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Production Sound, Video Engineers & Studio Projectionists

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Features

Defying Gravity

by Bryan Cahill

Luke Kelly, a former Boom Operator, observing Bryan Cahill perform an exercise over Zoom.

Is gravity getting you down? Have you taken a look in a mirror or at a photo recently and thought, “I really need to straighten up”? Whether the bulk of your work is as a Mixer, Microphone Boom Operator, or Utility Sound Technician, we are all susceptible to postural deviations that can lead to more serious conditions.

Now, I’ve always been aware of my own fitness level, trained as much as time will allow and tried to take care of my body. Even so, this has not always prevented me from injury on and off the job.

As Chair of the Injury Prevention Committee at I.A.T.S.E. Local 695, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking particularly about how Boom Operators might avoid injury in a world with takes lasting twenty, twenty-five, and thirty minutes or more.

We need a three-pronged approach that includes devices such as the exoskeleton, contractual obligations, and corrective strength training. I’ve written a few articles on devices and will give an update on that approach soon. In spring of this year, the Safety Awareness Sheet for Long or Successive Takes became Safety Bulletin #45. I thank our leadership for spearheading what was an arduous and lengthy negotiation, yet I believe excessive takes is an issue that must be addressed in our next basic agreement.

Finally, there is corrective strength training which is the subject of this article.

Due to the constant work with our hands at shoulder height or higher, Boom Operators are susceptible to a condition called thoracic outlet syndrome or TOS. It is a term used to describe a group of disorders that occur when there is compression, injury, or irritation of the nerves and/or blood vessels in the lower neck and upper chest. While our work already puts us at risk of developing TOS, that risk is exacerbated when combined with upper crossed syndrome (UCS) which is another condition that can be caused by our line of work.

According to WebMD: When the muscles of your shoulders, neck, and chest are out of balance—that’s called upper crossed syndrome… When your shoulder, neck, and chest muscles do not work together as they should, the results can be quite noticeable and painful for you.

Having TOS and/or UCS can present real-life dangers for your long-term health. Symptoms can include chronic pain in your back or neck, numbness in your hands, and on and on. Many of those conditions will also interfere with your ability to work and can lessen your quality of life.
Severe cases may even need corrective surgery. Stephen Strasburg, the fireballer for the Washington Nationals, recently had a rib and two neck muscles removed to relieve TOS.

The good news is that in most cases, TOS, UCS, shoulder impingement, and other disorders can be fixed or prevented without surgery. Just as muscles and joints have been trained through years of misuse, they can be retrained to find the correct resting position and this is where Luke Kelly comes in.
Luke is a Boom Operator/sound guy-turned-personal trainer. While working on a show in icy conditions, he tore a muscle rescuing sound gear from collision with a sliding truck.

Compensating for the injury led to a shoulder impingement which put him out of commission for eight months, at which time he decided to change the course of his career. According to Luke, “I myself had a career-altering preventable shoulder injury. I was very fortunate to have skills to fall back on, but not everybody does.” Although he still does some sound work, his steady gig is as a corrective strength training specialist and owner of Elemental Movement Personal Training. With experience both as a personal trainer and as a Boom Operator, Luke has unique insight regarding the type of strain we endure and how best to train our bodies.

Luke and I found we have the common goal of helping Boom Operators avoid injury and work relatively pain free, possibly extending careers and avoiding surgery which brings me back to the question I asked at the top of the article.

I looked at a photo of myself and saw my shoulders rounded forward: an indicator of upper crossed syndrome. I also deal with chronic pain in my hips, ankles, and feet from years of standing so many hours each day. So, I proposed that Luke design a program around me and I’d write about my experiences.

5/20/22:
Luke and I meet over Zoom for an assessment of my current physical state documenting fifty-nine years of injuries starting at my feet and working up. I state my goals as correcting my posture, increasing flexibility, and decreasing pain. Luke agrees and says those are our goals for the first year!

5/25/22:
I attend a Zoom workshop Luke is holding specifically for Boom Operators. He goes through the anatomy of the shoulder and demonstrates stretches, exercises, and movements with names like Wall Angels and Dolphin Press. It is great information but too much to absorb at once. Fortunately, Luke records the session and I review it many times so I can get a head start doing some of the routine on my own.

6/7/22:
In my first private session over Zoom with Luke in Michigan and me in my Los Angeles office, we stuff as much into an hour as possible. My space is a little small but we make do. The session is challenging, requiring a great deal of concentration to maintain correct shoulder position throughout the tiring routine. And that is the point. As we become more fatigued, maintaining proper form (form that prevents injury) becomes increasingly difficult.

I continue the sessions with Luke’s expert tutelage once a week throughout the summer, sometimes in my office and other times from home very early in the morning before anyone else is out of bed. As I get stronger and more adept, Luke adds exercises and increases the difficulty.

Everything is interconnected and needs to be kept in balance. So some days, we concentrate on abdominal work and lower body exercises. A weakness or injury in one part of the body can lead to overcompensation injuries and other problems elsewhere.

On days in-between sessions, I incorporate many of the exercises into my daily routine and stay mindful not to over train some parts of my body to the detriment of others focusing on what I am doing and why. After each workout, I do my best to take notes but, my emphasis is on the doing not the note taking.

How do I measure success or progress? There is a device called a goniometer that is used for measuring the range of joints but it can be quite subjective when measuring range of motion. So, we measure improvement by eyeball and feel.

On some weeks, I seem to make significant progress while on others, I seem to remain the same or even regress. I don’t let this get me down because I know that progress is not linear. Instead of week to week, it is better to measure in longer time periods such as six months. Some temporary regression is natural and just part of the process. Two steps forward, one step back.

After working with Luke throughout the summer, we both become too busy to find time for our weekly meet-ups but I continue to incorporate what I’ve learned into my workouts. After six months, I can see improvements in my posture. I am definitely stronger through my upper back and I believe my pain has decreased.

I have always trained on my own but now understand how working with a personal trainer like Luke Kelly has been quite useful in assessing my strengths, weaknesses, and needs while keeping me on track and improving the efficiency of my workouts. While we don’t currently meet weekly, I do plan on checking in with Luke regularly to get an assessment.

The bad news for Boom Operators is that there is no magic pill. The difficult work required to stay healthy will never end. We will need to maintain a certain level of fitness and body awareness throughout our careers.

Once the pain is gone or minimized, what’s next? It’s time to set new goals. Maybe get back to some activities you enjoyed in the past but haven’t felt able to do recently or something new. As for me, I’m looking forward to training for a triathlon and more!

To summarize: Exercise, movements, and stretching can be extremely beneficial but are only part of the equation. Making your production aware of the Guidelines for Long or Successive Takes Safety Bulletin and requesting options such as Fisher booms and exoskeletons or extra crew members when necessary, will help you stay safe, healthy, extend your career, and defy gravity.

Building Solidarity: Why Work Reporting Matters

by James Delhauer

It has never been in the interest of employers to let workers organize. Even today, companies often do everything they can to discourage workers from forming or joining a labor union. It is not out of the norm to see them refuse to voluntarily recognize a unionization effort, and instead be forced to recognize a union by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The NLRB was founded on July 5, 1935, after the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, which federally recognized the rights of workers to band together for the purpose of collective bargaining. Before 1935, it was very dangerous to take a stand against employers. In fact, the earliest members of the labor movement weren’t just facing down their angry employers, but were being subdued by government forces. When the Homestead Strike of 1892 broke into violence, Pennsylvania state militia forces were deployed against the striking steelworkers. The Pullman Strike of 1894 saw twenty thousand federal troops dispatched to put an end to the strike in Chicago. And in 1903, the Colorado National Guard was deployed against the Western Federation of Miners to end their strike during the Colorado Labor Wars. Despite the dangers, working men and women fought and died in solidarity with other workers because they knew a better life was possible for them and their families. A life with days off, safe work environments, and living wages. Their grit and determination led to the passage of the National Labor Relations Act. The gains won by the early labor movement continue to be felt to this day, but the fight for fair wages and conditions is far from over, as it faces a continually changing employment landscape.

Today, the IATSE represents filmmakers, artists, and craftspeople working for some of the largest multi-national corporations around. Old studios like the Walt Disney Corporation, Warner Bros., and Universal have been joined by the likes of trillion-dollar companies like Amazon and Apple. Altogether, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) represents almost three trillion dollars in corporate interests. Negotiating equitable contracts with such powerful forces is a lopsided affair to say the least. We cannot outspend them. However, that is not to say that we are powerless to continue to improve working conditions. As a union, our greatest strength lies in our core value: Solidarity.
But what is Solidarity? For as much as we casually use the word, there seems to be confusion about exactly what it entails. Does Solidarity mean paying your union dues and going to work? That’s part of it to be sure. But if that is where participation within the union ends, our outcomes will never meet our needs or expectations. Here are three simple ways you can build Solidarity and make your union stronger.

Report Your Jobs

At the bottom of nearly every Local 695 announcement email that the office sends out, there is a link to a form labeled, “Report Your Jobs,” which serves several important functions.

Our members are our union’s eyes and ears in the field. Our office staff cannot be everywhere at once and cannot know everything that is happening on all of the shooting sets in Hollywood. And as you might imagine, the production companies aren’t always forthcoming when it comes to sending us this information. But with your help, we have the ability to watch every production in town. When a member calls to report a grievance or dangerous working conditions on the set, the 695 Reps can be more reactive and resolve issues more quickly if they already have the information you submit on the Report Your Job form. In cases where a job is near the end of its run, having this information ahead of time can mean the difference between whether or not your Representatives have enough time to intervene and address the issue or not. In the case of union productions, the information in the job reports is critical to enforcing our contracts.

This job information is just as important, if not more so, when it comes to non-union productions. It may seem counterintuitive to report non-union productions to your union, but the IATSE takes great interest in what is happening in the non-union world. Many union signatory companies will use a series of LLC’s or subcontracted production companies in order to dodge their responsibilities to our members and launch productions without union representation. These non-union productions undercut the terms and conditions that producers agree to when they sign our contracts and gives them access to skilled craftspeople working for less than the conditions we negotiate. It’s understood that sometimes we take non-union work when there is no alternative. But by making the office and the IATSE aware of non-union productions being crewed by union members, it presents an opportunity to flip these productions so that you, your family, and your colleagues will receive improved wages and working conditions, as well as the benefit hours to fund your healthcare, pension, and continuing education programs. Reporting non-union work and helping us to flip non-union productions is to everyone’s benefit.

Article X in the Local 695 Constitution & Bylaws (www.local695.com/constitution-bylaws/#blart10) outlines the members’ responsibility to report ALL jobs to the Local. Whether the work is IA or non-IA, a long-running production or just a day-call, live-broadcast, commercial or music video, reality or sports… Please report your jobs to the Local!

Submit Your Working Conditions Report

At the bottom of almost every Local 695 announcement, there is a link to the Working Conditions Report directly beside the Report Your Jobs form. This is where members can report issues they face on the set, including meal break abuses, long and excessive hours, turnaround violations, harassment, discrimination, and other unacceptable behaviors. The Working Conditions form helps to address these problems in two ways. The first is to keep the office continually informed about the challenges our members contend with at work, regardless of whether or not they are prohibited by contract. Just because an issue is not acknowledged or prohibited by a working contract does not mean that it is not an issue that needs to be addressed. And if it is one that is occurring regularly and affecting a sizable portion of our members, it is worth trying to regulate during our next cycle of contract negotiations. To do this, your Representatives need citable examples, with details and dates. This means that ongoing problems that you experience should be reported early and repeatedly. Did a problem you reported on your last production happen again on your next one? Report it again! Each case study provides more weight when our Reps argue for a resolution, whether that be in a grievance, in an arbitration hearing, or in contract negotiations. So members are encouraged to fill out the Working Conditions form whenever they encounter a problem on set. Remember, if you’re facing a problem at work, you probably aren’t the only one.

But secondly, the Working Conditions form is designed to assess the effectiveness of the conditions outlined in any given contract. Have excessive meal penalties diminished since the contract was ratified last year, or is this an issue we need to revisit in 2024? Entire days without meals? Fraturdays? We know that the producers try to subtly (or unsubtly) sidestep the contracts they’ve signed. Plenty of addressed problems are still happening on set. But when these issues are brought up during negotiations, we present a stronger argument when we can back them up with facts and figures. Detailed reports that outline what productions and companies are harming our members or violating their contracts give the IATSE the tools to act.

Please remember that when these problems are not reported to the office, it only serves to perpetuate the ongoing cycle of abuse.

Report All Contract Violations

In preparation for this article, I asked all the Local 695 Representatives what part of their job occupies the majority of their time. Every one of them said the same thing: “Contract Violations.” Contract violations are, quite possibly, the most important day-to-day duty performed in the office. Violations such as wage discrepancies, penalties, jurisdictional disputes, and wrongful hires are just some of the most prominent problems that we work on in the office. But like abusive working conditions, many contract violations go unreported. If the office doesn’t know it happened, it can’t be fixed. If it’s not fixed, violations persist and our contracts are diminished. But you can help change that.

One notable issue is the hiring (or mis-hiring) of personnel. On the sound side of things, Local 695 has the sole jurisdiction over on-set communication systems, such as Comteks and set-wide PL systems. Similarly, our video members are contractually responsible for off-camera recording, video playback, and projection. However, too often we find that members of other locals are being hired to perform these duties. Our members who have lost jobs as a result of violations like this are voiceless, as they cannot report on jobs they don’t even realize they were passed over for. This is why it is critical that 695 sound members step in to support our video members and vice versa. Have you seen members of other guilds performing video playback work? Is a DIT playing back video files for a director or script supervisor or even recording takes using a device on their carts? Or is someone from camera setting up communication systems between departments? This is absolutely not allowed. Our members should be the ones performing our work. So if you see something, please say something.

Every week, problems on the set are being resolved when members bring them to the Local. But still, some members are hesitant to report contract violations and poor conditions for fear of reprisal from their employers. The office is very aware of these concerns and is adept at working with you and the company to prevent unwanted outcomes. And state and federal laws protect you too. When you report information to the Local, we will work with you, and together we’ll map out a strategy to resolve the reported problem. Your help can mean the difference between you or another member qualifying for health insurance or making rent payments. It can be the difference between putting food on the table or going into debt. By reporting our jobs, our working conditions, and contract violations we observe, we keep Solidarity strong within our Local and stand together with our union Brothers, Sisters, and Kin. These steps can go a long way toward helping us change the culture of Hollywood. There is always work ahead of us. We have a lot to do. And with your help, we can do it.

Report Your Jobs
www.local695.com/membership-services/job-reporting

Report Working Conditions
www.local695.com/working-conditions/

Lux Machina and Behind the Scenes of Virtual Production Featuring Jason Davis

by James Delhauer

Lux Machina began as little more than a group of programmers with a dream to transform the production world by developing and engineering cutting-edge technical solutions for their clients. In time, the company developed into a team of bold industry explorers, nerdy systems architects, and seasoned expert technologists. Today, they are responsible for some of the most impressive and jaw-dropping virtual productions in Hollywood and, at the core of their team, are members of Local 695.

Virtual production as it currently exists is a combination of techniques developed for VFX workflows and in-camera SFX techniques that have been developed since the creation of motion pictures. In-camera visual effects (ICVFX) is a subset of virtual production that is the natural evolution of the rear-screen process shot work that Local 695 engineers have done for decades. In its most primitive form, the process shot involves shooting an actor or actors in front of a translucent scrim, which is then hit with a projected image from behind to create the illusion of a three-dimensional background behind the talent. The process was first developed by Harold V. Miller (who was the first in what is currently a three-generation Local 695 family) and the process shot’s first known use was in the 1930 science fiction film Just Imagine. Though crude at the time, the process allowed filmmakers to create a believable illusion in-camera and, with almost ninety years of innovation, this practice has grown much more sophisticated. Lux Machina has pioneered its development, which can be seen in the 2013 film Oblivion. If you are a cinephile and have not seen this film, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Almost a decade later, the visuals are still nothing short of breathtaking.

For the film, Local 695 member and Lux Machina President Zach Alexander designed and operated a 360-degree projection system in order to create The Skytower—a futuristic science lab located miles above the Earth’s surface. By using a media server system and stitching together images from twenty-one projectors, the team was able to create a fully immersive panoramic set that allowed the cast and crew to feel as though they really were miles high in the sky. This advanced process subverted the need for the costly and time-consuming visual effects required by a green screen setup and post-production artists would no longer be required to remove the green hue from objects reflecting the color or from the actors’ skin tones. Moreover, the actors were able to fully bring themselves into the film’s world when they could see the scenic backdrop all around them. The benefits of this workflow are too numerous to count.

Following Oblivion’s success, the team at Lux Machina continued to innovate and refine their workflow, bringing their talents to productions like The Titan Games, The Academy Awards, The Emmys, multiple Star Wars films, and this year, the Sony Pictures film Bullet Train.

I had the privilege of sitting down with one of the team’s best and brightest, Local 695 member Jason Davis, who serves as a Media Server Supervisor and whose storied work history includes titles like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Top Gun: Maverick. Jason served as the Media Server Supervisor on Bullet Train, where he was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the LED wall systems that allowed Director David Leitch to achieve his vision for the film.

For this production, the team made use of a video wall system built by Sweetwater, with the Lux Machina team taking responsibility for ingesting and playing back assets to the wall. On set, Jason operated a series of media servers in order to sequence and ingest clips into the system. The LuxMC team made use of a media server to play assets provided by production back to the LED wall. That resulted in an interactive image that synchronously worked with the camera department.

“It’s almost like video editing,” Jason told me when we spoke. “Even though the art team sends over the files, you need to be able to manipulate them in the system.”

Drawing from experience on other productions like Solo, Jason and his team utilized what is called a Disguise Media Server (formerly called the D3 Media Server), which includes an integrated generative content creation platform called Notch. Once assets were converted into Notch’s proprietary Notch LC file codec (which required a top of-the-line Ryzen Threadripper transcode machine in order to process the large and unbelievably dense files), the system was capable of making on-the-fly adjustments to scale, position, luminosity, and coloration of the picture.

“Thankfully, we’d already worked out most of the kinks in-house and on projects like Solo and Mandalorian, so the workflow was pretty refined coming into this one,” Jason explained.

This had confused me. “Was Solo a video wall shoot?” I asked.

“No, we were still using laser projectors on that one,” he clarified. “But we were still using Disguise servers on that one too. So there was a lot of overlap. The mapping is obviously different, but the playback part is pretty similar.”

“What were some of the big challenges on this one?”

“Honestly, the biggest thing was COVID. Communication on set was very different. It was harder to troubleshoot issues, or bring on extra help because no one could come on set without being tested. But as dumb as this sounds, the hardest thing to deal with was the face shields. The way the plastic reflects light meant that there was always a glare right in my eyes and I’d have to crane my neck or look at the screen funny just to see what was right in front of my face. Pretty funny actually. But frustrating and a little time-consuming.”

“That’s funny. How do you feel the film turned out?”

“I think it looks great. We were really pleased with how everything came together.”

“You pick up any cool tricks for the next film?”

“We’re always refining the process and trying to improve it. What we learned on Star Wars helped us make Bullet Train better and what we did on Bullet Train just helped us make Black Adam better.”

When I asked Jason how an interested member might go about getting involved with virtual production, his advice was to get hands-on with the gear as quickly as possible. “This isn’t something you can really learn online. You just need to get in front of the gear and start learning it,” he told me. “As far as the software side of things, start learning Unreal. Learn how to run and manage media servers. Look at Disguise and Notch. These are the tools everyone is using and you’ll have a better chance of standing out if you already have an idea of how those products work.

I’d like to thank Jason for taking the time to sit down with me and share his experiences working on Bullet Train and in virtual production as a whole. This is a growing area within our Local and professionals like him and Zach Alexander are helping to blaze the trail that 695 members will walk for years to come. To see Jason’s work for yourself, check out Bullet Train on Amazon or home media.

The We in Union and the Need for Greater Inclusion

by Jamie Gambell

Josh Bissett, Daniel Quintana, Jamie Gambell, Maddie Phelps on Cheaper by the Dozen.

My career began in the dark Hackney Odeon Picture house in London, when I was just four years old. A small Rebel cruiser passed overhead, pursued by a gargantuan, imposing Star Destroyer. Like the rest of the world, I was enthralled by the characters, the aliens, the robots, the fantastical weapons, and the spaceships, but there was one thing that stayed with me on a deeper level: The Sound. Nothing in the world had ever sounded like Star Wars. I became, much to my parents’ chagrin, that kid who sat in the cinema after the film had finished, taking in the credits and trying to learn all of the different job titles. My passion for film coincided with the growth of home video systems, and I would watch anything and everything I could, rushing home from school to catch Das Boot and getting a pass from my parents to stay up late to catch Paris, Texas. Throughout all of this, I always kept an ear turned to the sound.

Eventually, I made my way into the film industry and was lucky enough to find myself under the tutelage of someone whose passion for sound in cinema exceeded my own, Simon Hayes. As mentors go, I really won the lottery. Between Simon and his Boom Op, Arthur Fenn, I had the greatest teachers anyone could want. It made me really appreciate the importance of not only doing the work and learning new ways to approach the craft, but also making sure that you give back to the future generation of potential sound engineers. Simon and Arthur both provided the perfect balance of demand for excellence and a nurturing environment to learn in. They instilled the idea that you could succeed or fail, but you better try your best no matter the circumstance. This was reinforced by my next mentor, Douglas Axtell. He, Simon, and Arthur all tried to instill a passion for learning, and more importantly, to always think about what you can teach and pass forward to your crew.

In this spirit of giving back, I sat in on the cable making and wiring classes offered by the Local, which was a rewarding experience that I felt was of great value to the participants. However, I felt that there should be something more concrete; something that codified the value of taking the opportunities afforded to us and passing them along to the next generation. So, just before the initial COVID shutdown in 2020, I visited Scott Bernard and Laurence Abrams at the Local about trying to formulate a more structured training program for our members and prospective members. Scott quickly told me that both Ben Greaves and Devendra Cleary had asked the same question within the space of a few weeks. Then they asked me the million-dollar question: “Have you heard about Y-16A?”

