AppleTV+ - Ted Lasso : Conversations with the Artisans

By Mulder, Youtube Event, 17 january 2021

Ted Lasso is an American sitcom television series developed by Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt, based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports' coverage of the Premier League. The series premiered with the first three episodes on Apple TV+ on August 14, 2020, and was renewed for a second season consisting of ten episodes five days after its premiere. In October 2020, the series was renewed for a third season. During a panel, David Rom (Cinematographer), Paul Cripps (Production Designer), Jacky Levy (Costume Designer), Melissa McCoy & A.J. Catoline (Editors), Brent Findley (Supervising Sound Editor), Ryan Kennedy (Re-Recording Mixer) had answered to questions about their work on this series.

Bill Lawrence : hey I’m Bill Lawrence executive producer, co-creator Ted Lasso and i wanted to start by thanking everybody for watching this and checking it out. I think i can speak for Jason and Joe and Brent and myself one of the things that we love to do on our television shows is kind of really empower department heads whether it be in camera in costume in set design props etc. to kind of take ownership and creative pride in leading their you know their own way because if you get people like we were lucky enough to have on Ted Lasso that are as passionate you know about their world and what they're adding creatively to the show these are kind of the unsung heroes that you know have made my favorite tv shows work you know and we're lucky enough on Ted Lasso to have brilliant men and women leading different departments not only kind of designing the look and the feel of a Ted Lasso but you know ultimately being a huge and essential part of the voice of the show as well so thanks for coming by and i hope you all get to know these people a little bit more

and now Ted Lasso's director of cinematography David Rom in conversation with moderator Nick Ruhrkraut.

Nick Ruhrkraut : I’m Nick Ruhrkraut and i am here today speaking with David Rom the cinematographer of Ted Lasso his previous works include soulmates on AMC and Harrow on Hulu. welcome David thanks for being with us today

David Rom : hi Nick no problem

Nick Ruhrkraut : at all in getting into the conversation with of Ted Lasso can you first talk about pre-production and how you work with multiple directors on the project versus a film scenario where you're more one-on-one how that differed and

David Rom : absolutely, i mean Ted Lasso came to me quite late the production designer and quite a lot of the team. were already well into flow and i think they hadn't chose chosen a director yet so my involvement came when they got involved which was you know probably only a month before we started shooting and that's an example of something that was different to that you know to my previous experience particularly in things like film where you might be involved a lot earlier even in soft prep so it was quite a shock to get there to see the sets already up a gaffer had been employed already and things were sort of welling well into the swing of things but Tom and i started together that was the first block director and we walked around talked to Paul the designer and started sort of having our having our input as much as we could at that point. It was pretty scary because we walked in there and we saw a football sort of training sort of set which had no windows which was all going to be lit from above and it was initially a bit of a heart sink for a DP thinking okay you know can we change this can we cut a window into the side of this and the answer was very clearly no stadiums don't really have windows on the side so especially locker rooms etc

Nick Ruhrkraut : well it seems like a lot of the show is shot on location so is that part of the magic or was there a lot of different locations that you worked with

David Rom : you know it was an interesting one I think the show initially planned to shoot mostly on studio it was an 80% kind of kind of thing but very quickly we started i think because Jason and a lot of the team were so excited to be in London they wanted to go out shooting in real locations the actual pub where we were going to shoot was a real location which we recur planned scouted sorry plan to shoot in well everything had been planned for and then they pushed it down the schedule and that i think it's a tradition over there where for a second third episodes you built the set that you shot on for the first episode pilot we never actually even shot in the real pub it was built you know from the beginning which was a weird one because we could have changed some of the things to make it more tote friendly but we actually ended up you know rebuilding that pub so yes no it was a lot of location which made it very hard because it was still a comedy schedule and shooting on locations slower i think that wasn't always taken into account so the schedule compared to quite a lot of the stuff I’ve done in the past was pretty crude.

Nick Ruhrkraut : i mean considering how London is so notorious for rain and lighting is such an important component to the show and setting comedy apart from different types of shows even were you just lucky or did you have to work around the weather as well to get those mostly clear skies in the shots

David Rom : it was a nightmare exterior shooting in London is the nightmare the best thing you can hope for is nights which you know it was summer for a lot of it so it wasn't even much of that but it's the change changeable weather is just the worst rain is fine most eps would say a nice soft big source above it's great but it's the sun cloud sun cloud and I think there's a clip at some point you guys are going to show which is Rebecca's office and that had a southerly facing window huge window facing out onto a training pitch where the sun would just come in come out come in bouncing off a big green football pitch nearly driving me insane so yeah no I wish i was in l.A or at least in a studio sometimes so the stuff that was in the stadium that had no windows was like a big relief i didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Nick Ruhrkraut : so that wasn't the stadium that you shot on later outside of the office because we're in that office quite a bit.

David Rom : We are so that was just a training pitch and the main stadium was Crystal Palace stadium it was a real composite bits shot all over the place the actual matches were shot sort of fake in a field green screen but the crowds and a lot of other bits and bobs were shot at Crystal Palace

Nick Ruhrkraut : very cool Ted Lasso is such an endearing show and as a viewer you end up rooting for Ted and the team and really a lot of the characters and i think you do a clever and masterful job of highlighting certain characters especially Hannah's character Rebecca and i really like to see how not only episode three but the season as a whole you start the show and end the show with shots medium close or close-up shots of Rebecca so can you talk about how you discussed maybe highlighting the characters or amplifying their personalities specifically with cinematography in the camera.

