Ken Saville

Ken Saville has been recording sound for the New Zealand screen industry for almost five decades. His impressively long filmography includes notable titles such as Vigil, Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale, The Lord of the Rings, Perfect Strangers, and Forgotten Silver.  He has won awards for his work on movies Boy and Predicament, and was part of the BAFTA-nominated sound team on District 9.

Born and raised in Waimate in South Canterbury, Saville got curious about what goes on behind the scenes in television during his final year at high school. He was picked up by the NZ Broadcasting Corporation in Dunedin, and began training as a broadcasting technician. A year of his training was spent in radio, during which time he found a particular interest in the sound equipment. In 1973 demand was high for technicians in many areas, with preparations for the arrival of both colour television and the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games; Saville soon found himself accompanying camera crews all around Dunedin — news, current affairs, and documentaries. It was the marriage of image and sound that he fell in love with.

In 1978 he moved to Wellington. In 1980, the TV2 newsroom closed, after TVNZ was formed and the news teams for the two channels were merged. No fan of the pecking order, he decided to leave and become a freelance sound recordist. One of only a few doing this role in Wellington, he found success in commercials work, "and within three months, walked straight into a feature film. And that was that; onward and upward".

Saville went freelance at an especially busy time for the Kiwi film industry. "Everyone was trying to make a film, and this was all pre Lord of the Rings — it was all independent." Aside from movies, he often worked on commercials and TV dramas, including Loose Enz (1982) and Worzel Gummidge Down Under (1987-89).

Saville describes sound recording as being a problem solver: working with people from all departments to get the best image and sound. If clothes crinkled against a radio microphone, or a light cast the shadow of a boom mike onto the set, many people had to work together to solve problems without causing any new ones. Then smaller digital tapes (DATs) entered the field. “There was one show I did, they took the DATs to America, and they lost them. It would’ve been a small pack of maybe 15 to 20 DATs… and it was found under the seat of the taxi.” Needless to say, there were pros and cons to each generation of recording equipment. Saville reflects on the lessons he has passed on as a sound recordist: "don’t go into this job and think 'that’ll be easy'," he says. "Something will happen. Every job’s different."

Sometimes recording sound at the same time as images can be remarkably difficult. Saville recalls his time on the set of The Lord of the Rings: "The studios were not soundproof initially; they were warehouses, usually in Miramar. So you had aircraft. Seagulls on the roof. Rain on the roof. And just lots of general noise in the studio. Peter [Jackson] wasn't too worried about it. There was a decision made right from the start, 'we will probably ADR [Automated Dialogue Replacement; re-recording dialogue afterwards in a studio] everything in this film'. There was one occasion where we had Saruman standing at a window at the top of a tower — albeit on the studio floor —and expounding out to the crowd below. I thought, 'we might get something here'. And then I realised, they're wheeling in effects fans to blow up at the window, so his hair moves...because there's no glass in Middle Earth. All you could hear was the fan going."

Saville’s sound work featured in many of Peter Jackson’s films, including his first feature Bad Taste (1987) and 2005 epic King Kong. Bad Taste was mostly shot with Jackson’s friends, and there was barely any audio. Saville worked on creating the movie's many sound effects — "splatters, guns, cars". Saville also recalls Jackson and Costa Botes' "dead serious” handling of infamous mockumentary Forgotten Silver (1995): "I was shown the script at one point and I thought 'wow, fantastic — I never knew this happened.'" 

For a short period in the 1980s, he made a home in the recording studio, creating sound effects after filming had been completed. For The Silent One (1984), which was shot in the Cook Islands, he contributed to the difficult task of creating underwater sound effects. "There was this thing you could get called a hydrophone, which was basically an underwater microphone…we didn’t have one of those, so I just made it up." Thanks to a bit of DIY ingenuity, Saville recorded underwater with a microphone inside a metal pole, sealed with a balloon.

He was in post-production again on Vincent Ward’s Vigil (1984), the first New Zealand film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival. "We did every muddy gumboot slosh, every baa of every lamb, and every waft of silk in the wind; and if you watch the film, listen to it, there's a lot of sound going on, really subtle stuff." He joined John McKay to create the sounds of animated feature Footrot Flats: The Dog’s Tale (1986), because "he said I was good with vehicles — mostly because I’m a car enthusiast".

Director Gaylene Preston has been a frequent figure throughout Saville’s career, particularly in documentaries. The two worked together on Mr Wrong (1985), Perfect Strangers (2003), Hope and Wire (2014), and My Year with Helen (2017), to name only a few. "I love working with Gaylene," Saville says. "There's no room for the 'oh no, we can't do that' attitude. You have to go with the flow. It was a lot of fun."

Being a sound recordist can lead to interesting destinations. Saville spent 10 weeks hopping around Polynesia for documentary series Tagata Tangata (1993), and returned to the Pacific Islands throughout his career. He laughs about staying awake for nearly 24 hours in the Australian outback, capturing the chaos of Opera in the Outback. In 2008 he got a phone call "out of the blue" for a last minute job, and within two weeks was in Johannesburg recording for sci-fi hit District 9. His travels have also included China (Jack Body documentary Big Nose and Body Music) and the Sudan (One Day for Africa - Operation Hope).

After so many titles, both here and abroad, Saville now dedicates himself to restoring classic cars. "Unless Gaylene came up with something really casual and relaxed," he adds. "But you don’t want to work too hard."

Profile written by Nina Johnston; published on 23 December 2022

Sources include
Ken Saville
Helen Martin and Sam Edwards, New Zealand Film 1912 - 1996 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997)
'Ken Saville' Internet Move Database website. Accessed 23 December 2022