The Y-16A is a non-rostered classification that has existed in Local 695’s Collective Bargaining Agreement since the ’90s, and allows for a Sound or Video Trainee to come onto the set and, at a living wage, shadow, and gain hands-on experience from experienced industry professionals. It had seen relatively little use in the twenty-five years since its inception, but it had the potential to be repurposed for tremendous good. The kernel of an idea started to pop.

Moises Recinos, Jamie Gambell, Daniel Quintana, Johnny Evans (Good Trouble Season 5)
Yisel Pupo Calles (Angelyne)
Terrell Woodard III, Daniel Quintana
(Good Trouble Season 2)
Erik Altstadt, Johnny Evans, Will Tipp, Chris Kessler, Yisel Pupo Calles, Jamie Gambell, Zach Wrobel (Welcome to Chippendales)

Later in 2020, I found myself picking Ben Greaves up to take him to collect his car. He had been part of a protest following the murder of George Floyd. Before I dropped him off, we discussed how the media and politicians were all saying the same things they had been years before, and how we could only hope that maybe, this time, we’d see something resembling meaningful change. We were both white men. We were both lucky enough to have worked with people who were both willing and able to train, teach, and mentor us early and throughout our careers—for no reason other than a passion for the craft and a drive to share that passion. We’d been trying, on a small scale, to help people out; to offer advice and support where possible, but both felt that the expansion and demands of the Sound Utility duties on set always made most mixers reluctant to hire someone without a wealth of experience, or who might need help around the sound cart and set.

The time afforded us by the temporary shutdown during the early days of COVID, as well as the constant reports of studios and networks willing to put the money into promoting diversity, let a volunteer group of us (made up of technicians and office members) cobble together a plan to use the Y-16A Trainee classification as the basis of a codified trainee program.

Productions could hire a Trainee as an additional member of the Production Sound or Video departments. As a non-rostered position, trainees could come onto the set and begin accruing benefit hours without the need to interface with Contract Services. At the same time, they would work under the direct supervision of industry veterans, giving them hands-on, on-the-job training without the need to displace another member’s job. With the right person guiding a trainee, it could serve as an alternative route to union membership than the non-union route.

As we were a small group, we wanted to make sure that we weren’t overstretched in what we could offer prospective members. We did not want to overpromise and underdeliver, which by necessity meant keeping the program small at first and building onto it over time. Our earliest efforts involved vetting potential candidates, both to get a sense of how suited they are for the work they are pursuing, but also to help them determine whether or not the rigorous hours and lifestyle of Hollywood production is something they’re prepared to embrace. Once we had a sense of an individual’s personality and strengths, we began working to place them on the correct production with a mentor team suited to their specific needs. This could be challenging, as convincing productions to hire an additional member of the crew is always a struggle. But the combination of greater events taking place in the world and relentless dedication on the part of our team began to see progress. One by one, we were able to find work for trainees on productions for Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, Amazon, Apple, and Lionsgate.

It has been a process of trial and error. To be sure, not every trainee we’ve worked with has been ready to step into a Hollywood lifestyle. Two years in, however, our workflow has been continuously refined to the point where success stories far outweigh our negative outcomes, and we are able to offer trainees and potential trainees more resources than when we started. Earlier this year, we began holding our first pre-training events for the Y-16A’s, allowing them to simulate some of the work on set in a safe and controlled environment. Our office team has begun working with trainees to understand basic industry faire like reading a call sheet or filling out a timecard. Trainee meetups and mixers take place every few months in order to give trainees the opportunity to network with one another and potential mentors.

Jamie Gambell being wired at the Y16a training event by Jay Cruz
Yisel booming on Angelyne.
Leslie Metts booming on
Welcome to Chippendales.
The Y-16A sound trainees and program directors at their first
pre-training event.

That being said, the success stories that we have seen have been nothing short of inspiring. Some of our earliest program graduates, like Yohannes Skoda, Britney Darrett, and Terrell Woodard have become full Y-7A Utilities and are quickly becoming some of the most sought-after young workers in our Local. The training program has taken a mother living out of her car with her two children and put a roof over her family’s head. Through our program, a young Ukrainian man was able to gather the money necessary to evacuate his mother to Poland following the outbreak of violence by Russian forces. People who might otherwise have never found an opportunity to be a part of our industry or community are now thriving because of the program we’ve built, as well as the ambition, dedication, and hard work of the trainees themselves. We’ve come a long way, but there is still much work to be done.

Now, there are several other programs that ostensibly share our goal of bringing representation to the Hollywood crafts. Various studios and organizations are all trying to tackle the difficult issue of racial disparity and systemic obstacles that have been put in front of those from underrepresented backgrounds. However, there are key benefits to the Y-16A initiative that stand to make more of a positive impact than similar programs. For one, all of the “intern” or training programs I have found seek to hire workers of color at a reduced rate. Minimum wage and “for the experience” oriented programs are becoming quite popular among the studios. Why shouldn’t they? Being able to hire workers of diverse backgrounds while paying the least amount of money is a win/win, right? The problem is that this is tokenism at its finest. These programs seek only to increase the visibility of disenfranchised individuals without considering their overall well-being.

The Y-16A program gives trainees nearly all of the benefits of union membership. They are entitled to all of the representation and protections that the union has to offer. Their worked hours contribute to the union’s health and pension programs–benefiting not only the trainees, but the whole of the union as well. The trainee rate, which stands at $24.65 an hour, has been calculated based on the minimum cost-of-living index for the Los Angeles area. These factors work together to set the minimum standard for which a person—any person—should be expected to work and be compensated in our industry. Any diversity program that offers less is essentially saying that people of diverse backgrounds are expected to work in the lesser tier of a two-tier system; that they are not entitled the sort of union representation, wages, conditions, and benefits that people who look like me get to enjoy every day. From my point of view, that is unacceptable. As we work to bring diverse representation to our productions and to our crews, it must always be with the intention of bringing equality and equity to those who help us diversify. That said, we are grateful for the support we have found. Our program would not have grown to the extent that it has without the support of the employers who believe in the work that we are doing and have extended life-changing opportunities to our trainees.

In an ideal world, more shows would have trainees and all crews would have the skills and time afforded to them to help these people. In time, it is our hope to expand the program to include in-classroom training, mentor workshops and seminars, and a more clearly defined path for our Y-16A’s to transition to full Y-7 or Y-7A classification. We will continue to see the program evolve and grow into an even more positive force for good in our world. A better represented workforce helps our industry, a better trained union helps our Local.

Leslie Metts, rehearsing her boom move with the 2nd team on Welcome to Chippendales

There are several ways that members of our Local can become involved and help this program grow into an even larger force for good in our community. If you are interested in becoming a mentor, contact the Local so that we can begin discussions with your productions. Donate your skills to our next trainee event so that the next generation can learn from your wealth of experience. Take a chance and bring on a recently graduated trainee as the Sound Utility or Video Assist assistant on your next production. Buy-in from our members is how this program has built up to what it is today, but with more support from the membership at large, Local 695 can build something unique and wholly positive within the culture of Hollywood.

Real change can come around. At the very least, a few of us old white men can try to help where we can.

The Sound Behind the Scenes of Devotion

by Erik H. Magnus CAS


Devotion is a movie based on a nonfiction book of the same name. Taking place in the first year of the Korean War, it tells the story of the friendship of two Navy pilots: Ensign Jesse Brown, the Navy’s first Black carrier pilot, a sharecropper’s son from Mississippi played by Jonathan Majors, and Lieutenant Tom Hudner, a white New Englander from the country club scene, played by Glenn Powell.

We filmed on location in Savannah, GA, including at a military base. On an airfield landing strip, a full-scale set of the top of the Leyte aircraft carrier ship was constructed with green screen extensions so that actual working fighter planes from the Korean War could land and take off during the scenes to be filmed. A variety of authentic Korean War fighter planes were brought in from out of state, including F4U Corsairs, F8F Bearcats, AD Skyraiders, a Mig 15, and Sikorsky H0S5-1s. These were the last propeller-based planes to be used in combat before the jet age started.

Coincidentally, Glenn Powel and our aerial camera unit had recently completed flight sequences for that other Navy fighter pilot movie in the pipeline, Top Gun: Maverick. I knew this was going to be a fun and satisfying production sound shoot, and it didn’t disappoint!

For my part, I just enjoy working on motion pictures with historical stories. Any script set prior to the 1980s always seems to give us an extra edge in recording good clean production tracks. The lack of all the modern technology noisemakers and generally slower pace of life in the past makes for a less acoustically polluted set atmosphere. Frequently, the props from a bygone era afford us opportunities for onset sound effects recording as well. I find that directors on films taking place in the past are often more open to discussions with me about production sound. The environment triggers nostalgic sounds from their childhood, which puts them in a good frame of mind to imagine the soundtrack of the story we set out to tell.

My Zoom interview with Director J.D. Dillard went as well as a Sound Mixer could hope for. Most of the interview was spent discussing the needs of production sound and what he envisioned for his story. The first thing he told me was that his father had been in the armed services and had always felt that movies and TV shows that portrayed military stories were rarely accurate in the details. He promised his dad he would make this movie as true to life as possible, and that included the soundtrack. To achieve this, J.D. wanted to record the authentic propeller planes we would be filming with as much as possible. In flight, take off, landing, etc., the Korean War was the last time propeller-based planes were used by the Navy. After that war, the jet age was upon us and propeller propulsion was a thing of the past. So it was important to him that the soundtrack be as authentic to these planes as possible.

He also wanted to record dialog while the planes were in the air. This was an understandable request, but a challenging one to fulfill. At times, the cockpit canopy would be open, and even when closed provided very little supression of the engine/propeller noises in flight. Moreover, these original Korean War planes had very small cockpits. Whatever available room wasn’t being taken up by an actor or the pilot was occupied by multiple cinema cameras. The Sound Department was told we had to use the smallest recorder possible.

At first, we didn’t think this would be a problem. The plane did have a communications system that we were told worked and that we could tap into to record during flight. With modern aircraft and helicopters, I have successfully recorded an actor in the scene by using an aviation specialty CAAVMIC cable from the Remote Audio company (a Trew Audio company) to tap into the flight communications connected to the boom mic of the flight helmet the actor is wearing. The aerial crew provided me with an interface cable built to connect to the modern jet used in Top Gun: Maverick, but unfortunately, the 1940s era Corsair plane we were using on Devotion was not compatible with this custom cable. The next stop was contacting a company called Bell’s Aviation, which specializes in historical flight gear. The owner said he could make an interface cable for this 1940s plane, but the pandemic had disrupted supply chains. The part we needed was not going to be available until well after we would be done filming the scenes. We could not escape the fact that this 1940s technology was too old school for our modern recording solutions.

So we had to get creative. Our first attempt was connecting a Lectrosonics SPDR Stereo Portable Digital Recorder to the original Sound Devices Mixpre so we could take advantage of the superior limiter in the Sound Devices unit. This was another piece of equipment purchased years ago that had not been used in quite a while. This and a couple of plant mics mounted around the cockpit were to be connected to the Mixpre mic XLR inputs, providing us with what we believed would be a workable solution. During a test flight, this proved not to be the case. The noise level in the cockpit was way too high to record any usable dialogue and the Mixpre pan pots kept getting hit by the actors knees. Back to the drawing board.

Our next idea evolved over time to become something workable. The sound team experimented with using a red dot, black Sanken COS-11D padded lavalier wired under the actor’s chest to see if that gave us the sort of clarity and quality we needed. It was an improvement to be sure, but still not quite up to par. Thankfully, our Sound Utility, John “Hank” Martin, is pretty handy at rigging and soldering, so he was able to thread the COS-11D into the flight helmet mic boom. Only by using this lavalier mic that was almost touching the actor’s mouth were we able to cut through the deafening noise and record something intelligible. Best of all, the setup passed inspection by our Director of Photography, Erik Messerschmidt, ASC, who was confident that it would not be seen on camera. In the end, our compact rig consisted of the Sanken COS-11D wired directly into the flight helmet mic boom and plugged directly into the Lectrosonics SPDR Stereo Portable recorder and powered by an Ambient Eumel. Dual mono recording right track recorded -5db to be lower with limiters on both.

In addition to filming during flight, we had about a week and a half on Video Wall stage where each of the actors would film coverage shots in the plane on a buck rig that was synchronized with the LED backdrop.

The Director and First AD both needed to be able to communicate with the actors in the buck rig (a full-sized gimbal mount which is used to articulate the plane to simulate flight), so an earwig was requested. This made me nervous. The uncomfortable helmets the actors needed to wear were often pulled off in frustration at a moment’s notice. The real possibility of my one remaining Phonak Invisity ear wig falling into the bottom of the cockpit floor where it could be stepped on or fall into any of the small dark crevices made us come up with a new solution. The Sidekick 3 IFB single-ear monitor from Bumblebee has a cable so thin as to nearly be invisible when properly hidden and had just become available for sale. Version three was now universal for either right or left ear. The first two generations required you to choose either the left or right ear. We connected it to a Comtek PR 216 receiver so that there was no chance of it falling out. Our Director and First AD had individual push to talk handheld microphones feeding into each actor’s Comtek PR 216 receiver, allowing direct communication as required. Another problem solved.

Chosin battlefield set

But of course, there were plenty of challenges outside of the planes as well. Many of our sets were large and spread out, meaning that a remote antenna setup was required. Hank assembled the first iteration of the remote antenna cart using my active Wisycom LPDA antennas. Seventy-five feet of cable was usually enough to get the job done, but starting with the aircraft destroyer scenes, the Wisycoms began struggling to reliably pick up the actors’ transmitted signals as they darted to and from the Corsair planes. To solve this RF issue, we switched them out for a couple of professional wireless brand Helicals. The circular polarization pattern of Helical antennas made it possible to pick up the RF signals despite all the metal plane bodies that had been interfering with signal transmission. I tend to collect sound carts and gear in general. I don’t like to sell or get rid of older equipment when I upgrade to more modern tools. Sure enough, an old rock-and-roll brand cart I picked up years ago at Guitar Center ended up forming the base of the remote antenna cart. After we got to the muddy battlefield set, I was forced to upgrade to bigger front wheels and added the top shelf for stability.

One of our main exterior sets that was built to scale was the flight deck of a Navy aircraft destroyer. It was built on an airstrip outside of Savannah, Georgia. Some of the scenes to be filmed included Corsair planes landing and taking off. This required an aerial unit located in Seattle, Washington to begin shooting coverage several weeks prior to the start of principal photography, and continuing their work concurrently with our own. Scenes with 1940s cars were going to be filmed as well. Plenty of opportunities to grab on-set production sound effects. I knew we were going to have to capture any sound effects on the fly, as holding up production was not an option. I set about to build a quick deploy stereo sound effect recording rig based around the Sound Devices Mixpre3 II that I already owned. The size of those Mixpre 3s is so small and light that they are easy to deploy quickly. Up to 192 kHz recording capability, Mid side, and jamable time code made it the perfect choice for the assignment. To supplement my Audio-Technica BP4025 condenser XY stereo microphone, I added a newer Sanken Short M-S Stereo Shotgun mic. The smallest K-Tek Stingray bag and a Sound Guy solution belt clip made for a very tidy rig. A Triad-Orbit tripod and a sandbag made for a stable mic mount to set up on set. With all that, we were ready to go.

During battlefield scenes, explosions were so loud we used a couple of Shure SM 57 dynamic mics attached to Lectrosonics plug-on transmitters sending a signal back to the venue receivers and on the back of my main sound cart.

The story of Devotion and our director’s wish for a period accurate soundtrack afforded us many opportunities throughout filming to record many on-set sound effects. It is always a team effort. My crew consisted of Patrick M. Wylie, Boom Operator, John “Hank” Martin, Utility Sound, Alex Lowe, Pro Tools Music Playback Operator and Graham Kicklighter, 2nd Unit Sound Mixer assisted us with additional plane recordings. Devotion is a Sony/Columbia Pictures/Black Label Media production releasing exclusively in theaters on November 23.

Production Sound for Noah Baumbach’s White Noise

by Lisa Piñero

White Noise. (L to R) Adam Driver as Jack, and Greta Gerwig as Babette. Cr. Netflix © 2022

My first opportunity to work with Noah Baumbach was on Marriage Story (2019). I have been a fan of his films for many years, so I was excited to be involved in the project. We had a great sound team on that show which included Randy Johnson (Boom Op) and Eva Rismanforoush (Sound Utility and lots of 2nd Boom). We enjoyed working with Noah and I was happy to hear back from his team in September of 2020 that Noah wanted us back for his next project that would shoot in 2021. White Noise is director Noah Baumbach’s first film adaptation of another writer’s work. In this case, the writer Don DeLillo and the work, his 1985 novel of the same name. Noah had assembled a great cast, including Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Lars Eidinger. It’s a story narrated by the character played by Adam Driver but features many others in his life, including his family, his colleagues, and other members of his community. There are also large crowd scenes and several sequences that take place in cars.

Photo: Wilson Webb/Netflix ©2022
Photo: Wilson Webb/Netflix ©2022

Having worked with Noah previously, I knew that he would encourage his cast to talk the way people naturally talk in large familiar groups. Conversations overlapping between individuals inside of larger groups would be rehearsed and shot many times until he and the cast developed the rhythm and execution that Noah was looking for. We always boom everything and wire everyone to give Noah and the cast the freedom to say the words wherever, whenever, and at whatever level they want on the set without worrying about losing even a syllable, no matter the location, set, or lighting.

Eva Rismanforoush.
Photo: Wilson Webb/Netflix ©2022

I mixed a film here in Los Angeles the summer of 2020 during the height of COVID. Even though the city was working at one quarter of its capacity, we had been very challenged in finding clean frequencies at our practical locations with the hybrid wireless system I was using at the time. There were a lot of scenes with high cast counts and I found myself scanning and coordinating frequencies multiple times during the day which was time-consuming. I used Shure’s ADX system previously on a music show we shot in June 2019. That introduced me to the power of Shure Wireless Workbench software and reliability of Shure Axient Digital wideband wireless system. After using it, I was smitten with the range, the sound, the rugged build quality, the well-designed body pack, and the bulletproof implementation of Dante which made the system amazingly easy to scale. Along with many others, I had been begging Shure for a 12-volt DC option on the rack receivers and hoping for a portable slot-based receiver. As soon as the 12V DC receiver option was available, my order was in for twelve channels of Shure ADX. By early 2021, I had converted my Cantar X3 recording cart to fully Dante based with Shure ADX wireless. Shure came through with three ADX5D slot receivers in early May, assuring that White Noise would be our first show with 100% Shure ADX wireless.

WHITE NOISE – Adam Driver (Jack). Cr: Wilson Webb/NETFLIX © 2022

On the first day of scouting in Ohio, Noah asked me to always have at least twenty wireless mics available for cast. The cast counts on the schedules showed frequent scenes with cast numbers in the teens but he wanted to be able to upgrade additional people he chose from our background players at any time. The plan was that he would write and give them lines on the spot, and we were likely to have very short notice as to how many additional there would be. I was glad to have the heads up early and I got to work with Matt Tenero at Gotham Sound’s rental department which had already built up a rental inventory of Shure ADX. Matt and his team put together a single rack case housing a couple of Shure AD4Q receivers (four channels each), a Shure AXT600 Spectrum Manager, a network switch, antenna, and power distribution. The rack case fit perfectly on the bottom shelf of a Backstage Junior cart we keep on the truck for extras. Only two connections to make—one to my antennas and the second to the network switch on my cart. Just like that, we were ready to go with twenty channels of wireless available on Dante inputs at the recorder. The system worked flawlessly throughout the show, including some very wet, hot, and dusty locations. Adding a wireless router allowed us to change transmitter settings easily using the Shure Channels App and Showlink without ever going near a cast member. We also had a chance to utilize Q5X AquaMic waterproof transmitters which work with Shure ADX receivers for a scene with five cast members waist-deep in water floating across a creek in a station wagon. Shure Axient Digital has been the go-to wireless system for mission critical applications like arena touring, live theater, and broadcast for years. I’m glad we finally have these robust tools available to us in production sound.

White Noise. (L to R) Sam Nivola as Heinrich, Adam Driver as Jack, May Nivola as Steffie, Greta Gerwig as Babette, Dean Moore/Henry Moore as Wilder and Raffey Cassidy as Denise in White Noise. Cr. Wilson Webb/Netflix © 2022

As is almost always the case, doing the best work requires teamwork and collaboration with other departments. We had our share of challenging locations but one set worried us the most. In fact, I had been sent an iPhone video from a director’s scout of this location months earlier because the acoustics were so bad that pretty much everyone on the early scout thought it would be impossible to shoot there. Everyone except Noah, who wanted us to find a way. The space had been a reception area of a now defunct theater space in Cleveland. The room had an octagon footprint with twenty-one and a half foot tall walls and a parabolic ceiling. All surfaces, including very large glass windows were hard and reflective. There were two adjacent rooms. On one side double doors opened to an even larger lobby area with a parabolic ceiling. The other side opened to a circular ante room with a very high ceiling and a stairway. This wasn’t your average variety reverb situation. The existing acoustics in this space made speech barely intelligible. The scene to be shot here would be a spirited debate between two professors. The written dialog was expected to be performed in a dynamic fashion and came at a pivotal moment in the story. After sharing room recordings and discussing the situation with Sound Designer Chris Scarabosio, we worked with our producers to bring in an acoustical consultant to run a series of impulse-response tests in the space and make recommendations on possible treatment options. Enter Quincey Smail of ABD Engineering and Design, who was brought to Cleveland to acoustically model the space and make recommendations on modifications to improve reverberation time and background noise. Production Designer Jess Gonchor and Art Director Chris Farmer took Quincey’s findings and materials suggestions to make the space completely suitable for recording the scene while keeping intact all the visual design elements that Noah loved.