David Rom : I mean Hannah's character sort of grew as we got the scripts she was very controlled she was sort of in charge of what was going on and she wasn't in a position where Jason was which is a fish out of water lost and sort of slightly separated always initially framing was often not over the shoulder but gave him you know full frame and obviously reverses back on her in that sense so and giving her a position of power in him less so and i think from then on the that those sort of visual tropes as it went through changed and adapted to sort of storylines as they continued

Nick Ruhrkraut. : with your filmography where you've really dived into drama more so than comedy can you talk about maybe why they wanted you instead of someone who had worked on multiple sitcoms before or what you felt that you brought to the table for Ted Lasso

David Rom : well i think early chats with Jason and the team sort of very quickly realized that they wanted something cinematic references from films were used from Jason and he didn't really want things to look as the episodes and sketches that he'd made before so that's what guided probably my involvement which i was very pleased about and it's just nice to chop and change so doing something like this bringing those two worlds together was fantastic definitely

Nick Ruhrkraut : i totally agree do you have a certain shot or sequence that you're most proud of

David Rom : probably the changing room which is a very common location was one of the most fun and creative places to shoot the office that on looked onto the lockers gave great sort of visual potential for isolating Ted sort of and the team so i enjoyed shooting in there a lot

Nick Ruhrkraut : for a sport show there aren't that many action sequences on the soccer the football stadium. Did you enjoy those moments did you want to have more of those.

David Rom : No, in a sense I really liked that they weren't minimal because it was the story and everything around it you can really be weighed down by all those sports bits and they were very tricky to pull together technically. We started very much wanting to be on the pitch part of the visual language i wanted was to be more like I, Tonya (2017) where we were like on the ice with the players so we were their camera sort of running around with them as soon as we went on to one of the actual real pictures we were told if we'd come within three feet of the actual grass would be thrown out so that was an argument we couldn't get on the grass so we had to sort of fake a lot because we just didn't want to shoot everything on a 3000 lens from the sides that would have looked like they shoot it on tv and sometimes that was appropriate for point of views from the sideline but really when you're telling the story of the players from Roy or Jamie we wanted to be there on the pitch with them so we used a sort of beach buggy in the end which had big soft wheels and we used a ronin stabilized camera it was remote and the grip just pushing that thing up and down the pitch grabbing bits of action

Nick Ruhrkraut : well that is all the time we have David thank you so much for being here it was great talking to you today

David Rom : thank you

Next, costume designer Jacky Levy in conversation with the Chicago Sun times Richard Roeper.

Richard Roeper : I’m Richard Roeper film critic for the Chicago Sun Times we're here today to talk with Jacky Levy the costume designer for Ted Lasso Jackie's from London she received her bachelor's in fashion design from Harrell college of arts she's worked in both film and television on a wide range of productions including the girl in a café prime evil years and years and now Ted Lasso. Jackie it's such a pleasure to have you welcome

Jacky Levy : nice to speak to you

Richard Roeper : I’m always fascinated by costume design and you know with all great respect for period pieces i always feel the costume designer in some ways at least you've got this you know you know what the fashions were in 18th century France for example and you might do a stylized version of it but you have something to work for i feel and you could correct me if I’m wrong you're the expert that it's almost more of a challenge doing contemporary costumes because you have to work with what's out there now but still make it unique can you talk a little bit about the process of doing costume designs for a show set in contemporary times.

Jacky Levy : well yes, you are right in a way that it you know contemporary programs are as much of a challenge as period shows different challenges because you know everyone's familiar with fashion everyone has a view everyone has an opinion so you know it's sometimes it's a challenge to please everybody on your production that you have to please and well you know i mean the first thing of course is reading the script and then researching all the characters i suppose the fun part is forming costumes to suit that character and that you know sometimes it's not just going shops and buying it can be sourcing from all sorts of places you know from charity shops vintage shops high fashion shops and putting them together you know in an interesting way quite often we have to break costumes down as well you know if it's a character that is financially challenged shall we say and you know you have to make the clothes look like they've been worn a lot and old you know we do lots of treatments on costumes and that might sound quite easy so you go and buy old clothes but sometimes you need sort of duplicates of costumes so you can't actually buy old things so you buy new and you make them look old by all sort of processes so it is a very creative process even working on a contemporary show

Richard Roeper : and with Ted Lasso of course this is a football club that exists in the real world but as a fictional team so let's take a look at a clip here that's going to show kind of highlight the coaches outfits as well as the player's uniform

Jacky Levy : yes, exactly yes

Richard Roeper : i love that clip because we get to see not only the players uniforms but a little bit about their wardrobes that each player has because you also have to reflect the personalities of the players with their off-field wardrobe but you can you talk at first a little bit about the uniforms themselves and how you came up with that

