The Sound for Steve McQueen's Small Axe - Mix Sessions
Creator and director Steve McQueen’s five-film series Small Axe, detailing the lives of London’s West Indian immigrants from the 1960s to 1980s, has had three “episodes” debut at the New York Film Festival and two more selected for the official competition at Cannes 2020. It premiered on the BBC, then Amazon Prime in November 2020 with a gritty, real, street-centered sound design central to the cinematic experience and equally riveting on the small screen.
Jennifer Walden - Journalist
Ed Bailie - Music Supervisor
James Harrison - Re-recording Mixer & Sound Effects Editor
Mix Sessions: Emmy® Awards Season is a virtual event honoring the year’s best creative talent in television sound—Editing, Mixing and Music. While the global pandemic has affected media distribution, schedules and attendance, it has not affected the quality of the sound work, and that work deserves to be recognized.
MOVIE STUDIO
Amazon Studios
DIRECTOR
Steve McQueen
ORIGINAL MUSIC
Mica Levi
Synopsis
Small Axe is a British anthology film series, created and directed by Steve McQueen. The anthology consists of five films that tell distinct stories about the lives of West Indian immigrants in London from the 1960s to the 1980s. Two episodes of the series were selected in the official competition of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival. The series premiered on 15 November 2020 on BBC One in the United Kingdom and on 20 November 2020 on Amazon Prime Video in the United States. The title references a proverb – "Small axe fall big tree" or "If you are the big tree, we are the small axe" – that was popularised by Bob Marley in his 1973 song "Small Axe".