Playhouse layout
RT Graph
Wall treatment locations
Acoustical grid locations
Photos courtesy of ABD Engineering and Design

Our “stage” had been a Walmart store in a prior life. It was part of an abandoned mall where our production was based. It was a funny setup with the production office occupying a space previously used for a bank and every other department using a former retail space. The so-called stage space was plagued by the usual problems associated with using a space designed to be one thing for another thing entirely. The room had a metal roof which is extremely problematic in the very rainy and stormy Cleveland, Ohio, summer. You could not hear a person talking to you from a foot away during the frequent downpours. There was also a club in the mall which had remained open and had extremely loud music scheduled for just about every evening between 6 to 11 p.m. This was a tad distracting to our cast who had a hard time ignoring it while we attempted to shoot through it. There were many more challenges in the space, including a haphazardly assembled air-conditioning system that persisted as a work in progress throughout our shoot and the hideous acoustics in a hard wall and floored square box. Our grip team headed by Mike Popovich made the place somewhat workable for recording dialog by surrounding our sets with heavy floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes. Teamwork and good inter-department working relationships can make almost anything doable.

Another of the many instances when the Art and Grip departments helped us improve the sound for a scene was in the lecture hall film projection sequences. The scene would have a large and loud commercial grade projector running in a college lecture hall’s booth while one of the professor characters in the film spoke on the featured sequences. During our scouts, I noticed that the booth was not soundproofed, making it difficult to get clean dialog while the projector ran. To isolate the noisy projector inside the booth, we lined its interior wall with mass loaded vinyl (MLV). “We” in this case means Randy and Eva, along with some help from our Art Department and grips. MLV is a VERY difficult product to work with. It’s very heavy and unwieldy. I located a local source for the MLV product and Randy hit the hardware store to get the hardware and tools together. Randy and Eva cut custom-shaped pieces from large rolls and then drilled the heavyweight soundproofing into the walls. It was a grueling job that they managed to get done on our last day of prep so that we could shoot the scene the next day. Their work made a huge difference in terms of the quality of our recording and allowed our director to shoot the scene in the way he preferred.

WHITE NOISE – (L-R) Don Cheadle (Murray) and Adam Driver (Jack). Cr: Wilson Webb/NETFLIX © 2022
Mass loaded vinyl install

It doesn’t take long for anyone who works in production sound to come to an understanding about how important a good relationship with the Costume Department is. The quality of our work depends on it. On White Noise, we had the honor of working with legendary Costumer Designer Ann Roth. Julian-Andres Arango, Lucy Cobbs and the rest of the on-set costume team were a joy to be on set with and worked tirelessly with us to get body mics into the best positions possible.

We worked long hours with considerable drive times back-and-forth to many of our locations. The show was plagued by COVID flare-ups in the crew, complications with locations, etc., which kept us working in Ohio into November. Wiring the large cast counts, along with a frequent need for two working booms on set, gave us good reason to add another crew member to our sound team. Kelly Doran joined us as a fourth a few weeks into our schedule and was a huge help at both utility and additional boom. Jason Fyrberg came on soon after to handle Second Unit sound mixing duties. When we went well past our original wrap date, we lost Randy Johnson to prior commitments. Dave Roberts did us the favor of booming us through those last days on the freeway traffic jam and in the woods where his experience clearing the Appalachian Trail came in handy. After we wrapped principal photography in Ohio, Jason and Kelly went on to handle 2nd Unit sound duties with the stunt unit in Georgia.

Eva starting a day in the woods. Carts loaded
on gator/trailer combo and under 10×10 PopUp
White Noise everyday wires on follow cart
Kelly Doran (additional Utility & Boom Op) with Randy Johnson
Main recording cart with aux cart
holding additional Shure channels
and Spectrum Manager.
Dave Roberts using his Appalachian Trail clearing
skills to help the drivers get gator/mix trailer
combo out of the mud in Ashtabula, Ohio, woods

While you’re watching White Noise, make sure to keep an eye out for a cameo by our very own Randy Johnson.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

By Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

Drew Kunin is a Production Sound Mixer with a wide range of international locations and projects. To name a few; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Adaptation (2002), Lost in Translation (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Life of Pi (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), Mank (2020), for which he received his third Oscar nomination, plus In the Heights (2021), and The Whale (2022).

Janelle Monáe, Rian Johnson (Director-Writer).
Photo by John Wilson/Netflix © 2022

I caught up with Drew while he and his wife were on vacation in Portugal where we discussed his work on Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, his second feature for Director Rian Johnson, and the sequel to Knives Out (2019). Drew had wrapped The Killer for David Fincher and was getting some needed away time before starting May December for Todd Haynes.

Drew describes Rian Johnson, the Director of Glass Onion, this way, “He’s really smart and really cinema-savvy, with an encyclopedic knowledge of modern movies. He’s a cinephile in a way that’s truly fun. He’s enjoyable to be around, he does a lot of homework, and comes ready, every day. He knows what each shot’s for and how the scene’s cutting together.”

Drew continues, “The Producer, Tom Karnowski, was the Producer on The Post, a Steven Spielberg film that I had also been the mixer on. That was a show that involved some huge scenes with lots of characters talking. There were scenes with sixteen people, eighteen people speaking. There were long, very busy, very talky scenes that went from room to room to room without cutting. It was very complex to record. Steven was really pleased with how we were able to get all that stuff, and his post team was, too, as I believe they had the shortest post schedule of any film Steven has made since the 1970’s. The original Knives Out was similarly talky, with complicated, dialog-driven scenes and lots of characters speaking. I don’t think we ever got to eighteen, but there were like fourteen, ten, or twelve people all talking at once and it just was very busy. When Rian and Tom were discussing the potential recording difficulties in early pre-production, I think my name came up.”

Drew Kunin
Drew Kunin’s cart

Knives Out shot in and around Boston during a particularly chilly autumn, with a bitter cold snap in November and December, but the sequel ventured to southern Greece and the city of Porto Cheli, plus the island of Spetses. The main set was a large villa made up of twelve pavilions that cascade down a hillside with a huge central staircase and six pools. Some of the interior sets in the main villa were then built on an enormous stage in Belgrade, Serbia.

“As I heard it, when the idea of a sequel was mooted, Daniel Craig was like, “Yeah, I’d love to do the character again. I’d love to be involved, but I want it to be some place really nice. I want it to be like a holiday in a great location … somewhere that’s warm.” When they first began talking to me, I believe they thought it might be Tahiti or Bora Bora or something like that. But we ended up in a part of Greece that’s gorgeous and in an amazing villa that’s just phenomenal. Once they found that house in Greece, they were like, “Oh yeah, this will be it,” and then they were able to build the production around this one, outrageous villa.”

Glass Onion is a crime whodunnit where Detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, solves another murder mystery. The cast included Kate Hudson, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Madelyne Cline, and Jessica Henwick, with some intriguing cameos, including Hugh Grant, Yo-Yo Ma, and the late Angela Lansbury and Stephen Sondheim, to name some of the large cast.

Drew explains, “The location was very exposed to the sun and the wind in the afternoons, the wind comes up as the land heats from the sun, causing thermals to rise, and this wind comes in off the ocean. We had to deal with that almost every day. There was a lot of wind, a lot of exposure, and difficult booming, because there were hard shadows visible from the bright sunlight, plus we had multiple cameras. And there was another thing that was an issue with the villa, there were cicadas. It was a year with a particularly big hatch of them, and we were shooting at the peak of their cacophony. I did a lot of wild tracks of them to try to build up an archive of variations that would give the post team some ammo to help find a way to blend it all. I’ve spent my career working my butt off to try and create quality production tracks, and we try to get pristine tracks as much as we can, but that’s not always possible, sometimes for factors beyond our control. In this case, Matthew Wood and Josh Gold and their post team were diligent in trying to preserve and massage the production tracks as much as possible, to see if they could find a way to utilize what we had delivered. Thankfully, they managed to stitch it all together seamlessly, between clever processing and pulling occasional words from other takes when necessary. Amazingly, they were able to work with and augment most everything we gave them, and ultimately, everyone was extremely happy with results (and the cicadas are still in there; not as a problem, but as part of the soundscape).”

On the original Knives Out, Mike Primmer was the Boom Operator, with Boston local Utility Ryan Baker. Mike was not available for the sequel, so Patrick Martens got the call. Drew had met Patrick on Mank, as he had come in when Drew needed three Boom Operators for the big party and banquet scenes (more scenes with eighteen different characters speaking!). Drew was eventually able to convince the producers that it would be worth it to bring Ryan onto Glass Onion as well, because he had done such great work on the first film overseeing and organizing the wiring of that sizable cast, and more of the same expertise would be required.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (L-R) Edward Norton, Madelyn Cline, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, and Daniel Craig. Cr. John Wilson/Netflix © 2022.

Drew’s microphone of choice for interiors is usually the Sennheiser MKH 50, and sometimes the Schoeps CMIT 5U for wider shots, with the CMIT taking the primary role on exteriors, as well as the Neumann KMR 82 and sometimes the Sennheiser 8070. The big change from the first film was his switch to the Shure Axient wireless system after he first used them on In the Heights. Mank was actually the first film released that used the Axient Digital system on set. Despite being shot after In the Heights (and West Side Story), it was released many months earlier. “The Axient Digital system, from my end of it, has been very stable and user-friendly. It has handled lots of transmitters running simultaneously in difficult RF environments, generally without a fuss. It will manage the frequencies of all the transmitters with Show Link, which is really nice, as I already have enough to worry about.” Drew explained why he continues to invest in his equipment package. “One of the big issues is that we are independent contractors. You’ve invested a lot of your money over the decades to build an ecosystem that you keep populating with more equipment that is still reverse compatible to what you already had. The thought of changing it all over is a huge investment that no one is gonna pay you for. You’re not going to get a penny more from a producer because you’ve got this system or another system. But it’s part of your cost of doing business. Because you know the twist that you’re feeling in your bowels when it’s all going haywire … what would it be worth to have that go away?

Utility Ryan Baker and Boom Operator Patrick Martens
visiting the Parthenon.

“I use the Cantar X3 as a recorder, with a Cantaress mixing surface for tracks one through twelve, and a Cantarem 2, alongside for those scenes when I need to expand to tracks thirteen through twenty-four. In the end, I was able to get my cart to most places where we shot, however, I also wanted to have a bag rig setup, and have the ability to leave the transmitters on the actors for times when I’d be in a more mobile mode. If we have to shoot on the docks or the boat or a car, I could just grab a bag rig that had the receivers matching the existing transmitters and go over the shoulder.

Drew’s cart being loaded onto the yacht by crane.

“I used six Shure ADX5D’s (actually these were some of the very first ADX5D released) in two PSC 6-Packs (as they’re double receivers that would give me twelve wireless) with the Aaton Hydra card, and I had what I needed, all with the onboard mixer or the Cantarem 2. I made a cart built around the bag where I could unplug the cart from the bag and go over the shoulder. This tiny cart is quite vertical, and folds up to fit inside a rifle case that I can check on an airplane.”

The main villa location being on six levels meant a lot of moving of the gear. The crew spent a great deal of time lugging equipment like Sherpas up and down the massive hillside staircase to the various pavilions and gardens on different levels. There was a lot of dark humor based on speculation about which level the next setup would be on. Drew found that the villa had an underground and hidden funicular car system that stops at each level. It allowed all the various pavilions and rooms to be serviced with laundry and food and such like, without seeing the mechanics of how things were transported. Unfortunately, it was a bit small, dimensionally, for much of the film equipment. “It happens that my main cart is an unusual size and shape, and it actually managed to fit into the funicular, which allowed me to zoom up and down to all the different levels. I work standing up. I don’t sit and I’ve always done that, so I’ve built my cart very upright, in a vertical orientation, and it has a quite small footprint, although it’s really tall. Then I have fold-out shelves, two wings that are for a second mixer or computers and peripheral stuff, but the shelves tuck away to allow me to get through tight spots … like the funicular.

“On Glass Onion, it’s summer, it’s in Greece. The actors were wearing light gossamer clothes and other skimpy costumes and it was tricky to get mics on them. There was a lot of work with the Costume Department that was very helpful and amenable. We did things like sewing mics on a strap of a bikini, or pre-rigging mics sewed into the seams of relatively see-through clothes, for example.” For lavaliers, Drew generally uses the DPA 4061, although he will also use the 6061 when he needs something smaller. Occasionally, he’ll also use a Countryman when he needs a super tiny mic, and also Sanken COS-11 in certain particular situations.”

Steve Yedlin was the DP, working with the Sony Venice camera. Steve has actually worked together with Rian Johnson on all of his films. Drew says, “Steve is a very unique Director of Photography, in that he is the DP, and he is the DIT and he is also the Dimmer Board Operator, controlling all the lights on the set. He is extremely tech-savvy, but he does it with artistry, which is quite impressive. He has a workstation setup of his own design with all these keyboards and screens, usually very close to the cameras, and he’s like, the man behind the curtain.”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022). (L-R) Dave Bautista as Duke and Madelyn Cline as Whiskey. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022.

Rian likes to use multiple cameras in scenes, and he’s diagrammed them out. He knows what’s on his shot list, and sometimes they will end up doing wide and tight shots simultaneously; so occasionally you have to advocate for the sound. Sometimes, I would ask, “Hey, can we do just one camera? Can we have we have one take, once you’re happy with that wide camera and you feel you got it?”

Rian would answer, “Sure, sure. Sure. Absolutely.” You got to remind him, and he will do it. I don’t want to be in an adversarial position with anybody, because we’re all making the same movie. I think that asking to have at least a take or two with the closer cameras and not the wide, once they feel like they got what they wanted out of the wide camera, is possible with a director who understands what it can mean for the performance. If you make the case, then you can have it sound really fat and sweet.

“Ultimately, as a Production Sound Mixer, what I’m hoping to do is capture the magic of a great performance, as it happens in real time, with presence and clarity such that an audience can experience that same magic, wherever and whenever they see the film. With Glass Onion, hopefully the viewers will be pulled in by the very clever story and entertained by all the snappy dialog and enthralled with the fun performances, without ever giving a thought to all the crazy work it took to make it.”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was released in cinemas on November 23 and will then stream on Netflix on December 23, 2022.

2022 Creative Arts Emmy Sound Mixing Winners

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation

Only Murders in the Building
“The Boy From 6B”
Lindsey Alvarez, Re-recording Mixer
Mathew Waters CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Joseph White Jr., Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Jason Benjamin, Timothy R. Boyce Jr.

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)

Stranger Things
“Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab”
Will Files CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Mark Paterson, Re-recording Mixer
Craig Henighan CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Michael P. Clark CAS, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Brenton Stumpf, Stokes Turner

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie

The White Lotus Season 1, Episode 6 Murray Bartlett Photograph by Mario Perez/HBO

The White Lotus
“Departures”

Christian Minkler, Re-recording Mixer
Ryan Collins, Re-recording Mixer
Walter Anderson, Production Mixer
Jeffrey Roy, ADR Mixer
Production Sound Team: Sabi Tulok, Nohealani NihipaliDay

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

The Beatles: Get Back
“Part 3: Days 17-22”

Michael Hedges, Re-recording Mixer Brent Burge, Re-recording Mixer
Alexis Feodoroff, Re-recording Mixer Giles Martin, Music Mixer

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety Series or Special

Adele: One Night Only
Paul Wittman, Production Mixer,
Tom Elmhirst, Music Mixer
Eric Schilling, Music Mixer
Josh Morton, Re-recording Mixer
Kristian Pedregon, Re-recording Mixer
Shane O’Connor, Re-recording Mixer Christian Schrader, Supplemental
Audio Mixer

Names in bold are Local 695 members

Ric Rambles

by Ric Teller

Telluride crew

Today the ramble becomes an interview.

In 1979, when I began working at KTLA, twenty-five engineers had worked there for twenty-five years or more, some since the ’40s when television was new in Los Angeles. Working with those experienced pioneers was a terrific beginning. It was interesting and educational. A few years later, I met and worked with Ed Greene, Val Valentin, Doug Nelson, Ron Estes, and other mixers who led the way in entertainment television. At first, I was just trying not to be a spuddler. As time passed, I was fortunate to work with the core group of freelance entertainment A2’s.

So, I’m going to take some questions … from myself. Most of these things are true.

When are you going to retire?

I’m often asked that question. If the phone don’t ring, you’ll know it’s me.

In your career, what has been the most important technology change?

Nearly everything has changed except the XLR (L for latching and R for a version surrounding the female contacts with a synthetic rubber polychloroprene (neoprene) insulation, and the Shure SM 58 which dates back to 1966. When I began, we recorded on tape, and audio connections were made with analog cables. Now it’s nearly all digital. Without a doubt, the one thing that has most directly affected my career is the switch to fiber-optic cable. The old copper 27-pair and 56-pair mult cables were very heavy. I’m glad those long runs between the stage and the production truck are now done with fiber.

What is the most unusual experience you’ve had while putting a lav mic on someone?

In the ’80s, Merv Griffin produced a show called Dance Fever. It was an amateur dance contest with a host, contestants, and celebrity guest judges wearing Vega VHF lavs. One day, I went to mic the three celebs and in the number one position was Zsa Zsa Gabor who told me, “No, dahlink, I don’t wear those.” I offered several possibilities, none were acceptable. She was dressed in a chic outfit with a smart fur-trimmed jacket, mind you, she must have been seventy at the time. I asked if she was going to carry her small, lovely purse onto the set, “Of course, dahlink.” Then I made a most unexpected inquiry, “May I put the transmitter inside your purse and run the microphone wire up the sleeve of your jacket? I’ll hide the mic in a good spot, and no one will be the wiser. “Except you and me, dahlink.” And so, it was. RGR, you would have liked that one.

Do you have a favorite bit of television audio folklore?

If I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t have asked that question. For years, Gene Weed was the director of The Academy of Country Music Awards broadcast. Mark King was, and still is, the A1. Gene liked to give audio notes, even during a live show. He frequently asked for more audience response in the mix. One year, Mark set up a speaker with a volume pot at the director’s position in the truck, giving Gene the ability to raise the level of the audience mics to his taste. It was a success and continued every year thereafter. Of course, he was only controlling that speaker, but I truly believe Gene was convinced for the rest of his life that he was mixing the level of audience response on the broadcast.

Do you have gig envy?

No. I’ve had way more than my share. Unless you count gigs that predated my career. It would have been fun to work on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. That’s about it.

How about a favorite location?

Anywhere I am working with friends. Especially Telluride.

You must have had many opportunities to ask for autographs.

I’ve asked for three. Jerry Lewis signed his book, Dean and Me, while we were at the telethon. Questlove signed Something to Food About at the train station Oscars (I have a small collection of autographed food and cookbooks). The third autograph was collected while we were in Chicago shooting a special at Ravinia Festival, featuring Disney’s Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra. Ernie Banks joined the festivities to conduct “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” I went backstage to put a lav on him. We chatted for a few minutes, then he pulled out a Sharpie and signed my credential.

Do you have a favorite quote?

Two come to mind.

When asked by a frustrated teacher, “Don’t you know anything?”
Yogi Berra answered, “I don’t even suspect anything.”

In the heat of a live TV show. Ed Greene: “I can’t talk, I can’t talk, I can’t even listen.”

The Baker’s Dozen performing at Hastings High School 1969.
Ray Grabner is the sax player in the grey suit. On his left is the noted Colorado photographer, Bernie Gitt.

Name someone who influenced your career.

OK, but I can’t name anyone from television, that list is way too long.

I stood next to Ray Grabner in the Hastings High School Choir. Ray was a senior and anchored the bass section. As a junior, I did my best. Our school put on a musical every other year alternating with a variety show. 1969 was a variety show year. One day, I guess it must have been an early spring day, while we were standing next to each other at the choir rehearsal, Ray asked me if I would like to play in a group that he and Randy Sharp, a tenor, were forming for the show. They already played together in a very popular local band, but this would be a larger group made up of players from a few different bands and at least one with no experience at all. Of course, I said yes and became a member of The Baker’s Dozen. Rehearsals began for the thirteen-piece, brass-heavy band at the Firebird Inn, a second-floor nightclub on Burlington Avenue. Ray sang and played the tenor sax; my instrument was the trombone. We covered The Impressions’ “This Is My Country,” Lou Rawls’ “Dead End Street,” and “Somewhere” from West Side Story, an arrangement that was like the one performed by The Fabulous Flippers, easily the most famous and influential regional horn band in the Midwest. From that beginning, I began to play regularly. A few years later, I joined Ray in the horn section of a popular group called The Elastic Band, hitting the road in a seven-state area. A couple of years after that, I moved to California with another band. By then, the need for trombone players had diminished by two-thirds. Both minor. In 1979, a decade after the Hastings High Variety Show, I began working in television. Ray and I haven’t seen each other for a long time although we still correspond and share a love for bands with horns. There is no doubt in my mind that by inviting me to play in that variety show, Ray opened the door leading to a more than forty-year career.

What is your longest workday (actual time, not the one that felt like it would never end)?

The longest workday I’ve ever had was in Las Vegas at the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. I began work at 10 a.m. Sunday with Jerry’s orchestra rehearsal. He sang songs and had great fun with the musicians. The show went on the air at around 6 p.m. on Sunday and ended more than twenty hours later, on Monday afternoon. After the show, we wrapped for about four hours. We worked for thirty-seven hours. After a nap, a bite to eat, and a shower, we drove to an early call at Sony Studios in Culver City and worked the next day. Oh, to be that young again.

A show that lengthy must come with stories.

It was exciting to work on something I watched while growing up. In my early years on the show, I worked the overnight shift where we would see the Bubble Guy, the Plate Spinner, Bobby Berosini’s chimps, and the Tall Cedars who inspired an audio group we named the Tall Faders.