Jacky Levy : i mean that's a love that's a great clip you've chosen there because it really does show the kit off very well so the footballers have three the team has three completely different kits that kit that we saw there it was their what we call the home kit so that's the kit that they wear for big matches when they're playing at home and it's quite a process to get that made well it has the Richmond badge on the breast which is actually embroidered on. Then we have two fictitious sponsors so the Dubai Air was printed on and then there's the sort of white feathery sponsor which is an another process to put on so the kit actually and then of course we have to get the names and their numbers printed on the back so it's quite a process to get a whole kit made then they also have a training kit that they obviously wear for practice and they have an awake it as well which is orange so that all has to be embroidered and printed and they all have doubles of every sure item so that is a lot of kit

Richard Roeper : but they're terrific i mean it looks like something you'd see someone on the team in the premier league wearing or that fans would go out and buy i mean there's a real authenticity to them

Jacky Levy : well we tried to we try to make it as authentic as possible because i mean football fans are very, you know, particular and obviously very knowledgeable about their own team's kit so we tried to get it right

Richard Roeper : well you did you did absolutely and I want to also talk about of course the wonderful character of Rebecca and your wardrobe choices for her let's take a look at Rebecca here in action in her office…. so great Jackie the character of Rebecca gives you such a wonderful opportunity and you know these colorful outfits and i feel like at the beginning of the series when she has just kind of inherited this team you know in the divorce she's in dresses as if she had just stepped out from a charity ball or something like that and then we see that wonderful outfit there more of a power suit as if she's really growing into her character as a real executive is that a conscious choice you made in the costuming

Jacky Levy : yes we wanted to make her look you know confident and powerful and chic you know and sophisticated she's getting herself together after you know her divorce so you know very professional in her role and Hannah who plays Rebecca just looks gorgeous in those sort of pastel colors i particularly love that outfit on her those to the color of that jacket matched with the top she has underneath just look lovely on her yeah totally in command

Richard Roeper : just absolutely beautiful work Jacky. i really appreciate this time with you it was great talking with you i want to thank everybody at apple tv plus as well and we're looking forward to seeing the looks for season two of Ted Lasso

Jacky Levy : yes very exciting thank you so much

Next, Ted Lasso's editors Melissa McCoy and A.J. Catoline and moderator Nick Ruhrkraut.

Nick Ruhrkraut : I’m here today with Melissa McCoy and A.J. Catoline the editors of Ted Lasso. thank you so much for joining us today

Melissa McCoy : thank you

A.J. Catoline : great to be here thank you

Nick Ruhrkraut : so as we get started i'll go over a little bio of both of you i know you've worked on multiple projects before Melissa you've worked on Life sentence for the CW and Whiskey cavalier on ABC and A.J you've worked on speechless on ABC brockmire for IFC and Black Jesus for adult swim. These are mostly comedy shows and I recently spoke with David DP on how the creators wanted the show to feel cinematic so can you talk about how this show was different in terms of previous works and how you wanted to present the show

A.J. Catoline : sure you know i mean just watching the trailer it looks like it's a comedy and it looks like it's a show about sports but you know i think on a first season show you don't understand what it's really going to be about until you start seeing the dailies came in and coming in and i think very quickly I realized that this is more than just a comedy and it's certainly much more than a sports show you know it's very intentional character of Ted Lasso you know he comes off as a barbecue loving country bumpkin but he's a lot deeper than that and he has a message to him and so you know i think we appreciated that that there's something very special there and to give him you know that space you know comedy needs to be paced but to give it the space to breathe and let some of those quirky Lassoisms come through in those awkward pauses so it was really a pleasure to edit

Melissa McCoy :: yeah i agree I am when the daily started coming in on the pilot i remember when A.J came in talking to him and saying you know this feels a little bit more like I’ve done a few independent movies in the past and it just had that you know we had some handheld footage and the performances were so real and i was thinking like yeah this just feels it feels cinematic it feels like a little movie that we're putting together and there's comedic moments but then there's also these really beautiful dramatic moments and the actors were just so oh my gosh they were just so amazing and the work they were doing there was just such little nuances that we could sprinkle throughout the whole season just like special looks they would give and we could build relationships in really meaningful ways that felt more than just a silly comedy and that was very surprising i mean it was surprising but not because when i read this when i read the pilot script and we got to the end with that phone conversation with his wife and i was like wow this is going to be more dramatic and have some more heartfelt moments than and surprise me pleasantly surprised me

Nick Ruhrkraut : I’m not sure I’ve cried and laughed so much during the show that I’ve watched recently and i think that especially speaks to the editing here because to transition between comedic and dramatic moments very fluidly seems like it would be hard to pull off so i guess did you treat those moments differently and how did you make it seem so fluid throughout the entire series

A.J. Catoline : i think with this show we had the benefit of schedule on our side that you know no show was really finished until the very end so you know, was cutting you know the pilots for a while and but we would go back and work on earlier episodes having the benefit of working on later episodes so there was a real opportunity to see an arc throughout the series and Jason Sudeikis is a real you know storytelling master and so is Bill Lawrence and Jason was really intentional about what each episode he wanted to get across and we could deliver that more with the benefit of having your earlier episodes still open so yeah there's a real great pacing that he likes to work on and so does Bill so and they have a great way of you know speeding up the comedy when it needs to but landing on the moments that that you want to sit and feel heartfelt and you know give the audience an opportunity to feel and instead of just laughing and yes people are saying that that this is a lot of a lot of misty eyes in this comedy.

