Features

The Martian

by Mac Ruth

The Martian was one of the highest grossing movies of 2015 and a critical success. Helmed by legendary director Sir Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon and a significant ensemble cast, the film realistically created the Mars landscape, outer space and earth. Sir Ridley tasked us with creating a reality on the set and thus convincing the audience of the plausible reality of near future Mars travel.

The Mars Rover vehicle, the spacesuits, the communication systems, sets, props and the performances all had to work to further this goal. From my fi rst discussions with the production team, I knew that this show would be extremely challenging.

As Production Sound Mixers, I strongly believe we are collaborators in the process and there to help facilitate the director’s vision in capturing the best audio performance, however, there is so much more to this.

Capturing that audio is the culmination of a long sequence of events that we work toward, starting in prep. This is where some of our most valuable but most underappreciated work is conducted. Most importantly, we get to ride with the creative vision of the film. Our colleague, Mark Ulano CAS AMPS, in the context of another film, wonderfully discusses this. We have so much to learn from his attention to detail at this stage of the game.

During prep, we get to the “nuts and bolts” with other departments, discussing all the aspects of our interactions so they go smoothly on the shooting day. Right away we knew that we would be dealing with spacesuits so that became mission number one. Simon Hayes set the bar very high on Prometheus, when he worked for Mr. Scott. Oscar-winning Costume Designer Janty Yates, who also worked on Prometheus, was extremely helpful in allowing us early access with the spacesuit design team. She solicited our input on the “look” as we were lobbying for a helmet mic that would be effective in the acoustic space, while also looking realistic. We proposed a “miniboom microphone ” which would be visible, as we believed that the NASA helmet engineers would come to the same conclusion.

The concept was approved by Ms.Yates and Ridley Scott and our team custom manufactured the mini-booms using the DPA 4061 as our preferred microphone after more than a week of testing. There was also a second hidden DPA in the lower part of the helmet, which was added as backup. If the primary helmet mic failed, the actor in the suit would not be able to communicate with anyone on the set or be recorded. This two-mic setup in the helmets was what Simon Hayes and his crew established on Prometheus. I have immense respect for Simon and his team’s work, their experience and his efforts to further our craft.

We worked closely in prep and throughout the shoot with the spacesuit team, who were all wonderful, led by Michael Mooney, who has worked closely with Ms. Yates and Mr. Scott many times. They found ways to solidly build the radio mic transmitters and IEM receivers into the spacesuits, yet be easily accessible.

The spacesuits were hot and claustrophobic and it was not easy for the costumers to keep the actors comfortable, as they wanted to rip the helmets off as soon as a scene was finished. We had jumpers built in all the connectors, so everything could be disconnected quickly. The spacesuit team strove to find the quietest solutions for cooling and ventilation. This helped enormously in our ability to record usable performances with the spacesuits.

We used Lectrosonics SMV and SMQV transmitters in the spacesuits and dual Venue rack receivers on both the sound cart and the communication systems rig, eliminating the need for cables between the two setups.

For the IEM system, we used four units of the Shure PSM900 transmitters with antenna combiners allowing for eight individual in-ear mixes, with the Shure P9RA receiver units built into the spacesuits. Due to the dimension of the spacesuits, the Shure IEM receivers had to be placed in close proximity to the two high-power Lectrosonics transmitters. They all worked perfectly with no interference. We chose the Shure SE215 earphones for the talent with individual silicone ear tips.

György Mohai, our talented Communications System Engineer, was tasked with quickly setting up individual mixes for the actors, Ridley Scott, our assistant directors and key members of the stunt team. György used a Roland M-200i, which has a nice compact form and can be DC powered for the individual in-ear mixes. He also used the iPad interface to operate while on set and utilized the Roland’s onboard dynamics processors and EQ to effectively filter and compress the dialog to cut through the noise of the Mars storm sequence. Shot with six Ritter fans, at the Korda Studios, blasting a specially fabricated “Mars surface mixture,” creating a blackout storm that made communication between everyone on the set practically impossible, except for the actors performing in the scene and those needing to communicate with them in real-time. A huge win.

A significant challenge was the “live communications” between NASA and JPL while strategizing the Mars rescue efforts. The scenes were shot simultaneously, on separate sets, so the actors could perform with each other in real time. There were many “Skype” communications that occurred in the film and one of the difficulties in making this happen was the manpower as the sets were distant from one another, requiring multiple boom operators. The audio also had to be fed to the actors; we used ear wigs or speakers when an ear wig was visible in the shot.

I am a big proponent of cabled booms and cabled communication systems when required, as the distance between the sets would have made wireless communications next to impossible. These sets proved challenging and required more manpower including the Video Assist Department, who had to deliver the desired “split-screen” video and audio to the Director. Calculating the audio delays needed throughout the signal chain to Ridley, while watching three or more 3D and 2D camera rigs, required constant attention, depending on what combination of equipment we were using on the different sets.

There were many practical video monitors requiring sound even when the actors were only reacting to our created cable news footage. The practical video monitor team, coordinated by Mark Jordan’s Compuhire, were great collaborators. The favored setup involved taking a video feed from the Compuhire crew and my department controlling the audio playback on set over a combination of either speakers, in-ear monitors or through the practical video monitors themselves.

Unique in my experience was the need for triggered playback of off-camera lines, also requiring additional manpower. The production began with shooting the NASA Mission Control set first. Mission Control would be communicating with the astronauts throughout several sequences including the rescue. We had not shot the scenes with the astronauts so their recorded dialog wasn’t available. Instead, we prerecorded and mixed temp-dialog with our dedicated Pro Tools Playback Operator, and the talented Second Unit Production Sound Mixer, György Rajna. His recordings were used for playback for the Mission Control technicians to react to. The playback dialog had to be triggered live to the needs of the on-set talent. Additionally, Ridley would ask for some “squelch” to make the playback dialog more realistic. György quickly added a side-chain of white noise dead air, “radio comms” EQ filtering and compression, adding the sense of reality that Mr. Scott was seeking.

As filming progressed, the production dialog replaced the temp recordings that we used as off-camera playback for the actors in the scenes. Later, we added Tamás Székely, the award-winning Berlinale Film Festival local Re-recording Mixer, for the Pro Tools dialog playback.

When I say triggered, I mean dedicated capable personnel, working in timed conjunction with the actors. As well as continually building and editing a playback session as the film progressed and replacing the temp with the production audio in the film. It was a superior challenge making this available to the actors throughout production.

The communication and playback system challenges didn’t end there. We had to create live on-set sound effects that we played back to help motivate performance. During the MAV and ARES launch sequences, the actors needed to react to the power of the liftoff. This was no ordinary sequence, as the cockpit sets were designed to violently shake while the cameras were on separate rigs that could move smoothly. We played our rocket launch sound effects at an extremely loud level, both amplified on-set and in-ear, inside the spacesuits to complement the violent shaking motion and to motivate the actors as well as the entire crew.

My recording setup was capable of a high track count to accommodate the double mic’ing strategy, as well as the playback and communication system signals. I chose to use two linked Sound Devices 788Ts which gave me the proven field reliability I’m used to and allowing for the 788Ts variable output delay feature for the communication systems, Video Assist monitors and performance cues around camera.

With the multiple-camera angles and the simultaneous shooting on two or more sets, we used both boom microphones and wireless in every shot. However, the majority of the “money close-ups” were recorded with a Schoeps CMC6MK41 or CCM41 rig on Ambient and Panamic booms.

Timecode was generated with an Ambient Recording ACC- 501 Clockit controller on the mix cart and the camera slates and Denecke SB-Ts on the 3ality Stereo camera rigs, all playing very nicely together.

Wadi Rum, Jordan, was our location for the surface of Mars where Matt Damon drove a working Rover over great distances. Our wireless microphones and communication systems were put to the greatest test here. This is an aspect of our workflow that couldn’t be tested in prep so we were rightfully concerned.

We set up our recording and communication relay system in a flatbed Toyota Hilux pickup truck. The frequency spectrum was incredibly clean, however, the distances between us, the Rover and Ridley were great and pushed the technical limits of reception.

Matt Damon was free-driving the vehicle and luckily, we managed to keep to about a kilometer. We were constantly faced with super-wide shots to highlight the vast landscapes and there was nowhere to hide, so we were forced to find distances between the two on the fly. Happily, our communication systems worked amazingly well under the duress of this environment. We were certainly pushed to the limits at times, but all in all, we were able to satisfy the technical and creative needs of the film under these most demanding circumstances. This location was the most convincing confirmation of our efforts on The Martian.

It was an incredible feeling to complete the movie to Mr. Scott’s and the cast’s satisfaction. We felt like the Sound Department contributed to the “reality” that Ridley Scott had asked for.

I have to thank my crew, Sam Stella as First Assistant Sound and primary Boom Operator; Bal Varga as Primary Wireless Engineer and fabricator of the custom spacesuit rigs; György Mihályi as Boom Operator and the longest working member of my team. György Mohai as Communications Systems Specialist and Tamás Székely as Playback Specialist; György Rajna as Second Unit Production Sound Mixer and influential workflow engineer, Áron Havasi, Bence Németh and Attila Kohári as additional manpower.

I would be remiss in not thanking the work of our Post Sound team who collaborated with me from start to finish. Oliver Tarney, Supervising Sound Editor who provided great support, along with Paul Massey and Mark Taylor, the Re-recording Mixers. Rachael Tate, our Dialog Editor and self-proclaimed iZotope RX ninja, was a huge ally in preserving the original dialog recordings.

I believe the Sound Department’s efforts are tangibly felt in the finished product of The Martian, not only transparently as it should be in the recording of the performances, but in so many more ways as well.

The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight: A Sound Mixer’s Philosophy of Filmmaking

by Mark Ulano CAS AMPS

The work we do is more about the filmmaking than it is about the hardware. The tools are hammers and nails—what’s the music we’re trying to perform? I push on that a lot. People will often call me, explaining they’re doing a small project and what’s the best microphone or recorder to buy? I always suggest that if you care about getting sound that works for your movie, get a skilled, passionate practitioner who is dedicated to nothing less than getting you every bit of sound you need for every shot, every day. Because the brain that’s doing that for you, like your DP, has got a singular and focused mission to protect your project, to be its best. It’s not about a piece of gear that’s inexpensive or smart or can do a lot of things; it’s about the filmmaking. It’s about knowing what you need to get out of it with the best you can. This answer doesn’t always satisfy, but that’s really the right answer.

Quentin is a master of expressing his voice and, for me; it’s a delight to read his scripts. I’ll read it several times: The first time is to experience the story as an audience member or somebody reading it as literature, going on the journey …

I become immersed in the special vocabulary of the movie and work to develop a sense of things. I’ll let the story percolate for a couple of days, and then I’ll go back and read it again, analyzing, finding detail, all the things that even glancingly indicate some interaction with the sound aspect of the project.

Diving into the logistical stage, I’ll start writing extensive notes, asking myself what’s really needed to do this? Exploring issues that are indicated by the script; camera, sets, wardrobe, construction, special effects, editorial, workflow, you know, all of the countless variables. I work at defining a scope or range of possibilities because without touching on those things, certain unknowns can turn into disasters. This is the stage that requires some sort of dialog with the other filmmakers. I begin to develop a Q&A with department heads, production, whomever. At the same time, I’m building that private list of questions that are not yet ready to be answered, but are very necessary to explore. Sometimes the production meeting is where we get to examine these interactive things, sometimes not …

I’ll schedule a pre-production meeting with my colleagues in post production. We’ll briefly discuss workflow, metadata, sampling rates and so on, but more importantly, we’ll be in a creative conversation that’s tied to the material. What we’re going to do about the design, how it sounds, what do people feel when they hear it? How will they experience these characters, their environment and their journey? There’s no hierarchy in this conversation, we are all partnering creatively. It’s storyboarding for sound.

Soon the team prep and the essential location scout are scheduled and along with discovering geography and logistics, we witness the emerging collaboration between the Director and the HODs; the triangle of the Director, DP and First AD or Producer.

The learning curve anxieties of the project’s special demands begin to reveal through these conversations and debates. I want in on these exchanges because more than dry schedules and professed planning, the dynamic of what the humans will probably do instead of what they say they’ll do begins to pop up.

As I see it, I have more than one role on Quentin’s movies. He has a trust team; there’s a group of people who understand, and then there’s a group of people that actually “do stuff.” I’m part of both groups.

We create. I think of my relationship to the project as a session player, as a musician. The cinematographer, the sound mixer, the production designer, the wardrobe and the rest of the orchestra—we physically transform raw materials into finished results before your very eyes and ears. It’s like magic … and its performance art.

So our sound presence on the set is, first and foremost, to achieve that, and my philosophy is to do that with minimal fuss and self-promotion; to muster grace, invisibility and integration with all the other things going on at the same time, and to make sure I’m there as a spiritual support for the process.

We’re here, we’re doing this, it’s challenging, isn’t it great? “Don’t we love making movies?” quoting Quentin. It’s his mantra and he literally calls for the crew to shout it out loud with him almost every day.

And, yes, we do. And that’s a serious belief: These are the days of our lives. Crew people will work dangerously long hours in this movie business, thousands of miles away from people that we love, spending ourselves in the name of our passion/obsession, voluntarily putting ourselves through the challenge because we love what we do.

I see myself as part of that fabric of community. I think when you’re in a film crew and on a film set, you have a personal responsibility to support that spirit of community because everyone is giving their maximum effort and that is beautiful to behold, a privilege to participate in, and profoundly demanding of one’s physical and spiritual being. The payoff is that you bring respect to that and contribute—you’re engaged in the process of filmmaking.

When you do it for a lot of years, you develop an intuitive sense. You see the interconnectedness of things.

Filmmaking is an immersive experience; you can’t be passive if you’re to succeed. You have to get into the deep center of the river, not on the banks, because this day comes but once. If you don’t engage with all that you have, you’re cheating yourself and everyone around you.

The beauty of working with a confident director is that you’re supported and encouraged to bring your “A” game. Excellence starts from the top down and it’s the Holy Grail.

Tools I bring everything every day and if it’s a Quentin movie, I bring a third more because as much as I know and as much as I plan, the truth reveals itself on the day.

It’s like asking a cinematographer, “What lens are you going to use?” Well, what’s the shot? What are we doing? He’s going to bring an entire complement of lenses because they all have specific attributes for a particular solution.

I’m the same, I bring a broad palate of tools, of microphones and mixers and acoustic treatment. I bring a thirty-foot trailer. It’s filled with gear, and gack, and that’s always the second conversation when I’m doing a movie with Quentin, particularly when we’re overseas and the producer’s new with him. He’ll ask, “Do you really need all that stuff?” I’ll respond with, “Yes,” WE need the tools because he will discover an inventive approach at the last second that requires a creative response, not an “oh, I didn’t know you wanted that.” That’s not acceptable, “no” is not in the vocabulary. For instance, on Kill Bill, the Julie Dreyfus scene, Uma was going to wear a helmet and have this electronic sound— well, he expressed that idea about five minutes before we were going to roll, and next thing you know, we’re pulling through the piles to create some kind of voice-affecting electronic sound because wow, this is an opportunity to create something. Not to say no, but to find an answer. If it’s not perfect, so what? We’re riffing. We’re in this, and we didn’t go negative. Going negative is so blinding, it freezes you and locks you out from better solutions.

For The Hateful Eight, I needed to keep the main sound cart in a relatively stable environment because of the extremities of temperature. That meant having the ability to be away from the set and simultaneously have a presence at the set. An Aviom digital snake was the solution. It’s basically a way to remote the heavy gear so it doesn’t clog up the set. On this set there was very little room to be anywhere because of the extremely wide frames and also the need to put everything in those little spaces whether it’s lights or people or whatever. It may look like a big, spacious area but when you’re looking big, everyone’s scrunched in behind the camera, like a clown car.

To achieve a minimal footprint on the set is also a psychological goal for me because I like to be relatively low profile in the process. The more I can do that, the more weight is attached when I need to bring a subject into the conversation because it’s clear that it’s meaningful. I don’t pester with the small stuff, I solve that myself or with my team or through networking with others. It only migrates up the food chain if it’s something that’s actually a conflict between elements, which, of course, does happen. At that point, you’re in a director conversation about being Solomon. How do you want to split the baby? Which priority do you have for this particular moment? You can never walk away silent about a vulnerability to the director, that’s an absolute breach of trust. Especially if it’s a really terrible conversation that you really don’t want to have, the not-having it is inexcusable.

The most important part of my process is the partnering that goes on within my department. On The Hateful Eight, my longtime and much beloved friend and boom operator Tom Hartig, achieved the first half of the film, until a family emergency lead to my wonderful and resolute Second Boom Op and Utility Sound Technician, Mitchell Gebhard, recommending ace Boom Op/Novelist Patrick Martens to complete the second half and demonstrate his prodigious filmmaking sensibilities and skills. And last but not least, our film student from Greenwich University in London, a native Telluridian, Kyra Westman, who got the film schooling of her life, as close quarters study in the land of Tarantino gave her the opportunity to bear witness about what really happens on his movie sets. Great souls all.