I also have fond memories of some of the regular performers like Jack Jones who was so supportive and so talented, and Maureen McGovern who stopped the show one year with her version of “Cloudburst,” backed by the show’s terrific orchestra. Lou Brown was the music director in my first years, Chiz Harris was the drummer, and Don Menza held the tenor sax chair. Toward the end, Lee Muziker wielded the baton, Bernie Dresel played drums and through all the years, the incomparable Rick Baptist anchored the trumpet section. I loved seeing iconic comedians like Don Rickles, Red Buttons (who never got a dinner), Norm Crosby, and Shecky Greene. Henny Youngman performed not long before he died. He was a very old man who needed help getting on stage, then proceeded to machine gun one-liners for about five minutes until we were laughing so hard, we couldn’t catch our breath. In 2000, the electronic tote board failed. We became the human version.

So, you were on television. Was that the only time?

Award shows often use a pop-up mic that can disappear into the stage floor when not in use. One of the many years that the Emmy Awards show took place at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, a newly designed pop-up was installed for the first time. Unlike the common models that are straight and vertically pop up and down, this one had an obtuse angle sort of mimicking a boom arm at the top. One problem. Only the vertical section could disappear leaving the angle exposed above the stage. At some point in the show, Peter Jennings, the personification of news gravitas, was introduced and made an entrance, walking to the pop-up. The operator was a bit late bringing up the mic and Mr. Jennings stepped on the exposed angle, the part where the mic element lived. Flattened the sucker. Done. Kaput. I ran from stage left with an RF hand mic and held it out for Mr. Jennings, thinking he would take it and I could scoot off stage. Nope. He just started talking while I was standing two feet away holding the mic at the proper angle. It was a long speech, it seemed to last forever. In hindsight, I wish the viewers could have seen my thought bubble, channeling Big B. “You’re a grown-ass man, take the damn mic!” When I got home after the show, my phone message machine was blinking. It was my mother, “I saw your hand on TV!”

Have you worked at a live event where something unforgettable happened?

The Jim Valvano speech. We were working the first Espy Awards on March 4, 1993, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. Coach Valvano had a very aggressive form of cancer. He was slated to receive the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award. Most thought he would not be able to make the trip to New York from North Carolina, much less give a speech. Many of you know the outcome. He made the trip and gave a speech that no one present will ever forget. He didn’t talk about basketball, he talked about life.

To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day.

Near the end, Valvano announced the formation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization that, to date, has awarded nearly $300 million in grants. Less than two months after the speech, on April 28, Jim Valvano died. As a cancer survivor, I’ll never forget being there and hearing him speak.

2022 Primetime EMMY Awards

Nominations for Outstanding Sound mixing 74th Primetime Creative Arts EMMY Awards

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour)

Better Call Saul
“Carrot & Stick”
Larry Benjamin CAS, Re-recording Mixer Kevin Valentine, Re-recording Mixer
Philip W. Palmer CAS, Production Mixer Production Sound Team:
Mitchell Gebhard, Andrew Chavez

Euphoria
“Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”
Anne Jimkes-Root, Re-recording Mixer
Chris David, Re-recording Mixer
Austin Roth, Re-recording Mixer
Sean O’Malley, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Chris Thueson, Kendra Bates, Eliana Alcouloumre

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
“How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?”
Ron Bochar, Re-recording Mixer
Mathew Price CAS, Production Mixer
George A. Lara, Foley Mixer
Stewart Lerman, Scoring Mixer
Production Sound Team: Carmine Picarello,
Spyros Poulos, Egor Panchenko

Ozark
“Sanctified”
Larry Benjamin CAS, Re-recording Mixer Kevin Valentine, Re-recording Mixer
Akira Fukasawa, Production Mixer
Amy Barber, Foley Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Jared Watt, Jacob Brigg

Stranger Things
“Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab”
Will Files CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Mark Paterson, Re-recording Mixer
Craig Henighan CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Michael P. Clark CAS, Production Mixer Production Sound Team:
Brenton Stumpf, Stokes Turner

Succession
“Too Much Birthday”
Nicholas Renbeck, Re-recording Mixer
Andy Kris, Re-recording Mixer
Ken Ishii, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Peter Deutscher, Michael McFadden, Luigi Pini

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie

Dopesick
“Pseudo-Addiction”

Nick Offord, Re-recording Mixer
Ryan Collins, Re-recording Mixer
Jay Meagher CAS, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team;
Tony Cargioli, Chris Jones

Gaslit
“Final Days”

John W. Cook II, Re-recording Mixer
Ben Wilkins, Re-recording Mixer
Devendra Cleary CAS, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Chris “Catfish” Walmer, Kelly Lewis,
Chloe Patenaude, Denis Perez,
Jackson Cruz

Moon Knight
“Gods and Monsters”

Bonnie Wild, Re-recording Mixer
Scott R. Lewis, Re-recording Mixer
Tamás Csaba, Production Mixer
Scott Michael Smith, Score Mixer

Pam & Tommy — “The Master Beta” – Episode 104 — Pam and Tommy resort to increasingly desperate measures to get their property back. Pam (Lily James) and Tommy (Sebastian Stan), shown. (Photo by: Erin Simkin/Hulu)

Pam & Tommy
“The Master Beta”

Nick Offord, Re-recording Mixer
Ryan Collins, Re-recording Mixer
Juan Cisneros, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Gary Boatner, Estuardo “S2” Galvez,
Scott Marshall

The White Lotus Season 1, Episode 6 Murray Bartlett Photograph by Mario Perez/HBO

The White Lotus
“Departures”

Christian Minkler, Re-recording Mixer
Ryan Collins, Re-recording Mixer
Walter Anderson, Production Mixer
Jeffrey Roy, ADR Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Sabi Tulok, Nohealani NihipaliDay

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a
Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation

Barry
“all the sauces”

Elmo Ponsdomenech CAS,
Re-recording Mixer
Teddy Salas, Re-recording Mixer
Scott Harber CAS, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Erik Altstadt, Charles Stroh, Evan Scheckwitz,
Maasai Moore

Curb Your Enthusiasm
“IRASSHAIMASE!”

Earl Martin, Re-recording Mixer
Chuck Buch CAS, Production Mixer
Michael Miller, ADR Mixer
Production Sound Team:
William Munroe, Chris Silverman, Leslie Metts

Hacks
“The Captain’s Wife”

John W. Cook II, Re-recording Mixer
Ben Wilkins, Re-recording Mixer
Jim Lakin, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Ryan Fee, Claire Mondragon

Only Murders In The Building — “The Boy From 6B” – Episode 107 — With the investigation scratching at a web of old crimes originating inside the building, a mysterious young man turns the tables to spy on Charles, Oliver & Mabel. Theo (James Caverly), shown. (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)

Only Murders in the Building
“The Boy From 6B”

Lindsey Alvarez, Re-recording Mixer Mathew Waters CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Joseph White Jr., Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Jason Benjamin, Timothy R. Boyce Jr.

Ted Lasso
“Rainbow”

Ryan Kennedy, Re-recording Mixer
Sean Byrne, Re-recording Mixer
David Lascelles, Production Mixer
Arno Stephanian, Foley Mixer
Production Sound Team: Emma Chilton,
Andrew Mawson, Michael Fearon

What We Do in the Shadows
“The Casino”

Diego Gat, Re-recording Mixer
Sam Ejnes CAS, Re-recording Mixer
Rob Beal, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Ryan Longo, Camille Kennedy

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a
Variety Series or Special

Adele: One Night Only
Paul Wittman, Production Mixer
Tom Elmhirst, Music Mixer
Eric Schilling, Music Mixer
Josh Morton, Re-recording Mixer
Kristian Pedregon, Re-recording Mixer
Shane O’Connor, Re-recording Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards
Thomas Holmes, Production Mixer
John Harris, Music Mixer
Eric Schilling, Music Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer
Eric Johnston, Playback Mixer
Josh Morton, Package Mixer
Ron Reaves, FOH Music Mixer
Jeffrey Michael Peterson, FOH Production Mixer Mike Parker, Monitor Mixer
Tom Pesa, Monitor Mixer
Juan Pablo Velasco, Pro Tools Playback Mixer Aaron Walk, Pro Tools Playback Mixer

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert “First Show Back With an Audience,
Dana Carvey As Joe Biden, Interview With Jon Stewart, and Jon Batiste
Performs ‘Freedom’
Pierre de Laforcade, Production Mixer
Harvey Goldberg, Broadcast Music Mixer
Alan Bonomo, Monitor Mixer
Tom Herrmann, Front of House Mixer

The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent
Thomas Holmes, Production Mixer
Alex Guessard, FOH Production Mixer
Dave Natale, FOH Music Mixer
Tom Pesa, Monitor Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio Mixer Pablo Munguia, Pro Tools Playback Mixer

Saturday Night Live
“Host: John Mulaney”

Robert Palladino CAS, Production Mixer
Ezra Matychak, Production Mixer
Bob Selitto, FOH Music Mixer
Frank J. Duca Jr. CAS, FOH/Foldback Mixer Caroline Sanchez, FOH Production Mixer
Josiah Gluck CAS, Music Mixer
Tyler McDiarmid, Playback Mixer
Douglas Nightwine, Monitor Mixer
William Taylor CAS, Sound Effects Mixer
Devin Emke, Package Mixer
Eric Pfeifer, Package Mixer
Andrew Guastella, Package Mixer

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)

The Beatles: Get Back
“Part 3: Days 17-22”

Michael Hedges, Re-recording Mixer
Brent Burge, Re-recording Mixer
Alexis Feodoroff, Re-recording Mixer
Giles Martin, Music Mixer

George Carlin’s
American Dream

Earl Martin, Re-recording Mixer
Jason Gaya, Re-recording Mixer
Brad Bergbom, Production Mixer
Kevin Rosen Quan, Production Mixer

Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls
“Becoming 100% That Bitch”
Erik Brena, Re-recording Mixer
Ross D’Alessandro, Production Mixer Julianne Kane, Production Mixer
Deanna Decenario, Production Mixer

McCartney 3, 2, 1
“These Things Bring You Together”

Gary A. Rizzo CAS, Re-recording Mixer Laura Cunningham, Production Mixer

RuPaul’s Drag Race
“Big Opening #1”
Erik Valenzuela, Re-recording Mixer
David Nolte, Production Mixer
Glenn Gaines, Production Mixer

Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy S2

Stanley Tucci:
Searching for Italy “Venice”

Tom O’Pray, Re-recording Mixer
Renato Ferrari, Production Mixer

Names in bold are Local 695 members

Reflecting on My Y-16A Journey

by Yohannes Skoda

As I write this article, I’m enjoying what could possibly be the best slice of strawberry rhubarb pie I’ve ever had, in a delightful cafe in Missoula, Montana. I hope you don’t take that the wrong way. It’s not meant to be a flex at all. For me it is simply another necessary marker along this incredible journey that began four years ago with me trying to join 695.

It was the summer of 2018 and I was actively meeting as many mixers as possible while talking up the idea of hiring me as a fourth using the Y-16A trainee designation. Many mixers had never heard of the position and of the few that were familiar, none were terribly excited about asking production to spend more money. My dear friend, Ben Greaves, was working with Julian Howarth on the Avatar sequels at the time and had been talking to the producers about the possibility of bringing on an extra member of the Sound Department. In the fall of 2018, production agreed and I came on board Avatar as a trainee. Credit to Ben for his persistence and Julian for being open to the idea of bringing on a relatively green newcomer. Keep in mind at this point, there was no formal Local 695 Y-16A trainee program or anything like that, just the kernel of an idea.

Left to right: Yohannes Skoda, Sol Aponte, and Eric Richardson

Here is where I’m going to take some space and time to go ahead and give Ben Greaves his flowers. He had a vision to use the Y-16A designation to do more than simply get an individual the requisite thirty union days to join 695. Ben understood that pushing me out into the workforce after thirty days would be doing me a grave disservice as I would not have the skills and the experience necessary to hold my own as a Utility. His idea was to try and have me working as a Y-16A for at least six months before stepping out as a Y-7A. Again, there was no framework for this, just an idea and a few mixers who were own board with the experiment.

Over the course of the next six months, I worked as many days as were available to me on Avatar as a trainee. It was the perfect, low(ish) pressure environment to cut my teeth on the basic job requirements of a Sound Utility. It was a challenging period as the work was not full time, so I was driving for Lyft and working as a stand-in on the side to make ends meet. In the summer of 2019, courtesy of another great champion of the cause, Jamie Gambell, the opportunity to work as a fourth on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia came up. It was the perfect steppingstone for me again to be able to hone my skills with the luxury of having an experienced Utility above me. I spent six weeks as a fourth on Sunny and for me, it was really my finishing school. I gained the confidence to wire actors independently, jam timecode, run video and antenna cable, and slowly get better at booming.

I formally joined 695 in the spring of 2019, but it wasn’t until September of that year that I started working regularly as a Y-7A Sound Utility. I guess I was, in effect, the guinea pig for this experiment of some semblance of a Y-16A trainee program. The concept is fairly simple: Pair trainees with willing mixers and crews that have a vested interest in their success and don’t let them fly the coop until there’s a general consensus that they are ready to shoulder the responsibilities of a Y-7A in today’s landscape. I can honestly say that I needed every minute of the time that I spent in a trainee capacity and even though I thought I might have been ready earlier, the fact is that I wasn’t. I didn’t know what I didn’t know as the saying goes.

So that leads me back to this cafe in Missoula, Montana. I am here for work, in the capacity of a Y-7A Sound Utility as a member of IATSE Local 695. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty damn cool. By virtue of me being in the union and having the skills necessary to do the job, someone signed off on flying me to Montana to work on a television show. Shoutout Brian Robinson, the mixer that hired me and who also gave me numerous opportunities a few years ago to day play on his shows and sharpen my skills.

Being a member of 695 has afforded me the opportunity to work on the iconic Star Wars franchise and wire Ewan McGregor without breaking a sweat (OK, maybe a few drops of sweat). I get paid very well to work in Hollywood … quite literally a dream come true. The healthcare afforded me is second to none and allows me to live my life without that nagging fear of something going wrong and not having adequate coverage. For the most part, the people that I’ve met and worked with in 695 have been some of the smartest, kindest, and thoughtful individuals around. Without hyperbole, joining the union has quite literally changed the direction of my life. Prior to being a 695 member, I was a member of the gig-economy, hustling 24/7 to make ends meet and often coming up short. I was constantly stressing about money and unable to focus on the quality of my life.

Suffice it to say that the experiment worked and since joining 695, a more formal Y-16A training program has been implemented with some outstanding results. One of the biggest joys for me is being able to work with trainees and pass on the game that was so generously given to me. I have personally had the pleasure of working with Britney Darrett, Christopher Burr, Yisel Pupo-Calles, and Eric Richardson in a trainee capacity and subsequently watching each of them move onto work on shows as stand-alone Y-7A’s. These are simply the few that I have had direct contact with. There are other success stories and one by one, these individuals are slowly changing the face of our union. Is the program perfect? No … but what in life is? I know, from firsthand experience, that it is shepherded by a group of individuals that are dead serious about creating opportunities in our union for those that otherwise would have an extremely difficult time trying to get in. I’m reminded of the Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Change takes a long time, but it does happen. The folks involved in the Y-16A training program are not talking about it, they’re being about it.

OK. It’s time to give out some more flowers…Jamie Gambell joined forces with Ben Greaves early on and consistently pitched this idea of a trainee program to the union. Jamie was instrumental in my early development and has consistently given a helping hand to trainees at various stages of their development. Shoutout Scott Bernard and Laurence Abrams for embracing the idea and facilitating a pathway forward. Casey Weiss is quite simply the G.O.A.T. when it comes to the Y-16A training program. Heidi Nakamura and Joe Aredas have consistently shown up and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to create opportunities. What is not lost on me are all of the people along the way that took a chance on me, without them I don’t know that I’m in the position that I am today. So the training program is all well and good but it only works if a mixer sticks their nose out and advocate to their productions for an extra member in the Sound Department. Trainees only graduate to their roles as Y-7A’s if mixers hire them as such. I’m writing this article to provide an example of what good can come out of the Y-16A training program, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The success and growth of the program is contingent upon everyone’s active involvement, starting at the top with mixers but also boom operators and utilities that have the opportunity to work with a trainee and share their knowledge. If any of you find yourselves in that position, I urge you to embrace it with open arms and lead with kindness and patience. I don’t know what else to say, except that I am truly grateful for the position that I am in and for all of the helping hands along the way. You guessed it … more flowers … these folks helped me in various ways along my path … some with their kindness, some with sharing tools of the trade and some giving me a job…Scott Harber, Amanda Beggs, George Flores, Lisa Pinero, Ron Judkins, Jeremy Brill, Ron Hairston, Mike O’Heney, Tim Salmon, Mitchell Gebhard, Alexis Schafer, Sheraton Toyota, Daniel Quintana, Iris Von Hase, Erik Altstadt, and Sol Aponte. Work Union … Live Better!

My Journey to NCIS

by George Flores CAS

1997 Trancas Beach, CA – Booming for Walter Hoylman

I never would’ve imagined that a television show I day-played on almost twenty years ago would still be going. And, I never would’ve imagined I’d currently be sitting in its production mixer’s chair. Frankly, I never imagined still having quite this much fun recording audio. To consider myself lucky is an understatement. That show is NCIS; the original one-hour flagship that has spun off a few other versions over the years.

Back in 2003 when the show first began, Sound Mixer Kenn Fuller was at the helm. Kenny’s Boom Operator Dirk Stout and Sound Utility/Boom Jaya Jayaraja did that first season. I came in a few times to utility, working their Saturday units and helping out on the set to set live A/V feed, which is still done today. The second season, Sound Mixer Steve Bowerman arrived with Boom Op Tom Thoms (1950-2020) and Utility/Boom Jeffrey Hefner. I became one of their go-to’s, working on everything from the audio playback, to sitting in Steve’s chair to second and double-up units. Currently, my team is Boom Operator Gail Carroll-Coe and Utility/Boom Jeffrey Hefner. Season 19 of NCIS is completed, and we are scheduled to return for a Season 20. Not a typical run by any means, and I do feel my journey to here is a combination of positive persistence, a handful of luck, and mentorship along the way.

When I was a kid, I was addicted to television and fascinated with recording music and interview programs off the radio. Voices, catch-phrases, and songs that repeated again and again via TV reruns, Top 40/rock radio, coupled with feature films you’d sometimes see in a theater multiple times (and later watch on television), gave my Generation X a cultural signpost of not the greatest era, but the most quotable. This fits right in with my chosen field, which is essentially listening to and documenting words. The words that come from performers may not be all that significant on the day, but they may have an impact to someone experiencing those words & actions months or even years later. This was woven into my childhood psyche, so how can I not seek to be a part of it, this strange sonic environment.

I feel I had this need to belong somehow in this sonic community. I wasn’t great at math and science, wasn’t much of a musician, and I certainly was not an extrovert or performer in any way. However, I did understand there was a connection between the creative and technical processes, where you couldn’t have one without the other. In a roundabout way, I hooked onto that idea of being in these two different worlds which lead me to film and TV.

(L-R) Boom Operator David A. Smith(d. 2009), Sound Utility George, Sound Mixer Phillip W. Palmer – Hostage 2004
Kevin Cerachiai, Peter Devlin & George Flores
George Flores with Richard Lightstone

Growing up in Southern California offered a huge choice of options to study and apprentice. My father, who primarily was a middle school electric shop teacher, also did Local 40 electric work for the movie studios. That was his summer job; had that been on my radar, I could’ve easily wound up as a Studio Electrician. While attending junior college, my first real audio job was with a childhood friend whose father-in-law owned a videography business. I cut my teeth on audio-signal flow, making crude A/V snakes, miking up wedding bands, and shoving interview mics in the faces of Bar Mitzvah guests. I was also a gopher at a small recording studio, which was a great experience, because I got to learn about basic microphone and recording techniques, more advanced signal flow, and that recording “was a business,” which depended on bookings and payments for services rendered. Everyone there had advice to give and opinions to share.

The Audio Maintenance Tech told me about music recording programs and schools in the area and recommended a few to me. The least expensive option was a music degree at a state university, and I chose a small school in my own backyard of Los Angeles, Cal State University Dominguez Hills. The term “Recording Arts” is more defined these days with certain aspects and levels of instruction. Although this was a music engineering program, it felt very comfortable. When I enrolled at Dominguez, I studied both traditional analog engineering and early digital recording. Digital audio recording was just beginning to be written about academically, and there wasn’t room to study audio for cinematic applications. We rarely discussed sound for film or post sound, yet I was able to apply much of it later when I worked on set. The theory was also immediately met with practice, because the school had a small 24-track recording studio within the Music Department. All the audio students had lab projects to record, so you would invariably work on each other’s assignments, or help record concert recitals in one of the theaters located below the studio.

When I graduated in 1991, the home recording market was taking off and computer technology was “bit-by-bit,” changing the way society was doing things. Recording studio facilities were facing an upheaval of technological change, not unlike the film industry would go through a few years later. My options seemed limited at the time but were far from it; the film biz was the perfect place to grow roots, I just didn’t know it at the time. After a mini-career as a temp employee, and doing video work on the weekends, one of the Video Camera Operators I’d been working with said to me, “Y’know, you’d make a good Boom Op,” and I asked, “What’s a Boom Op?” He said, “Y’know, they hold the mic on movie sets. Those union sound guys make a lot of money too.” So, I thought, I’ll check it out, it can’t be that difficult?

With Tomlinson Holman visiting NCIS 2019

Difficult: yes. Impossible: no. It was not easy. Due to the fact I didn’t have any real set experience, it was challenging to initially break in. Part of the job on any set is trust. Your producers and directors need that from the crew. As a subordinate Boom Operator or Sound Utility, the Sound Mixer needs to trust you to carry out the tasks in getting good audio. I had plenty of audio theory under my belt, but next to none when it came to applying it to movies and television. In a nutshell, I had to gain the trust of people that were going to hire me. That trust factor needs to be built over time, working within a department/group, or gaining enough experience to bring that tool wherever you go. Like pretty much everybody who works in the film business, I got experience on low-budget films. “Trial by fire” booming, mixing student projects, and frequenting the vendors, such as Coffey Sound (now Trew Audio) and Audio Services (now Location Sound) were also part of my immersion. When you start out, you tend to work on different jobs with different people. I did like the variety, and every job was a learning experience. Many of the people that I worked with early on are still working today: Ben Patrick, Peter Devlin, Felipe “Flip” Borrero, Richard Lightstone, Glenn Berkovitz, and Susan Moore-Chong. I can’t omit the Boom Operators I worked under, like Thomas Cunliffe, Kevin Cerchiai, Gabriel Cubos (d. 2009), Albert Aquino (d. 2012), and Scott Warren. Each of them has had an impact on my initial audio career that I value to this day.