Melissa McCoy : i think when handling getting into the drama it was important to really we really worked on getting the tone of the comedy right and making it super true to the characters so there was a lot of times Jason was like a joke would be funny but he would say like i don't think, i think that might be a little too crafts for Ted Lasso or something we'd end up cutting it would be something that would get a laugh but he would have that courage to be like this isn't in ted's character and Bill was great about that too we were really trying to fine-tune everybody's character so then when we got to the very serious moments you could lean into that

Nick Ruhrkraut : it seems like a very collaborative show from different departments and then within the characters themselves so let's cue a clip of between Keely and Rebecca. This is one of the first times we get to see Keely and Rebecca really bonding and over the entire show their relationship strengthens especially in episode seven when it's them two and Rebecca's friend Sassy who joins them and they have this like parade while the team is in Liverpool Melissa can you speak about these relationships was this a clip from your episode specifically

Melissa McCoy : yeah this was from 103 and that was one of the great joys of this show was the female friendships i it was a surprise to me but yeah when the dailies came in on that scene and you see Rebecca played by Hannah just having like a little bit of delight at like Keeley this she you can see there's like a spark in there of like this girl's silly and i kind of like it and they bring out, they kind of bring out the inner truths with each other and that kind of goes through the season and in episode seven we meet Sassy which is Hannah's friend from way back when Rebecca's friend from way back when and you kind of she's got similar personality to Keeley so then with the three of them and that journey was really fun and then in nine she once you know you figure out Keely knows what Rebecca's been doing she holds her accountable and it just felt like very true to female friendships the way they would joke around with one another and it was just surprising all these different just dynamic relationships that formed with lots of different characters in the show so it was wonderful

Nick Ruhrkraut : and there's so many arcs between different characters on the show i don't think you see all the time where all the characters get to interact together even Nathan and Rebecca let's watch one more clip….As a last question i want to touch on the improv and how that affected your editing and working between the script and these moments that you weren't really ready for and how that impacted your editing

A.J. Catoline : well that clip we watch believe is an iconic moment of the show i think it's why the show resonated so much in because of what people are feeling and you know the optimism that message projects you know that i love how that was shot with a roving camera rig that moves around Jason that happens a lot with our directors in the series and i think it gives the show a documentary edge because that camera could move and the actors don't always know where it's going to be when and so they have to stay hot and it provides sort of an improv layer to the show which I know you know Jason being a master of you know SNL and just years of great comedy and him and Brendan hunt who plays coach beard met in an improv troupe so there's a lot of that feel throughout the show so yeah it's a scripted show but it provides a lot of excitement when you cut it because there's a lot of you know energy and improv in the comedy and that's just the beauty of working with someone like Jason Sudeikis

Nick Ruhrkraut : well I cannot wait for season two and season three but that is all the time we have today. thank you Melissa and A.J thank you so much for being here and joining us and a huge shout out to Apple TV+ for making this possible

And now production designer Paul Cripps.

Richard Roeper : I’m here to talk with Paul Cripps who is the production designer for one of my favorite new shows of the year it's called Ted Lasso. Paul of course has a great resume i want to tell you folks a little bit about him he started working for tv shows such as the brits and tf5 Friday then moved into scripted drama he's worked on the highly acclaimed series The missing and feature films such as tom Harper's the scouting book for boys .Paul has worked in all different sorts of genres various period piece projects he's traveled the globe he's worked in South Africa, he's worked in Belgium France and of course his home the UK. Paul it's so great to talk to you today welcome

Paul Cripps : Thank you for having me, it's great,

Richard Roeper : i'll tell you something you know Ted Lasso it's a you know it's just essentially your half-hour scripted comedy drama but to me it has the look and feel of a feature film we have all different sorts of sets we have different types of location shoots i want to talk to you about how you first got involved with the show and what your vision was for all these various sets and then we'll get into some of the individual set pieces themselves.

Paul Cripps : well i am i first got involved when I was approached by the initial producer Simon and Tina Pawlik who got me to interview with Jason and Bill Lawrence via a zoom call like this i initially got the pilot episode and I really responded to that because i felt the comedy was brilliant but also there felt like there was a real heart to the show and it had drama and it had really interesting characters and I’m always somebody who responds to the script and regardless of what world we're in whether it's a period world or contemporary or and this was a world that i knew vaguely from the outside. I’m a football fan and I’ve been to football matches but I’ve never seen behind the scenes of a working of a football club I’ve seen a few documentaries but the script really sang to me so my interest of finding out about the behind the scenes of a football club came from the script really and that's why i wanted to get involved because i just thought it was such a great script,

Richard Roeper : it's fascinating because you know with any i think any show or movie about sports it has to be for the hardcore fans who would be able to call out the inauthenticity if it's not there but then it has to be able to appeal to the larger you know audience and i think the show does a great job of doing that and I’ve always been fascinated by production design Paul because i think it's one of those things where it's kind of an invisible visibility to it you don't want to draw too much attention to the production design but it's something you notice if something's off sometimes the general viewer rather than something that's perfectly on. i think you do a brilliant job on the show i want to talk to you about some of the individual sets one of the first scenes we see of course is in Rebecca's office