The Stagecoach From the very beginning, I was in a collaborative conversation with Ben Edelberg, the Assistant Art Director and the maestro of stagecoach design and construction, about the construction of the stagecoaches. This was mission critical, as they were being designed to be as authentic as possible, vehicles born of the 1870s. The first third of the movie was nonstop dialog to be performed in real motion, at high altitudes in sub-zero temperatures while outrunning an oncoming blizzard. Further, the coaches would either be pulled by a team of six horses or mounted on a trailer and towed by a very specialized vehicle. Bless Ben, as he was absolutely committed to the dual mission of creating coaches that functioned visually, as an environment for the performers and would not damage the capturing of their performances for a director that doesn’t replace any dialog. There were multiple issues to overcome to achieve these goals but the primary one was to be meticulous about all wood-joining technique and special attention to all the wood-to-metal contact that would create the most potential for intrusive sounds when traveling ungraded road and paths in the real wilderness. We experimented with different insulating materials, at different densities, taking into account the additional impact very low temperatures would have on the insulation at all the contact points. Others bearing this same responsibility could easily have made this a secondary concern; Ben embraced the challenge with joy and commitment. I made a huge difference.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow … Snow production for The Hateful Eight was a full-time obsession for all departments but the variables required to produce it shot by shot fell to our visual efx department, headed by Bruno Van Zeebroeck. All the ways of producing visual snow known were eventually employed, from gloved handfuls subtly dusting just out of frame to gas-engined giant ritters for epic-scale windstorms and everything in between.

Blowers were remoted to greater distances, blowtube diameters were increased, old style noisier DC-powered wind ritters originally planned for were exchanged for the newer, quieter types and most importantly, months of very tricky negotiations with the Telluride power companies to run power to the shooting locations to avoid generators for the main set were finally successful.

Many details about approach were discussed in pre-production, but the giant wild card that played out once we were on location in Telluride was the weather refused to cooperate by delivering natural snow in a dependable way. It was a particularly dry winter until production brought on an Indian medicine woman to perform a snow ritual. Within a few days, we had a two-week period of heavy snow. Causal? Not sure but …

So Very Cold … Extended production in the super-cold environments creates a host of challenges but detailed prep and team cooperation is the ultimate solution. Would the cameras be too noisy in the Ultra Panavision 70mm format? After all, snowy wilderness remote locations were exceptionally quiet places, almost anechoic at times. Gregor Tavenner, our illustrious First AC, spent months at Panavision overseeing the dismantling and reassembling of the camera bodies to maximize their reliability and being at full specification in every way. This included remanufacturing gears for these 36-year-old cameras and trading out lubricants to higher viscosity to adapt to the extreme cold. Custom 2000-foot magazines were built for halving the reload times required and these had to have meticulous engineering and careful attention paid to the loads placed on the torque motors to avoid creating noise problems.

Very important was keeping the sound gear at consistent temperatures. The main sound cart was in the back of a stake bed truck with a “Conestoga”-style tarp overall, no insulation. This meant keeping power running to the trucks 24/7 to keep space heaters running all night long so the gear would not freeze overnight, or be subject to internal condensation every day if we had to warm it up every morning. Likewise, my bag rig had to stay within an acceptable range of temperature to keep hard drives happy but not produce internal “raindrops.”

Don’t Stand for Standards!

by Doc Justice

“ A kit with two lavs and a boom is standard. ”
“ It’s standard to record to two different media sources. ”
“ A mono scratch track to camera is standard practice. ”

Just who sets these standards anyway?
For professional sound mixers, social media has become an indispensable tool for networking, for learning about new equipment, new techniques and for job advice. Lately, it has also become a place forum to develop unwritten rules within our own community.

We all benefit from learning the do’s and don’ts of work ethics from each other. Unfortunately, the “workflow standards” that get tossed around online do little more than to divide us in choosing sides of an argument. Posting about these types of “standards” often results in belittling those that don’t live up to them.

Even the manufacturers that design the equipment have their own guidelines on “standards.” “From a manufacturing point of view, when we say standards, what we’re looking at, is something that has been established by a committee,” says Gordon Moore, President of Lectrosonics. “What we’re talking about here are common practices.”

The distinction between standards and common practices is important, particularly for product development. “Common practices have every effect on the products we create,” continues Moore. “We have different receivers available. When we are looking at movie and location guys, how they use it in a bag or on a cart; that affects the design. For example, when we designed the LR receiver, that was designed for the DSLR. “It’s a challenge to try to design a product to appeal to as many people as possible. If you make a product too broad, then you fail to serve anyone and you end up with a product that doesn’t fit anywhere. When we designed the LR, we really did have specifically the DSLR miniature requirement in mind. That’s what drove it. We couldn’t put an LCD on top of the unit since other things had to go there. That goes against a bag setup, but we have bag units. You make it specific to a task, and let people adapt. Don’t compromise it too much. It’s a juggling act, it really is.”

Sound Devices President Paul Isaacs has other thoughts on product development. “Personally, it’s not about creating standards for the sake of standards. A standard is created to serve a purpose. What Sound Devices is always striving for is to always make our customers’ lives easier, to make the workflows smoother, more efficient, and to make them more effective as sound mixers and cinematographers. It’s not so much the standard that guides things; the standard is a result of our desire to improve the working lives of our clients. SuperSlot comes from that desire.”

SuperSlot is a new standard developed by Sound Devices, with input from several other manufacturers. “SuperSlot evolved from a mounting standard that existed earlier, called UniSlot, a 25-pin, defined connector that Panasonic and Ikegami came up with so you could mount receivers on a camera and send audio wirelessly. UniSlot was developed to make it easier with one simple connector. We wanted to use something similar for the mixer/recorder in the bag, so that we could eliminate cables and the amount of cable spaghetti in bag.

“If the wireless manufacturers weren’t on board with it, there was no point in going down that path. We got in contact with Sennheiser, Lectrosonics, Wisycom and Audio Limited to get their thoughts. We worked with them so that everybody was happy.

“We’re all for standards at Sound Devices. We’re not at all for proprietary protocols, but open standards. We very much want to open up design options so that any manufacturer can work with our products, like the 6-Series recorders.”

Zaxcom is another manufacturer that has helped to develop standards. CEO Glenn Sanders says, “Zaxcom invented prerecord, which was born out of using buffered data, and now everybody else uses it. We invented the process of using Sceen, Take and Note meta recorded on a audio file with production sound. Zaxcom worked with Avid to make the metadata directly readable on Avid and Pro Tools systems.

“I hate the term ‘closed-system,’” continues Sanders. “I think we are anything but a closed system. Zaxcom has a unique system, due to the fact that there is nothing on the market for it to be compatible with. We feel strongly about Zaxnet’s benefits.”

It is no surprise that the manufacturers who make sound equipment have different philosophies in product development. Competition between them helps drive innovation, yet satisfying the needs and wants of their customers remains the most important motivation.

Moore of Lectrosonics says, “We do a lot of market research, people don’t realize how much we talk to the guys in the field. When we are introducing a product, IATSE members are our core customers. We know them well and have personal relationships with them. We’ll go to an event and invite people to bring their thoughts. You can’t believe how many meetings we hold internally before green-lighting a new product. When we bring out a new product, it’s because we talked to a lot of people. We’re looking for the BEST of everything, but you can’t include everybody’s idea of what’s best.

“That’s why you get different products that do different things. That’s why we have so many variants on transmitters. All of these are variations on a theme trying to meet the different needs of the market.

“We look at common practice of using a Lemo connector in certain environments. The theater environment uses the Lemo connector a lot. For our transmitters, we picked the Switchcraft 5-pin product based on durability. We found that the TA5-Series connector was more robust and survived destruction testing opposed to the Lemo.

“This was done way back in 1987. We standardized our design based on that because, in our book, it was a more reliable, tougher connector.

“When we got to the SSM, we looked elsewhere. The defining factor was size. It had to be full-featured, it had to be as small as possible, it had to run for four to five hours. We got it up to six. The driving criteria were size, size, size. The Lemo made sense because that was the other most common connector.”

Moore and Lectrosonics were able to identify some of the common practices of their customers, and make sure to cater to their needs. Paul Isaacs of Sound Devices presents a similar take on this theme.

“We are totally guided by our customers’ needs. Occasionally, we’ll throw things out there they didn’t know they needed.

“ I’m looking to redefine workflow. There’s innovation and there’s change. I want to show people that there is something better. ”
–Glenn Sanders, Zaxcom

Dante is an example of that. When we got into Dante, nobody was talking about it at all. When we released it, it quickly took hold and now there’s no looking back.

“It’s a two-way conversation. We push things out there, and users feed back what they want. It’s a handshake process. But if we need to adhere to a particular standard so our customers have a simpler life, we will support that.

“In terms of drive formats and file formats. The recording needs to fall in line with post production. We’re very aware if it doesn’t easily fall into place, productions will just reject that equipment. The cost of doing workarounds in post production to make nonstandard formats fit in is huge. Production companies are guided by budgets that are always being cut, so if you do something in a nonstandard way, those companies will say ‘nope, it’s not going to happen.’

“We’re constantly thinking of ways to improve the workflow. We put in MP3 capability since some users need transcription files. We’re always looking to fit in with common practices.

“We want to make sure we support the widest consensus we can. NP-1s have been widely used for many years so designing around that battery was key. Even though it’s not the ‘best’ battery available these days (there are alternatives available), it is the most popular. Even considering antenna connectors, we went with the BNC connector since that was what the users wanted.

“Should there be a feature that needs to have a standard and there isn’t one in existence, we’ll create it. We won’t keep it to ourselves. We’ll share it, and SuperSlot is a fine example of that.”

Glenn Sanders’ view is a bit different. “I’m not scared of taking risks. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. You gotta take risks. If you don’t, you end up making the same stuff that everybody else makes and that’s not exciting. I want to make cool stuff. I want the people who are willing to go out with features and abilities and use them to impress people. That’s what we do. Life is boring without that. I’ve never been accused of being boring.

“User’s workflow is the most important thing. We have to understand what the customer is doing with the product. What the expectations are from getting it as a new product, installing it on the cart, what it’s going to interface with, what the media will be, how post production will deal with that media.

“You buy the gear, and based on what the gear can do, then you know what your workflow is. You could buy Zaxcom gear and have different workflow than somebody else’s gear. Your workflow might be with Zaxcom recording on the transmitters and only recording on transmitters. That could change the whole production! You can’t do that with anything else.

“I’m looking to redefine workflow. There’s innovation and there’s change. I want to show people that there is something better.”

These are the views of just three of the more popular manufacturers in our industry, and there are dozens and dozens of others. Each of these companies shape their products based on their own unique views of how to best satisfy their customers’ needs, which are also constantly shifting.

As Sound Mixers, we make purchasing decisions for many different reasons. Some choose to pursue aggressive upgrade paths to keep up with the most advanced feature sets. Others only buy out of necessity; when their current gear becomes obsolete. Some purchase with an eye toward the future, while others treasure backward-compatibility.

Our profession is not black and white. There is no line between right and wrong decisions. There are no written standards for how to mix, which equipment to buy and how to run a business. There are no requirements for manufacturers to include or exclude features other than to follow their own beliefs on how to serve their customer base. There is no set standard.

When purchasing, make decisions that suit you and your work best. The only standard that matters is the one you hold yourself to.

Grips to the Rescue

by Devendra Cleary CAS

This is the first time I am sharing this experience. In June of 2002, I was the Boom Operator on a movie on the western slope of Colorado. I was now LA-trained and not afraid to show it. On this particular night, we were shooting on a farm, doing a fourteen-hour split day. We had multiple wires, long takes and the boom fully extended with a shotgun microphone in a zeppelin. As I look back and complain about my physical exertion that day, it still pales in comparison to the work of the grips.

We wrapped around 2 a.m., the end of a Fraturday, and I helped to load the sound gear into the truck. I got into my Toyota 4Runner and drove past the grips who were still wrapping in the dark. I headed down the ten-mile dirt road back to our hotel and was driving the same way I did for the past year: as if I was on the 101 freeway.

I was going 60 mph as I hit the curvy part. I fishtailed for a few turns before it was too late to recover, losing control of the vehicle and flipping the truck onto its side into a ditch. I was extremely fortunate, as I could have tumbled over and over, but the ditch stopped me. Escaping the vehicle out of the passenger door, my adrenaline was pumping and I was terrified beyond belief. I paced the dirt road, still in shock, but very grateful I was not seriously injured.

What was I going to do, walk to the hotel, call a tow truck or sleep here on the side of the road? My despair was lifted when I saw a pair of headlights headed my way. It was the grips; they spotted my overturned truck and me. Without any hesitation or conversation, the key grip and the best boy grabbed a cluster of rock-climbing ropes and proceeded to attach a tie-off to the bottom of my truck and to their front tow hitch. It was done with precision and efficiency as if they had done this a thousand times before. Within seconds, they had my truck flipped back on its wheels.

Now what to do with the traumatized Boom Operator? They split up and the best boy grip drove my truck back to the hotel. I was a passenger somewhere, but honestly to this day, I have no idea which vehicle I rode in. What a night.

This was the first week of the movie and up until this point, I think all I did was try and convince these guys how awesome and experienced I was without showing the proper respect that they deserved. These amazing people who came to my rescue humbled me. Colorado Local 7 Grips, I am forever in your debt. I believe they were doing what any grip would do in this situation. I am grateful and have carried my respect for their entire profession since.

We know them as Local 80. The grips are more invisible than we sound and video professionals. The layman may look at them as crew members who put sandbags on camera tripods, hold stands when it’s windy, move set walls, build scaffolds or lay dolly track. But these are gross oversimplifications of the work that these highly sophisticated, and trained professionals do every working day. They are not laborers, yes, they may do a ton of manual labor, but film sets have an uncanny way of utilizing people’s talents in laborious ways. They do so much more.

The first assistant director may be in charge of your safety, but the grips are the ones who are really looking out for you. They keep you safe by properly rigging and operating the cranes, the ‘20 bys,’ camera risers and everything that supports the work of the camera and lighting departments. Now do I have your attention?

I was working on season one of Murder in the First and had my hands full with a “Burning Man”-style set of party scenes with plenty of dialog, playback and VOG for three hundred extras. I had enough time to watch the grips while they mounted a small Technocrane to a Chapman and then take that magnificent rig to its highest point, effortlessly, giving the director exactly what he wanted. Then the director changed his mind and they skillfully gave him exactly what he wanted … again. The key grip was giving instructions over his walkie, taking care of the needs of camera as well as an extremely complicated lighting setup. The grips have to have the same level of sophistication as the camera department, yet they never get treated like the royalty camera does.

I think when we ask them to help us rig a plant microphone, a flag to kill a nasty boom shadow or help video assist rig an antenna, they must be amused at the simplicity of these tasks. These guys and gals are my heroes.

Speaking of heroes: A Sound Mixer whom I have idolized since the beginning of my career by the name of Agamemnon Andrianos CAS, speaks fondly of our grip brothers. He says: “But that dynamic when you’re working with the grips. I put them first because they’re the CEMENT of the whole crew.” Cement. They are rockhardened yet malleable cement. They bond the whole crew together. We couldn’t do any of this without them.

As I moved from Utility to Boom Operator to Music Playback Operator and then to Production Sound Mixer, I felt a divide between the grips and myself. I noticed my Utility and Boom Operator were more acquainted with the grip side than I am now as the Mixer. They knew each other’s names before I did, forged camaraderie before I did and I was envious. Fortunately, this was a multi-season assignment, so I was able to adjust my flawed dynamic and forge the friendships that I needed.

The grip department on my last show was incredible and I cannot let their talents go unnoticed. One day, we were shooting an exterior on New York Street at Fox Studios. The grips were wrangling their daily task of positioning and operating our Technocrane. This in itself was a fulltime job. The grips were also responsible for the massive metal frames that held the silks. Sometimes the wind picks up unexpectedly and the combo stands that are supporting the frames are compromised and need to be additionally secured by ropes for them to be safe for the actors and crew. Like the choreography of a synchronized swimming team, they sprung into action and had the rig secured in under two minutes. They all knew their part; who’s going up high, who’s on what stand. Simultaneously, tying their “sheep shank,” “bowline” or “clove hitch” knots. All low key, under the radar, with speed and always with safety first.

The grips seem to be something different to all of us. To the AD staff, they may just be the equipment movers who are constantly asking them to get out of the open doorways. To producers and UPMs, they are necessary manpower that they would love to minimize, if they can. To the camera department, they are their unsung heroes, for they know they can’t do the job without them.

Local 80 Dolly Grip Adam Eichhorst points out, “We have to have the strength of a weightlifter with the grace of a ballerina.” These guys push a 500-pound dolly with two people on board, hitting precise marks, starting and stopping with absolute style and grace. To the sound department, they are collaborators in shaping light for the Boom Operator. The grips likeliness to assist sound has every thing to do with our relationship with them. Their help can sometimes be “on-the-fly,” as sound is not their top priority. But I have found the stronger and more organic our department’s relationship is, results in more collaboration. It should serve as a lesson on how we interact with every department on any film set.

Why did I want to give praise to the grips? Because I love drawing attention to misunderstood and sometimes underappreciated professionals. There is still a difference in awareness of their intricate contributions depending on whose looking glass we’re looking through. They deserve to be put on a pedestal for what they do. This will only reinforce the grips who already know they are the gods of film production, and also empower grips.

If you’re not already doing so, show the grip side some love. Thank a grip, hug a grip and tell a grip their daily efforts aren’t going unnoticed. Let them know they truly are our filmmaking cement.

Dante Explained

by Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

There is a new buzzword, DANTE. It’s a networking protocol and it is quickly being integrated into many Production Sound Mixers’ workflow. Full disclosure, I am a Dante user, which I had to license by purchasing a Dante-enabled product.

