Airline safety films can be pretty drab affairs. Agreed?

Well, think again, because the fantastic minds at Leo Burnett have created a mindblowing cinematic marvel that we had the pleasure of providing sound design, VO recording and final mix for. So put your phones on flight mode, fold up your tray tables and prepare to be briefed.

Working closely with multi award-winning creative team Owen Hunter-Jenkins and Helen Rogerson, we crafted sound design, sfx and Foley for the 4 minute Hollywood inspired epic that follows a passenger as they traverse classic movie worlds in a bid to discover the various safety features of their plane.

From a high octane Mission Impossible style car chase to a Bollywood music video, the breadth of the sound design requriement was immense (353 tracks to be precise). Needless to say, we loved crafting every second of it. Here at The Futz Butler, we have a real passion for making sure every last detail is exactly tailored to enhance the audio experience of a film. So we jumped at the opportunity to pull out our box of toys (quite literally in this case) and make a right racket. How else are you going to recreate the sound of an oxygen mask falling from the overhead compartment (answer - a kid's rubber Ipad case is how...). 

After crafting sound design we moved on to the next stage of the project, recording eight remote VO artists using our tried and tested dial in system, tracking talent in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, all in real time. 

With narrow recording windows due to geographical time difference, we had to record and comp the eight remote talent in three days. A fairly daunting prospect to some. But with rigorous planning and preparation, utilising script line numbers, session markers and pre-loaded sync pops, we were able to nail down a bulletproof workflow that kept everything on schedule for the talent and the various remote teams dialling in to guide the read in their native languages. 

You guys were amazing. Being calm and understanding the project, it was so tricky with the amount of versions but you guys were all over it

Dominique Strouthos, Senior Producer, Leo Burnett London

TUI : A Safety Film is now live across all TUI fleets - look out for it on a tiny screen on the back of someone's headrest now!