Paul Cripps : she's inherited the club as part of a divorce deal from her husband and i think it's kind of a way of her showing her growth in terms of she's a woman in charge of a club and she's able now to kind of put her stamp on it so the interior was trying to kind of put more of her feel into the into the club and we chose a studio that was right next to a small very low league football team called Hayes and Yeading FC and it has a training well it it's actually their actual pitch, but their actual pitch became our training pitch and it had a stand and then at the top of the stand because they're limited on money and they're a growing small club they built this new stand but they didn't have anything in the stand yet they hadn't got around to finding the money to afford to build the interior so there were all these windows in this empty space and we just thought wow this is a great you know area that we could build an office that overlooks the training pitch so we could link the offices to the football so that was the starting point so we designed a set that actually fitted into the stand and went from there so there was right from the start there was a link between the owner and the pitch and we were trying to link the football .i mean as you say you know getting things right is essential for a production design of any kind and i think there's always going to be people who are absolute experts who live in that space all the time who are going to think well it's not it's not quite right but for me the thing about the script was I thought that the whole design ought to kind of be based in reality and that i wasn't trying to parry it parody a football club i was kind of trying to let the script do that but make everything feel kind of real so that the kind of fish out of water comedy happening it felt it felt real it felt like ted had come across and was kind of dropped in the area where you know things would things would seem a bit alien but I think they seem a little bit alien to all of us because we don't see that much behind the scenes

Richard Roeper : maybe you can talk a little bit about the locker room set because you have to have this kind of wide open space but then each individual locker kind of reflecting the personality of the players and that becomes a real key set throughout the series the locker room

Paul Cripps : i mean the locker room was interesting. i mean i had an idea of what they were like but i also i was quite lucky in that we got to research quite a few clubs we went to see quite a few of the London-based clubs so spurs sorry Tottenham hotspur Hulham QPR and we also went to Crystal Palace now we had a slight link with Crystal Palace and we believed that we were going to do our filming for our football at Crystal Palace's stadium Selhorst park now Crystal Palace play in red and blue so that was a bit of a lynx so i knew that if we were going to film in that stadium that all their seats are red and blue so it was kind of the idea was to link our kit and our décor in with Crystal Palace in order to make the whole thing feel a whole even though we were filming lots of different scenes in lots of separate areas or all locations so that was the reason we kind of ended up with the red and blue but it these kind of quite strong colors seem to kind of continue through different areas of the design which was quite a nice thing really i think the more kind of personal spaces are a bit more subtle so department and Rebecca's office were a bit more muted but when i went to look at the various clubs the premier league clubs they're very branded with the club and they have lots of slogans and graphics which quite surprised me actually because i think i would I’ve always thought that was a bit more american but they have taken that on board so that's why the locker room took on that kind of feel. It's also part of a composite set so what i tried to envisage was that the training center was built in the stand at the stadium and there are numerous rooms in there we have ted's office the locker room the press room the various corridors the trophy corridor. They're all linked in a real set and what i wanted to be able to do was to give the camera and the directors and the dops the opportunity to roam throughout the whole thing you know they could count between sets it was a bit like the kind of idea of the West Wing that a lot of these things would take place in conversations where people would be walking down corridors so it was to give flexibility like that i mean i think i scared the dops a little bit because there weren't that many windows so we tried to make a feature of the overhead lighting this you know this kind of office type lighting but yes i mean it's an office based kind of comedy but i wanted to just make it feel not only real but a bit more exciting than a than a general office

Richard Roeper : yeah that opens it up to have that continuity when I’m sure the actors appreciate that too as they're moving about i want to jump ahead and talk a little bit you mentioned ted's apartment and it does have a much more you know it's a homier look you've got earth tones and i found it interesting too because you know there's certain elements like for example you know the kitchen table the chairs are more formal than you'd see in an american kitchen so it's sort of like he's that fish out of water but it looks like he's trying to make it similar to his home because of course he misses his wife he misses his son, he misses his home so that did you have that kind of in mind to make this feel like this is his piece of home

Paul Cripps : i mean i was kind of led on the set because we initially shot we were initially going to shoot the pilot in real locations so the first episode is actually a real apartment and then i reproduced it on the stage and we were going to do the same thing with the pub funnily enough but we never actually shot in the pub so we only ever shot the exterior of the pub so the actual pub is my set the interior but a lot of people think it's the actual pub because it's a kind of recreation of the real pub in Richmond his apartment was it was supposed to feel kind of comfortable but also slightly kind of you know it's one of those apartments you might get put in if you go to work abroad it's a service department so it also you know it's not too it they're never decorated in a kind of contentious way so that was another reason for that feel really

Richard Roeper : before we let you go Paul i know um we've got a season two can you give us any hints about are there gonna be any new sets that in addition to the ones that have already kind of taken on this quick iconic feel for people

Paul Cripps : well I’m currently in the build period so I’m rebuilding all the previous sets there are a couple of new sets there's a couple of new sets at the football club and some other things so yeah there'll be some new spaces for people to see and for the characters to inhabit so that's quite exciting but i can't tell you too much obviously but it's really it's shaping up to be really good i think and it definitely moves the story on

Richard Roeper : awesome that's fantastic well congratulations Paul i look forward to enjoying more of your work in the future it's all with time we have i want to thank everybody at apple tv plus for making this happen and here's to season two of Ted Lasso.