Dante is owned by Audinate, an Australian company, the seeds of which were sown by some former employees of the Motorola Research Labs, shuttered in 2003. Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Aidan Williams explains. “I was constantly connecting my synth to a mixer, to a sound card, MIDI cables, all sorts of different connections,” he recalls. “To me, it seemed like a networking problem. Why make all those different connections when you could integrate it into a single network?” In 2006, David Myers joined Williams to form Audinate

Bruce Jackson, Vice President of Dolby Labs’ Live Division, an early advocate, made the Dolby Lake Processor the first Dante-equipped professional audio device to be used at a performance of Barbra Streisand in Washington, D.C., in 2008. That same year, Lee Elison joined the company, opening its US headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

Dante has played a role in numerous mission-critical events; from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Pope’s appearance at World Youth Day in Sydney, to hundreds of concerts by major music performers. There are more than 170 manufacturers who have partnered with Audinate, representing more than five hundred different products that are Dante-enabled.

How Dante works?

In its simplest form, Dante is a protocol for communicating multiple audio channels over standard Ethernet and IP networks. Audio signals between Dante-enabled devices are routed using Dante Controller software. In the analog world, audio connections are point-to-point and individual copper cables representing each channel. In Dante, the physical connecting point is irrelevant as long as all the devices are connected to the same network, audio signals can be made available anywhere and everywhere. Patching and routing are configured in software and not over physical wired links. Depending on the application, Dante allows up to 512 bidirectional channels of audio to be sent and distributed over an Ethernet network, using CAT-5e or CAT-6 cable.

Dante was built to work on Gigabit Ethernet, so it already rides a fat pipe. Those 512 bidirectional channels can be sent on a 1Gb link, uncompressed, 48kHz, 24-bit audio. Latency can be as low as .25mS. One link can simultaneously carry audio with different sample rates and bit depths. You can also set up a system with multiple network zones, each with a different latency to match the needs of your equipment.

There are other AOE (Audio Over Ethernet) protocols available. The most popular are:

CobraNet

Peak Audio developed CobraNet in 1996. It accommodates up to sixty-four bidirectional channels of audio over a single CAT-5 or fiber-optic cable. You aren’t going to get advanced features like self-configuration, bandwidth adaptation or error correction. Since it’s a digital signal, equipment does have the ability to process the audio, but that’s a function of the manufacturer’s gear, not CobraNet itself.

MADI

MADI (Multichannel Audio Digital Interface) was an AES standard protocol, developed in 1991 and further improved by AMS Neve, Solid State Logic, Sony and Mitsubishi. It is a unidirectional (point-to-point) approach that allows up to sixty-four audio channels over coaxial or fiber-optic cables and less commonly CAT-5 from a few manufacturers.

How to use Dante?

Simply purchase a mixing console and recorder that has Audinate Dante available. Consoles such as the Yamaha 01V96 and 01V96i have a single-card slot to accommodate a Dante card. There are many other consoles that do the same; Behringer, Allen & Heath and the Soundcraft Expressions and Performer series to name a few. Many manufacturers have Dante built in like the Yamaha QL-1, the Sound Devices PIX 260i, the 970 and the Cantar X3.

Dante devices have a primary and secondary port for redundancy, meaning, there are two identical but separate networks providing a failsafe if one of the networks fails. You can disable Dante Redundancy Mode and use the second port to connect to another Dante-enabled device.

Daisy-chaining Dante devices can be done, with caution, but it is recommended to use a Gigabit Switch in a “star” topology to connect to multiple Dante devices.

Gigabit Switches

Gigabit Switches are just that, multi-port switches that can handle high-speed audio traffic with excellent management, often called QoS or Quality of Service. Some of us are using simple 5-port switches, such as the Netgear GS105, which retails for around $40 and can be powered via 12 volts. Others prefer the Cisco brand, starting with eight ports and up. Whatever you purchase, make sure they are not EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet), also known as Green Ethernet. These units will reduce power to individual switches during periods of low network traffic, resulting in poor synchronization and even signal dropouts!

Dante Controller will also work with other DAW software like Boom Recorder, Pro Tools (9 and up), Logic and Cubase up to sixty-four channels. This is achieved via Dante Virtual Soundcard software.

Dante networks are not restricted to digital consoles and peripherals. You can connect analog equipment to Dante interface boxes that do the A to D conversion.

DANTE SETUPS

Brett Grant-Grierson CAS and Joe Foglia CAS

Production Mixers Brett Grant-Grierson CAS and Joe Foglia CAS have similar setups. With the Sonosax ST8D console along with his Sound Devices PIX 260i, Brett has the ability to record twenty-six channels on the PIX.

Brett uses the Lectrosonics BOB Dante interface as well as the Shure SCM820 8-channel IntelliMix automatic mixer. “The Lectrosonics BOB Dante interface gives me 8 I/O via Dante to the PIX 260i. The Shure SCM820 IntelliMix has two auto mix features, Shure’s IntelliMix and the Dan Dugan automixer, both assignable to the A&B outputs. I use the Shure SCM820 for all the additional cast members and prioritize by the amount of dialog in a scene and then assign the cast with the least dialog to the Shure inputs. All the tracks are iso’d on the PIX 260i, including the auto mix outputs via Dante. I take one of the line outputs from the Shure into the Sonosax, and this gives me the ability to include the automixed cues into my production mix. I can have 26 tracks assigned on the PIX 260i; 8 from my Sonosax AES outs, 8 via Dante BOB and 10 outs from the Shure SCM820 (8+2 Mix).”

Frank Stettner CAS

The setup used on Show Me a Hero involved Frank Stettner’s main cart and an additional sub-mix setup. This configura tion was used for all city council scenes. Frank’s cart had an 8-channel Cooper CS 208D mixer feeding a Lectro BOB. The BOB then fed into two Sound Devices 970s. The sub-mix used a Yamaha QL-5 and a RIO1608 stage box.

Practical mics on camera fed into the RIO1608D off stage. The RIO fed the QL-5. Larry Provost, the sub-mixer, was able to create a sub-mix that fed into a single channel on Frank’s Cooper. Frank was able to mix the single channel in for synching dailies. This was the only analog link between the two setups. All other interfacing between the two setups were done via Dante. The 970s on Frank’s cart were able to record all iso’s from both his Cooper and the QL-5.

Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

My Dante setup on my main cart is the Yamaha 01V96, the Sound Devices 970 and the JoeCo BBR Blackbox Recorder as backup. I use my cart-based Mac Mini to run Dante Controller and the Dante Virtual Soundcard to Boom Recorder, which is open but only as a failsafe recorder. I also have a Soundcraft Expressions 1 console with a Dante Card for music playback. I run Pro Tools on my MacBook Pro routing the outputs directly to the Soundcraft channels via Dante. The Soundcraft’s Secondary Dante Port is connected to my main cart, where I can route any Pro Tools stem to my 970. Usually the Master Mix and Playback Timecode.

Here is an example of an interesting solution made simple by Dante Controller. I had a wireless connected to the output of an electric guitar for a scene. The wireless is routed to my Yamaha 01V. I was able to also route that signal to a channel on the Soundcraft, where it could be folded back and heard over the playback speakers. This is all done with two CAT-5e cables between the playback setup and my main cart. Elegance in simplicity.

The use of your Dante setup has multiple possibilities beyond the mix cart. Audio signals can be received or sent into different sets, rooms or floors. Audinate has new software they are just rolling out called Dante Via, which will allow different computers and their peripherals, whether it is audio devices or hard drives to all be connected as long as they are on the same network. The software works with Windows 7 (SP1) through 10 and Apple OS 10.9.5 through 10.11. Dante Via enables any USB or Firewire audio device with network connectivity, allowing you to easily expand your Dante system with hundreds of available products. Connect your device and check “Enable Dante” in the Dante Via interface, and it’s ready to connect with your entire network, unrestrained by short cable runs. It will discover all connected audio devices and applications and give you intuitive drag & drop interface for connection management, including routing audio from different applications to different locations at once. Imagine sending your live ADR, voice-over or wild line session directly to the picture edit suite or the Mix stage?

Peter Schneider of Gotham Sound & Communications, Inc., says it best: “The ability to ‘expand on demand’ without fuss is a feature unique to Dante. Any traditional cart can be expanded to accommodate a great number of sources, but no system can do it across such a broad range of manufacturers as easily as Dante can with one CAT-5 cable.”

I want to thank those who helped me in 2014 to set up Dante; Phil Palmer CAS and Scott Harber CAS, as well as Mike Paul of Location Sound Corp, who assisted me with background for the article.

Keep Calm and Make a Patch

Notes From an A-2 at the Grammys

by Ric Teller

Quite a few years ago, I was working on a show with Murray Siegel in the days when Murray was still on the audio crew. During the show, or maybe it was during rehearsals, my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, Walter Miller, the iconic director, got on the PL and told everyone that “the floor A-2 job was no career for a grown-up like Murray.” Working as an A-2 in television for more than thirty years, including more than half of the live televised Grammy Award ceremonies, I can tell you without question that Walter was absolutely right.

If you can’t act a bit like a kid, scoot around on the floor, laugh out loud, poke a little fun and have some poked back at you, dance a little, be enthralled by the presence of some music icons, and come out of it wanting more, this job may not be for you.

To be sure, there are challenges in doing the Grammys, not the least of which is that we are under a lot of pressure to perform our stage audio-ballet, or more aptly, a rugby scrum, in a timely manner. We try our best to make everyone happy, the artists, the Director, Production Staff and especially the rest of our amazing Sound Crew. The group of mixers and techs that bring each and every part of our production to the show that you hear on television are supremely talented engineers and more importantly, are very nice people. Together, we have had some true successes including a clean show in 2015 and along the way we have had a few bumps in the road. Our A-2 crew has been lauded in print as an example of audio excellence and after one tough year, derogatorily identified as members of the Santa Monica High School A/V Club. Go Vikings! In 2014, the Grammy road was decidedly bumpy. The dress rehearsal was a train wreck. There is a specific amount of time allotted for each of the 128 items in the show and the only time we do the band-to-band staging transitions in real time, is in dress. We were late on four or five changeovers, band carts arrived on stage slowly and we had several audio and instrument issues. I am not one who believes a ‘baddress’ means ‘good-show.’ I like it all to be good.

In the live show, if something doesn’t work, we quickly evaluate if the broken part of the setup will have a major impact. Let’s say, we are ten seconds away from a performance and the problem is Viola 3 or Snare 2 bottom, or anything else that won’t be noticeable to the viewing audience, we just let it go (damn that Viola 3 mic). If it is something more important, such as a vocal mic, a lead guitar or piano and it is not easily fixable, then we tell the Stage Manager, who tells the Head Stage Manager, who tells the Director and the Executive Producer and they decide the potential impact of a flawed performance. Sometimes they will try to give us a little more time to resolve the issue, a longer tape package and an extended acceptance speech. That twenty seconds or so might be enough time to make a game-saving difference.

It is late in the Grammy show and we are pitching a shutout. After our relaxing eighteen-minute meal break, we cleaned up the band risers, made sure the mics were in the correct positions and secretly replaced a critical problematic cable. All the issues from dress rehearsal seem to be resolved.

Band carts are flying up the ramp, The Highwaymen guitar rig is behaving, and Paul’s vocal in the Taylor Swift number is clean. It is item 108, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis with Trombone Shorty, and we are line checking.

Strings good, guitar good, vocals good, nine RF instrument mics all good. Choir 1 good, Choir 2 good, Choir 3 … not good.

Remember, we are in a live show, musicians are on stage and their performance is seconds away. I pivot and reach down to change the Choir 3 input from Pair 3 in our sub-box to Pair 7, then go to the main box and reach down for the cable on top, barely looking to see if it is the correct one. I know it will be, because Eddie McKarge, my partner on the B-stage, has been sending Pair 7 signals directly to the patch part of my brain. The connection is made, he casually checks the mic one last time and of course, it is good. Shutout preserved and maintained through the end of the show.

The Grammys are in the best way, a collaboration of more than sixty sound people led by our own audio coordinator … err … complicator … err … aggravator, Michael Abbott. Mike has worked on nearly thirty Grammy shows and is in charge of the audio details large and small that make everything work as smoothly as possible. He also runs interference when needed. Without Mike’s guidance, no one would know how RF #8 gets to the final mix. Really, how does it?

Staples Center is the home for three Los Angeles professional sports teams that are all in season during the Grammys, so our access to the venue is quite limited. We begin on the Tuesday, before the show by running thousands of feet of cable. Fortunately, much of the connectivity is done on fiber these days. That big copper stuff is way too heavy. Wednesday, we have an audio meeting to address the specifics of the show and then continue our setup. Rehearsals begin on Thursday and continue for three very busy days.

Finally Sunday arrives. First we rehearse anyone who we haven’t seen yet, next we do a full three-and-a-half-hour dress rehearsal, followed by a three-and-a-half-hour live show. We finish show day with four or five hours of wrapping cable and putting our toys away. It is a very long, fun day.

The broadcast this year was filled with a wide variety of performances. Two of my favorites were AC/DC, who opened the show in fine fashion, and Usher who did a lovely version of “If It’s Magic,” accompanied only by a harp until the last few bars when Stevie Wonder joined in. It was magic.

About that RF #8 question. It originates backstage in the RF rack and gets to the split world via a two-hundred-foot W4 cable. At split world, the RF goes into split C, Pair 8, which is split to the FOH and monitors DiGiCo Rack, the Music Mix Mobile preamp rack, and the Denali Hydra; all on short W4 cables. This signal then goes to those mixing destinations through various forms of fiber. In this example, let’s say that RF #8 also gets a Pro Tools effect. The RF is patched into Hydra 1, Pair 8 and goes to Denali Summit, the broadcast truck, on a 500-foot TAC 12 fiber cable, where it is sent on a MADI stream over a 5-wire coax mult to Pablo Munguía’s Pro Tools mix position located in a nearby Gelco trailer.

After the RF has received the proper Pro Tools treatment, it goes back to split world on a three-hundred-foot W2 cable where it is patched into a music split. Let’s call it split A, Pair 52. That pair along with the rest of the music split inputs goes to the Music Mix Mobile preamp rack on a fifty-foot W4 cable and from there it is sent to the music mix trucks on fiber. RF #8, now a Pro Tools return track, is then mixed with the rest of the music inputs and sent back to the broadcast truck via an AES pair on a five-wire coax. The last stage is where A1 Mixer Tom Holmes combines RF #8 and the entire music mix with any other elements such as audience reaction and sends it to transmission on an embedded fiber. Quite a journey for our RF #8.

As you can imagine, there are hundreds of people involved in a show of this magnitude. It is advanced television. In our little B-stage world, there are audio, video, production, lighting, staging, props and backline people, plus the terrific techs and mixers that come with the artists, as well as some fantastic musicians. I am honored to work with all of them.

Interfacing with our mixers and techs is a true pleasure and I have great confidence just hearing their voices on my headset. Many people feel that they are among the finest at their craft. I can assure you, that is the truth. I would also like to extend my appreciation to the entire A-2 crew including the A-stage guys who really had a lot of big setups this year. The Dish Stage Crew that made bands magically appear on that very small space and the B-side boys who always make my Grammy experience so much fun.

I would like to add a special thank-you to head A2 Steve Anderson for reigning in the chaos that comes when you do a live TV show with twenty-five performances and for helping us stay on track to get through the long days with a sense of humor that Walter Miller might appreciate.

Yeah, probably not.

GLOSSARY

Denali Hydra: Denali is the broadcast facilities truck company used at the Grammys, Oscars and many other television events. Hydra is the stage box for the Calrec audio console found in the Denali truck.

DiGiCo Rack: A multichannel input/output rack connected to FOH and Monitor consoles.

Dish Stage Crew: Performances at the Grammys take place on three stages. The A- and B-stages are stage-right and stage-left sides of the main stage. The third performance area is the dish stage, which is a small performance area in the audience. Our crew is divided into the A-stage crew, the B-stage crew and the dish stage crew.

Fiber: A fiber optic cable for transmitting audio signals from one location to another. The Production Truck, the Music Mix Mobile Truck and the FOH and Monitor consoles are all fed by various systems through fiber.

MADI: Multichannel Audio Digital Interface, an AES standard protocol that carries multiple channels of digital audio.

W2: A sixteen-pair copper connection multi cable.

W4: A fifty-six pair copper connection multi cable.

Television’s Dirtiest Word

by Doc Justice

In 1972, George Carlin delivered his famous monologue, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Today, there is one word that encompasses all of the seven. This one word elicits groans, sighs, rage and disgust.

Reality. As in, reality TV. Gross!

It is the bastard genre of television, where nobody claims responsibility for the lack of parenting. Its fans only confess begrudgingly, its detractors denounce it with gusto. More often, viewers will cry “FAKE!” as one argument against the entire category. Yet, here we are with 352 seasons of Big Brother shot and aired around the world. That number is not an exaggeration.

While all of planet Earth has agreed that reality TV is to be only enjoyed as a guilty pleasure; there are many sound mixers making their living from it. What are the skill sets needed to be a reality TV Mixer?

To answer that, we have to take a closer look at reality as a whole. After all, can a docu-follow such as Real World be treated the same as American Idol, Survivor, What Not to Wear or My Cat From Hell?

Every one of these productions is as different as the individuals who record the dialog. They offer unique challenges and custom workflows, and the people who are tasked with recording these shows must be creative, technically adept, quick to act and often, physically fit.

They are known as Audio Supervisors, and as the heads of their department, they have many of the same responsibilities as Production Sound Mixers on narrative sets. They must choose their gear, manage their sound team, interface with directors and producers, and coordinate with post.

On set, the Audio Supervisor is a different animal altogether. Instead of the usual team of three, the Audio Supervisor might work with a department ranging from one to upward of twenty crew members.