I worked as a Y-8/Y-7A pretty much when I entered Local 695 in 1995. Beginning around 2005, I got my first long-term mixing gig from another mentor, Steve Nelson. From there, I began doing 2nd unit work, small referral jobs, and fill-ins. Fill-in work is great because you’re placed in a veritable hot seat where you must adapt to the technical surroundings and people. Some Boom Operators are particular about their mic and headphone levels and some Sound Utilities don’t need you to do their job for them. So, when you sit in someone’s chair, you don’t want to go mucking up things. I absorbed a great deal just observing someone’s workspace and their equipment; even trivial things like how sound reports were filled out and timecode numbers were written down. Even where the sound cart is parked is important to remember, because some Sound Mixers want to be away from the immediate set while others want to be close enough to speak with the Director or hold court.

During this time, I also began to purchase gear in earnest. By then I was married, and those decisions needed to be discussed or negotiated. My wife is in the same business (costumes), so she understood that it was going to be a substantial and ongoing investment. I wasn’t going to get all the toys I wanted all the time, yet I didn’t want that either. The mixers I had worked under gave me valued advice regarding what equipment to purchase or when to rent instead of buy. Many times, it wasn’t about the gear, it was about getting the job and establishing or continuing relationships. A Sound Mixer I had worked with, Vince Garcia, had a great old-school talent for making producers comfortable and maintaining a positive attitude that was infectious. He was not a technical sound person at all but was always busy, artfully booking the next thing while on the current show. No doubt about it, positivity does play a big role in working in this business. But I really did enjoy maneuvering in these two worlds, the creative and technical. I enjoy talking about gear and throughout my first ten years of booming and utility, I got an understanding of what I wanted to buy, and what would best work for me. I also had to keep in mind that technology does move forward. The minute you buy a piece of equipment, it can depreciate the moment you take it out of the box.

NCIS at Paramount Studios Season 17
With Boom Operator Gail Carroll-Coe, NCIS Season 18

I entered the industry when film cameras were still being used. A Nagra with timecode was the standard recorder at that time; DAT machines were prevalent, but multitrack hard disk recording was nonexistent. To be around for this digital revolution, like my college experience, seems quaint in hindsight, but there was a lot at stake, especially on the camera end. Visually, you needed a lot more processing power to get proper resolutions in your cameras and that would take a while to fine-tune. For audio, it was a relatively quick A/D conversion, with digital audiotape bridging the gap until hard disk recording really became feasible around 1999-2001 and post-production supporting it. It was only a matter of time before we had multitrack hard disk recorders, so I focused on purchasing certain types of gear: cart power and distribution, some wireless and lavaliers, slates, along with continuing to make my gear sizeable enough to fit in the trunk of my car for all the day-play gigs.

Boom Operator Gail Carroll-Coe battling two Stedicams, NCIS Seasn 19

In 2008, I went to work on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Season 4 of this half-hour comedy was my entry to “Fun Stress.” You’re either going to be completely miserable on a project or you’re not; you embrace the complexities and the challenges or find a way to rationalize your commitment to that project. It was fun having to problem-solve the requests from our actor/creators of this show. Elaborate costumes to wire, live musical performances, stratospheric SPL’s, food fights, blood, and high-octane company moves were some of the challenges. Sunny began in 2005 and had established a system of shooting with three prosumer HD cameras, so I came in really determined to record every microphone on its own track. Along with two (sometimes three) booms, every actor/speaking part got a radio mic. That continued all the way to Season 14, until I segued over to NCIS in 2018.

Sound Utility Jeffrey Hefner negotiating with NCIS Transportation
George’s NCIS Sound Cart
(L-R) Boom Operator Colin Campbell, George, Sound Utility Eva Rismanforoush 2017
In the Wilds of Alaska for NCIS 2021
With Sound Utility Jeffrey Hefner after a hot Day on location for NCIS Season 19
George’s NCIS Sound Cart

In early 2018, Steve Bowerman who had been the Sound Mixer on NCIS since 2004, decided he was going to retire at the end of that season and asked if I was interested in taking over for him. I told him it would be an honor to continue with his team of Boom Operator Mike Reardon and Utility/Boom Jeffrey Hefner. I had been there enough times as a day player and on other shows to understand that production on an hour episodic can sometimes dominate your life. It’s a constant flow of breaking down a script, execution of that script and schedule, receiving the next script, and repeating that process. I knew however, it was a very good show to work on; extremely experienced producers, writers and directors, and a very efficient crew. The show is an investigative procedural, so we don’t get many elaborate audio requests. That gives my team and I time to work the booms in and dial in wires. These days, I’m recording onto a Sound Devices Scorpio with Lectrosonics and Shure wireless. The Sennheiser MKH 50’s are my choice for interiors. I like its warmth and the low-end punch you can get with close-ups. When we’re outside, we’ll use the Schoeps CMIT. Our current batch of lavaliers we use are the Sanken Cos-11’s and DPA 4000 and 6000 series. With the amount of dialog that is written for a show like this, it can really wear out your ears, but it’s even harder on your team who are out there physically swinging the booms, wiring, or quieting noises on the set. That’s why I try to maintain the positive attitude. As Department Head, you must be a good coach and empathetic sounding board.

To consider myself lucky to be where I am today is an understatement. The timing and good fortune I’ve had is really underwritten by the joy of working on set. Having the ability to straddle this creative and technical world, and learning from extremely talented people. I still maintain that desire to get to work in the morning, to be excited about the people there, and playing with the audio toys. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Live Sound and Monitor Mixing

by Thomas Pesa

From an input to an ear. That is the basic idea in regard to monitor mixing on live events. In particular, the live events I mix monitors on include live multi-act TV award shows and special events like the Super Bowl halftime show. This is a unique world to work in since it is not the same band each night like the touring world, although I am fully aware of the challenges of both types of stage. I get along great with most touring Monitor Mixers who come through our award shows. We have worked together for years toward a common goal and it is something for which I am consistently grateful. I can break it down to several main focuses that allow the greatest chance for success.

Have a Plan

Out of all the advice I can give for up-and-coming Live Sound Mixers is to have a plan. In the TV world, your template on your mixing console is what allows you to reach for anything you need, be it certain processing, or particular inputs not normal to most shows and many options for routing outputs. In our current time, one of the more popular platforms is DiGiCo. I myself mix most every show on a DiGiCo SD5 or SD7 and most recently, the Quantum 7. These consoles offer an extreme amount of inputs and outputs and a slew of processing and FX to go along with it. Because of this, I am able to build a template that will allow me to access every input on the show. Even if it is a certain video bus from the broadcast truck or a remote package, you never know what an artist may perform along with. As for outputs, I try to have at least twelve channels of RF in ear monitors, four channels of hardwired ears for upstage drums, keys, etc., twelve available wedge mixes, along with stereo side fills. That allows me to get what anyone needs quickly. Being the guy holding up rehearsals while searching for something you did not plan for is not a comfortable scenario. Trust me.

In that same plan should be the homework to get as much information you can get ahead of time. It is usually all right there with production paperwork, phone numbers, emails, etc. The shows I work on usually offer as much info as possible so you know where the performance is, such as main stage satellite stage, etc. It also tells you who is involved with the performance, what instrument they might play, if they have a vocal mic or what their preferences are, such as in-ear monitors or wedge monitors. In the world of Super Bowl halftime shows, that plan also includes a stage that is comprised of twenty or so individual 3,000-lb carts that come together to form a single stage. All of the cable routing has to work in accordance to how the stage breaks apart. Wedge monitor locations have to be meticulously mapped out to both be effective but not in the way of staging. I have done twenty-six halftime shows, both on the field and behind the console and it never gets old. Along with structural planning, a good conversation with the touring Monitor Mixer can get you way ahead on what expectations are. This info has especially allowed me to build a “predialed” snapshot for that artist or band before they arrive for rehearsal. After all, their mixer knows what they like, but I know the layout of the show. So, guiding them through that process is key and I try to have as much done in advance to where nobody is waiting on us. The TV show soundcheck has been whittled down to the Stage Manager sometimes saying to let them do a pass while they already start looking at camera shots. This is not ideal but they play and my tech onstage rattles off requests from each player on intercom and you quickly make the adjustments. By the end of the second pass, the band settles in and they do a few more camera passes and they leave happy. That is my goal.

Situational Awareness

The idea of being aware of what is going on around you is, to me, a very important aspect of life. Not being caught off guard and ready to deal with anything coming your way and even predicting what may come your way is a basic in my life. The same goes for the show or event environment. Having some knowledge based on a little due diligence can let you know important details such as limitations of performance areas. If an artist performs on a remote stage or some crazy spot that production cooked up, you need to know what will work for monitors. Will the RF in ears have the range to reach there, or are you able to put wedge monitors there, or is it impossible to cable to them? You have to be aware of these details. Many times, there are two monitor mixers if it is a multi-stage show so, there will be a SR Mixer and a SL Mixer. Oftentimes, we have to work together on performances that may involve multiple bands who perform together back-and-forth. A big show opener would be a great example of that. Being aware ahead of time allows you to be able to deal with anything that comes your way.

This idea is not only about your situation, either. It is smart to have a grasp on the situation of the entire audio crew. It is not just you doing your job and just passing it along. The audio crew on these shows is a well-oiled machine that rely on each other. It pays for me to know what the A2’s onstage patching the band inputs or handing out RF mics have going on. What I do, or do not do, greatly impacts them.

The idea of being aware is an important one. I know it sounds simple, but there are a ton of moving parts and details on our shows, and being aware of as many that directly affect you is key.

Less Is More

I know that it is one of the most over-used phrases, but in my approach to monitor mixing, less is more. If I route a vocal through a parametric EQ, some light compression, all of which are right there on the console channel strip and to an in-ear mix that is a pretty streamlined process. I can be assured that I am not digging through layers of extra processing elsewhere on the console while the truck moves onto the next input, leaving me behind. I am not saying that sometimes you may not need something extra if a vocalist or player is problematic or used to hearing something very specific. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to route every instrument or vocal through four different Wave processors just because I can. That is an easy way to get behind on the fast-paced soundcheck environment of TV shows.

There are times when a band or artist coming into a show absolutely must bring their own monitor rig. I have seen this be successful and smooth and I have also seen it crash and burn. That same awareness I spoke of is based on thirty-plus years of this type of show environment. I would not dare tell a touring mixer what works on his stage night after night, so I find it best when they listen to some warnings about the pros and cons. I have seen far too many techs pulling apart fanouts of XLR inputs trying to figure out why the inputs are not one to one … and the selling point is usually, “It will make it easier.” Not always the case.

Now, by no means do I skimp on what I am mixing by utilizing the “less is more” approach. I still dive into those dynamics, EQ and gain and strive to make everything sound as good and cohesive as possible. Monitor mixing is unique in a way that you can go to the ends of the earth creating what you think sounds incredible, and it might, but it is all subjective. The listening audience, who at the end of the day is the final critic, has to be happy. This is where “psycho acoustics” comes into play. It has often been said that artists talk in colors, something sounds blue, OK, let me figure that out and add some red! Again, a trusted monitor guy that knows that artist can explain the often strange request, once again reinforcing the idea that we’re all working together.

At the end of the day, I find it very rewarding to pull off a successful show. Working to get a stage full or performers all in the same groove is not only about clinical execution of routing on the console. It is also about the fact that you are making artists happy. You are part of the success that may just lead to a memorable performance that goes down in history. A career of some of those moments is very rewarding.

Tom Pesa has won seven Primetime Emmys and another nine Emmy nominations for live shows such as the Oscars, Grammys, and Super Bowl halftime shows.

Ric Rambles

by Ric Teller

Ric’s Grammy credentials

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an A2.

Said no one. Ever. Perhaps a cowboy, a fireman, or an astronaut. A teacher, a musician, or an athlete. Back then (the 1950s-60s), maybe a small percentage wanted to be a TV cameraman. But an A2? No way. Admittedly, I didn’t know this job existed until 1981 when I started doing shows at KTLA. By then, I was approaching thirty years old. A few years later, when I left the station to begin freelancing, I had gained knowledge. Not exactly expertise but I had some skills. You could say I was making a run at Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule. Now, some 60,385 hours into my post-KTLA career, I am happy to report that I’m still learning. Retention is a bit problematic at times, but I still enjoy the challenges, especially of a big, difficult, live TV show. By the way, if anyone reading this is a Gladwellian scholar, forgive me if I have misused the rule, I have enjoyed some of his books, and many articles in The New Yorker, an esteemed publication where my singular contribution can be found in the Caption Contest number 355.

2022 Grammys Patch World

This year, because of some complicated COVID shenanigans, the 64th Annual Grammy Awards show was held in Las Vegas, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. We traveled to begin the setup just a few hours after wrapping the Oscars. You remember the Oscars, doncha? The MGM has been a familiar location for many award shows, but never the Grammys. There was a bit of a learning curve … ’nuff said.

Personally, I learned a couple of things on the technical side, and one big lesson about show organization. The three-and-a-half-hour live show (it comes with the gift of a three-and-a-half-hour dress rehearsal), consisted of nine awards, a couple of pre-taped segments, and sixteen musical performances divided between the A, B, and Dish (house) stages. The technical lessons were provided by Denali (production truck), Audio Engineer Hugh Healy, and ATK/Claire Global Project Manager/FOH Production Mixer Jeff Peterson. Hugh’s lesson was about a piece of equipment called the Lance Box, used to send audio signals on a single strand of fiber in both directions between the split world near stage and the production truck. It is often used for emergency backup mixes in case a console has issues during a live show. Jeff taught us how to properly set up a DiGiCo rack (the brand of audio console used at FOH and Monitor positions) to send Madi signals to the Pro Tools operators. The Madi streams include all the vocal mics individually, which can be accessed by the Pro Tools operators for tuning purposes. Watching the excellent engineers teach these tasks is educational. Both follow Einstein’s rule: If you can’t explain it to a six year old or an A2, you don’t understand it yourself. For me, retaining the information is a challenge that, on some days, might require a Vulcan mind meld. The organizational lesson I learned was about the importance of paying attention to the entire show, and how one segment affects another. I’d been looking at each performance as an individual entity. That works fine for rehearsal, but on show day, when everyone is dressed in black (a side note, the only other place you might see this many people dressed in black is at an art gallery), the show becomes the sum of its individual parts. I won’t go into the details of what I missed or how it affected the action, but thanks to the stellar work of the A-side and B-side A2’s, all seventy-five inputs for the performance in question were patched, line-checked, and ready to play right on time. Of course, six minutes later, that one was pushed off stage and two other bands arrived. Live TV, gotta love it.

A recent exchange:
Edward Nelson: “Hey Ric, did you know this show is going to be live?”
Ric: “Yes, I know.”
Edward Nelson: “Are you nervous?”
Ric: “Yes, I am.”
Edward Nelson: “Is this your first time?”
Ric: “No, I’ve been nervous before.”

With Eddie McKarge. The original B-side boy
Damon Andres, Stage A lead band A2

In 2000, the Grammys moved from the Shrine Auditorium to the then-new Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) and changed from one performance stage to two. Each Grammys since (except the unusual 2021 version) has featured A and B stages. That first year, Eddie McKarge and I were assigned to the B stage and, with a couple of exceptions, have anchored the B-side ever since.

This year, the A-side led by Damon Andres had the more difficult stage. Of course, they did excellent work.

I do wish I had a better memory of more of the wonderful Grammy performances I’ve seen over the years. If only there was some electronic device to provide a reminder…

My first was the 29th Grammys in 1987. Paul Simon was one of the performers, I was excited. At that moment, I wanted to be an A2. A couple of years later, Linda Ronstadt performed a song from the beautiful album, Canciones de Mi Padre. In those years, amazing voices like Ronstadt, Whitney Houston, and Luther Vandross were regular contributors. Luciano Pavarotti offered “Nessum dorma,” accompanied by an orchestra in 1999, the last Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium. The 45th Grammys at Madison Square Garden was filled with challenges, not the least of which was to set up the New York Philharmonic across both stages (on the floor, not on risers), in the middle of the show, so they could play some Bernstein, then make them disappear just as quickly. In 2005, Melissa Ethridge, bald from chemotherapy, sang an amazing tribute to Janis Joplin with Joss Stone. Pull this one up on YouTube.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

2012 brought Paul McCartney performing songs from the Abbey Road medley with guest guitarists Dave Grohl, Bruce Springsteen, and Joe Walsh. The 57th Grammys began with AC/DC. The best opening in my tenure. Just a few years ago, Bonnie Raitt gave us the gift of performing “Angel From Montgomery” for John Prine, who would pass away a few weeks after the ceremony. I am so grateful to have been there for each of these special moments and many more.

2022 Grammys B-side boys: Eddie McKarge, Ric Teller, Alex Hoyo, Craig Rovello

The Grammy shows, like all live award and music shows, can be physically tiring. The length of days and the mileage on cement does take a toll. This year, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, by show day, “my dogs were barking,” an idiomatic phrase attributed to Tad Dorgan, a journalist and cartoonist whose other slang offerings include “dumbbell” (a stupid person); “for crying out loud” (an exclamation of astonishment); “cat’s meow” and “cat’s pajamas” (as superlatives); “applesauce” (nonsense); “cheaters” (eyeglasses); “skimmer” (a hat); “hard-boiled” (tough and unsentimental); “drugstore cowboys” (loafers or ladies’ men); and “as busy as a one-armed paperhanger” (overworked). Personally, to avoid sore feet, I depend on Merino wool socks mostly from Smartwool, and hiking shoes from Oboz or Merrell.

It so happens that I do have a friend who grew up to be a cowboy and another who is a retired fireman. Childhood dreams. I learned early in my career to take the path of most resistance. Anyone can do the easy stuff. Take the hard road. Make a place for yourself in some part of this business that makes you happy. Push through a barrier or two. I was nearly thirty years old when I found out that I wanted to be an A2. By then, astronaut was out of the question. To have been present for the iconic performances listed above has been very special. Standing on the Grammy stage and telling Paul McCartney that to hear him play songs from Abbey Road is one of the pleasures of my life, is certainly a moment I’ll remember forever. But always foremost in my mind are the truly remarkable audio engineers that, for so many years, have made all the long challenging days worthwhile. I’m grateful for each of you and the time we have spent together making a lifetime of memories and lifelong friends.

Near the end of the show, after the last B-side performance had been cleared and the close-down wall was in, I walked out onto the empty B stage realizing that it could be my last time. Got a lump in my throat. It has been a big part of my life. Quite a few years ago, I was in a conversation about how long an A2 should work on the Grammys. The consensus was that age fifty was probably enough. Coming up on twenty years past that, it might be time to pass the torch, it might not, but I don’t regret even one minute.

Modern Motion Pictures

The Playback Company That’s Also a Software Developer

by Dave Henri

At Modern Motion Pictures, a boutique playback/graphics company run by three Local 695 Playback Supervisors (Chris Cundey, Matt Brucell, and myself), we were as busy as we’d ever been—supervising video playback on The Morning Show, For All Mankind, Black-ish, How to Get Away with Murder, and several other shows. On top of that, I was preparing to fly to London to look into opening our first office outside of the U.S. At the same time, we were also expanding the capabilities of the software tools we had created for our team in-house.

Video Supervisor Chris Cundey (back, center-right) with cast and crew on the set of HBO’s Silicon Valley

The company had grown significantly since I founded it in 2009 as a way to invoice the occasional graphic I designed while working as a Playback Engineer on set for supervisors like Matt Morrissey and Dan Dobson. I had only been in the union for a few years at that point, having started my career as an assistant to directors such as Rob Cohen and Nancy Meyers. As I gained experience on the set, I was also drawn to creating the content that we played back on so many TVs and computer monitors. The company was an outlet that allowed me to do that without giving up my time on set—time which I really loved. Within a few years, Modern Motion Pictures grew, especially as I began supervising shows of my own. It soon became unfeasible to operate as a one-man show, which is when I turned to my good friend Chris Cundey to join as a full partner.

Chris grew up in a film business family (his father is DP Dean Cundey) and had spent several years running his own video assist company, Graphic Nature; which also created graphics for on-set use and post-production visual effects. When Chris joined Modern Motion Pictures, things really took off. We had complementary skill sets and worked really well together. We would tackle large shows such as the third season of HBO’s The Newsroom together (a massive video show, which was originally supervised by Matt Morrissey before schedule conflicts took him to other projects; Steve Irwin was also instrumental to the show’s success as Lead Engineer), and assist each other as we ran some shows more or less individually. For example, Chris would run Silicon Valley while I would work on several projects with Director Steven Soderbergh, such as Contagion and Magic Mike.
As things continued to progress, we added a full-time staff of coordinators, graphic artists, and coders.

In 2018, when we were asked to supervise video for The Morning Show and For All Mankind for Apple’s new streaming service, we knew that we would need even more help and approached another old friend, Matt Brucell, who had recently won his third Emmy Award for broadcast graphic design while he was at ESPN. Matt had been the playback department PA on The Hulk when I was a Graphics Coordinator, and he and I had stayed in touch in the years since, even after he moved to broadcast television graphic design. We knew The Morning Show was going to need a lot of realistic broadcast graphics, and that Matt had the proper background to understand the specific needs of playback. Matt joined Local 695 as a Playback Specialist and Modern Motion Pictures as our third partner. The Morning Show, much like The Newsroom, was massively complicated to get off the ground. We leaned heavily on the mad skills of Playback Engineers Justin Edgerly and Justin White, and the close coordination with Sound Mixer Bill Kaplan and Utility (and “Master of Comms”) Tommy Giordano, as well as dozens of other video and sound professions each season.