And now Ted Lasso's award-winning supervising sound editor Brent Findley, MPSE in conversation with moderator Karol Urban Cas / MPSE

Karol Urban : I’m Carol Urban CAS / MPSEc I’m a recording mixer myself so i can't wait to deconstruct the sound of this wonderful heartwarming sitcom with our guest Brent Finley brent is the supervising sound editor for Ted Lasso Brent thanks for joining us today how are you

Brent Findley : I’m doing great thanks for having me

Karol Urban : excellent I’m just going to tell everyone a little bit about you because well that's impressive you're an award-winning supervising sound editor and sound designer you have five MPSC golden reel nominations for sound editing projects such as NBC’s the good place and the grammy-winning docu-series The defiant ones as well as one golden wheel award for the liberator and currently you're working on Ted Lasso of course which just got renewed for a third season congratulations

Brent Findley : thank you, fantastic

Karol Urban : and he's also working on peacock's Rutherford falls amazon's teen drama panic and Netflix atypical you're kind of a busy man. How are you how are you holding it all together right now

Brent Findley : i have a killer teams that help us keep the wheels on

Karol Urban : i love it, this show was so clean and balanced sounding the dialogue was really fantastic in fact in many ways it had like a almost like a drama treatment to the dialogue but with perfect comic timing which I love because it gave you those details so i got to say i teared up during a couple portions but i laughed a ton as well it was greatdo you know your production mixer have you ever worked with him before

Brent Findley : i have not i think we've had throughout the different episodes in the different a and b units i think there were three different production sound mixers but our main production sound mixer is based in the UK and i haven't worked with them directly in the past so it was this was a it was great to get material from across the pond and to see that i mean we have professionals around the world so it was it was great

Karol Urban : i love it and what did you get was it. Did you have one boom coverage typically or there's a lot of outdoor coverage and it sounds fantastic what did you typically get typically

Brent Findley : outside the booms were great for atmosphere and in the sounds of shouting at a distance on the on the pitch and then much of the game play and even the practice on the field is occurring behind the story so when we're in in a close group out on the field we had a boom to work with but also i was really impressed with the quality of the little lavalier technique that they used so even when they're out and running around a lot of the labs were very usable so I was really impressed with that raw material we had to work with

Karol Urban : fantastic yeah i know from experience the nylon jackets of the sports clothing is not always conducive to the best recordings that's great I’m glad to hear they were able to get clean lobs that's wonderful and i know actually that you did the pilot is this correct with under regular conditions and then it everything went awry crazy town for the pandemic for the rest of the nine episodes is that correct

Brent Findley : actually the first two we were able to finish in our good old days ways of doing things wow i think yeah i think we brought the second episode home after the fact but we had the bulk of the heavy lifting done pre-covid so it was fortunate we had time with Jason on the stage and working with the actors directly in ADR and one-on-one in in spotting sessions to get that that language together between us it was the first time i'd worked with Jason, also so very creative guy and so fortunately we were able to get that under our belt so then from then on going remote we already had a bit of a communication built and a lexicon between us that allowed us to then apply that going forward

Karol Urban : you believed it's very Ted Lasso of you i love it

Brent Findley : well i mean no kidding because that was kind of the discussion once this started happening it was a discussion between the producers and myself and talking to everybody involved the recording mixers and editors saying you know is everyone on board for just trying this let's see if we can do it you know and with understanding that if we can't we'll just sit on it until we can but let's try it and everybody went for it and swung for the fence and i think I’m really proud of everybody's adaptability to innovation and then I think the number one ingredient that everybody had to have over this past summer was infinite patience

Karol Urban : yes, absolutely

Brent Findley : none of this is figured out

Karol Urban : 100 and i feel like it's constantly evolving it's insane oh let's take a look at some of your the evidence of your success . ..That was fantastic what's amazing about that is it sounds like the story is just there it's transparent the sound is lovely so now I’m going to ask you about all the hidden skeletons in the audio closet here so Nathan ADR production

Brent Findley : it's a mashup. The natural reflection of his voice at a distance was beautiful and we just i just loved retaining that natural feel that that we captured on the day but we needed to alter his script a little bit as he's running, so in the middle of his run we go from location sound to ADR .

Karol Urban : Lovely.

Brent Findley : it was fantastic

Karol Urban : i think you recorded it remotely too

Brent Findley : was it in his walk-in closet in in London

Karol Urban : i actually hear

Brent Findley : oh I’m sorry, wait I need to back up this is up this is episode one episode one was done traditionally in you know properly treated ADR stage.

Karol Urban : I’ve heard though that you have an affinity for closets though I’ve heard that you're a messy closet lover the messier

Brent Findley : the better sounding I’m telling you every actor was in their own messy walk-in closet

Karol Urban : I heard that you did tours of everybody's homes as you were sending out i heard something like 40 40 plus talents over the course of the season you were touring their homes to find

Brent Findley : yeah it was in for investigative purposes you know not you know yeah maybe we could do a reality show about that but

Karol Urban : i love it i love it yeah

Brent Findley : it was more about having them walk around finding the best sounding room in their house and just invariably we kept landing on walk-in closets you know and just stuffing all the all the shelves with blankets and pillows and taking up you know you can hear I hadn't sent me samples of recordings you can hear the little reflections here and there and just where the patients come in is not getting connected 15 minutes before the session but let's let's connect a week or earlier figure this out and so we're ready to go when it's for real and so it was just a matter of everyone being willing to see what it takes to make it happen i was really happy with everyone's flexibility