On the docu-follow show Esquire’s Best Bars in America, Audio Supervisor Justin Brunnler works as a one-man band. Justin mic’s up the talent, sends mixes to camera, booms the public and is responsible for all of the audio that ends up on-air. Staying compact is key, since Justin maneuvers through the bars to boom the patrons as they order drinks. His bag has everything at his disposal, a Sound Devices 664 with Lectrosonics 411a receivers with sends for camera and IFB. Production typically visits three bars per shoot day in any given city, so it can be very hectic. His producers put a lot of trust in him, and he has rewarded them with two seasons of successful work. The producers could call a Sound Mixer in any of the cities that they travel to. They could probably get somebody cheaper to take the job. However, they insist on calling Justin, because the risk isn’t worth it to them. Despite all the hours and travel, his demeanor and work ethic are of utmost importance. Justin delivers quality audio with a smile every time.

ABC’s The Bachelor has aired eighteen seasons, and that doesn’t include all of its spinoffs. Audio Supervisor Jeff Fusting, multitracks the audio for thirty-two individuals including the contestants, host and bachelor. Working with a Yamaha CL 5 in the house and a Yamaha CL 1 on the road, Jeff is able to rout all of his record tracks, to the story producers who are monitoring story beats, and the director. Those thirty-two frequencies of cast transmitters are only the start. There are also 12 ENG rigs each consisting of a Sound Devices 552, 4 Lectrosonics 411a receivers and UM400a transmitters for camera hops and IFB. Along with the stereo camera sends and IFBs, there are a total of sixty-three frequencies floating in the air at any given time. Yet, coordinating those frequencies is a simpler task compared to staffing the show. Shooting takes place close to twenty-four hours a day, so scheduling more than twenty Sound Mixers per season can be a challenge. The team is vital to a smooth operation, and Co-supervisor Dan Norton helps to coordinate the ENG Mixers. If it all stopped there, it would be easy. Throw in the carnets, the earwigs, the PLs, and of course, the bikinis, and it is plain to see how difficult it is to capture audio for this show. Yet Jeff is there, season after season, making it happen efficiently and effectively.

To change gears completely, take a look at American Ninja Warrior on NBC. This is another beast of a show, with microphones all over the place. John Steigerwald collaborates with rental house Clair Broadcast to create a system that doesn’t miss a word or a splash. Capturing all of the sounds is no simple feat as it is one big obstacle course that contestants must race through. John uses shotgun mics including Sennheiser 416P and plant mics like the Shure SM91 to not only capture the dialog, but all of the sounds in the obstacle course. His A2s run the course alongside the contestants with parabolic dishes to make sure no footstep is missed. Talent are wearing Sennheiser SKM5200s with Neumann capsules. Since the show sets up its giant obstacle course in cities across the country, above all else, efficiency in engineering and packing are key. All of the rack cases, mics, wireless and recorders have been whittled down to just a combination of eleven racks, trunks and workboxes. John’s extensive background in touring has led to an expertly finetuned package. The Audio Supervisor job on this show is as much of a challenge as climbing Mount Midoriyama itself. Audio Supervisors in reality TV must always take advantage of new technologies and systems. Multi-boxes begat Aviom Digital Snakes, which gave rise to MADI and Dante. Routing audio to different cameras, decks, Producer IFBs, Story Stations and PL is paramount to the job. Data management, mic wrangling and on-the-fly troubleshooting are all part of the everyday process. Sometimes it is a wonder how the jobs are accomplished. These productions learn very quickly that hiring the right Audio Supervisor is the single most important step toward sound satisfaction.

The job of the reality TV Audio Supervisor is really not too different than that of the narrative Production Sound Mixer, and yet, it is. Audio Supervisors work as hard and care just as much as those in the scripted world. One isn’t better than the other, one just presents a different myriad of challenges than the other. The average Audio Supervisor is much more than the shows that require the “sound-mule” to wear one hundred pounds of gear.

Reality TV may have earned its own stereotype as dirty and cheap, but all Audio Supervisors should be applauded for their work. Next time you talk to somebody who makes their living off of reality TV, strike up a conversation and ask them about it.

Just don’t do it in public, or somebody might think you actually watch the stuff.

Straight Outta Compton

by Willie Burton CAS
Photos by Jaimie Trueblood

I was working with Matt Alvarez, one of the producers of the film Beyond the Lights, in September of 2013. Matt said he would be producing a film entitled Straight Outta Compton. I said, “That sounds like a great project and I would love to be involved with a movie of that caliber.” Several months later, I was in Atlanta working on the film Selma and heard that Straight Outta Compton was in preproduction. I scanned through Production Weekly and saw that true to his word, Matt was one of the producers. I emailed him right away and asked if he would submit my name for the job. His reply was “yes.”

A few weeks later, I received a call from Gigi Causey, the Production Supervisor, inquiring about my availability and if I was interested in the project. I explained to her that I was in Atlanta working on Selma and would not be in Los Angeles for a couple more weeks, but would love to be involved in the film. Gigi asked me to send a résumé to the producers and the director. Shortly afterward, I received another phone call; the producers wanted me to come in for an interview upon my return to Los Angeles. The script was emailed to me and, after reading it; I was hyped and excited about the possibility of being involved in such a prestigious film.

I finally went in for the interview. It was with Adam Merims, the Line Producer, and Gigi, which was very unusual. I normally interview with the director and producers. I left with mixed feelings as filming was set to start in a couple of weeks. My concern was short-lived as I was asked to come in and meet Director F. Gary Gray. I left that meeting feeling very positive and excited but wasn’t sure if I had the job. I still hadn’t heard from the production, a week before location scouting was set to begin. But happily, I received the call. “The director liked you and we want you to be on the scout Monday morning.”

My first step is to break down the script and have a good understanding of the story. Scouting locations is also a very important element of filmmaking. It allows you to prepare and come up with solutions in helping to reduce background noise when shooting in noisy interior sets. Many times we don’t get to scout and you end up with a lot of surprises and no time to solve the problem. I knew this was going to be a challenging project because of the large cast, as well as music playback, live recordings and earwigs for each member of the group N.W.A. For a project of this magnitude, you have to have the proper equipment and a great crew.

My cart consists of a Zaxcom Mix-12, 2 Deva 5s each with 10 tracks, as a main recorder and a backup, as well as 2 Lectrosonics Venue receivers. I have an assortment of lav mics, Sanken Cos-11, Countryman B-6 and DPA. I use Lectrosonics UM400 plug on transmitters for the boom poles with Sennheiser MKH 50 and Schoeps for all interiors and MKH 50 and MKH 60 for all exteriors. I knew I would have to have a minimum of ten tracks, lots of wireless microphones and Comtek receivers.

I assembled my team, with Boom Operator Michael Piotrowski, Utility/Second Boom David Parker and Pro Tools Playback Engineer Mark Agostino. The second unit Sound Mixer was Bartek Swiatek. The one challenge was keeping up with all the IFBs and Comtek receivers that were used for both public and private communication. We started off with eighteen IFBs and increased the number daily until we reached a total of thirty-one. That was a challenge in itself. It was suggested by one of the producers that we buy a toolbox with a lock so we could keep track of all the receivers that were all over the place. We bought the toolbox and lock, but we never locked it as a number of visitors frequently visited the set and it seemed like every few minutes we were passing out receivers and changing batteries. We spent additional time each day looking for the units.

Each performer was equipped with a Lectrosonics SM 2 transmitter, Sanken COS-11 lavalier and earwigs. There were also live microphones on the stage. This allowed us to capture the performance and all the ad-libs. In each musical performance, we would do a couple of takes with playback through the PA system. Then record the vocals live with playback through their earwigs. We tied into the house PA system when possible, in conjunction with our own system that consisted of two Turbosound and two JBL speakers. I recorded timecode on one track and music on another from Pro Tools for reference. I also supplied Mark with outputs from the live performances in case we needed to play back the tracks and also for Post.

Recording sound on exterior locations is always a challenge, especially shooting in the city of Compton. You have to have many blocks of wireless frequencies. I used blocks 470, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25 and 26. Filming was challenging because of all the police radio traffic and the other devices being transmitted. We recorded as many wild tracks as possible to capture the real sound of neighborhoods and the location. Another challenge was rewrites and dialog changes being made at the last minute, which meant my team and I always watched rehearsal and were ready for whatever was thrown at us. We mic’d all the offstage lines for overlaps and protection. Being organized and thinking ahead is the key to being successful. Our DP, Matty Libatique, would run multiple cameras the majority of the time, incorporating wide, medium and close-up coverage. Panning from one cast member to another made it more difficult to capture the sound, which means the Boom Operator has to pay very close attention to what is being filmed. None of it was predictable. Two wireless booms were used in conjunction with body mics. I used Channel 1 for my mix and each actor was recorded on a pre-fader isolation track in order to have protection if there were issues.

It is also much more challenging for the Boom Operator when all the sets are practical. We could not move walls in order to have more room to work. It was most important to have cooperation from our DP, camera operators, set lighting, grips, Art Department and our location team. Thanks to our director for trusting my team and me to do our job. The cast was very cooperative, allowing us to put radio mics on and make adjustments as necessary. This film was definitely a collaborative effort. Special thanks to my production crew and the talented post sound team for their work in all stages of post production. The post team did a great job with my production recordings and created a brilliant sound design and final mix.

We are always so busy doing principal photography, there is never the right time to take pictures with the cast or director. Dr. Dre threw this extravagant and fabulous wrap party in the Hollywood Hills. He was there, taking pictures with various people. This was my opportunity to take a picture with him. I gave my camera to a partygoer and wouldn’t you know it, the flash didn’t work. So I have a picture in darkness with him.

That’s a wrap.

Broken Skull Challenge

Picket Line Wins a Contract for
Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge

by Laurence B. Abrams

Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge is a successful reality show with great ratings and a bright future on Viacom’s Country Music Television Network. Weekly contestants compete on a difficult obstacle course, each vying for the $10,000 weekly prize. Drama, victory and heartbreak ensue.

But what the Broken Skull production and post-production crews lacked through three seasons of production was a contract that assured fair wages, excellent healthcare, a pension to provide security for their families and other features we know to be a part of an IATSE contract. And so this led to a request from the crew for representation by the IA.

Typically when this happens, the IA asks the producer, in this case 51 Minds Entertainment, to sit down and have a conversation. But this time, those attempts were denied.

And so began the picket. Three picket lines, in fact, spread across thirty-five miles from North Hollywood to Agua Dulce, filled with representatives from the IA and from nearly every IA Local in town.

Those of us who attended these picket lines will have noticed a few things. It was hot out there. And the days were long. But the spirit, camaraderie and sense of purpose was nothing short of electric. Another thing that was hard to miss was Local 695’s disproportionately large representation on the picket line. The turnout from our members was incredible and at times, it seemed like it was all 695 and gaining in strength as each day went on.

But the most significant presence we saw was the Broken Skull audio crew, all five of whom had left the show to take a position on the picket line … Audio Supervisor Doc Justice, Production Sound Mixers Jim Gomes, Jason Wells and Kenny Beane, and A-2 Reese Wexler. To a man, it was obvious that these guys believed in Broken Skull and in 51 Minds Entertainment and they wanted to do all they could to help bring success to both. But they wanted a union contract too, and they set out to prove that these two things are not mutually incompatible. Doc and his team were ever present on the picket and gave unflinching inspiration to everyone who had the good fortune to speak with them.

That commitment, mixed in with a hefty dose of perseverance across ten days of picketing and eventually, negotiating, resulted in an IA contract. The editorial crew is back at work now, with good union benefits and several months of work ahead of them. For the production crew, a few hurried days of scab labor had already enabled the show to finish off this season but each and every one of them is guaranteed first right-of-refusal when the show picks up again in a few months, with a contract that assures benefits and a schedule for raises and contract improvements going forward.

Many unscripted productions on network TV are already working under IA contracts but the contract achieved by the Broken Skull crew during those ten hot days in July has laid down a crucial foundation in the move toward crews on cable television productions finally getting union representation, as well. This is just the start.The observations made and lessons learned are in some ways, very simple. We, as crew, are part of a fantastic community of incredibly talented women and men. Producers who want to have access to this great talent but are worried they can’t possibly produce their show under a union contract … actually can. We truly can overcome what appear to be insurmountable obstacles when both sides finally sit down to talk. Solidarity and perseverance are a pair of forces that combine with enormous power. And we won’t back down.

Whiplash

by Thomas Curley CAS

People are astonished that principal photography on Whiplash was only nineteen days and a $3.3M budget, so every day had to count. Add to this a first-time Director, Damien Chazelle, and a complex music intensive plot and the degree of difficulty increases. When the script and actors are top notch, then there is no room for compromise.

Pulling off the shoot took a lot of logistics and the AD team led by Nic Harvard was instrumental in making all of this work. I have worked with Nic several times in the past, so when I took his call to do Whiplash, I knew it would be a challenge, but he put me at ease.

I do not have a musical background. After finishing film school, I worked as a licensed Broadcast Engineer for television; my approach is both artistic and technical. Music is like a foreign language to me. After reading the script, I knew that the sound department would have our work cut out for us; we had to knock this out of the park.

I met with Director Damien Chazelle, and we spoke about the problems he had in shooting the short version, which won the Sundance Film Festival Short Prize in 2013 and how we would approach this for his ‘big screen version.’

Re-recording Mixers Craig Mann and Ben Wilkins as well as Music Editor Richard Henderson were already on board and working on prerecords of the drums, and the orchestra. We decided that it would not help to have a properly mic’d drum set and jazz band in the school environments, so doing live recording was out. The other major challenge would be the start-stop band practice scenes.

For these scenes, Miles Teller would wear a wire, and the boom would dance back and forth between J.K. Simmons and the drum kit. The rest of the music scenes were 95% playback. We recorded every playback take with the boom and faded the track down, rather than just stopping playback, so that any resonance, room tone and noises from the real instruments, were part of the production track. Additionally, Craig Mann recorded impulse responses on each set to get a precise model to apply reverb and the results were very convincing.

I improved my package for Whiplash and purchased a Schoeps CMIT 5U microphone, a Lectrosonics OctoPack, with four SR dual receivers and a Sound Devices CL-9 controller. I had previously owned a Yamaha 01V96 and a Sonosax SN-S eight-channel console. I gave them both up for a much more streamlined workflow with the CL-9. While it lacks some functions of a traditional analog console, the elegance of the system more than makes up for it. I like that it controls the mix track in the 788T without having to lose an iso track. It works off of the same power as the 788T, which is important to me, as I never know what our power source will be.

Even if my cart power and NP1 systems go down, I can still mix off the CL-9 with the internal 788T battery.

Our tech scouts revealed how we were going to pull off a nineteen-day shoot. Two weeks of our shoot were at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The building proved amazing for the art department to build different sets on different floors. We had at least ten different sets in that building. All we had to do was hop in the elevator.

There was one spot where I knew there would be a huge problem, the Jazz Club, where Andrew reunites with Fletcher. The set was built in the lobby of the Orpheum Theatre. The back wall where the band would play did not exist, so the art department agreed to my request to build a double wall. The resulting air gap served to dampen the incessant bus traffic on Broadway. There was some bleed through, but it made the difference between rolling off the lows or sending the five-page scene to ADR.

By the end of the nineteen days, everyone on the crew knew they had worked on a really great film, no matter where it ended up. The level of professionalism and collaboration was exemplary. I felt like this was the set I dreamed of working on when I was driving from upstate New York to Los Angeles many years ago.

Whiplash turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving. I was thrilled to learn that it would open the Sundance Film Festival. I was on a mission to get into that screening. Just five minutes before the film started, I got the very last ticket and witnessed a standing-room-only crowd blow the roof off as the end credits rolled. What a rush.

A few weeks later, we were BAFTA and Academy Award nominees! I have never been so pampered in my life. We were thoroughly surprised to win a BAFTA, a unique and unequaled pleasure. This was was also a special honor for Ben Wilkins, who is from the UK. We were suddenly backstage, a whirlwind of press and then partying until the early morning.

Fast-forward to the Academy Awards. I couldn’t believe when the day came to walk the red carpet. I brought my dear mother, who couldn’t have been more proud. I spent most of the ceremony convincing myself that there was no way we could win. Statistically, no film this small had won the Academy Award for sound in thirty years. The amount of talent and money we were up against was intimidating too.

When they called our names, it was an overwhelming rush of pride and terror. I now had to gracefully walk to the stage in front of a 1.5 billion television audience! We were told that only one of us could speak, but when they didn’t play us off, I had to get a shout-out to my crew. It is still somewhat surreal to see these trophies in my living room. I got to check off several items from my bucket list, thanks to Whiplash. My life will never be the same. However, looking forward, I am excited about the great things I’ll be working on to keep challenging me much further.

House of Cards

House of Cards and Digital Boom Removal

by Lorenzo Millan

I began my career in 1993, in a circuitous path, growing up in Baltimore, Maryland. My family owned an old reel-to-reel tape recorder that was purchased to teach my father English, but my older brother and I commandeered it, where we recorded ourselves playing instruments.

Thanks to a geometry teacher in high school, who screened 16mm prints of Battleship Potemkin, Birth of a Nation and Un Chien Andalou. He encouraged us to make two Super 8 movies a semester and on graduation, I decided to apply to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. I signed up for a class called “Sound Image.” I was hooked and for the next four years, was the Sound Mixer on many of my fellow student film projects.

After returning to Baltimore, I taught a film class for two years at my old school and later, was introduced to Cameraman Richard Chisolm, who gave me the phone numbers of several local Sound Mixers. I joined IATSE Local 487 and worked on commercials and then Second Unit for NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street.

Bruce Litecky, the mixer on that show, asked me if I wanted to boom the fifth season. That was 1996, I was so green, however, I dedicated myself to it and ended up being the main boom operator in the Baltimore area.

