, This is England, and it’s three sequel TV series, ’86, ’88 and ’90 Meadows has a long-standing relationship with Spool, having worked together on many of his major projects through the years, including Dead Man’s Shoes, This is England, The Virtues, and now The Gallows Pole.
We recently caught up with the multiple BAFTA-winner film director at Nottingham’s Splendour Festival where in an interview with our friend and popular radio DJ/presenter, Jacky P Gardner (pictured top right), he spoke on his inspiration for filmmaking, he said:
“My early inspiration came from watching Michael Scorsese films. At first, it just seemed like a world away from me, but then I saw this film called Mean Streets, and I remember distinctly this fight in a pool hall where no one seemed to get punched… it was just like a scene from where I grew up.
“I suppose I’d always been a storyteller and growing up in Uttoxeter, I never really thought my stories would be worthy of making a feature film. I think ultimately everybody has a story or they have a past or a life that no one has had.
“Seeing people like Martin Scorsese telling stories about his community, it made me start looking at the people I’d grown up with, these small-time crooks, who were doing these rubbish crimes. I decided to try and make stories about those people I’d grown up with and cared about.”
Spool’s Supervising Sound Editor, Susan Pennington and her sound team worked closely with Meadows to complete all of the audio post production on The Gallows Pole, adding sound effects and mixing the episodes ready for broadcast. The audio post production was completed without the need for ADR, a process by whereby the actors would usually come back into the studio to re-record lines. This is very unusual for a high-end TV drama – a massive congratulations to Spool on this impressive achievement and their ongoing collaboration with one of Britain’s finest filmmakers.
This year marked Splendour Festival’s 15th Birthday and a decade of its partnership with our parent company, Confetti Media Group – a family of creative businesses operating together to support those working and studying in the creative, digital, and entertainment industries. Asked for his key piece of advice for up-and-coming filmmakers, Meadows said:
“The thing I would always say to anybody is rather than following the trends, look to your own life and past as a starting point because that’s what makes you unique. Filmmaking is all about looking inside yourself”.
You can now watch Spool and Shane Meadows new three-part series The Gallows Pole on BBC iPlayer.