Karol Urban : i heard about an ADR session that you did with Christo Fernandez in his closet running on a treadmill could you tell us that story and

Brent Findley : this is an example of willing to try things we did we did that with him a couple of a couple different sessions where we got him recorded this is when Roy is in the ice bath brooding over his horrible performance in the game and they lost the game because he had it has he scored on their own team he had their own goal which is horribly embarrassing for him and Christo comes in or Danny comes in with this positivity that just annoys Roy to no end and so we tried a few different things for him he's singing in the background running on the treadmill and the song that he's saying on the day they decided that they wanted to go in a different direction so what do we what do, so we tried a few different things and landed on having him sing the theme song to the show

Karol Urban : you could pick up on it but it wasn't in any way distracting nobody was throwing something at you to catch you know it was there

Brent Findley : yes exactly and that was a lot and Jason gave us a lot of direction with that of when to get out of the way of the story like the in the locker room the team is loud and active and they're going on but as the story gets important and start to get you get started to get the feels the locker room just falls away and when to have an outburst of laughter and when not to you know to edit that into a way that didn't distract or take away from the story yet still let everybody know there's a locker room back there

Karol Urban : it's lovely well i hate to say it but that's all the time we have for today it's such a pleasure i wish we could all visit like more closely and not just have to do little zoo meetings but thank you so much Brent thank you and i wanted to give a huge thanks to our team at Apple TV+ this is such a lovely show. congratulations and thank you so much awesome

Brent Findley : thanks carol appreciate it.

Now Ted Lasso's re-recording mixer Ryan Kennedy and Karol Urban.

Karol Urban : I’m super excited to be here today to talk some shop with fellow re-recording mixer Ryan Kennedy. Brian is an Emmy nominated re-recording mixer he's based out of Warner Brothers studios he's mixed such shows such as all that Murphy brown, The ranch which garnered him an Emmy nomination for outstanding sound mixing in 2020 and he also mixed high school musical the musical the series and of course the new apple tv plus show Ted Lasso which we're very excited to discuss today Ryan thank you for joining us.

Ryan Kennedy : oh thank you for having me carol

Karol Urban : excellent so. you mix this with is it Sean Byrne

Ryan Kennedy : that's correct yes Sean is my mixing partner and we do a handful of single cam shows together this was by far one of our favorites to work on

Karol Urban : it's beautiful it's got a it's got kind of a drama sound to it actually it's got a little bit more dimension i think than to the typical sitcom kind of the sonic sound or color of the typical sitcom it's got a very drama comedy it's a dramedy i love it

Ryan Kennedy : a lot of care was put into the dynamics and sound of the show we spent a lot of time trying to craft what each scene would sound like and really try to feel out what the vision that Jason had with what he wanted with the show now

Karol Urban : you worked on the first couple episodes in normal working conditions and then things got a little screwy with the pandemic

Ryan Kennedy : yeah it got pretty wild wow

Karol Urban : and so how did this change the way that you worked with Sean and how your schedule how were your days

Ryan Kennedy : well we would alternate mixing scenes with one of us being in the room and the other one not being in the room and you know like swapping back and forth like that and the way that we collaborated was a little different than how we normally would collaborate in non-covid times of course but what also happened is that we were able to really dive into the craft of what we wanted the show to feel like emotionally with sound and it was really a great opportunity the silver lining to all this was that it was a great opportunity for us because our schedules completely cleared and we were able to just focus on Ted Lasso with our work for a good amount of time

Karol Urban : excellent lucky apple

Ryan Kennedy : it was a perfect storm for him so yeah it was good

Karol Urban : and the show it was mixed in atoms and it's around

Ryan Kennedy : absolutely yeah and we were really able to because atmos new technology and having all the time that we were able to spend with the show we were really able to dive into building the environment around us and you know really putting together all of that especially when you get into the games the crowds like when you're down on the field the crowd is up around you when you're up in the stadium the crowd is around you when you're in the bar it's coming to the tv all these things it really took time to craft and build and it really came together very nicely

Karol Urban : excellent so this is the part where I’m going to ask you a bunch of trade secrets because i want to know how you did it because it sounded so good so it had a very consistent balanced quality throughout while being outside most of the time with pretty dynamic environments busy bars, you know massive sports arenas huge games lots of extras in many cases even the office had a lot of energy in it as people moved around and a little bit of slapstick by mr Lasso so I’m wondering how love heavy or boom heavy was your mix like how much were you going back and forth how much were you able to lean on one boom or love.