In 2010, when The Social Network came into town, I worked with Mark Weingarten for several days. Mark called me again in 2012 to ask if I would like to work on a new show, House of Cards, as a Utility. I was trying to do more mixing and declined his offer, going on to mix an independent movie, Better Living Through Chemistry.

Shortly after finishing that project, Mark asked me to come in to do Second Unit on House of Cards. Mark listened to a few of my takes and told me he was going home for his son’s birthday and would I be available to cover him for that week? I’ll be honest, I was scared, but I said yes. The week went off without a hitch and Mark told me he was leaving to do a feature and wanted to recommend me as his replacement. Mark was even kind enough to leave much of his equipment package. It was a steep learning curve, but I grew with confidence.

I was asked back for the second season of HOC, it was now ‘my’ show. One of the producers had mentioned putting booms in the shot, but I was unclear of the parameters. When David Fincher came to visit, I asked him to explain the process and had a good discussion about it with the director and some producers. We tried it while Fincher watched and explained when to and when to not use it.

The opportunity to put booms in the frame helps in many ways. First, we get good quality sound and don’t have to wire the actors. Secondly, the directors don’t have to sacrifice a performance by having to loop a scene later. Thirdly, other departments can take advantage of the same principle with a stand, flag or light.

There are several hard rules to “busting the frame.” If the shot has some movement at the top, then we look at the possibility of dropping the mics in, once the move has ended. Sometimes it isn’t practical to do this just for a few lines of dialog, as the majority will have to be on a wireless, due to distance from the boom, lighting, and/or geography.

If the wide shot is static, then we’ll bust the shot from the top and decide how we are breaking down the scene with the two booms.

We consider the vocal levels of the actors and what their tendencies are. How much of the room is covered by the cameras. Sometimes we end up with a triangle of people so we’ll decide who to wire and who is the best to cover with the booms.

If it’s crucial dialog in the scene, like a speech by Francis Underwood, I want to get those on the boom.

We look at the boom movement. Are there reflections, shadows on the actors? Is the boom crossing through moving foliage in the windows? It’s an organic discussion with Boom Operator Randy Pease, Chris Jones, our Second Boom/Utility, and the A Camera Operator, Gary Jay.

Sometimes after a rehearsal, Gary will say, “Well, you can bust this one.”

We make sure the 1st AD and the Director know we need a few seconds at the top before action. We’ll roll a clear frame without the booms and count off a second or two. Then Gary says, “OK, come on in boys.” We do the same at the end of a scene too.

I’m benefiting from David Fincher, who is the innovator and I am just riding that wave. The Post Production Supervisor, Peter Mavromates, and the current Post Supervisor, Hameed Shaukat, and their teams of Editors and VFX people have been enormously helpful.

I always record every line on camera or off. We have also built a small ADR booth on our stage, located in Edgewood, Maryland, about 20 minutes northeast of Baltimore.

We use the PIX System, LLC, so the editors in Los Angeles can upload a QuickTime file and a cue sheet and I can record the actor with my Zaxcom Nomad and a Sennheiser MKH 40.

I began the second season with a Cooper 106+1, recording onto a Deva 4. I use Lectrosonics wireless and Sanken lavs.

The boom microphones are the Sennheiser MKH 50 and sometimes the 60 and even the 70. I love the sharpness of Sennheiser and the MKH 50 in particular. For podiums, we use the Sennheiser MKH 40 or the same Shure SM57VIP dual microphones that match the presidential podium.

Sanken CUBS are for car interiors. They are very natural sounding and can be positioned very easily.

I moved to the Zaxcom Fusion 12 and the Mix 12 for season three.

We don’t use slates on HOC. Everything is linked by timecode and metadata. The workflow begins with my metadata; episode, scene and take numbers in tight collaboration with our Script Supervisor, Robb Foglia. The Assistant Picture Editors use my file name for the clips.

Fortunately, we have a very experienced camera crew and great Camera Operators who look out for things that I can’t always see. House of Cards treats the sound department and my tracks with great respect. The stages and sets are quiet. The actors expect quiet as well. Many times before I’ve had a chance to tell the AD department about noise issues during a take, an actor has already spoken about it. It is the way it should be.

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Traveling Road Show on Mad Max: Fury Road

by Ben Osmo

Our mission was to record dialog and sound effects while constantly in motion. We set up three multiplex systems to give me a range of one to three kilometers (about two miles). This became a necessity after the first run through with the Armada, where they took off to a distance of seven kms (four miles). I relocated all my equipment into a small 4WD van and followed the action. The crew dubbed it The Osmotron.

The Osmotron

My setup included four Sound Devices 788T, each with a CL-8. I did a mix down to each recorder as well as a two-track mix to a 744T for dailies. There were six Lectrosonics Venue receivers on Blocks 21, 22, 23 and 25, as well as two VR Venue Field receivers on Block 24. One Mackie 1604 for monitor mixes, four LectrosonicsIFB transmitters and three video monitors all powered by a Meon, a Meon Life and one more UPS (see Schematic #1).

When traveling, the equipment was powered by a 2k generator mounted on the back of the vehicle.

I was happy that all of the 788Ts had SSDs (Solid State Drives), as most of the filming was off road and they performed exceptionally well under extreme vibration. They were in road cases that were well insulated. The 744T was suspended in a pouch, so it could absorb the many bumps in the Namib Desert for six months.

The eight principal cast riding on the War Rig wore Lectrosonics SMV or SMQV transmitters on Block 24 with DPA 4061 lav mics. I find the DPA microphones quite transparent and the best for wind protection.

Andrea Hood, the genius Set Costumer, helped us enormously by designing a system to attach the packs and pre-sewing the lavs on costumes. I am forever indebted to her help. We supplied the lavs and packs at the end of each shooting day, as Andrea had to have the outfits washed.

There was an antenna hidden inside the cabin of the War Rig, with a coax cable to the interior of the tanker to two Lectrosnics Venues, Block 24 with their outputs to twelve Lectrosonics UM400 transmitters on Block 21. RF Engineer Glen English in Canberra, Australia, multiplexed the RF out of Block 21 to a specially designed RF combiner/ booster.

All this was in an “E Rack” ruggedized road case with a Meon UPS. In the back of the case was a cooling system, as it got to above fifty degrees Celsius (122 F) and very dusty inside the tanker. We called the road case the Sputnik (see Schematic #2). There was a 10k generator in each War Rig for special FX, lighting and sound, so I was able to tap in to this to run the Sputnik.

From the RF combiner/booster, one coax went up the inside of the War Rig, where we hid a transmitter aerial on the top, above all the metal, giving a 360-degree line of sight.

We built Sputnik #1, Sputnik #2, as well as Pod #1 with one Lectrosonics Venue and six UM400s. A small generator or the power from the Edge Arm camera car could run Pod #1.

Additionally, we had a Mini Pod, with three channels, that was battery-driven for use on small vehicles. Three Lectrosonics 411 receivers Block 25 and three UM400 transmitters on Block 23.

The Sputniks and Pods were shifted to different vehicles, as required. The main cast were on Block 24 and kept their wireless packs as they moved between one of four War Rigs that were in different stages of art department breakdown, for different camera and driving configurations, or special FX requirements.

At the same time as recording dialog, we also tried to grab as many sync sound effects as possible. We placed a lot of hidden microphones in the cab, in the engine bay, near exhausts, transmissions, on the top of the War Rig, in other vehicles and on the vast supporting cast.

I was in The Osmotron, with Erwin our van driver, a local safari guide. We never got stuck anywhere!

There were times, in close proximity, that I was able to record direct with the Venue Fields on Block 24 and bypass the repeaters. But all the exterior vehicle microphones were direct, either on Block 24 or Block 25.

Traveling long distances meant the walkie-talkie repeater towers were often out of range. I provided my Lectrosonics wireless and IFB comms to Director George Miller and First AD-Producer PJ Voeten. They too were great distances apart and now able to have hands-free communication. Additionally, Cinematographer John Seale, two of his Camera Operators and the First ACs were on this system.

George might be in his van with a few monitors, traveling behind the action and discuss shots with PJ and John and the Edge Arm crew that were shooting other angles. Or, George would be in the Edge Arm vehicle, while PJ and crew were on the War Rig or other tracking vehicles.

This also helped some of the cast. Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) would be in the extremely loud Gigahorse vehicle, where you could barely hear yourself think. We put a DPA 4061 microphone inside his mask and an IEM (In-ear monitor) to a Lectrosonics IFB receiver, so conversations were able to take place.

Iota was Coma on the Doof Wagon; he played the double neck guitar with flames. Iota wrote some guide temp music with drums and guitar whilst in Namibia, on Pro Tools. I imported the sessions and transmitted him a mix via an earwig.

Iota had no dialog, but wore a mic so he could communicate with George Miller, PJ Voeten, my crew and me. The vibrations were so intense when traveling off road, my laptop kept crashing. I quickly downloaded the cues to my iPod, it worked well and later, to an iPad. There were also four drummers that had to keep time, they also had IEMs.

Mark J. Wasiutak was the Key Boom Operator; he was also on the first Mad Max. Mark traveled wherever the cameras were set up. Mark was able to troubleshoot the War Rig, slate the cameras as backup and record sound effects. And of course, as the Key Boom Operator, Mark was in charge of booming whenever we had traditional setups.

For timecode, Ambient master clocks were used with GPS antennas set to Greenwich Mean Time. All the cameras and Denecke timecode slates were supplied with Ambient Lockit boxes. My 788T recorders and the 744T were jammed from the same Ambient master clock.

The two-track mix down was transmitted to our genius Video Assist, Zeb Simpson, who was in a larger truck with an RF trailer that had a forty-five-foot telescopic tower with microwave and UHF antennas.

Sam Sergi, our sound department RF Engineer, modified one of my IFB receivers with an SMA connector to facilitate a connection to a large Wizy antenna that was also on the forty-fivefoot mast. This gave us a range of at least five km (three miles) to send a mono guide to video assist, so Zeb could compile the action and drama sequences from both main and action units for Director George Miller. Using our IFB comms, Zeb could talk to George remotely. Thanks to support from Greg Roberts, of Lateral Linking Broadcast Pty Ltd, Zeb was able to show George cuts, loop playback and show various live cameras, including the Action Unit.

On the last weeks in Namibia, we set up my assistant, Oliver Machin, to record specific vehicles with a 788T, hard-wired and multitracked. Oliver was fastidious with his recording and logging of his sound reports. He did a great job.

Derek Mansvelt was the Action Unit Sound Mixer from Cape Town who, with Boom Operator Ian Arrow, duplicated a smaller version of my rig in a van and chased the stunt teams and vehicles around the Namib Desert for a few months, recording vehicles, explosions and crashes.

Finally, we were off to Cape Town Studios, where green screen components were filmed. It was still a hostile environment; in order to simulate the wind and dust, large Ritter fans were used.

I continued to mix in the The Osmotron as there was no time to reconfigure. We parked it outside the soundstages, cabled inside to Video Assist and our antennas. Along with the usual comms and talkback for George, PJ and the camera crew, we also needed a VOG with handheld Shure SM 58 microphones with on-off switches into Lectrosonics plug-on transmitters. I continued to use the in-ears for Immortan and Coma, and smaller battery-powered speakers, placed in vehicles for communication and playback.

After a break for a few months of editing, we regrouped in Australia, for the crucial Citadel sequences. The exterior Citadel location proved a challenge again, as it was spread out, 100m wide by 200m long (328 x 656 feet). We rented two large speaker stacks for the VOG, from Slave Audio in Sydney and our gentlemen grip department built us scaffold towers on either side of the large set.

The Citadel sequences proved fun for the Boom Operators, as they were in costume and makeup so they could wander amongst the crowds with the costumed Steadicam crews. It was a great opportunity to record large crowds with multiple booms.

The interior of the Citadel was back in the studio, with very large sets as well as tunnels. The VOG was still in use as well as in ears, for drummers.

I reconfigured my equipment to two sound carts and no longer required the Sputniks and Pods.

The two carts contained two 788T with CL-8, a 744T, Pro Tools 10, a Sonosax 10SX, Mackie 1604 and Yorkville PA. Three Lectrosonics Venues, four Lectrosonics 211 receivers, four Lectrosonics UM 200 transmitters (for additional comms), eighteen Lectrosonics SMV and SMQV, DPA 4061 and 4063 lavaliers. Four Lectrosonics IFB transmitters, along with twenty-four receivers. Boom microphones were Schoeps CMIT 5U, Schoeps CMC5 with MK41, Sennheiser 416 and 816. A Nagra 4.2 for loud vehicle crashes a Meon UPS and Blackmagic HD monitors.

I must acknowledge Sound Designer Wayne Pashley and his team at Big Bang Sound, who initially took on the job and constructed the fundamentals.

Later, Sound Designer David White came on board with his team at Kennedy Miller Mitchell and continued to work closely with George Miller to come up with the brilliant tracks.

In fact, hats off to all the Post Production teams and Re-recording Mixers in Australia and the United States, who did a bang-up job on the final mix.

It was a real adventure and I feel privileged to have been a part of this iconic film and very proud of the amazing international cast and crew that contributed to this film above and beyond.

The Sound of Birdman

The Sound of Birdman
or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

By Thomas Varga

It was a great honor to receive the CAS Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Birdman. Being nominated by my peers for a BAFTA Award, an Oscar and then receiving the CAS Award, makes the latter so valuable to me.

I had been approached by many talented mixers who asked me the same question: “How did you do it?” Well, hopefully, I will shed some light on the process.

Initially, I was asked by a line producer I had worked with on Everybody’s Fine and the Washington, DC, portion of Breach. She informed me about the project and set up an interview at Kaufman Astoria Studios, where the sets for Birdman were being built. I was familiar with Alejandro Iñárritu’s work and thought the script was brilliant. I was looking forward to meeting him and working on the project.

The interview turned out to be one of the most surreal I’ve ever experienced. I entered a room with Alejandro, expecting it to be one-on-one. I was surprised to see several producers, the Production Designer, Kevin Thompson, and the Cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki “Chivo.”

They were all in the room to collectively drive home the point that Birdman was going to be “impossible” to record. “I don’t know how you’re going to do it” was expressed to me many times. Chivo made a point of saying that he didn’t think it would be feasible to use a boom because of the complexity of the shots. They were clearly concerned about the technical aspects of tackling such a nonconventional movie, and what that would mean for the soundtrack.

Luckily for me, one of our Producers, John Lesher, called James Gray, the Director of The Immigrant, a project in which we collaborated on a year prior. James said good things about me so I basically just told Alejandro that “whatever you guys throw at me, I can handle. I am not afraid.” I also made it clear that I loved the project, was willing to accept the challenge and would be honored to be a part of their team.

Within fifteen minutes of leaving the studio, I received a call from the Line Producer, while on the subway home.“They loved you. We’d like to offer you the job.” I didn’t expect the decision so quickly. Taking a moment to reflect on what just happened, the last scene of The Graduate came to mind. Dustin Hoffman is on the bus after stealing Elaine away from her wedding. It was a “be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it” moment.

I met with my crew, Adam Sanchez and Brendan O’Brien, and it was apparent that in order to handle the challenges of this film, I would need to upgrade my wireless and bag rig. I decided on a wideband Lectrosonics VR Field unit with four different blocks, to go along with my SMs, SMVs and SMQVs. I have always believed that in New York City, the more blocks the merrier.

[The three of us figuring it all out: Tom Varga and Boom Operators Brendan O’Brien and Adam Sanchez work out the next scene. (Photo: Alison Cohen Rosa)]

In my experience, the SMQVs can be too large to hide in tricky situations, although they are bombproof. I usually put the smaller SMs on women or use them with tight-fitting clothing on men. My bag rig included a Sound Devices 788 with a CL- 8. I also invested in several Lectrosonics 401 and 411 receivers to match the cart-based Venue Field receivers. With this setup, if I couldn’t work off the cart, I could grab the bag, go portable and not have to touch the transmitters on the actors. I could also record part of a scene outside on the cart and have the interior portion covered with a portable rig simultaneously. Luckily, I never had to do this on Birdman.

I have an assortment of COS-11s and B-6s. My main cart now houses two 788s and a Cooper CS-106 with a seventh channel. The Main mix is on Channel 1, Iso’s are 2 through 8. On Birdman, I used one 788 as my main recorder and a Fostex 824 as a backup. Yes, I know, the 824 is currently in a giant pile of unused 824s on the “Island of Misfit Toys.” I used Schoeps MK-41s for all interior dialog and 416s and 816s for all the exteriors. The Schoeps CMIT 5U was too long to use with the very low ceilings that were purposely designed to make the audience feel more “claustrophobic.”

Effects gathering was one of the most fun parts of the job. A good friend and very talented sound mixer, Mark Cochi, lent to me a Holophone H2 7.1 surround Dummy head, for gathering Times Square sound effects. The locations department found us a couple of offices that were directly above Times Square. This allowed me to record many different interior perspectives with large crowds below. I recorded passes with the windows closed, partly open, fully opened and at different distances to the window; close, two feet back, four feet back, etc. Locations also found a theater in Times Square that would allow me to record the crowds entering before a Broadway play. Martin Hernandez and Aaron Glascock, our wonderful Supervising Sound Editors, were happy with all the ambiences I was able to record. Finding the time to break away from the set to record useful ambience is often a challenge. Luckily, Alejandro was very adamant that the AD department budget time for us to gather these unique sounds.

I had set aside a good three weeks of prep time to incorporate all the new gear. However, on a Friday, almost a month before production, with piles of various cables and connectors lying on the floor, I received a phone call. “The director and producers would like you to be part of the rehearsal process.” I thought “Wow, what a great idea.” Then the bomb was dropped. “We want you to start this Monday, recording all of the rehearsals to the Alexa with the stand-ins running the lines.”

