Doctors Without Borders
Post production and audio mix for a documentary interview about fieldwork in some of the world's most dangerous conditions, where what you hear matters as much as what you see.
- Client
- Doctors Without Borders
- Sector
- NGO
- What we did
- Post production, audio mix and dialogue editing
- What it achieved
- A documentary with field testimony, dialogue and atmosphere mixed for emotional honesty, finished to broadcast standard
An interview that needed to feel completely real
Karel Hendriks talks openly about his work with Doctors Without Borders in really dangerous places. What it costs, why he does it. If we'd polished the audio too much, we'd have taken away the thing that makes the interview hit. So the mix had to be clean, but it couldn't feel produced.
Transparency over polish
Documentary post production is mostly about knowing when to stop. We cleaned up the dialogue but left the grain in his voice. The room sound stayed, just pulled back far enough that it didn't compete with him. Then we mixed it to broadcast standard. You shouldn't be able to hear any of that work. You should just hear him.
Post production in service of the story
Dialogue editing
Light-handed editing. Karel's pauses and rhythm stayed where they were; only the distractions went.
Audio mix
His voice up front, the atmosphere behind it, and just enough space that you feel like you're in the room with him.
Post production
Full audio post from rough cut to broadcast delivery, ready for national and international distribution.
How do you post-produce a documentary interview for a humanitarian NGO?
With restraint. For Doctors Without Borders we cleaned up Karel Hendriks' dialogue without scrubbing out its texture, kept the ambient sound in support of his voice rather than fighting it, and mixed the piece to broadcast standard for national and international distribution. If the audio does its job, viewers remember what was said, not how the room sounded.
More on this: sonic branding for NGOs and charities.
What we left in
If nobody notices the post production in a documentary, it worked. We kept the conversation as it was and took out whatever got in its way.