Ryan Kennedy : i really specifically wanted booms all the time except for when the quality was just not usable even then it was you know with what we're able to do with the rx series of plugins i don't know if you're familiar with them but they're yeah they really save you and that it can really restore things that were once unusable are now usable so i went i leaned on booms when I wasn't able to clean up a boom i went to a lav and then what we weren't able to do with a lav of course was replaced with an ADR but yeah so it i i like the live sound of a boom i like the room the way it all feels it comes

Karol Urban : it sounds yeah

Ryan Kennedy : it just sounds real it does it sounds real

Karol Urban : and but what's amazing though is it can pick up such especially outside it can pick up such air and atmospheric sound that sometimes that beautiful decay that you get can be marred by shush you know and just in broadband noise it was really lovely i didn't ever found i never found myself pulled out and i know the complexity of a lot of those environments and scenes it's pretty amazing so actually let's take a look at one of those complex scenes a busy space an intimate conversation shall we say let's take a look at a clip from Ted Lasso. So it's effective we experience it I feel it I’m in the story unveil it for me what do you got going on here

Ryan Kennedy : so really the dialogue was really pretty clean i mean all the wall you hear all the background little murmur the music the clanging of dishes all of that was provided and we added and reverbed and made it sound like it was really that restaurant like i believe that I’m there when i hear that like it sounds like a place i can almost smell the aromas of the food with the sound that we've created for that

Karol Urban : i was really proud of it your treatment of group throughout the series was pretty fantastic i love how you don't just use volume to pull away for those dramatic and kind of emotional moments i noticed that you have a tendency to blur as well as pull back and it provides kind of like in this situation where you feel the people but they don't pull you out like you're not hearing one word or another word or a conversation or you know past the salt or you're it's feeling very full and it's awesome it's really a great use great use i know from being a dialogue mixer i know you had to deal with sports attire on lavalier microphones I know you did there's no way that you dodged it and one of the things that i really struggle with and I’m sure we all do is getting that brilliance to the dialogue where it ever so subtly floats above the background foley and sound effects and music while being incorporated but it floats enough so that there's clarity this series does that exceptionally well and i know you had nylon pants and people running and those scratchy jackets and high collars and so tell me about how you deal with cloth on some of those materials yeah

Ryan Kennedy : well in those a lot of those situations like compression is your worst enemy so i really try i mean I’m a very light compressor person anyway i mean 3db to me is a lot when it comes to compression but I really tend to avoid anything that's going to bring up any of that noise and i really focus on trying to just grab the dialogue where grab the eq where the dialogue sits and just really try to emphasize that and notch what i can out of the you know dialogue frequencies and um just kind of throw caution to the wind and throw the fader up and hope for the best sometimes it's just you know sometimes louder better

Karol Urban : you know well it never sounds dark because often times i know that some people can treat it by kind of ducking or shelfing off but

Ryan Kennedy : i hate i I’ve always hated how some noise reduction in order to get that stuff out it makes the dialogue super dark and a little muddy

Karol Urban : it wasn't muddy at all it was quite lovely

Ryan Kennedy : yeah the silver lining of code is we were able to really dive in and kind of you know in a sense pre-dub like a feature a lot of this dialogue that we had trouble with and it really came out really well i was really happy with it

Karol Urban : the other thing that i wanted to comment on is i noticed that there were these lovely little easter eggs here and there of little comments from either principal characters and or other players a kind of little radio plays i wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you decide to treat some of that kind of commentary hidden radio play comic relief that occurs in a in a sitcom without being too on the nose

Ryan Kennedy : yeah so it's all about it's about balance really is what it falls into is you know i will on a lot of those things i'll take five six passes at it until it makes me laugh or it makes me like oh you know that's it that's the sweet spot it's all about just as i roll by just organically feeling it and ducking a fader and popping up a fader and it's all just a matter of just a little push of this and a little pull of that and you know it may not be right the first time but i'll roll back through i'll listen to it and then

Karol Urban : it's already amazing the tiny little details that can sell something whether it's just the right crunch of grass or an eight you know a piece of ADR can sound completely conspicuous and then you put a piece of production breath in the front of it and then all of a sudden you're like where did it go it's pretty it's pretty amazing i love that about audio i love that unpredictable magic of it. i think it's fantastic and congratulations on the pickup of another season you

Ryan Kennedy : can't wait it's super exciting

Karol Urban : i can't wait either it's really great well i want to thank you that is all the time that we have for today and i want to give a huge thanks to our team at Apple TV+ . Ryan it's been so great talking to you.

Bill Lawrence : thanks for watching it's fun for me to get to see all these folks i was lucky enough to work with you know at least virtually see them and we're so grateful that anybody gives any of their time to watch anything much less a show that we all worked on please know that we consider ourselves lucky to do this grateful that you checked it out and that we all needed some of this Ted Lasso positivity in our own lives as well so thanks for watching and hopefully get to see you all soon face to face.

Synopsis :
Ted Lasso is back! The soccer coach who has no experience as a soccer player is hired by an English soccer club to lead the team members to victory.

Ted Lasso
Based on Format and characters from NBC Sports
Developed by Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly
Starring Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Nick Mohammed, Juno Temple
Music by Marcus Mumford, Tom Howe
Cinematographer : David Rom
Production Designer : Paul Cripps
Costume Designer : Jacky Levy
Editors : Melissa McCoy & A.J. Catoline
Supervising Sound Editor ; Brent Findley,
Re-Recording Mixer : Ryan Kennedy
Executive producers : Jeff Ingold, Liza Katzer, Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis
Production companies : Ruby's Tuna Inc, Doozer, Universal Television, Warner Bros. Television Studios
Distributor : Warner Bros. Television Distribution, NBCUniversal Television Distribution, Apple Inc.
Original network : Apple TV+
Original release August 14, 2020 – present
Running time 29–33 minutes