I had a stress-induced out-of-body experience and all I could hear was “Come Sail Away” by Styx. I spent the next forty-eight hours straight building a better bag rig, accommodating seven receivers and a wireless boom option. I also had to make an Alexa input cable and a Comtek feed from the bag. I I have almost exclusively worked off a cart, so putting this entire rig together in a weekend was a daunting task. After a soldering marathon and a groggy Monday morning, I had everything up and running and along with the rest of the crew, learned just how tricky these shots were going to be.

I carried the bag behind the camera, exposed the lavs on the stand-ins and tried to figure out at what point in the shots we could utilize booms. I later found out that they had rehearsed in LA and used on-camera microphones which sounded awful. I was brought in to help Alejandro hear the stand-ins so he could gauge the timing of the dialog with the camera moves. This proved to be an invaluable experience in planning an approach to getting booms over the actors instead of relying on wires.

To me, it is a testament to Alejandro’s vision to see how little the camera blocking changed from the initial rehearsals. We ended up bringing first team in to rehearse for a week before principal photography. This gave us yet another opportunity at squeezing in booms whenever possible. When we started principal photography, every department had a game plan and I don’t think we could have pulled it off without the director and producers willing to pay us to be part of the rehearsal process.

There were many curveballs thrown along the way. One such curveball was an overhead LED light array that Chivo, our talented DP, wanted to use as his primary source in the St. James Theatre. This location was to be used for about three weeks of our schedule. The rig was quite amazing, a series of 12-inch by 12-inch LED panels, connected side by side and hung over the stage. This rig enabled Chivo to computer control the colors and effects of each panel separately. The problem with the rig was that each panel had a fan in it. Multiply that by 12 and you have 144 fans all hanging over the actors in a relatively quiet theater. I stumbled upon this rig one day as they were setting it up to test it.

This LED panel Chivo liked would mean looping the dialog, which Alejandro and I did not want. The producers thought I was being overly demanding until they learned that this same problem existed with the LED lighting rig used on Gravity, resulting in a lot of ADR.

They initiated a series of LED light tests, costing a fair amount of money with additional time and manpower. In the end, they found a company that manufactured a similar system that Chivo liked where all the fans could be switched off without the panels overheating. Many thanks to the producers for paying for these tests. I am extremely grateful to the grip and electric crews who always gave us a hand when needed. Their professionalism and talent never went unrecognized by my department and was a contributing factor in Chivo’s Oscar win for cinematography.

We can only record what is in the room; if the room is noisy, our recordings include that noise. It doesn’t make a difference what mics you use. All of the subtleties of the human voice; the quiet breaths and sighs, the minute details, all add to the effectiveness of a performance. It is our job to capture it to the best of our ability, even if that means risking popularity. In the end, we can only hope that the battles we fight are appreciated.

Every day on Birdman was basically one shot. We would rehearse for six hours, eat lunch and shoot take after take until all the elements came together. It was the first time in my career that after breakfast, we could safely say, “Martini’s up.”

While each day posed a new set of challenges, there was one shot in particular that my crew was very proud of. It is when Riggan (Keaton) comes into the main entrance of the theater from outside, only in his underwear, so wiring him was not an option. The camera covered four areas. In rehearsals, I decided that we would need a third wireless boom operator. Luckily, our wonderful line producer approved that request.

The third Boom Operator, Teferra McKenzie, was waiting in the entrance and there was a plant mic for the actress behind the ticket booth. Teferra covered Riggan in the first room and was able to let the camera sneak through a narrow doorway before entering the room and covering four other actors. We had another plant on the arm of the wheelchair. Once Riggan opens the door to the theater, I cross fade to Brendan, booming Riggan as the camera is over Riggan’s shoulder at the stage. Brendan boomed Riggan’s lines until the camera pulls a quick 180, revealing where Riggan came in. At this point, Brendan has no chance of clearing the shot. We got him in wardrobe and left him in the scene. During this four-second pan, Brendan has to grab a line, then move into a sitting position and hide his pole behind several extras sitting in the same row. While Brendan is doing this, Adam Sanchez is fully extended with a twenty-two-foot pole on stage behind the curtains. The moment the camera pans off the stage, I cue Adam to move, Brendan sits and Adam sprints down a set of stairs into position over Riggan. Cross fading to Adam’s pole, the boom handoff was very fast and we were lucky to get what we did. Adam had to continue with a couple of 360-degree moves around the actors. This also required another magic disappearing act off stage somewhere. Sound magic; it all worked, but only by fractions of a second.

Birdman was a collaborative effort. There were many talented sound people in all the stages of post production. It’s wonderful to know that the tracks you work so hard for are going to safe and competent hands. Often, the problem with giving post so many tracks is that they don’t know how to build them as you intended. The Birdman post crew did great justice to my production recordings, along with adding a brilliant sound design and final mix. To all my talented new friends that I had the pleasure of meeting during this awards season, thank you. It was a pleasure and let’s do it again soon.

Strikenado

by David Waelder
Photos by David Waelder unless specifically credited

The Asylum is a production company specializing in ultra-low-budget projects that capitalize on trending events with titles just this side of copyright infringement. They made Transmorphers in 2006, capitalizing on the pending release of Transformers, and, in 2008, they made The 18-Year-Old Virgin—well, you get the idea. In 2013, they had a feeding frenzy with Sharknado, a film based on the premise of a cyclone vacuuming up sharks in waterspouts and depositing them to run amok on land.

No film that makes money could ever be too silly to have a sequel and Sharknado 2: The Second One soon followed. Sharks still rained from the sky but this time there was a difference: there was an IATSE contract. (We don’t know if the sharks were represented.) And the film went on to enjoy the highest ratings on the Syfy network for an original movie, according to IATSE Assistant Motion Picture Director Vanessa Holtgrewe.

Like many ultra-low-budget agreements, the Sharknado 2 contract provided that wages would be adjusted if the budget exceeded an agreed level. The budget puffed up like a jellyfish and the film made lots of money but the cartilaginous producers slipped out without paying the whole tab. And when they started production on Sharknado 3, it was without any IATSE participation, as if the negotiations of the previous film had never happened.

There’s nothing funny about working these shows; they’re long hours—low-wage slugfests. By the fourth day on Sharknado 3, the grips were circulating a signature document seeking IATSE representation. The vote was 24 to 1 in favor of union representation and, when production refused to negotiate, the crew walked on March 3. Alistair Duff, the Sound Mixer hired for the show, joined the picket line and promptly posted a notice of the job action on the LA Sound Mixers Facebook group where there was already an active series of posts about the event.

Response to the challenge was outstanding; the production found pickets wherever they went. From Tuesday (March 3) through Sunday, there were pickets every day at The Asylum offices and adjacent editing suite in Burbank, at Blue Cloud Ranch in Santa Clarita and at a location in North Hollywood. The participation from Local 695 members was particularly strong. There were times when half the picketers were 695 members. Four replacement sound crews were brought in and, one by one, each was turned and joined the picket line. We heard reports of Zoom recorders being taped to a pole in an effort to record some sort of scratch track.

On Sunday, March 8, Sharknado wrapped out of the North Hollywood facility and moved on to Washington, D.C., where they also encountered pickets. They did not have an easy time. Organizing a show that is determined to resist and only shoots for a few weeks is exceedingly difficult and, under cover of darkness, Sharknado slipped out of town without a contract. But there was blood in the water and no business as usual for a production that disavowed its commitments, disrespected its crew, dishonored its responsibilities.

Life on the Frame Line

by Mary Jo Devenney

1. INT. FILM SET — FIRST DAY OF SHOOTING

FRIENDLY CREW MEMBER

Hello! You must be our script supervisor.

If I am, we’re all in big trouble.
Can you guess what I do?

FRIENDLY CREW MEMBER

Gee Mary, Set decorator? Props? Medic?
Teacher? Dialog coach?

I’ll be your Sound Mixer.
Call me “Mary Jo” and no one gets hurt.

I don’t mind not looking like the person that people expect to see. I love being on a film set. It’s home. It’s comfortable. I know what needs to happen there. Years ago I was catching up with a friend from film school who was working in Post, and he laughed, “You’re a total set animal!” He was right.

As a kid, I watched a lot of movies. I was an only child till age eight and went to an all-girls’ school whose vacation time was always longer than at my friends’ neighborhood schools. With much time to fill, movies became my friends too. After a women’s college in Massachusetts (What was I?—Nuts?), I drove from suburban Phillie to USC film school to experience co-education for the first time. Surrounded by film lovers, I totally fit in. We were making movies! The ultimate project for most of us was a class called 480. This course had five to seven student crews make sync-sound 15 to 20-minute mini-features. I shot one, recorded one and wrote and directed one. A couple months later, a classmate called to say he was “bailing” on a boom job and I should apply. They didn’t ask if I’d ever done it professionally, and I was off to Rochester, NY, to boom Fear No Evil, a horror movie that shot for nine weeks. I had the distinction of being the only crew member flown in from LA who was working for a totally deferred salary. I got $53/week per diem. As far as I was concerned, I’d arrived. This was before video assist and video village, so the Director, Script and I haunted the frame line during shots. Having just directed my own (student) film, I made lots of suggestions to the forgiving, first-time Director (What fun!). The last week of shooting, the Mixer had a tiff with the Producer and left. With a locally rented Nagra, a 415, a smart PA to boom and much apprehension, I mixed the last two days.

Back in LA, I couldn’t find a production job and wound up working at Richard Einfeld Productions, a little sound house. I did sound transfers, ¼” tape to 16 mag and 35 mag. I also auditioned and sold sound fx from a ¼” library that Einfeld had compiled with partner Frank E. Warner, the Supervising Sound Editor on some of the biggest films of last half of the twentieth century. I’d get calls to transfer some sound effect for Being There, and send it over to his editing room. On his next project, he came in and had me put tapes on the Ampex. “Get that loon (the bird) track out and load it backwards.” Then he’d manipulate the tape with his hands, slowing and ‘wowing’ it while I recorded it to 35 mag stock and voilà, it became the sound of a punch that would land on De Niro’s face in Raging Bull. As cool as this was, I found myself listening during transfers to what the crew guys said before “action” and after “cut” on the set of Roadie. I knew I should be on a set.

I was lucky to have a former co-worker remember me in a good light. The Key Grip on the New York film recommended me to Anna DeLanzo, an experienced Boom Operator who was about to mix a low-budget movie for Cameraman/ Writer/Director Gary Graver. She needed a Boom Operator and hired me. I have repeatedly discovered that you can never guess who might recommend you. It could be the usual suspects: UPMs, Directors, Post Production people, or it could be anyone from Grips or Accountants to DPs or ADs. On the film in question, one of the actors was Gene Clark, a veteran Boom Operator who worked with great Mixers like Jim Tanenbaum, CAS. So there I was: booming a Boom Operator for a Boom Operator. Both Gene Clark and Anna DeLanzo knew more about what I was doing than I did. I learned so much from them about the art of booming (and it is an art as well as a technical exercise) and this time I was actually getting paid a little! I loved/love booming.

When I didn’t get calls to boom, I would mix. Ron Curfman was a Mixer of shows like Dallas and a shrewd businessman. He owned a little recording studio and told me and others that if we got mixing jobs, he’d make sure we had enough equipment to make it worth our while. Then he’d get the contract to do the sound transfers and the syncing of dailies to make it worth his while. If you needed work, you could make $10/hr performing these jobs on other people’s shows. A group of us met through him, boomed for each other and shared work. Decades later, several of us are still in touch and still sharing jobs.

I got to work on The Executioner’s Song, an NBC miniseries that was nominated for the Sound Emmy. I also got to work on a movie in Spain called Hundra, the making of which was much more entertaining than the movie itself. I would plan the setup and then the Producer/AD would turn on the Nagra while I boomed.

OK, so in the midst of this I got pregnant. Would that affect work? I described booming to my doctor and he assured me that I was healthy and that prenatal kids are very well protected and I could stay as active as I wanted. So I did. Never considered petite, I ‘passed’ as non-pregnant for months, then entered a phase that still makes me laugh. People would look and I could see that they were about to ask if I was … but they’d stop themselves, realizing how embarrassing it would be if I answered, “No, not pregnant; I’m just a big girl.” As time went on, work got interesting. There was a lot of twisting sideways to keep my stomach out of frame. When moving between C-stands and the camera lens, what used to be accomplished with a gut suck now required deep knee bends to pass my neck through the tight spot. Maybe it was hormone-induced, but in the middle of a shot I’d think, I’ve got this guy totally on mic ‘and’ I’m making a human being. Talk about multitasking!

I was three weeks into the TV movie Murder: By Reason of Insanity and no longer ‘passing’ when, after the second sixteen-hour day in a row, I cried “uncle.” I was too tired. I’d had Laurie Seligman (great Boom Operator) standing by and asked her to take over. That was May 8. My daughter, Roma Eisensark, was born May 18. To this day, she knows when to be quiet on set.

That July, Russell Williams II asked me to work with him on Cannon Film’s Invaders From Mars. “You bet!” I said. Not only was it was always fun to work with him, but this precious, beautiful infant, while priceless, came with a big price tag. Invaders shot for twenty weeks. The lovely Louise Fletcher let me use her motor home as a bottling plant (don’t ask). A couple movies later, I got to work on the last five weeks of another non-union Cannon film, Masters of the Universe, with Ed Novick. Cards were signed. Cannon agreed to go union if there could be deals for projects under six million dollars, and with that, the union tier system was born. After seven years of knocking on 695’s door, I was in! (And I don’t believe Cannon ever made another movie in LA.)

I must interject a side note here as a few people who have seen this writing in progress feel that the sound person/ motherhood dynamic is important to my story. I was as lucky in parenting as I was in having the strength to work pregnant. My husband, Dave, is a writer and a wonderfully committed parent. He worked at home and carried the ball when I worked long days or nights. Of course, he did turn more to short stories during Roma’s first year and she could sleep with her head next to a Smith Corona electric typewriter. I think we all enjoyed my times of ‘unemployment’ when I could take over the caregiving. The three of us went to Philadelphia when I boomed Mannequin and Seattle when I mixed The Chocolate War. I had all the advantages of anyone with a work-at-home partner unlike many of my sisters and brothers in the business. Single parents are beyond heroic!

In the fall of 1989, Russell Williams was mixing the fourth month of Dances With Wolves. The show was going to go an extra month. (“Thank you” to the headstrong wolf playing Two Socks!) Russell had plans that would conflict, so he tapped me to come and finish the film. I still get goose bumps when I remember reading the script on the plane to South Dakota. It was great. I inherited the wonderful Boom Operator Albert Aquino, who, sadly, we lost three years ago. Everyone was friendly; there was just one problem. Most of what was left to shoot were tepee interiors. The plan was for the Special FX crew to do gas campfires via hissing pipes that the cast would sit around. I approached the DP, Dean Semler, not knowing then that this great Australian bear of a man was as much of a collaborative filmmaker as he was a visual artist. “Would it be possible to use real fire for these campfires?” I asked. “There’d still be noise but it would be the right noise.” “Well, that’s my main light source for these scenes,” he said, but “I’ll check with the FX guys to see what’s possible.” We went with real fire! Camera people have since told me that the visual warmth of real flames looks better than the bluish gas fire. Maybe it wasn’t a concession made for the sake of sound, but it’s been a great argument when I tell camera that one guy who went along with my request got an Oscar. So did Russell, and he mentioned me in his acceptance speech.

I could go on like this for another twenty-five years but, out of compassion for the reader and a realization of the size of this magazine, let me say that I have kept working to this day. Let me share some of my conclusions about being in our field.

A film is created in the editing room but, on set, we’re making the raw material. I’m always trying to hand over silk material from what is often a sow’s ear environment. It’s hard to re-create an actor’s magic if we don’t get it when it first happens, so capturing that moment is the goal. When we succeed, the magic and the budget both benefit. If the sound is good, I drive home happy even if the day’s been physically tough, or emotionally unpleasant. If I know the sound will need some fix in Post, I’m unhappy no matter how comfy the shooting day was.

As sound people we’re often at the mercy of others, so I try to speak everyone’s language. Working with every department (and understanding their goals and tools) will get you much further than many of the newest gadgets you can buy. (I am, however, grateful for radio microphones that work as originally promised decades ago. I’m also grateful for digital recorders with as many tracks as I have microphones so that Post can perfect my real-time mix. I’m particularly grateful that digital recorders won’t allow me to accidentally record over that last printed take that the Director asked me to cue up.) Being a woman might help in dealing with wardrobe and finding creative ways to hide microphones. Actresses are the people who most often say they’re glad I am a woman. I mention that I’m a recovering soccer mom and will leave this person looking neat. I suppose that’s proof that we’ll all play the stereotype card when it’s useful. But like all preconceptions, nothing’s true all the time. I try to evaluate mine often and dispel preconceptions about me. With a new crew, I always try to demonstrate that I understand what Camera, Grip and Electric are up against. It’s good to point out that the genny should move before the cab’s engine has stopped, and I always thank the people who have to lug out more heavy cable to reach it. There’s a line in the movie The Imitation Game that expresses my experience so perfectly. Joan Clarke explains why she’s been friendly to a co-worker that Alan Turing consistently antagonizes. “I’m a woman doing a man’s job,” she says, “I don’t have the luxury of being an ass.”