Video Supervisor Dave Henri, Director Steven Soderbergh, and Zoë Kravitz on set of New Line Cinema and HBO Max’s thriller Kimi. Photo by Claudette Barius

As our company continued to expand, we began to look for ways to streamline our on-set workflows. For example, many Playback Operators use off-the-shelf tools such as Keynote or ProtoPie for creating and cueing phone graphics during a scene. However, we found that both of these programs had serious limitations, both in their capabilities and the time it took to program and design individual graphics. A custom solution was needed by 2020. Chris Cundey had already spent several years developing our proprietary programs, Magic Phone and Scene Builder. This allowed us to effortlessly recreate common smartphone actions so that they could be easily cued in an on-set environment. With these two applications, we could create simple phone calls and texting gags in just a few minutes. Even more complicated actions, like posting a live photo to Instagram or scrolling through Twitter, became straightforward to build and easy for an actor on set to operate under the guidance of a Video Playback Engineer. In fact, the accuracy of the graphics was noticed by phone manufacturers and Magic Phone quickly became a preferred program amongst product placement teams in order to ensure the proper look and feel of the most popular smartphone brands. We made plans to license Scene Builder and Magic Phone to other Playback Engineers and companies, but our commitments to film and television clients kept us too busy to devote the necessary resources beyond sending alpha versions of the programs to a few friends.

And then COVID hit.

Like everyone else, we were stunned by how quickly everything shut down. Between Wednesday, March 11 and Friday, March 13 all of our shows pulled the plug. My trip to London was canceled and no one knew what was coming next. Once we realized things were going to be locked down for more than “just a few weeks,” we pivoted to the very large list of tasks on our internal project board. Adding functionality and flexibility to Magic Phone and Scene Builder was Item #1 on our list.

A few months into lockdown, we got an interesting call from Josh Levy, a Video Assist/Video Playback Engineer, with whom we’ve worked many times over the years. He had been contacted by an HBO project called Coastal Elites, which was going to shoot a series of remote sets with actors in their homes. They were looking for a solution which would allow them to stream secure high-quality video from location to the director and other stakeholders in real time. Josh knew we had been developing a remote camera software (which would allow remote control over certain camera functionality in addition to the standard video feed) and wanted to know if it could be modified to work for this use case.

After several meetings with Josh and DP Jim Denault, we created SetLink Live, which securely streamed an extremely high-quality video feed with sound to the production team with a 200ms–300ms latency, or approximately the same lag you’d experience on a cellphone call. Additionally, Josh was able to record the feed on his QTAKE system and play either live or recording for the director.

(It is worth noting that QTAKE has since added similar functionality to their software.)

The shoot was extremely successful, and we realized that once production came back, a similar service would be needed. We revised the software, added the ability to stream from cameras, and were ready to meet the demand when production returned in the fall of 2020. As expected, there was a huge need for streaming from the set. SetLink Live went on to be used on multiple shows, such as The Morning Show, Black-ish, and Insecure. Even today, nearly two years later, this application continues to see daily use on several shows; often with two Local 695 Engineers running both the software and the safety cameras. It remains a valuable tool that can be used either standalone or in conjunction with video assist tools like QTAKE. Additionally, it can be used for custom remote video playback feeds (such as scripted Video Chats), whether from one stage to another; or from one side of the world to another.

Streaming video from set has become an integral component of production in the post-COVID world and we’re pleased with the adoption of SetLink Live and the opportunity to expand the skill sets of fellow Local 695 members who are now working as full-time streaming engineers. The program is available for license to Video Assist Engineers, Playback Engineers, and directly to productions (where we can provide 695 Engineers).

Our success in the past two years led to the development of several additional programs to make on-set life easier and more productive in the ever-expanding world of the Video Playback Engineer. Modern Gamma is a color-temperature control program used to handle multiple displays, powered by either Intel or Apple Silicon processors. Modern Chroma, our green screen generator, allows the operator to quickly dial in a preferred hue and brightness level, place or remove tracking marks, and even using various effects when the camera is shooting over the monitor toward an actor. It can also cue between various colors/effects, allowing an operator to start with a green image at the start of a camera move and then automatically change it to gray once the monitor is no longer blocked and then change again to another effect once the screen is no longer being photographed. Simple Cues, our QuickTime control program, allows a user to quickly jump between multiple clips and then set separate loop, pause, and advance rules for each one. All three of these programs are available to license monthly as part of a package with Scene Builder and Magic Phone.

Additionally, we have also developed Vitals, an easy-to-control heart rate monitor program for hospital and EMT sets. The program can run multiple custom cues, including various heart rates, blood pressure, temperature, etc. It has multiple looks and can run on monitors of nearly any aspect ratio. Vitals is available as part of a standalone package, which can be licensed on a monthly or per-show basis.

We’re excited to be able to offer the tools we’ve been using for years to our fellow supervisors and engineers. All of our product licenses are priced to be affordable to operators so as to be sustainable within the industry. As for that canceled trip to London, well, we ended up changing plans slightly and have just opened a new office in Berlin to cover European and UK productions. Europe tends to shoot most screens as green screen on set. We’re hoping to introduce productions there to a workflow where skilled engineers can provide a better experience on set for a better price than constantly relying on a burn-in. Two years after the initial COVID shutdown, it’s fascinating to see how our industry evolves and adapts. And it’s exciting for us at Modern Motion Pictures to be a small part of that change.

From Ukraine to the Final Frontier:

The Story of Vadym Medvediuk

We all recognize the hum of a helicopter’s blades slicing through the sky. It’s something that most of us are used to, right? Now imagine getting used to an air raid siren. Picture that surreal noise becoming a part of your daily routine to the point that you just stop reacting to it—you stop going to the bomb shelter. Why so reckless? Because “it might just be another false alarm” or “it’ll probably miss home again” or you are “too tired to walk seven flights of stairs a couple times a day.” These are the quotes my mother told me after the first week of the war in Ukraine. She was trying to explain something that I, luckily, never experienced before and hopefully never will. 

I was born in 1993, right after the USSR collapsed, in the free independent country Ukraine. I studied journalism in Poland and, during summertime, I would go back to my hometown to work as a local news correspondent. You see, being able to study abroad and travel to Europe was very much an “eye-opening” experience. When I’d go back home and see all the unfairness my own people would go through, my heart would ache. I needed to do something. So I started writing blogs, attending demonstrations and protests, finding likeminded people to unite, and hopefully help our country fight the internal enemy. It happened right before the revolution that took place in the end of 2013. During those years, I was getting more into film craft and understanding the possibilities of the art form—the way you can interact with the audience, communicate with them. Speaking your mind is as subjective as it is liberating. It’s up to the viewers to agree or to disagree after all. I didn’t feel that my message ever went far enough in journalism, so I started working in film. Parallel with that, I started to have a lot of problems with the government of my country. They did not take kindly to all of the protests over as quaint an idea as “free speech.” Pfff who needs that anyway? Things got so bad that in 2015, I had to leave Ukraine to protect my freedoms, liberty, and probably even my life. I was forced to seek political asylum in the U.S. 

It took about three years of travels across America for me to experience life here and to have some solid integration into the local society. I knew eventually I’d have to end up in LA. All of my goals were there. As I would explain it to my friends, “Yes, you can make films anywhere, but why hit blood vessels if you can target the heart?” And so the pursuit of the big dream began. Targeting the heart of the industry was a bit of a long and difficult process. As is the case for most of us, I started as a PA, working for free, chasing coffee, driving trucks, and taking out the garbage. I worked on a lot of college and passion projects until my first big breakthrough—reality television! I booked my first solid big gig after almost a year of trying to break in—the overnight success—PA on an MTV reality show. I was proud of myself. Though it may not have been exactly what I aspired to, I now had a massive opportunity to network and develop contacts. And so I did.

While I was hustling on small gigs and nonscripted productions, I spent the next year writing and shooting personal passion projects. While shooting in my apartment complex, I met Michael Kish, one of my neighbors who has since become a close friend. We met in the elevator in the middle of the night after we’d both come home from our long workday.

I said, “Hi, long day at work huh?”

He replied, “Are you the guy who’s shooting porn in his apartment?”

For the record, no, I was not. But after a bit of an awkward silence, we both chuckled and introduced ourselves. Mike, as luck would have it, would be my insider into the scripted world. He was a background PA for ABC’s Black-ish at that time and he would always do his best to bring me on board. I will always be grateful to Mike for the opportunities he gave me. I started developing a new circle of colleagues who would help me find film and TV work. I started gaining more knowledge and understanding of what I want to do in the industry.

Then came March of 2020 and the entire world locked down.

Like most people reading this article, I was absolutely terrified by the pandemic. I lost my job. I felt cut off from my friends. I was afraid for my family and I was afraid for myself. And I had nothing but time on my hands. So I started writing and developing projects with my roommates, Dilek, Kyle, Natalie, and Emre. They may not have been filmmakers but they were passionate artists and I am thankful for all of them. It took bravery to go out and shoot in those strange days. We, of course, made it as safe as possible. Experience shooting during the pandemic helped me to start work with a German reality/challenge show as early as May of 2020. That job led to another one at the reboot of Saved By the Bell, which I believe was one of the earliest shows to resume production. And that show brought me to Star Trek: Picard. Boom baby, was back at it!

I started working on set of the second season of Star Trek: Picard in the COVID Compliance Department. I was that safety guy for a whole season of the show. But I was overjoyed just to be in that environment. I could watch and learn so much. Obviously, the safety of the set was the priority, but my job was literally just to observe people’s behavior and compliance. So I made a point to pay attention to the specifics of each department while I was at it. That’s how I met Amber Maher, the Video Assist Operator on the show. The possibility of watching the creation of the show through the QTAKE system sounded absolutely marvelous. She got to see and hear every single take and even strung together light edits on demand. It was the coolest thing. So, naturally, I went up to her and said, “Hi, my name is Vadym. Can I ask what you’re doing on set?” That went a long way.

Amber fought tirelessly to get me placed in the Y-16A Training Program with Local 695. I got my first official day in the end of October 2021. Since then, I have worked as a Y-16A Video Assist Trainee for eight hundred hours and about one hundred more as Y-7 Video Assist Engineer. Local 695 has been very supportive; keeping contact with me almost every week, checking on extra practical trainings or theoretical material I might need and you know, and just supporting me in any way they can. I mean you guys are reading this article right now, I’m blessed that the union has offered such an amazing opportunity just so I could share my story with you and hopefully, that will inspire something good in you. Thank you, Casey and James. 

Star Trek ended up being more than just a job and the Star Trek family has done so much for me. They gave me experience, they gave me friendship, they gave me support, and a place to call second home for a while. Were it not for Amber’s decision to become my friend and mentor, I may never have made it into Local 695. And were it not for the compassion of my cast and my crew, I may never have been able to send money back home to evacuate my family to Poland following Russia’s invasion of my homeland. Words cannot express my gratitude to all of them and, particularly to Sierra Haworth, our on-set Camera Utility for organizing the crew’s GoFund me campaign to save my family.
My family escaped the acts of genocide that have spread across Ukrainian land and killed thousands of innocent people while forcing millions more to flee their homes. My family was lucky to have the support of my Picard fellowship. They could just as easily be among those we bid farewell to in our prayers each night. Under different circumstances, I could already be among the fallen. Any of us could, really.

That is why I am coordinating with my friends from the Filmanthropy nonprofit organization to gather funds in support our friends and loved ones still struggling in Ukraine. Our efforts ensure that any donations will go directly to those in need. If you have the means to donate, consider going to https://givebutter.com/SupportUkraine/vadymmedvediuk and making a contribution. With the help of my Local 695 kin, I hope we’ll be able to gather more support and do the right thing, the most humane thing, in order to help the ones in need.

Thank you for reading the glimpses of my life story and all the best to you, reader.

The Queen of Stream

by Amber Maher

In December of 2020, I got the call.

Video Assist Streaming Engineer Amber Maher

I had just finished working on King Richard as the Video Assist Streaming Engineer. Jeb Johenning from Ocean Video called me up and told me he had recommended me for another streaming video assist position. He had described me as the go-to wizard for anything to do with video assist and streaming media to the team he was working with. He and I had developed a good rapport together while I was working with Dempsey Tillman, Jeff Snyder, and others over at Man in the Box Video Assist. After working on King Richard, WandaVision, and Space Jam: A New Legacy, I had Jeb on speed dial. He was our go-to QTAKE Rep for the West Coast. QTAKE is the gold standard premiere software platform used for Video Assist Operators in Hollywood to record, playback, composite effects, stream, and live view everything that we film.
I’d often call him up to discuss QTAKE jobs. He had helped train most of the video assist people in the union on both coasts, including my mentor, Lee Hopp of LH Video in New York City. I was profoundly flattered by his recommendation and appreciation of my technical know-how but I never expected how that call was about to change my entire world. We discussed my workflows on previous projects like King Richard and Space Jam: A New Legacy, and I told him a little bit about what I’d been dealing with.

COVID-19 changed video assist work on a profound level. No longer could executives and Producers huddle behind a single monitor at video village. On King Richard, I had three Apple TVs that needed to be set up and broken down every day in the trailers. There were about five Executive Producers on iPads that could stream footage from wherever they were working in the world. We had about thirty-five iPads with a local stream for the crew, which I had to charge, disinfect, and maintain every day. Everyone was streaming the live and playback feed from the main QTAKE Pro computer system. Getting all these systems to work seamlessly required a lot of trial and error but we pulled it off and it was a big hit. However, if one screen ever went black, I’d get a text from almost every Executive Producer asking why they can’t see picture. From that experience and from working with the beta test version of the QTAKE Pro Stream on Space Jam: A New Legacy, I had added some new tricks to my bag to get it all to work.

Jeb was impressed with what he heard and began to tell me a little bit more about the show he wanted to put me on. I was told I’d have basics like my cart, cables, gear, etc., and that I’d be moving around different stages and locations. Everything would need to be streamed live. Production required a very complex workflow. The scope of it was almost overwhelming. He said that there would be between one hundred and one hundred fifty clients on the stream, including the executive team and those working remotely in Canada. We would be on six to eight different stages in addition to doing on-location work in downtown LA. The art department, production department, and all of the regular on-set crew would be utilizing the stream and would need service. COVID Zones A, B, and C would all need to be set up for streaming. New Directors would be coming in every other block and would need to be set up, along with their assistants. After doing the math, I realized this would be about ten times more clients than we had on King Richard or any other film I had worked on. And just one video assist person? It was massive! What show was going to need so many people? I had a lot of ideas of how this all could work. Every scenario was rather a tantalizing puzzle to solve. So I asked Jeb, “Well … when do I start?”

It wasn’t until later that I learned that the show in question was Star Trek: Picard and that we would be shooting show’s second and third seasons back-to-back. This was a dream come true. I grew up watching Star Trek with my dad. Having very keen knowledge of the show, characters, and episodes, I realized that this was monumental and could showcase all the new technologies that Video Assist Engineers could utilize.

Star Trek: Picard had a very strict COVID protocols, as most of the cast was over the age of fifty. The Producers were thorough and safety was their prime concern on the set. We had very limited crew allowed to be on set, as well as in Zone A. Everything that production had gotten familiar with over the past fifty years was thrown out the window. It was an odd experience, filming a science fiction story whilst seemingly living in one as well. COVID made its presence known on the set. One day, a co-worker would be gone and someone would inform us that they were working from home in quarantine. At the height of January’s COVID surge, we never knew who would show up to work each day.

Therefore, everyone had to be able to utilize the QTAKE. It became a vital tool for production. In fact, the production became so reliant on it that our Showrunner personally thanked me and told me they couldn’t have done it without my workflow. If video assist went down, we all went down. Jeb and I spoke about how this show, and this role could really set a precedent for video assist. This was the moment that I could get every Producer, Director, crew member, and the staff on our show to see and experience video assist and the stream like never before. Video assist would become the eyes and ears of production. There’s no other way to describe it. So we had to start from scratch and created it on the Star Trek: Picard set.

It was exciting to figure out all the possibilities. I got to work on the design and infrastructure of it. I ended up making a lot of flow charts and maps. On a show this large, it would have been impossible to wing it. I needed a complete plan in place. Maybe two or three of them. Thankfully, I was working with Todd Marks of Images on Screen, who was the Video Department Head on Picard. He was a veteran Video Playback Engineer and he spoke to production about getting me the essential prep time needed to create an ideal scene to stream for this show. He and his team of Video Engineers were able to understand the more technical aspects of our craft and vouch for it if something was needed. I was not alone and knew I had the backup of a full team of tech wizards at the helm of the show. Having such a large amount of Local 695 representation on set was wonderful. If I was getting a hard no from production and really needed the help, I was no longer a one-person band raising my hand.

For studio work, I decided to create a local QTAKE network for streaming by utilizing the stage’s IT department. I needed a bandwidth of 50mbps up and down on every stage. Then I created a secondary network for all the production offices, the art department, and to communicate with the other stages. Each remote stage required its own VPN (virtual private network) so that we could all be on one network that pointed to my system. The Ruckus (my Wi-Fi access point) beams a signal in a radius of about 100-150 feet, so I needed to set up several of them to boost the signal each time we were shooting. By setting it up this way, everyone on the QTAKE network could stream locally while everyone working remotely could stream from the cloud. This allowed the studio’s network to power the bulk of the Wi-Fi without having to rely on my individual Wi-Fi access point to supply the stream to the entire team. So in essence, a Producer or crew member could walk from one stage to another stage, into the office, out into the art department, through the production offices, and still be connected to the stream all using the QTAKE network I set up. This allowed for more crew to be able to be farther away from set and not have to rely on their cellphone signals (there was barely any service on our sets) to stream.

Local 695 Representatives on the set of Star Trek: Picard

The minute I tapped into the Ethernet plug in the wall and my system was up and running, we could all be streaming. Once we were, I found it worked better than anyone could of imagined. At one point, we had two teams and six cameras on the stream. The team could open up an iPad and see everything being shot at one time. It was actually quite fun to see the look on a Director or Producer’s face when they realized what they had available at the tips of their fingers. They were thrilled that there was one place they could go to see everything happening at once.

Anecdotally, the team got so used to seeing things in real time that whenever cameras were turned off and the signal broke, I’d be inundated with texts asking what was wrong. On one occasion, a battery swap resulted in more than a hundred texts from staff and crew who thought they’d lost the stream. To solve this, I created a handy Star Trek-inspired graphic that read, “Please Standby for Assimilation” so that Producers would know they weren’t missing any of the action. This was appreciated, especially by my fellow Trekkies on the team.

On location shooting proved much more challenging, especially on the day I found out that we would be set up on an insert car. The Director, DP, DIT, camera crew, and I were to follow the action and I had to stream it back to the production team while going 45 mph. There had been some debate as to whether or not I’d be joining them but a word from the Executive Producers settled the matter. They’d grown so accustomed to being able to watch every frame in real time that they weren’t going to let a little thing like high speed vehicle logistics deprive them of that luxury. I’ll never forget the moment when the DP pulled out his phone, read a text from our Showrunner, and asked, “How can they even see what we’re shooting?!” Then he looked at me.

I was fortunate in being able to take advantage of Local 695’s Y-16A Trainee Program. Early on in production, a member of the COVID compliance team approached me and said, “Hi, my name is Vadym. Can I ask what you’re doing on set?” I soon learned that Vadym Medvediuk was a political asylum recipient from the Ukraine and that he was interested in finding his craft on the set. With a little work, he became a part of the Local’s program and became my trainee on the set. He was fascinated by the video assist system and was eager to help me in whatever way he could, so I decided to train him. Like my previous trainee (Antonio Rodriguez), Vadym was a hard worker and did his best to learn all the ins and outs of the video assist role. In many ways, this was the perfect show as it threw him right into the deep end right out of the gate. By the end of the show’s run, I could entrust him to set up one stage while I worked on another and even run the second unit video assist while I pulled his signal and fed it to the Producers alongside my own. This resulted in a seamless integration where the production team could simultaneously watch both units work on a single screen. Now, after completing his stint on Star Trek, Vadym is in the process of becoming a Y-7 Engineer and has already begun doing video assist work of his own.

I must say that in my dealing with this show, the support that I received from the Producers, the crew, and everyone involved was like nothing I had ever encountered working in the business before. The Star Trek family really was just that: a family. It was wonderful and it is and was one of the best and most professional crews in Hollywood. From the Executive Producers, Producers, Directors, DP’s, and the legendary cast, it was such an honor and privilege to give my all to these two seasons on this remarkable show. Creatively, it was a treasure trove to walk into the Star Trek universe and know that from my job, I was able to create an impact on one of the most beloved shows this world has seen. The cast was stellar and there were so many laughs. Forever friendships were created, tears were shed, and love could be found all around. Thank you everyone involved for trusting me and choosing me to do this job. We really did become family on this set during a very unique time in history. We created some amazing storytelling, filmmaking at its best, and I can’t wait to carry that future on other projects too.

Sound Mixer: A Family Business

by Anna Wilborn

Career Achievement Award honoree Charles Wilborn CAS with daughter at the CAS Awards 2003

The scent of the top drawer on my dad’s sound cart has never left me. An odd combination of black foam rubber padding, electronics, and Juicy Fruit gum. It was the gum I was hunting for every time I visited my dad on set. I can still feel the satisfying way the two side locks unlatched allowing the drawer to slide out on its own to reveal my prize. His crew christened the giant road case cart “The S.S. Wilborn” and printed it across the lid in big cutout stickers. He thought it was hilarious and left it. I loved watching their easy camaraderie.

My dad, Charles M. Wilborn, begged me not to go into production. The hours, locations, and grind were no way to live, he insisted. Oddly enough, on this very rare occasion, I listened. When visiting my dad on location, he’d always arrange a day for me with the Editors who, back then, went with the shooting crew to prep and screen dailies, as well as begin cutting the film. Everything was still on film and 35mm magnetic tape. I’d watch Billy Anderson ACE work the flatbed and puzzle together a scene for Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society. It blew my mind.

