Talented student works on sound for Netflix's hit series Adolescence and Take That gig

BA Creative Music Technology student Jacob Lahera was part of the team at Manchester's 80 Hertz Studios that recorded post-production sound for the show.

Jacob's role was to work with and support members of the cast who came into the studio to re-record audio for their character's lines. The process is known in the industry as Automatic Dialogue Replacement (or ADR) and is a core part of a show's post-production process.

The team worked with many of the core cast members including breakout star Owen Cooper who played the lead character of Jamie in the show and Ashley Walters who stars as Luke Bascombe, the detective who arrests and questions Jamie for the murder of his female classmate.

Adolescence has become a global hit for the streamer and last month, became the first programme on a streaming platform to top the weekly audience charts in the UK. It also had the biggest audience for any streaming TV show in the UK in a single week and is now free to be screened in secondary schools.

Jacob said: "It was really interesting to be a part of the process and see how they pull the audio together in post-production. I’d been working as an Audio Assistant Engineer at the studios and jumped at the opportunity to get involved when I found that the director was Phillip Barantini, because he is known for doing one-shot projects.

"I was only meant to be doing one day but I enjoyed it so much that I made time to be in the studio more when they were recording. I got the opportunity to speak to Phil and the team and he revealed that their shooting method is to do a large number of takes of the same episode and then they would then vote on which one is best, taking everyone’s views into consideration. By shooting a full episode in one take, it create more of a ‘real-world’ experience for the audience and draws them in as if they were there as the lack of cuts gives the show a similar visual to how you would experience a real life moment. It’s slightly more raw than a programme that is cut and edited but the rawness plays well with the overall aesthetic of the series.

“Also by shooting everything in one take, everyone has to be on their A-game and deliver their best work each time.

“At the time, I had a feeling that the team knew the show was going to be a big hit. Whilst I didn’t have a massive role behind the scenes, everyone had their role to play and I'm happy to have been a part of it."

Jacob's work with 80 Hertz Studios has also seen him work on a number of significant other projects, notably when he conducted a spatial audio recording of Take That's performances at Co-op Live in June 2024.

He added: "The Take That opportunity was a bit chaotic as we got about a day's notice to set everything up and we needed 82 channels of audio for it as well as installing a 3D microphone in the middle of the arena."

Through 80 Hertz, Jake has also worked with the rock band Idles as an assistant engineer and engineered recordings of BBC Sounds podcasts Bad People and I Had Trials Once.

In the last few months, he took his skillset to the set of the short film Out of Service, helmed by BAFTA Award-winning screenwriter Anita Pandolfo. Jake worked as a boom operator on the set and also recorded a track with musician and actor Jon Henshaw in the New Adelphi recording studios that made it into the final cut for the production. The film, which was also shot in our MediaCity campus, had a private screening earlier this month.  

With graduation approaching in the months ahead, Jake has also secured work at the Royal Northern College of Music as a live sound assistant for their orchestra events and is pursuing a MA in Music at Salford whilst continuing to build up his experience working in recording studios.