I talked to Brent Lang for a Variety (July 29, 2014) article about the small representation of women below-the-line in production. He asked if I was paid less for the same work. I said, in a sense, “yes” because I tend to get lower budget shows as a Production Mixer. Not only is there less money for sound but, as the budget falls, getting good sound tends to be harder. This is because of all the other money compromises, like worse deals on locations, older equipment used by other departments, smaller staff and shorter schedules. Of course, the boys work these shows too, but it sure feels like they move on sooner. (Again, nothing’s true all the time.) The positive side of low budget is the chance to master knowledge of new wave equipment and practices that will make their way up the production ladder—wide-and-tight, RED camera, ‘D’ cameras, etc.—before the rich producers start to use them. It’s also a chance to be available for the occasional innovative or true “labor of love” film where you can feel very appreciated and integral to its success. I’ve been lucky to see some really good movies while I was recording them. (Including two movies that my husband wrote and produced, one of which was Monkey Love, a comedy starring Jeremy Renner in 2004. Yes, shameless plug.)

My parents chose a girl’s school partly to round out their little tomboy. It probably had the opposite effect. If you wanted to do something, there was no one to stop or slow you down by “helping” you. It wasn’t the place to learn about gender norms. There was no reason not to be a leader. You could be the president of the dramatic club or on the school paper or on the varsity basketball team. If there was a drawback, it was that I didn’t learn to navigate a system that treats you as different or less acceptable. I still work at understanding why people would object to you doing whatever you’re able to do. When we get out of the pass-van on a location scout, it feels a lot like taking the field as a member of a team on which I’ve earned my spot. I loved that feeling in school and love it now.

The bottom line is, it’s a great job. If it’s taken a bit more time and work because of artificial obstacles, I figure you just take a little extra pride in what you do achieve. I owe a tremendous debt to the 695 “brothers” that I’ve worked for, and with. I was going to list them but it’s a very long list. I cheer their successes and those of my ever-increasing number of sisters.

PS: As I write, it is over a year since the loss of my friend and mentor of longest standing, Lee Strosnider. He was perfectly generous and professional. He would explain equipment and rent it to me at all hours knowing I’d pay when possible. His stories and nuggets of advice were as interesting as they were long. I miss him.

The Utility Sound Tech

by Peggy Names and Jennifer Winslow

You might ask, “Why does a professional Sound Department need a Utility Sound Technician, anyway?” By the end of this article, written by two longtime Boom/Utility Techs, you will be wondering how any sound crew could function without!

The Utility Sound position is hard to define because it has so many facets. The job requires immeasurable amounts of knowledge and a LOT of multitasking. It is both technical and physical. Being able to think on your feet is not only important, but can save the day. We are always problem solving, which helps prevent those dreaded words, “Waiting on Sound!” Although we are often invisible, you can bet we are working hard to keep production flowing.

The history of the job goes back to the early days of “talkies” when yards of sync cables were needed between sound and camera. Today, with innovations in technology, the job has morphed and the title has evolved. We once were called “Cableman” or “Cableperson” and “Second Boom Operator”; now we are called “Utility” which is short for Utility Sound Technician. We are one and the same; we are the third person on the sound crew.

Basically, as a Utility Sound Technician, you have to know how to boom, guard precious equipment from harm, manage distribution of audio, be an expert with wireless microphones and transmitters, know how to do playback, move heavy equipment from one place to another (endlessly), know how to fill the Mixer’s chair when nature calls, think like a detective to find unwanted noises, “play well” with others to achieve cooperation, be aware and alert at all times, blend like a chameleon to your Mixer and Boom Operator’s style, know when to speak and when to be quiet, have great organizational skills, know basic electronics, know how to interact with the talent and that’s just the tip of the iceberg … whew!

Jennifer: As a Utility Sound Technician, I have a lot of detail work. On an average shooting day, Utility handles things like checking and changing batteries in all equipment, setting up the carts, running cables, powering up the Mixer’s equipment, setting up the boom poles, and many other tasks. We put Foot Foam and Silent Steps on noisy heels of principal and background actors. We lay rugs on floors to catch footfalls and tape them down so no one trips. I have a tape roll on the follow cart, or sometimes on my belt, which is especially handy if I’m booming. When I work as an A2 on multi-camera shows, the duties are similar, but we rely on different equipment with their own particular challenges.

We have a unique awareness of our environment on stage and on location. While our Boom Operator is working out moves and cues, and the Mixer is getting the mix just right, we may be stealthily moving around the set seeking and destroying all unwanted noises. Having a refined sense of hearing helps to identify and choose the best method to squelch the sound source. When something goes wrong, e.g., radio transmitters need to be tuned to a new frequency or the recording device freezes, that’s our cue to act. There are times we must run to the truck (an organized truck is a must), find a piece of equipment and get it to set quickly so the problem is fixed as soon as possible.

At any moment, we may have to drop what we are doing, and focus our attention on another, higher priority. We call it “putting out fires” on the set. The ability to refocus is a must-have skill. Knowing how to prioritize these split-second decisions comes with experience. Our eyes may not be on the set at all times, but we are tuned in to every little noise, our ears working overtime. We are always looking and listening, anticipating and planning for the problems the next setup might present.

Jennifer: Early in my career, I worked with Mixer Bob Wald. He was very organized and professional. He had a “cheat sheet” printed out for his Utility that outlined the Utility Tech’s duties. I found it very helpful to have a written reference, especially while working long hours. Our department counts on us to remember many things like: jamming the slates and Lockit box with timecode every four hours, keeping fresh batteries in transmitters, running the bell and light cable on stage and managing noisy electric appliances on location. Many of us use additional reminders for location work, especially with refrigerators. While the Locations Department is ultimately responsible for restoring order at the end of the shoot day, it’s good discipline for each department to leave things as they found them. To be sure we restore settings, some Utility Techs put Post-it reminder notes on their follow cart, while others place their car keys in the refrigerator. I put bright camera tape on my iPhone with FRIDGE written on it, as a reminder to make sure the units are on when we leave a location.

We watch and listen for door slams on dialog, clomping footfalls, plates that rattle, chairs that squeak, lights and ballasts that hum, props and special effects that hiss, boom and bang. Dealing with all these noises requires cooperation from other departments. Many an ADR session has been spared by working with the Grip Department to quiet the moves of the camera dolly and with the Location Coordinator to chase down a leaf blower.

Peggy: One of the more sticky situations involves the “herd of elephants” that accompany the Steadicam … Me: “Would you mind taking your shoes off or wearing booties?” Camera Operator: “You want me to WHAT!?!” Then imagine the delicacy required to ask the Costume Department to change the pantyhose of the actress because the swishing noise of her legs rubbing together on each step is drowning out the dialog! Okay, I have to admit that the diplomacy required for this was above my pay grade! When Mixer Bill Kaplan gave the Director the bad news, he threw up his arms and said, “You want me to tell the actress that her thighs are too noisy!?!” True story!

Sometimes second booming can be more challenging than first. We are often called in on take two when it becomes evident that the blocking or overlaps require more than one microphone. What this means for us is that we drop everything, run in with our boom gear, get clued in on our assignment, find a place to operate and boom our asses off with no rehearsal! We must pay attention properly so that being called to duty will not be a surprise.Second boom work is increasingly in demand as it is now commonplace to play the overlaps (when actors speak at the same time) and mic off-camera dialog for ease in editing, allowing the Director more creative choices in performance. Booming isn’t easy, and knowing when to use a ladder, stand on an apple box, climb up into the greenbeds (on stage) to boom is extremely important. Boom operating can be nervewracking at first: your arms shake a lot in the beginning, you don’t want to be the one to screw up the take, you don’t know where to place your body or the pole, camera moves freak you out, actors can be unpredictable, but eventually you build new muscles, learn lens sizes, develop a good rapport with the camera crew and Dolly Grip, drop the fear and it becomes second nature—and fun! Booming requires knowledge of the camera movement, the size of the frame, lighting, blocking of the actors and dialog cues. Obstacles can be thrown in your path at the last moment so you have to be flexible. Booming is such an important skill to learn well. There is so much more to booming, but that is another article in itself.

Jennifer: I have worked on many shows with Mixer Mark McNabb. He always makes sure (in his deal with the UPM) that his Utility is hired on at boom rate, because of the heavy second booming. I worked on Family Affair with Mark and Boom Operator Raul Bruce, where I second boomed every day. One time I was booming a big scene with actor Tim Curry. My kids were young (they were like little petri dishes of germs), and I had a cough left over from a cold. I tried to suppress my cough during a take but couldn’t, so I timed it out and then coughed on Tim’s off-camera dialog. I was blue (and red) in the face! The minute the camera cut, Tim walked over and, with a smile, gave me a cough drop from his pocket. He told me he grew up as a preacher’s son. He had to sit in the front row of church with his mother every Sunday. If he ever coughed during his father’s sermon, it was extremely embarrassing and, to him, it was worse than death! He was so empathetic and kind. Even though my kids are healthy teenagers now, I carry cough drops in my kit, because you never know when someone else on set may be struggling to stifle a cough during the take!

Playback has become much easier since the days of the Nagra and the pinch wheel. Digital playback has many advantages: now playback can be performed on a laptop and the cues are much tighter. We are skilled at running playback should an unexpected need arise or the use is minimal, like playing music to set the mood in a scene. Being proficient at playback makes you a more valuable member of the sound team because you are available to perform this work on a moment’s notice, especially on distant location. For these small units of playback it is often easier to have someone close to the project run the playback and call in another Utility Sound Tech to fill your shoes. If the playback is of paramount importance, like lip-syncing actors to a piece of prerecorded music, or a song and- dance number, then we call in the big guns! Along with big guns comes big equipment. The Utility Tech is assigned to help with the placement of the playback speakers and run a multitude of cables. This sometimes requires a lot of schlepping and grunt work. Always ask for help if speakers need to be hoisted to the greenbeds. Promise the grips they can play their music through them at lunchtime and you will get all kinds of cooperation.

Peggy: I have done more than my fair share of digital playback beginning in 1997. The late Mixer, David Ronne, introduced me to a whole new world of possibilities. Together, we created our own click tracks using the clave (rhythm instrument) as the guide with an accent on the second beat for the dancers and shifted the thump track to compensate for distance from the speakers to the dancers. We jumped from one part of the song to another on tempo, all on-the-fly. Latin music can be especially challenging because the rhythm is fluid. When I play back dialog, I have to think like the actor would so that the timing of the delivery is spot-on.

The improved quality of wireless microphone technology has mostly done away with the yards and yards of sound cable that were regularly laid out. It is still good to know how to use the XLR cables, just in case the RFs crap out (yes, that’s a technical term!). When, where and how to lay the cable can be critical for safety, avoidance of interference from electrical cables and dimmers, and flexibility when things change on set and you have to reroute equipment. Coiling cables is an art. “Over, under, over, under” is like a mantra to many of us. You do not want to fight with a hundred-foot XLR, wrapped the wrong way, trust us! Many hours have been spent untangling and cleaning mud and gunk off the cables. We are happy that we are no longer called a Cableperson!

Peggy: Working with Mixer Ron Judkins and Boom Operator Bob Jackson on Minority Report, we had to run cables three stages away with communication both ways and that was just one crazy situation on that movie. With Mixer Bill Kaplan on Crimson Tide, we had a snake running to a pulley hanging from the top of the stage to the set which was on a gimbal twenty feet off the floor. From there, we had a break-out to eight cables. I had to climb all over the top of the submarine set like a monkey and poke the wires in holes to Boom Operator Earl Sampson, who then set the plant microphones. The metal structure of that set was screwing up our radio transmitters and the obstacles prevented most booming. Mixers Edward Tise and Kirk Francis are the boldest Mixers out there, flying with no net. They carry not one cable on the cart. Times are changing.

Electronics can be very finicky and, if not given the proper care, are unpredictable. Wireless booms and radio microphones can act up and wreak havoc at any given moment. Utility Technicians are in charge of making sure the equipment does not have bugs so the sound is clean and causes no delays. Capturing the sound is hard enough without those headaches! If a plant microphone is in a bush or other exposed position, we make sure no one accidentally kicks it, stomps on it or sprays it with water. When supplies are getting low, we order more. God help us if we run out of AA batteries.

We make sure that everyone who needs to hear the soundtrack has a way to do so. This could be anything from a remote speaker in a car or Dimmer Operator’s room, to an earwig in the actor’s ear. The biggest chore occurs daily when trying to wrangle twenty or more receivers (Comteks) and headsets used by the Director, Script Supervisor, Producers and Writers on set. When guests drop by from time to time, we provide Comteks for them to listen as well. We are often asked for Comteks at the last minute, for example, when the Camera Operator needs to take a cue from dialog. We keep close track of headsets and hope the equipment will be returned to us at the end of the scene or day. It is our responsibility to ensure these devices are operating properly and some of us take it hard if batteries fail or Comteks go missing. We are continuously surprised at some of the strange places we’ve found Comteks at wrap!

Radio microphone use has expanded in the new age of digital filmmaking. With requests from Editorial to deliver all the actors’ voices on individual tracks, compounded by the actors overlapping, and multiple cameras moving and holding different shot sizes, comes the ubiquitous use of radio microphones.

An increasing practice for the Sound Department is to wire everyone and boom what we can. The Boom Operator needs to stay on the set, to work out the shadows, obstacles, dialog cues and moves. We are increasingly asked to wire actors in their trailer, so the Utility Tech goes off to the trailers to wire the actors. Some of us carry a “radio mic kit” with transpore tape, overcovers, moleskin, leg, ankle bands and waistbands, sewing kit (you often don’t get “intel” on what wardrobe they will be wearing), scissors and any other tools that can make the wiring go smoothly. Upon arrival back at the set, we get ready to boom and find that the dolly move has changed and there is a light placed right where the Second Boom was planning to operate. Trusting and relying on your Boom Operator is mandatory, especially when you have to find a new position. Often while we are booming, we must jump into action on the front line, if the lavalier microphone needs adjustment or an actor’s Foot Foam falls off, or if a door needs to be silenced with WD40. Having strong nerves and knowing set etiquette is a must, especially when all eyes are on you as you hurry to correct the problem.

It is not uncommon for more than five actors to show up at the sound cart all at once for wiring. Utility Sound Technicians that can wire like lightning, make it disappear like a magician, with ingenuity, good humor, confidence, grace and outstanding results, are worth their weight in gold. Working closely with the Costume Department to ensure the wardrobe is not damaged and the actor’s comfort is not violated is important, even when the AD is calling for “Picture!” Doing the job the right way the first time prevents mishaps and spoiled takes. We have been told many times that women and children feel more comfortable with a female working under their clothing. This may be one reason why women are drawn to this position and Local 695 has seen an increase in the number of female applicants in recent years.

Jennifer: When I wire a young child, I will ask them if they like spy movies. (They usually do!) I tell them to imagine they are like “Spy Kids,” or a secret agent and then I remind them not to touch the pack or the microphone and blow their cover! It also helps to strike up a conversation so the parents know you are professional and puts them at ease, and it can keep a kid from fidgeting and hitting the lavalier during the take. I have worked with Mixer Sam Hamer on shows where many children needed to be wired. Sam has said he’s impressed at how the kids not only sounded good, but respected the radio microphones and equipment. It’s my secret, but I’m happy to share my tricks.

Peggy: With the fluid nature of filmmaking these days, the Utility Sound position has become much more crucial to getting the job done. On my most recent films with Mixer Petur Hliddal, I was hired on before the consideration of the Boom Operator, specifically for my skill set in the Utility Sound position. It is unusual for this position to take priority but when a movie is heavy on wireless, additional communications, mobility and the unforeseen, then it makes sense. It is a misconception that going wireless should require fewer people. I see the trend of adding a fourth person to the sound crew in the near future … it is a challenge to keep your hands clean to attend to the wires on actors while also laying carpets, throwing hog’s hair under drips, swinging a boom around, applying Foot Foam and running cables. Mixer Simon Hayes regularly has a five-person crew … hmmmm … food for thought.

For the people who think Sound Utility Technicians are a luxury position, that can’t be farther from the truth. Ask anyone who has mixed or boomed shows without a Utility Tech; it is almost impossible to get the same high-quality production track. The sound quality suffers and the production suffers. Utility is indispensable at almost any budget-level project. We save the production plenty of time and money. Productions that know the importance of hiring a Utility Sound Technician are usually five steps ahead and they might even have a headset waiting for them when they come to set!

The bottom line is that the Utility Sound Technician position more than pays for itself. We are proud to have a career doing what we love, with interesting people who are unique, smart and funny. It’s also fun working with actors, traveling to different locations and knowing that our work has helped make the finished product, the soundtrack, sound just that much sweeter.

Glossary

Silent Steps: Small tips made to fit on high heels to quiet them.

Lockit: A timecode clock that can be remotely mounted to equipment. The Lockit is a trade-named product from Ambient but is often used to refer to similar devices from Denecke and others.

Foot Foam: Flat rubber adhesive-backed sheets cut to fit the bottom of shoes.

Comteks: Most commonly used receiver for a listening device.

Transpore: A medical tape frequently used to attach lavalier microphones.

Moleskin: A cotton fabric with a soft pile on one side. The favored brand, Dr. Scholl’s, is available with adhesive on one side making it useful as applied padding for a microphone.

Overcovers and Undercovers: Adhesive windscreens made for lavalier microphones.

Hog’s hair: A woven filter material commonly used in air conditioners. It serves the purpose of dampening the sound of falling water.

Greenbed: Called green because of their color, they are suspended scaffolding for mounting lighting and grip equipment above the set walls, also used for boom microphones in multi-camera shows.

Break-out: The distribution end of a “snake cable.” The snake carries multiple lines in one conduit and the individual signals break-out in a fan at the end.

A2: An Audio Assistant.