I started my film career right out of USC in post production. I was thrilled to get an unpaid internship on Cruel Intentions, with John Morris, Sound Supervisor at Sony Studios. Pro Tools was in its infancy and besides the manual, there weren’t any books about it yet, nor an internet to learn from. On-the-job training was the only way. I was using version 3.4 to load sound effects and dialog off of DAT tapes in real time onto clunky SCSI hard drives that only held a few gigs. I’d then deliver the drives to the Editors who cut the clips into the soundtrack. Even with this advancement, we still had to lay back their Pro Tools sessions to 35mm mag for the dub stage. I’ll never forget the day Sony threw all their Moviolas in a dumpster out by Cannery Row. The Sound Editors were incensed. Even at 22 years old, I knew this was a tragedy. I got a drive-on and heaved one into the trunk of my big old 300SD. I still have it in my garage, the giant letters “MGM” in white vinyl across its side. How can you throw away that kind of history?

Every day, I’d bring my highlighters and the only books I could find about editing and the new Avid system. John clocked them one day. “Are these your books?” he pointed. “Yes…” I said, not knowing if I was in trouble for reading at work. He nodded and walked away. Next thing I knew, they were helping me get my days to join the Editors Guild. I was over the moon. From there, I got work in assistant sound and film editing, and eventually became a Music Editor. But years of sitting in a room by myself in front of a computer were starting to take a toll. It was lonely work and it just didn’t fit my personality. I needed a big family to work with every day. I needed the set.

Anna on the backlot of Universal Studios,
Chivalry, BBC. Photo: Jake Simon, Sound Utility
Anna in scrubs for the show Scrubs
Joe Foglia, Anna, and Boom Operator Kevin Santy
on the set of Castle

In 1998, Local 695 ceded the jurisdiction of Re-recording Mixers to Local 700 and I was able to switch my card over to Local 695. With one fateful morning phone call from Joe Foglia needing a Utility for his show Scrubs, my career was finally on track. I absolutely loved being a Sound Utility. I now had fifty people to say hi to every morning. I loved getting to know the actors, forging life-long friendships with costumers and camera assistants, ensuring our department was running smoothly, and learning all the new technology that had come out since my dad’s days. We were still on DAT, but the CD-RAM was in the wings. Wiring, cabling, running around, snacks, whatever we needed. It was so much fun.

Here’s a fun fact: I never wanted to be a Sound Mixer. Anytime someone would ask me, my eyes would glaze over. The thought of buying all that gear (twice over), and worse, keeping track of it all is like herding a million little kittens made my stomach hurt. From tiny BNC barrel connectors to expensive, delicate mixing panels.

No thank you.

Watching mixers wrangle that headache was a cure-all for me. Plus, as a Utility, I basically had no homework, no off-the-clock stress. If the gear broke, I’d offer my sincerest condolences, send it out on a rush order, and run right back with the spare from the truck so we could keep rolling. By the time I hit thirty-eight thousand hours, I’d definitely reached my cruising altitude with a quick fix for any sudden fiasco. Nothing but a sports bra? I can wire that. Director threw their Comtek? Hello Keith, it’s me again.

In early 2020, Joe Foglia picked up a pilot and he, Kevin Santy and I were all set to have our usual great time for ten days. But on March 13, 2020, something truly terrifying happened. Transpo didn’t show up to pick up the gear. If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, you’ve never worked in this business. If I ever write a horror movie, that’s how it’s going to start. Life had just been flipped upside down and inside out. COVID had arrived.

I think it’s safe to say we all re-prioritized our lives during the lockdown. Suddenly, we as hyperactive, workaholic film people, HAD to stay home, sleep in, and (hopefully) enjoy time with wherever and whomever we were stuck. We called people we hadn’t spoken to in far too long, spent time in group Zooms with old and new friends, drank too much, or didn’t drink enough.
We rediscovered what was really important. LIVING. I frickin’ loved it.

Script Supervisor Cori Glazer, Anna Wilborn & Misty Conn, Boom Operator, on a
California Almonds commercial.

When things started to loosen up, Misty Conn, Yvette Marxer, and I started meeting for drinks at whatever watering hole would have us. We’d talk about everything, but conversations often revolved around the business. “Anna, when are you going to MIX?!?” Yvette suddenly hollered in her South African accent, slamming her hand down on the table for emphasis. There it was again. That question. Only this time my mind didn’t flood with the millions of tiny kittens I’d have to buy. Misty chimed in. “Dude. You have to do it.” This wasn’t just her third Diet Coke talking. Their sincerity, encouragement, and belief in me was completely overwhelming. From then on it was like I didn’t have a choice in the matter. The kittens were out of the bag and this time there was no herding them back in. Not only did I want the challenge, I needed the challenge. I’ll never forget that moment and will be forever grateful/totally blame those two.

I started workshopping the idea with others whose opinion I really valued. My husband Ted Mayer, Kevin Santy, Tom Williams, Glen Trew, Tom Caton, Chantilly Hensley, Hanna Collins, Forrest Brakeman, Scott Solan, Gunnar Walter, Carrie Sheldon, Michael Reilly, and Scott Farr— all were so supportive. I remember Kevin thoughtfully saying, “I really like this for you.”

Then I had to rip the band-aid off with Joe Foglia; sixteen years of insane locations and hilariously inappropriate jokes. “I’m going to buy a package.” I declared, feeling like I was asking for an unwanted divorce. “Good for you!” he replied. It was definitely the end of an era, but the future was way more exciting than I ever imagined it would be. I honestly didn’t even know how much I wanted it until it finally started to happen. So many hours, so much history, so many sets. I was totally ready.

I excitedly called my parents up in Santa Barbara. “FINALLY!!!!” My mom, also a former Local 695 member, screamed out. “I’m popping the champagne!” She handed the phone to my dad. I honestly didn’t know they cared one way or the other, but turns out they’d both been secretly hoping I’d do this for years. “I’m so happy for you!” my dad exclaimed as the Taittingers burst open in the background. Then he launched into his usual “I should have gotten you into mixing sooner, I could have helped you…” spiel. Nope. I like that I did it my way. My years in post and as a Utility/Boom Op are invaluable to my job and will only make me a better mixer and department head. I know what to fight for and almost more importantly, what not to fight for. I’ve earned my position through decades of training. As we all know, to truly do this job right, there is no shortcut.

Choosing my gear was an absolute no-brainer and my timing could not have been better. A few months later, the shelves at our local sound houses would have been bare. When I’m saying the stars aligned, I mean it was borderline eerie. I’d been curating the perfect package in my mind for years by osmosis, so the money quickly flew out of the bank account. I gave myself six months, but in less than three, I was already off to mix my first feature in Northern Idaho, a horror film called The Outpost, written and directed by Joe LoTruglio from Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Thanks, Kevin Compayre!).

I chose the Sound Devices 888 for my recorder with a CL-16 control surface fed via Dante from two Lectrosonics DSQD’s which I absolutely adore, thus leaving me all the free XLR and T3 inputs I need for playback and extra receivers. A Sound Devices MixPre-6II provides a true standalone backup, as I feed it directly from the DSQD’s XLR outputs. I have a mix of brand-new DBSM transmitters, along with SMWB’s and workhorse SMv’s when I need a little 250mw. Bulletproof HMas send me the Schoeps CMIT’s and CMC4U’s with MK-41’s, the latter being my dad’s. They still sound fantastic and once sucked up the voices of DeNiro and Redford, so it’s fun to have a little history in the kit.

I selected DPA 6060’s for my lavs since I was starting from scratch. “Buy once, cry once,” as they say. They’re just heavenly and have no equal in my opinion. I also have some Sanken COS-11’s and Countryman B-6’s, because they make for a well-rounded lav kit for any scenario. I have Denecke JB-1 timecode boxes that are so smal and awesome, and I just love the smile on the camera crew’s face when they see I have them. They go along with my dad’s Denecke slates that after eighteen years in a dark case, still shockingly powered up with the same batteries that had been left in them. A quick trip to Santa Clarita and they were upgraded to our new 23.97 standard. I went with tried-and-true Comtek PR-216’s and Lectro IFB’s for clients and crew. Power is distributed by a PCS Power Star Life that has definitely saved my life on a couple occasions.

Anna in Albuquerque, NM, filling in for Joe Foglia on Amazon’s Chambers.
Mixing Daisy Jones and the Six for Amazon.
Anna in the process trailer with Boom Operator Scott Solan and Ted Mayer, Best Boy Grip and Anna’s husband.
Photo: Charee Savedra,

All is packed into an awesome 80/20 Blackbird cart by Matthew Freed that will roll over anything with ease. Drew Martin custom-built all the cables for a super-clean final touch. I then loaded it up with remote-controlled color LED lights that complement the Sound Devices color scheme for a little flair (and so I can see). It’s a small, powerful cart that fits me perfectly. I affectionately nicknamed her Tina after Ms. Turner who is also small and powerful, and whose real name just happens to be… Anna. I won’t be writing “The S.S. Tina” across her however. OK, maybe in a small corner. As I conclude my first year, I’ve stayed pleasantly busy with a substantial amount of series and commercial work, even a couple Super Bowl spots!

My dad and I went through his gear a couple years back and that drawer still smells just like it did twenty years ago when he dumped it in the back of his garage, turned out the lights, and walked away for good. Now, I can’t wait for COVID restrictions to end so my girls can come see their mom at work as a Sound Mixer and they can make some of their own quirky little life long memories of what inevitably became the family business.

Top Gun: Maverick

by Mark Weingarten CAS

Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than three years since I first began to write this article. A lot has occurred since then which either derailed and or postponed many of our plans. We started shooting Top Gun: Maverick in San Diego in May of 2018. We ultimately were in production for more than a year.

In 2018 during pre-production for Top Gun: Maverick, I met the film’s Director, Joseph (Joe) Kosinski. He explained that Top Gun: Maverick would not be a remake. It would be a standalone second act to the very successful Tony Scott-Jerry Bruckheimer-Tom Cruise-Val Kilmer film, Top Gun from 1986. Tom Cruise would be returning in the lead role as Maverick, and Val Kilmer would also be coming back to make an appearance as Ice Man.

In that meeting, I learned that Top Gun: Maverick would be shooting almost entirely in California, which is where I live. I had been shooting on distant locations for most of my projects over the preceding years. The opportunity to shoot a whole movie at home was very welcome.

Monica Barbaro and Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Glen Powell plays “Hangman” in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films

I was very pleased when Joe and Executive Producer Tommy Harper decided to offer me the opportunity to be the Production Sound Mixer for Top Gun: Maverick. I could tell it was going to be exciting. It was going to present some very unusual problem-solving situations that would be rewarding to figure out, and it was going to be LOUD, REALLY LOUD! For certain, it was not going to be boring.

Joe and I discussed some of the major sound challenges that he knew we would face, and we kicked around what we thought might be the best approaches to tackling them. The most immediate issue to address was that we were going to film all the actors’ flying sequences actually inflight, real supersonic sorties while the actors and the sound equipment were being subjected to extreme G Forces. The request was for me to record all the inflight dialog in sync with the six cameras that would be mounted in the planes, with high-enough quality to be used in the final mix. There were to be no green screen-simulated flying sequences for this version! Everything was to be filmed actually in flight. I can’t say I had ever been asked to record in those conditions, but I was certainly game to give it a try… Going forward, I quickly learned that Joe was extremely calm, extremely prepared, and extremely supportive. He is an absolute pleasure to work with.
The TOPGUN Flying Team is a branch of the Navy. As such, we shot primarily at naval air stations. Those naval air stations are where the aircraft that we needed to shoot were hangared. We did shoot a little bit on stage at LA Center Studios, and also at some practical locations in and around Los Angeles and San Diego, but mostly we were at relatively distant locations all over California. It turned out that “shooting almost entirely in California” meant China Lake, San Diego, Lake Tahoe. To get to most of the naval air stations, it took a lot of driving, but at least I was able to make it home for most weekends.

We began shooting in May 2018 in San Diego for a one week pre-shoot at Coronado’s North Island Naval Air Station.

After the pre-shoot week, the whole crew went immediately into a couple of months of intensive scouting and prepping. During this time, all the departments scratched their heads and went hard at the work of figuring out how to approach filming and recording the flying sequences. We all had multiple scouting trips to several different naval air stations to look at, measure, inspect, and learn as much as we could about the F/A-18 supersonic jets that we would be using for filming.

Once each department determined what equipment they thought would be needed to do their inflight work, our Key Grip, the late Trevor Fulks, had to tackle how and where, to attach the equipment on the planes. We were told that any gear placed in the planes needed to be able to stay attached at up to 7G’s, and the gear could not interfere or prevent any aircraft functions or communications, nor could it interfere with the pilot or co-pilot’s ability to eject in an emergency situation if that ever became necessary. Having figured out how we could meet each of the Navy’s requirements, we began interacting with the Navy to submit our plans for their approval. We were asked to state every detail about each piece of gear: its purpose, its height, length, width, weight, the type of internal batteries it used, etc. The Navy had to sign off on exactly how and where we planned to mount each piece of our equipment for it to safely stay in place while the planes were in the air.

During scouting, we learned that in the Navy, all tasks are broken down and pieced out to very specific departments. Each department is referred to by its own specific abbreviated nickname. It took a lot of hunting to figure out which departments were responsible for exactly which functions. Each of these departments usually consists of a combination of naval personnel and civilian contractors. The mystery for me was which department(s) could provide me with the information that I would need to be able to figure out how to record our actors’ inflight dialog in a manner that would render it one hundred percent usable for the production? It took me many hours of scouting time to track down which departments were responsible for which aspects of the pilots’ communications: plane to plane, plane to ground, archiving of all the planes’ communications.

The planes have an internal communication system (Comms), which is fed to mics mounted inside of the pilot and co-pilot’s oxygen masks, and monitored by headsets built into their helmets. Who was in charge of the mics in the masks and the headsets in their helmets? How and where did the pilots connect the masks and helmets to the planes?

I learned that within the air station’s hangars, there are many doors. Each of these doors lead to the offices of one of the Navy’s various aircraft-related departments. Figuring out who did what and which unmarked door they were behind was both very time-consuming and very confusing. Eventually, I was able to find the right combination of departments to help me.

Monica Barbaro plays “Phoenix” in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Jon Hamm plays Adm. Beau “Cyclone” Simpson in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

The mechanics were able to show me all the possible access points where I could tap into the plane’s Comms. Unfortunately, none of those access points would work for what I needed to do. I considered the possibility that I could record all of our planes’ transmissions from the ground (as the Navy does record all of their communications for archiving). However, the archive’s voice quality isn’t very good. Certainly not good enough to use for a final movie soundtrack.

Plus all of the Navy’s archived communications are classified, so it would be challenging to get clearances to use the recordings. Even if we were to receive clearance, trying to sync up all those un-slated recordings from all those flights would have been a nightmare. Obviously, this was not an option, the dialog had to be recorded in the plane while it was inflight at the highest quality possible, and it had to be available for us to be able to sync up and use immediately after each flight.

In addition to having the sound recording equipment properly secured to the aircraft, it was also imperative that its operation could not have any effect on the ability of the pilots’ mask to deliver oxygen to them at higher altitudes. Nor could it interfere with any communications between pilot and co-pilot. Given these restrictions, how could the inflight sound be safely captured, in sync, at the quality that the movie deserved?

During prep, I learned that there are specific connectors for fixed wing aircraft, and for helicopters, and that the wiring configurations for those connectors differ for the various branches of the service. All of the connectors involved in aeronautics are unique. They are connectors the likes of which I have never encountered before.

With guidance from the Navy and the help of the Parachute Room Team, I found the right place to tap into the plane’s Comms to be able to get the best possible inflight recording, while still allowing for uninterrupted communications, not interfering with the mask’s oxygen flow or compromising an emergency ejection.

I have made plenty of adaptor cables in my time, but considering the unfamiliar aircraft connectors and the absolute cannot fail operation of this mission-critical piece of equipment, I needed to seek out someone one hundred percent familiar with all of the elements involved to fabricate the Y cables I required. A Navy pilot introduced me to Par, at Pilot USA Communications. Pilot USA makes all sorts of cables and adaptors for all the branches of the military. I spoke with Par to explain all the specs for the Y cable I wanted him to fabricate. I explained that it was imperative that the cable would not interfere with any aircraft functions while being able to feed pure undistorted audio to two Lectrosonics transmitters via TA5F connectors; I would have a dual feed to two SM’s, in case failed. He asked me to draw up a wiring diagram. I sent him a very crude drawing of the cable, along with a copy of Lectrosonics TA5F wiring diagram. Par was able to read my drawing and understand it. He said he felt confident that he would be able to fabricate a Y cable that would meet all my requirements.

My initial concept for the flying sequences was to put two Lectrosonics SM transmitters on each actor, with two Lectro 411 receivers attached to a single recorder in the plane, and two additional mics attached somewhere inside the canopy for stereo sounds of the jet’s engines, rattles, and groans inflight. Four tracks would be enough to do the job so I chose a Sound Devices 744. I chose the 744 because it was the smallest four-channel recorder that I had, and because I thought it was one of the sturdiest, best built devices I knew of. I figured it was most likely to survive the potential forces of up to 7G’s. Given the intense G Forces involved, I thought it best to eliminate any moving parts. As such, I replaced the 744’s original spinning hard drive with a solid-state hard drive.

I brought the 744 and the 411’s to Trevor Fulks, for him to design and fabricate the mounts needed to secure them to the plane. While Trevor was doing that, I sent our Navy liaison all the requested specifications for the sound gear, which he forwarded to the appropriate Navy departments for approval.

Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Danny Ramirez plays “Fanboy” in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
Jay Ellis plays “Payback” in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

Tom Cruise had requested that there would be a remote control in the plane that would give him the ability to start and cut all the cameras and the sound recorder simultaneously with a single button press. Keslow Camera was building the remote for the cameras. Dan Ming, our incredibly helpful A camera 1st AC, spoke with Keslow for me and they told him they thought it would be possible to incorporate record-stop control for the 744 into the remote. I sent Keslow a Sound Devices CL-1 remote control interface, along with the schematics for it. They were able to cannibalize the CL-1 and incorporate it successfully into the remote. Once completed, the remote worked perfectly. It was able to start and stop everything with a single button press.

The cameras we used were the Sony VENICE. They are large sensor, 6K, IMAX capable cameras. The VENICE lenses and sensors could be connected to each other by fiber optic cables. This gave them the capability for the lenses to be mounted separately from the camera bodies. Ultimately, the Camera and Grip Departments found that there was enough room to safely secure six cameras in each F/A-18. All six camera bodies were mounted in one cluster midway under the plane’s canopy. The separately mounted lenses were placed wherever was ideal for picture.

Curiously, we found that the camera bodies would fit better in one plane than another. We learned that no two plane canopies are the same; each one is handmade and is slightly different from any other.

Things were starting to come together. The Navy was reviewing our equipment lists. The remote was being made. The Y cables were being built. Trevor was fabricating the mounts to attach everyone’s gear to the planes. We just needed to get everything delivered in time to do a little testing before it would be needed for shooting.

The mounts, the Navy’s approval of the gear, and Keslow’s remote all arrived the week before we were to start shooting the flying sequences. In the hangar, we mounted all the cameras, as well as my recorder and radio receivers into an F/A-18. The Keslow remote worked perfectly, it reliably rolled and cut all the cameras together with the 744. We did one final shakedown test flight without an actor to make sure that everything Trevor had mounted for us stayed in place. It did. Unfortunately, the Y cables hadn’t arrived in time for that test flight. The next opportunity to test would not be until we started shooting, with an actor in the plane. Fingers crossed that the Y cable was going to work!

Time now for the rest of sound crew to come on board: Tom Huck Caton (Boom Operator), Cara Kovach (Utility to start), Kevin Becker (Utility to finish). Additional sound crew that worked on the film were Mark Agostino, Eric Ballew, Lawrence Commans, Jeff Haddad, Zach Wrobel, and Jeff Zimmerman.

Production officially started. The day had come for our first flight. Tom Cruise was fully suited up, the still untested Y cable had been connected by the indispensable Neville, a civilian contractor who worked for the PR Department. The SM’s were on, the 411’s were powered up, the 744 was awake with its timecode jammed to the same code as the cameras, and it was ready to record. Cruise climbed into the plane. There was silence. I heard absolutely nothing at the sound cart where I had tuned its receivers to the same frequencies as the 411’s in the plane. However, once the F/A-18’s system was energized, it came alive; I was able to hear through the Comms as the plane went through all its trouble warnings (it does this every time on startup) “engine fire,” “flap failure,” etc. When the warnings finally ended, Cruise spoke. I heard him loud and clear. Yes! The Y cable was working! Phew!

Soon after the F/A-18 Hornet took off, it disappeared and returned about an hour or so later. We retrieved all the media, brought it back to the hangar where we downloaded all the camera and sound files, backed them up, then brought the masters to the DIT for us to watch.

The pictures were spectacular. Claudio Miranda’s inflight cinematography is extraordinary. You can absolutely tell that the actors are really flying in the F/A-18’s, it is very clear they are not being shot against green screen. The Keslow remote worked perfectly throughout the flight. Cruise had been able to start and stop all the cameras, along with the sound recorder as he requested. The sound the Y cable provided was fantastic, crystal clear, absolutely, usable. A triumph. High fives all around… It turned out that on that very first sortie, the plane did, at some point, hit 7G’s, and nothing came loose. Trevor’s mounts worked perfectly, the 744, the 411’s and all the cameras and lenses remained solidly in place. In short, it worked. Everything worked!

Well, so we thought. During dailies, Cruise pointed out my 744 and the 411’s ended up very much in the frame. The sound gear had to move, however, I was told by Trevor that the sound gear was mounted in “the only place in the plane that it could be” and there was “no other option.” Even if we had been able to find an alternative mounting place, the Navy would have had to approve of that change, which would not be a quick process.

The custom built Y cables and a
Lectrosonics PDR

What to do? We had a week to re-group before we were scheduled for our next flight. I went back to my on-base Navy housing to try to come up with a new strategy. The Day One flight had confirmed that the Y cable that Par had made worked perfectly, but without the 744 and 411’s, how could I capture the inflight dialog? The Y cables were built with two female TA5 connectors to feed two SM’s. I got on my laptop and began looking through the Lectrosonics website, and found that they made a little standalone recorder called a PDR. The PDR accepted a female TA5 for an input. There were two versions of the PDR. The single AAA battery model was almost identical in size to a single AA battery SM, and the PDR was capable of jamming timecode. It would record two tracks of WAV files onto a removable micro CF card at very high quality. Great! With a 16GB micro CF card, the PDR would easily record audio for many hours, certainly long enough to record any length of flight (sortie) we would be filming. According to the specs, the PDR would be able to make recordings of a quality similar to a 744. I immediately ordered two of them from Trew Audio. We found that indeed the PDR’s easily fit in exactly the same place where the SM’s had been. When attached to our existing Y cables, they should produce recordings equal in quality to the SM’s. Because they would be placed where the SM’s had been, they would not require Navy approval.

However, the change to the PDR’s meant that Cruise would lose the ability for remote-controlled starting and stopping of the sound recorder in flight. With the PDR’s, my plan was that just before the actors were to climb into their planes, either Huck or I would put the PDR’s into “record” and attach them to Y cable. This meant that the PDR’s would be recording continuously from that point on throughout the entire sortie. They would not stop recording until the plane was on the ground and one of us could retrieve the PDR to push “Stop.”

We explained to Cruise the switch to the PDR’s and the reason for it, and how the change would negate his ability to remotely start and stop the sound recorder. He completely understood the situation and was fine with it. I had never worked with him before. I found him to be extremely pleasant, reasonable, and fabulous throughout.

Our next batch of flying dailies demonstrated that the PDR’s worked perfectly. Their timecode was accurate, they synced up easily, continuously recorded throughout, regardless of G Forces or altitude and they sounded great.

After our initial single actor flights, we started having sorties with two planes taking off at the same time, sometimes with plane-to-plane dialog being recorded. We often had two planes going up in both morning and afternoon sorties. We needed more PDR’s and more Y cables. I ordered a bunch more of both. All the PDR’s performed impeccably. Of the literally hundreds of sorties, we only had one single PDR failure. Sometimes the sorties would last for hours, but no matter what, the PDR’s would keep on recording. We even had an instance, when because of a mechanical problem, the plane had to make a forced landing at a different naval air station and we weren’t able to retrieve that PDR until it returned the next day. Regardless, we were able to recover the previous day’s recording easily.

Among the many nice features of the PDR’s was their ability to record two mono tracks from a single input at two different levels. I would always record one track at a level a few db’s lower than the other track. If someone got really loud and started blowing the hotter track, the lower level track always stayed undistorted. OK, I can see that I’m starting to sound like a spokesman for Lectrosonics. I’m not, I have no affiliation, but I do love their products and obviously I am now especially enamored with the PDR.

Working around the planes, we learned that there was great concern about something the Navy called FOD, which stands for Foreign Object Damage. (Everything in the Navy is represented by an acronym.) Anything that could get loose in the cockpit inflight would be considered FOD. Any foreign entity on the runway that could potentially interfere with take-off or landing would also be considered FOD. We had to make sure nothing that we were attaching to the planes could ever turn into FOD.

For Navy airmen, every day begins with a “FOD walk.” The entire squadron lines up across the width of the runway and walks its entire length, eyes to the ground, retrieving pebbles, loose screws, etc. The Commander told us that each morning before the FOD walk, he would place a tiny brass button somewhere on the runway. If the brass button was not found and returned to him during the first sweep, he would order a second, then a third. Until that button was retrieved, no planes would be cleared to take off or land. They also do FOD walks every morning on all aircraft carriers. FOD is serious business.

It was surprisingly quiet inside the cockpits of our supersonic fighter planes. After the first flight, we listened back to the recordings from two FX mics I had mounted inside the plane’s cabin. They essentially recorded a steady flow of air. The extra mics weren’t really giving us much, and they posed the risk of possibly becoming FOD, I decided to abandon them. The mics in the pilot’s masks gave us perfectly acceptable sound whether their masks were open or closed. Ultimately, there was no a need to put a lav on the outside of their survival vests. Eliminating the lav and eliminating the FX mics enabled us to use only one PDR per actor, per flight. Given the FOD concerns, the less gear we put in the planes, the better.

I also did do a lot of stereo recordings on the ground; the planes starting and warming up, taxiing away, taxiing toward us, taking off, landing, and doing flyovers. Fighter jets are LOUD. I mean crazy LOUD!!! You can feel the heat from their afterburners even when they are nearly an entire runway length away.

The carrier itself was a challenge. Aircraft carriers are enormous! They can be the equivalent of up to twenty stories tall. Everything you bring onto them has to be hand carried up many flights of very steep narrow stairs called ladders. Carts can’t be rolled through their hallways because there are multiple watertight doors that constantly have to be stepped over. All the walls, floors, and ceilings are made of metal, which does not make for a great environment for radio reception. Additionally, there is a ton of onboard Navy equipment that is transmitting a lot of RF. Naturally, on an active ship, anything that’s transmitting cannot be turned off. Somehow we were always able to find enough clear radio frequencies to get the job done; it took a lot of scanning to make that happen.

My main cart for Top Gun: Maverick was several stacked SKB cases. The larger top case contained a Zaxcom Mix 12, a Deva 16, two Lectrosonics Venues, a Meon power supply along with Comtek and Lectro IFB transmitters. This section held essentially everything needed to record all of the dialog on the carrier. The top section is relatively easy for two people to carry wherever it is needed. By adding a PSC Pelican lithium battery to the onboard Meon, it had all-day power.

When the carrier was docked, I did all the scenes. When the carrier went to sea for a few days, I reached out to Eric Ballew, who had been my go-to consultant for carrier research. Eric is a Sound Mixer, who, while enlisted in the Navy, had been deployed on a carrier. Being “deployed” was very familiar territory for him. He did a great job on the work at sea. Thank you, Eric.

In addition to all the inflight recordings and the work on the carrier, there was one other big sound challenge; a sailboat scene that was not boom-able and had to be lav mics only. This scene was filmed multiple times, in multiple locations. The big issue was that there would be a lot of wind on the lavs. This is one of the places where I’ve found that DPA lavs really shine. To me, the DPA’s seem to be the most wind resistant of all the lavs I’ve ever tried. Each time, I would set up down below with a Deva big rig and a couple of 411’s.

Below deck on a boat is where those who get seasick, really get seasick. For some reason, I am not afflicted. On Dunkirk, I spent forty-plus days below deck on the Moonstone, a small wooden boat that would pitch like crazy in heavy seas. It was not a boat that was really meant to sail on the ocean. For some reason, while almost everyone else was incredibly seasick, I found I was impervious. I never even took Dramamine. I don’t know why, but evidently I am immune to sea sickness.

Each time we shot the Top Gun: Maverick sailboat scene, we wired the actors up with SM’s and DPA 4071’s. The lavs worked and sounded great, despite the high winds on the water. The DPA’s always worked.

Most of Top Gun: Maverick was shot at several naval air stations that we returned to multiple times. Each location had its own set of particulars that we had to figure out. At one base, this block of frequencies didn’t work, at another, a different block of frequencies didn’t, or there was a big humming noise in the corner that we couldn’t turn off in that hangar.

Top Gun: Maverick ended up filming for more than a year of principal photography, during which many old friends came and went, and all of us who went the distance had the opportunity to really bond with each other. With all the problem solving that each department had to do, we all did our best to help each other figure out how best to get the job done. Everyone on the main crew was extremely supportive of each other. It really was an extremely collaborative undertaking.

For me, it certainly was a learning experience, both technically and philosophically. I came away from the experience with nothing but respect and admiration for every service member I met. From the pilots and mechanics who helped guide me to the PR Department that showed me the path to connect to the plane’s Comms, to the members of the Navy brass that I later spent time with. Everyone was kind and thoughtful and extremely helpful. On more than one occasion, I had an Admiral sitting next to me at the sound cart for most of the day. They were thoughtful, caring, well-educated people, whose main objective was to do whatever they could to act in a way that would always minimize casualties for those whom they commanded. None of them took that responsibility lightly. I was very impressed.

Summing up, Top Gun: Maverick was a very challenging shoot for all departments. Everyone, cast and crew, worked extremely well together. We all did our best to support each other, and to problem solve all of the unusual situations we were given. I’m proud to say that every line of the inflight dialog in the movie is from the production tracks. Even the labored breathing you hear from Tom Cruise in the trailer is production track. Everyone who worked on this film went above and beyond, and it shows. In the end, I think Top Gun: Maverick turned out to be a pretty darned good movie.

Now, grab some earplugs and go see it on a big screen in an actual movie theater, with a nice loud Atmos surround sound system!

Over and out, Mark Weingarten.

Clear-Com FreeSpeak on Crater

by Paul Ledford CAS

Spacesuit comms

You get the phone call to do a space movie and after the first rush of excitement, the mind conjures the thought that a space movie on the moon means ten spacesuits on stages. Spacesuits mean helmets, and the need for a no-fail two-way communication across all actors, stunt actors, and many key positions on set. It is a must for safety, a must for the workflow to make our day, and then there is the sound capture thing. The basic concept is not new here, but every year, we have new equipment with new techniques to bring forward to fulfill the needs while working around new equipment from other departments that also need to be factored in or resolved. I have had my share of good turns at single- and double-billed shows with spacesuits, along with a most disastrous project of multi-crew spacesuits that proved to be two weeks plus of pure stomach aching hell. That toxic trial provided many lessons and I was a bit reluctant to repeat that same experience given this Disney production of Crater had the bulk of days in spacesuits with five teenagers and lots of wire work in the air. While not a huge cast count by most production standards, this could not be a show up, hook up, and go project. It gets complicated quick and the charting of signal flow starts to cross over the lines early on.

There has to be supported homework.

After lots of war stories about past projects facing these same issues and recommendations about possible solutions, production did the homework of speaking with folks I had pointed to. With the support of Linda Borgeson of Disney Post Production, and Producer John Scotti, they agreed to move forward with adequate support for homework, extra gear rental, and hard targets on testing before shooting was to commence. The concept of safety was the lead path in all decisions.

Helmets waiting for actors or stunt doubles.
Communications Mixer Kyle Lamy at the Yamaha QL1 mixer cart, reacting in real-time as the actors requested level changes to their mix.
The WiSpy app showing Wi-Fi use in the 2.4 GHz range. Remote control of the Shure system occurs over 2.4 GHz. It’s important to manage that spectrum, since it’s shared with WiFi, as well as camera and lighting control. We freed up channels by asking the stage’s IT Dept, to shut down any of their access points’ use of 2.4 GHz.

I was on another show, so from the very beginning, I asked Peter Schneider of Gotham Sound and Communications about his interest in providing the prep design of the comm system and gear rental for the spacesuit scenes. Peter and Gotham have provided support on many other shows for me when the needs were off the normal path and they made this prep as much of as a comfort zone as possible. Peter cleared the way for things like full RF coordination of all departments on set, manufacturer support of the equipment pieces selected, and follow-up on the interfacing of our gear with the suit and helmet design phase being done in Los Angeles by Legacy Effects. We hired Ed Novick for a day of test recordings in Los Angeles at Legacy with the helmets. From those recordings, we selected which lav mic we could use and where they had to play out of sight. The Shure Twinplex lav was selected for most of the helmets given the high max SPL and had some DPA 6060 for a couple of actors due to head versus helmet space and
tonal differences. The stunt team used Sanken COS-11 with the Clear-Com FreeSpeak II packs.

The Clear-Com FreeSpeak II package was the glue for our full system.

The design had to be a full duplex comm system where everything needs to go through, and be fingertip-controlled on set by our AD, Benita Allen, along with our Director, Kyle Alvarez, and the Stunt Coordinator, Dave Macomber, and his stunt team.

All of the leadership needs not only to hear all of the primary actors and stunt actors, but to be able to speak to them as a group and at times individually. All controlled from their own belt packs or base station.

The design needed to be able to move to different sound stages, as well as be duplicated for a separate unit to shoot stunt actors performing on different sets, while our first unit continued or reverted to our more traditional task of dialog capture without helmets for interior set work.

With Shure Axient transmitters, our lav mics, and Shure IEM units for the actors selected, the stunt actors were fitted with the Clear-Com FS II units since we were already using that system for the floor communications. The Clear-Com FS II provided the duplex needed for stunt actors rather than an expensive full duplication of what we required for our actors. The Clear-Com FS II could network with the stunt actors and on-set leadership by our dedicated comms technician who used a separate Yamaha QL-1 console. Auto mix and Cedar NRS were used for the comm feeds. We divided up the full task knowing it was too much for one person on one console to focus on because things were going to change. It is the nature of our work.

Kyle Lamy was hired to be our Comms Tech. Kyle came to us from NCIS: New Orleans which had just wrapped. He was their Playback Operator and had the skill set from stage and music venues to operate the mixer, the wireless system, and IEM system with intercoms. From there it was a quick step to fold in the new flavor of the Clear-Com FreeSpeak II on a network via a laptop.

I now cue it over to Kyle for the hands-on experience…

Range and Battery Life

I will admit that I was very skeptical when first learning this unit ran on a 1.9 GHz cellular band. In my experience, wireless microphones that run on a 2.4 GHz band will run out of range quickly. The FS II should never be put in this category.

On our largest stage with the full cast of stunt personnel and production, I was using up to twelve belt packs on three transceivers. The belt packs quickly jumped to the closest transceiver, and I was able to keep a 90%-95% stability on all belt packs throughout the filming.

The range of these belt packs are only outperformed by the incredible battery life that they can achieve. Very few rechargeable batteries can stand the test of all-day feature film working hours, but the batteries on the FS II proclaimed and delivered sixteen hours of life. After testing these on our setup days, the crew moved into a routine where the batteries were charged and added to the belt packs first thing in the morning and first thing after lunch. I was in no danger of ever losing a belt pack due to a battery, and we had many hours left by the time we wrapped every day.

The 1st AD’s beltpack—she can separately talk/listen to actors in space suits, the Director, and stunt people. The “Child Quiet” button triggered the “mute” switch for the corresponding actor channels on the QL5 desk
Sound Utility Colin Byer, Spacesuit Technician Jonathan Faber, and Comms Mixer Kyle Lamy place microphone and earpice in the helmet.
Screenshot of Shure wireless workbench showing perfect RF levels and decoded bitstream quality, despite running the tx at only 10mW.

Network Ability

The FS II really shines when networked together with console and other transmitters. Peter and I were able to quickly formulate a workflow that included role assignments, battery and range health indicators and gain structure. Logging into the Static IP address was a convenient way to make changes and monitor the different aspects of the belt packs while in use.

On our Splinter+ Unit, the stunt actors all had the FS II wireless belt packs assigned by their roles to be Force Talk and Listen. This allowed all of the stunt personnel to freely talk and listen to our stunt coordinator at all times.

As the day moved on, certain stunt actors not in the setup were quickly assigned to Force Listen. The off-camera stunt actors were kept in the chain of communication and allowed to listen to the conversation, but with their microphones turned off, clearing that line of fan noise, breathing, and chatter for everyone else.

All changes could be achieved on the hardware unit on set, but being networked turned this into a few clicks of the mouse and did not hold production up in the slightest. We could work from the behind the curtain stage position at the carts without having to go onto the set itself and keep in line with the COVID protocols.

Clarity and Expandability

The FS II provided the clarity and level that was always sufficient and quickly adjustable by the network ability to change the levels on the fly as each actor or AD’s requested. Not once did I notice the dialog or direction from our AD was in danger of being misunderstood. The preamps were clean and headphone outputs were more than loud enough for all various earpieces and headsets.

In short order, our 1st AD desired a bit more control from her belt pack in order to quiet everyone trying to communicate through the system. Our solution was to have the AD’s FS II belt pack trigger a GPI on the Yamaha QL 1, turning on or off the Actor’s Mute Group. The implementation of this mute group trigger allowed the AD to stop all side chatter and gain the attention of everyone in the system. This was particularly important working with excited teenagers or when a little focus was lost as the day grew long.

Deeper in our schedule, the actors and stunt personnel would move from main unit to splinter+ unit, and the belt packs were very quick to drop the base station that it was initially linked to and join the network of the new base station once it was in range. This worked seamlessly and almost became forgotten about in the workflow.

Over to Ledford’s side of the cart in pure production recording world…

I got a raw feed of each actor from the Shure Axient receivers for the iso tracks and the comm feed to monitor the Clear-Com FS II channel for on-set instructions. I got slates and did a mix of our capture on my board for dailies. I could also talk back with our AD via my board to her belt pack, if that was needed.

My crew of Zach Lancaster on Boom, and Colin Beyer, our Utility Sound, loaded up the spacesuit backpacks with the comm gear and guided the helmet on and off routine with the Legacy crew and Costume Department. Actors got a transmitter and an IEM unit in the backpack connecting a harness to the helmet. Lav mic and ear pad pieces were built into each helmet. The backpacks also held power, lights, and fan controls for the suits. Zach and Colin had my IFB system feeding into the FS II pack to help check the actors and on-set staff for any issues. The Clear-Com FS II packs could be programmed to fit each person’s need.

The original request had the actors being fully dressed with helmet fitted in a dressing trailer off stage. Then, like all the NASA footage we have seen, walk them to the stage and on set. Challenges were revealed by the amount of crew in an expanded trailer with many frantic hands dealing with our young actors. Add in our technical challenge of having a good RF signal to ensure we were good to go. A harness was made to run through the stage wall to a small box version with antenna tree of our system inside the trailer out in the parking lot. This extended our ability to hear, talk, and network with the gear and our crew. However, we could not see anything, and what seemed like a good idea did not complete in a smooth or timely fashion on the first day of spacesuits.

Sometimes the better solution is not always about more gear. The kids were not happy to stand for so long while this whole suit thing took place. Putting the helmets on is a routine of hold in the air, connect the harness, squeeze down, and fit to lock-in, without pinching the harness. For the unpracticed, this is another barrier if you are standing up. To listen to all of this and discern the flow while blind was a bit riotous in a kind observation.

We evolved to having a simple, long wood bench made for our talent to sit on within eyesight of our carts on stage. Clothing and packs were done in the dressing trailer. The helmets and final fits were done on the stage. This helped us to calm the energized actors and work both front and back of the actors and stunts suiting up. We always got a “good to go” check before anyone left our care and walked onto the set. If there was an issue, we could address it right there with eyes on and all within COVID protocols with less people and more space at each step. Production adjusted the expectations to give us the needs to make good. Then we all got better at the process together.

On first unit, we had six Shure transmitters going along with six IEM systems for the mix minus back to the talent, and then I had some Lectrosonics units running for boom and plants plus my crew IFB and video village on a Lectro IFB system. At no time did we have interference due to the homework in design and frequency selection Peter Schneider performed for us. We had full scans of all stages ahead of time, and we had the full cooperation of all departments using RF devices, i.e., walkies, running lights, camera crew, crane, controlling special effects gear, or visual effects capture devices.

As much effort we put in to making the helmets work, we had to consider setups with the helmets off. OFF due to storyline and OFF due to the actor being off camera, and the helmets are a pain to put on and off long into the day. Having the same connectors on the harness break point as my own lav mics was a convenient savings. This was important since my transmitter system was different from the spacesuit units. Zach, our Boom Op, could see the first time an actor snuck up on set without a helmet and quickly pull a lav out of his boom stand kit to connect the actor back into our channel lineup … so the actors isolated in the helmets could hear the non-helmet person in the dialog runs or just any other interaction. Having these extra lav mics were good for backups, and good for on-set workflow, as well as those extra lines of dialog for post.

I had lived through and learned more about other shows having the on-or-off face shield issue. Our helmets could remove the face shield for reflection issues. That was a bonus for us giving a more natural voice to record without lots of pressure build-up on those loud lines. Post can then decide what the flavor of that is to be in the final. With the shields on for the wide coverage, there is of course, the enclosed bubble sound of the helmets and then the fans running to keep the shield clear of moisture. Auto mixing and Cedar NRS on that comm channel did improve the clarity on the comm feeds in keeping with the FS II system. I got decent scratch recordings to hand off to post on those. On the tighter coverage with the shields off, I was happy that we could quickly flip our gain settings for a better base line voice worthy of the cinema venue. The helmet shields changed often and at times without much warning, so again having networked gear to keep up was impactful to us all.

The helmet connections required for audio in and out, as well as multiple power connectors for fan and lighting control.
The TASF connection made the helmet mics compatible with Letrosonics transmitters in case a quick line is needed from the actor without needing the full comms system—useful because both First and Second Unit Mixers use Lectrosonics wireless.
The “Moon Rover” set was completely enclosed on all sides, including top and bottom. Concerned about RF propagation into and out of the set, we worked with the Art Dept. to build antennas into the set, fully decorated and fully functional, with BNC connections made outside and under the rover.
The custom ear pad perfectly encapsulates and isolates the Amazon-purchased motorcycle helmey speaker used for comm audio to each actor.

I want to thank our splinter unit crew of mixer Richard Schexnayder and Boom Op Leonard Suwalski, and Jared Lawrie and Lewis Rhodes as our 2nd Tech Comm Daily Operators.

This was a fulfilling project to work on because we had support in time and resources to select people and the gear suited to the task. Computers and the ability to network the gear were our friends. We were given the time to sort out issues as they revealed themselves to us. We had a plan and committed to it and identified the bits that were not working and got rid of those in favor of something better. We had leadership that led by the idea to be fully engaged, stay calm, and carry on because the pumpkin time is coming for our young actors.

No doubt being contained on stages was a big help versus a live expansive location exposed to the weather elements and more RF density. Without the homework, networked gear and evolved knowledge, the friendly walls of that stage keeping our outer space cold in and the hot summer rains out, could very well have been those same prison walls of stomach aching hell lurking from the past.

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