A Career

by Cabell Smith

I spent my entire working life in an alternate universe. I was terrified every day that someone would find out that I would have paid them for the fun I was having! As a big fat plus, I was there when a paradigm shifted. To be present at change for the better is a very powerful tonic! Weird prelude: as a nine year old, my best friend Susan’s father was an engineer (I clearly remember the pens and pocket protector) at the world-famous Bell Labs. Bell’s engineers invented the transistor, created the laser, the solar cell, and countless other transformative technologies and have won at least a dozen Nobel Prizes. One day in the late 1950s, her dad came home with a portable tape recorder, maybe an Ampex 600?

Susan and I took to this wonder, and immediately recorded our songs and little plays into this amazing device to the long-suffering delight of our parents. Who knew that sound recording would be my life and my delight? I came to the World of SOUND via the independent film community and the Women’s Movement, which were intertwined in New York City in the early 1970s. Women were beginning to produce and direct independent films, and many wanted to work with women technicians, of which, of course, there were none.

In 1970, I was invited to join a womens’ consciousness-raising group. We were seven; with a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts we purchased a Sony Portapak—a revolutionary new portable video camera and video tape recorder. We were going to tape our sessions; we were going to make our own TV! We wrangled through the technology, each of us mastering the camera, sound and editing for programs about women’s health issues, many of which were broadcast on Open Channel, New York’s new public access cable outlet.

In 1972, a cameraman friend’s regular sound tech was not available (always the point of entry, right?) and he asked me if I wanted to learn to do documentary sound. We took the Nagra III and a Sennheiser 805 and went into Central Park. I put on my first pair of Beyer DT 48s and bang! zoom! Truly the earth moved, and reoriented itself, around my head! What a rush of tone and volume and clarity and precision. And, by changing the position of the mike, I could control this new enormous universe. I was hooked.

I began trying to build a resume, and track down jobs that would be paying jobs. Up to now, I was working on friends’ films for free and occasionally working for WNET, the New York PBS station. I went through the Producers-Production Companies section of the New York Motion Picture TV Directory, calling every single company asking for a chance to work for them.

Usually the response was a flat “no.” However, in December of 1971, I got a call from a woman (!) at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. The American Academy of Sciences was having a symposium in Philadelphia between Christmas and New Year’s, and the CBC needed someone to go and record the talks. I was thrilled to have my first paying job, which meant my first time in a hotel on my own, my introduction to the concept of per diem.

The travel arrangements were especially exciting: arrive at world-renowned cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead’s office in the Museum of Natural History and travel to Philadelphia with Ms. Mead in her limo! I spent a glorious week “tying in” to the soundboard with my rented Nagra III and listening to Margaret Mead, Louis Leakey and Carl Sagan talk about their latest research. It was a very cool beginning!

Around the same time, John Chester, Chief Sound Engineer for Bill Graham’s rock venue Fillmore East, gave a class on basic electronics for women. Ohm’s Law, capacitor, resistance, condenser microphones, proximity effect—now I could define and understand my new universe. Many of my male counterparts came to sound via the music world. They were knowledgeable about electronics and sound. John’s course was a godsend. I could now hold a conversation with another sound person, and understood more than “plug this into that.”

In March of 1973, NBC-TV News hired me as a Sound Technician. NBC, a closed IATSE Local 52 “shop,” was dodging a legal suit regarding hiring of women at the time. All men, solidly union, and I was neither. There was no other woman working in a union shop on a day-to-day basis. A news (film) crew consisted of three people: camera, sound & electric. We captured the story for our producer and the on-camera talent. Being on a news crew in New York City was hugely exciting. My crew was the first on the scene when Philippe Petit walked on a high wire between the towers of the World Trade Center. I was there when Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes to capture the Triple Crown, and hung a microphone on Mickey Mantle for the Old-Timers’ Game.

We went from opening the trunk of a Caddy in the depths of Brooklyn to discover a dead body, to a shootout at the Mosque in Harlem, to trying to set the microphone at the right height for a news conference with both NY mayoral candidates: John Lindsay, 6’ 4”, and Abe Beame, 5’ 2”. We usually covered two stories a day. After filming each story, a dashing Teamster on a motorcycle rushed our sound-striped film back to “30 Rock” for its developing bath—“into the soup”—for “film at eleven!” Between stories we usually had time for a lunch at one of New York’s best restaurants. If our morning story found us in Brooklyn, we headed for Lundy’s in Sheepshead Bay. We prayed to stay in Manhattan on Thursdays for the creamed spinach at the Brittany du Soir. Many of these restaurants, like the technology and leisurely pace of news gathering, have disappeared.

Most guys thought I something of an oddity—why would a woman WANT to do this job? But I don’t remember any nasty incidents. I don’t know what went on behind my back, but I have the feeling that because technical jobs are so easily evaluated by ones’ peers—either you’re doing the job or you’re not—there really wasn’t much of a fuss.

Within a year, NBC was hiring other women technicians, on staff and freelance. I think we were successful because we were not particularly didactic about politics. We were doing our jobs alongside the men. Just being there was political. And politics was all around us. By 1974, NBC and the other networks could wrangle an all-woman crew for countless stories about women in prison, women’s examinations, rape—stories that would have been unheard of, and thus unheard, a few years before.

After about a year on the job, one of my colleagues came up to me and said, “Hey, you know, my sister could do your job.” I remember just smiling … The light bulb had gone off! The opportunity to work and make a decent living doing something you love is truly transformative. I’m grateful it happened for me, and grateful that I was able to facilitate that experience for others.

The Best Person for the Job

Assembled and edited by Rosa Costanza Tyabji
All photos courtesy of the respective participants unless specifically credited

Embarking on the creation of this article has allowed me to investigate and to understand better the dynamics involved in being a gender minority in this field. My hope is that this article also lends you greater insight on how far we women have come, and how far we have yet to go.

In November 2014, I organized a group of Local 695 member-sisters to gather to discuss our shared professional experiences for the purpose of creating this article. It was a sublime yet charged atmosphere, beneficial to all participants. Cabell Smith, one of the first women to join IATSE (Local 52) as a Sound Mixer in 1974, was laughing with new member and Y-1, Eva Rismanforoush, who joined in 2014. There was much networking and camaraderie as we got to know each other.

Prior to the November meeting, I sent requests for stories, quotes and anecdotes of working life to all the active women members in IATSE Local 695. More than thirty people responded to participate in this article.

Chartered in 1930, Local 695 has nearly 2000 members working in the fields of Production Sound Technicians, Television Engineers, Video Assist Technicians and Studio Projectionists. The presence of women working in those fields has been slowly growing since the first woman knocked on the door in the 1960s. In its first fifty-five years, the number of women members grew from none to only eight percent. It is encouraging to see that this year, nearly twenty-five percent of new members are female.

Peggy Names, a member since 1977 and one of the first female Microphone Boom Operators, prepared these statistics with help from Linda Skinner and Nikki Riordan in the office. “Every new production brings new faces,” Peggy mused, “sometimes those faces are surprised to see a woman working in sound, even in the year 2015. We look forward to the day when people stop saying, ‘I’ve never seen a woman sound person before.’”

Currently, women make up less than ten percent of the membership of Local 695, though we trust that there will be more women attracted to work in our technical fields of the industry.

We found the commonalities we have, yes as women, but also as professionals networked in our organization, Local 695. All members play an important creative role in the production world. Just as utilizing the necessary technology needed by our department for any given project may change, it is understood that the personnel needs may also change with production type and complexity. As an example, women often gain employment as Utility Sound Technicians when a project has women and/or children in the cast, when the personnel needs create that opportunity.

We share a collective gratitude to those who opened the doors of possibility and employment in this technical art, and an appreciation of the tenacity and perseverance they employed in our shared craft.

“We are grateful to our Local for opening its doors so willingly to us,” Names states. “We think we have the best brothers any sister could have. The trailblazers may not have known there were any obstacles before them, but we were tenacious and paved the way for the future generations of women in Local 695.”

Her words are an understatement. In our artistic and scientific field, the backgrounds we bring are diverse, as are the paths we’ve taken to gain experience and employment as technicians. Here are a few stories showing that diversity:

Phyllis Bailey Brooks (joined IATSE in 1981) is a Y-8 Boom Operator primarily using the Fisher for multi-camera TV: “My very first semester at USC studying TV & film, I met a Unit Manager (a recent USC grad) working on Good Times for Tandem Productions. She assisted me in getting a job as a page working on the lot at Metromedia Square on shows like All in the Family, One Day at a Time and The Jeffersons … My first engineering job was as a cable puller on Good Times, but wow, some folks weren’t quite ready for me! A young, black, female with my eyes wide open, but soon those that weren’t keen on the idea in the beginning became my best mentors.”

Michele Wolfe (1980) is one of only four female Projectionists in Local 695. “I worked as a cashier and candy girl at the Sunland Drive-In Theater. I was lucky to meet another union projectionist in 1972 to teach me the trade. At that time, you needed a license to work because of nitrate film. I received my license and became the second woman to join Local 150. I started out in the theater Local and paid my dues by working the porno houses in the valley. So I became a Studio Projectionist. I feel very lucky to be a union member in a great industry that has provided me a good living for forty years.”

Jillian Arnold (2012) is a Y-4 doing data asset management and data capture. She shares: “My first shooting/media managing job was with the RED camera for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We were shooting parachute tests for the Curiosity Mars Rover at one of the world’s largest wind tunnels … I felt very lucky to be working alongside some of the most seasoned and intelligent men in the country. I started out doing media management from camera cards to field hard drives, and now I operate the Pronology ingest control application, an all-encompassing media ingest and management software.”

Rita Rubalcava (1974), a Y-9 Videotape Operator, began her career in the newly inaugurated Engineering Training Program at KCET after being their first female Videotape Librarian. She recalls, “After taking a three-year hiatus for parenting, I rejoined the workforce as a freelance Videotape Operator in 1986 and my first production was Family Ties. After more than forty years, I am still in the workplace and currently working on the Disney show Liv and Maddie and CBS’s Mom.”

Rosa Costanza Tyabji (2007), a Y-1, gained an apprenticeship on the Universal cop drama New York Undercover, arranged through the Institute of Audio Research, where she received her certificate in recording engineering. She apprenticed with the late Bill Daly on the Universal Studios soundstages in NYC. Rosa remembers: “New York Undercover was very popular at the time and it was exciting to shoot on locations all over the city for a show with such strong public support. I helped Bill as a utility person, making BNC cables and soldering connectors on busted wires. Much of the professional work ethic I still carry comes from that experience.

“Apprenticeship programs are so rare these days. We need to bring them back to train the next generation, whether tied to schools or guilds or otherwise.” Rosa has given lectures on location sound for students enrolled in the film/video program at the Orange Coast College.

“No matter where you learn your craft, who you work with, or where you work, we all adapt to the parameters of each style of film, TV program, documentary, commercial, reality show or event for which we provide our services.”

Rosa adds, “Working as a Sound Mixer has gifted me with amazing life experiences: From recording around Zanzibar with a Nagra, on set of a South African MNET TV show in 2000; to following the Dalai Lama and documenting through the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India; spending six weeks on and off of seagoing vessels in Mendocino; or hiking the border of Tennessee carrying a portable kit plus all expendables for a documentary. Each of these productions presented situations demanding immediate assessments and action. I draw from my background the problem-solving tools with which to solve new challenges.”

Emmy winner Gail Carroll-Coe (1996) joined as a Y-8. She cites her ability to anticipate and adjust her responses as a key reason she can meet challenges. “I love challenges and embrace being able to anticipate problems in order to solve them without holding up production and, more importantly, getting the best sound possible. I immediately communicate the information needed as it arises on the set to those concerned: the Mixer, the Director and/or Producers. I try to accomplish this by keeping calm and thinking rationally. One of my favorite sayings is, ‘Panic is not our friend.’ Last year, I did a movie with a director (actor-turned-first-time-director) who told me he was extremely happy I stood my ground when needed and that he loved my negotiating techniques … whew!”

Patrushkha Mierzwa (1983) is a now-retired Y-8. Her love of production as a whole gave her this perspective about her work: “Boom operating is a perfect storm of crafts; it requires knowledge of nearly all the other filmmaking disciplines. Because Boom Operators often work next to the camera, they become the default sound representative on the set, and the one to relay essential information. Sound is one of the few departments that does not directly support the visual (camera), so it is important to help educate our brothers and sisters that our contribution does not take away from that, but imparts a valuable layer for the audience.”

Upgrades and updates, shifts and changes in our electronic toolkits are the norm in our lines of work—something that we all roll with to stay current as we utilize our knowledge in the field. Here are some anecdotes and observations:

Kim McCall (2003) is a Y-4 working in video/24-frame playback, currently at Warner Bros. on new show Blunt Talk. She recalls, “I started my career in an analog world. Going all the way back to using quad, to one-inch tape reels. Editing and shooting on 3/4-inch tape to beta. Then learning the old 24-frame standards conversion and color correcting to playback on set syncing up film cameras using the old CE or Barton box and phasing that old bar out of the modified tube TV … It was a challenge for all of us to switch over to the HD 23.976 world. Always trying to keep up with new technology. Of course, you could write a book on this subject alone.”

Nicole Zwiren (2013), a Y-1, has an MFA in sound design, so her knowledge of audio post informs her work as a Location Sound Recordist. She shares: “Mostly I am a bag Sound Mixer, which requires a lot of stamina, luck, skill and tact. As a Post-Production Sound Mixer, I know how difficult it is to remove background noise, so I make sure that all sources of noise in my control are handled to make for the quietest set possible. I prefer to use wireless lavaliers on actors when I know there will be problems with background noises.”

Lisa Gillespie (2007), a Y-8, agrees with Nicole: “I went to Columbia College in Chicago, where I did location sound. I worked in their sound studio. I was a part-time student and an employee, checking out equipment to students. I mixed films with the Nagra. I also did Foley recording and Post Production. I always have Post Production in mind when I work.”

We are all team players by our natures or we would not gravitate toward this business. We are all also singular in how we do what we do. Meeting each other, creating the open discourse about our work, and having a reliable pool of referrals that we trust are key. Networking works.

Alexis Schafer (2009) went from being a Y-13 Service Sound person to a 7A, Utility Sound. She gained the bulk of her understanding from day-playing with various talented Mixers who started as Utilities. Alexis highlights her ability to make connections: “I have made friends with my fellow 695 members and have gone to numerous BBQs and other events, but some of the most beneficial friendships I’ve made are with individuals in other departments. Understanding how these different departments contribute to the production has become a valuable asset in my ability to get my job done.”

Amanda Beggs (2013) joined as a Y-1 Production Sound Mixer, with encouragement from mentors: “I’ve had the amazing honor of getting to network with the other Mixers I’ve looked up to and tried to emulate since I first realized I wanted to go into this field. Shawn Holden, a Y-1 Mixer, let me accost her at Location Sound one day. I was so thrilled to meet the woman who I absolutely feel is blazing the trail for women like me.”

Jane Fleck (1981) is a Y-4 with multiple qualifications, a Video Engineer/24-Frame Playback/Sitcom Sound Recordist.

Her take is to “network relentlessly, if the networking does not feel right, rethink what you are asking. Doing for others is part of networking; it is always a two-way street. The woman who hired me for my first job in Los Angeles a zillion years ago recommended me for a job in the last five years as well. Stay in contact, say hi when you can, send thank-you notes when someone helps you out.”

We make strides for all women who may be interested in the technical processes of production, the electronic arts, so cooperation together is tremendous. There is a responsibility to be always at your best. This awareness was expressed by all in different ways.

Jillian Arnold describes her view: “As a woman, I am very mindful that I have to be on my game. I believe I need to know all aspects of my craft well. Therefore, I spend quite a bit of time training and studying on my days off. I often feel I can’t afford to make a mistake without it reflecting poorly upon me, and my gender. Some may say I’m too hard on myself, but I think that I have to be as good as the best.”

Cabell Smith, a pioneering female Sound Mixer, reflects on her thirty-plus year career: “A word of advice—if they offer to carry it for you, let them! I retired in 2005 or 2006, after two hip operations and a back operation. So, I am serious. You really don’t have that to prove anymore.”

Lisa Schway (1993) is a Y-7A, part of a unique team that started in Carsey- Werner Productions’ run of classic TV. The team was a standout for having four women on the floor, as a sound department in a multi-camera studio environment. Technicians Azhar Aluqdah (1996) Y-7A, Yasmin Muniz (1990) Y-8 and Phyllis Bailey Brooks completed the crew.

Lisa sets the scene: “In the late eighties, four of us ‘audio girls’ made up the audio floor crew while working on Grace Under Fire. We were comprised of two Boom Operators and two Boom Pushers. The four of us knew at the time what a special bond we had and that we were so fortunate to have such a supportive and positive team.”

Yasmin Muniz, one of the two Y-8 Fisher boom specialists from that same team, had her first TV run in 1983 on Mama’s Family. She is grateful for her career path “… coming from multi-camera, which is the most stable of all the jobs, we have regular hours. Working on features is grueling. Doing anything single camera is grueling. I respect you who do that work immensely. I was fortunate to have started out in sitcoms.”

Phyllis expands the conversation and says, “My quest now is to continue to be a positive image on set, and to mentor as many young women pursuing this work as I can. This opportunity has given me so much and I continue to be eternally grateful.”

We are having a great exchange within our community regarding the expansion of professional skills, sharing tales of different production styles, expanding job opportunities and experiences, keeping the right attitude and swapping stories from set life. Wisdom hard won through adversity has no substitute.

Rosa recalls: “One of the greatest challenges I met was when filming on the ocean, in fishing boats and sailboats and on the beach. All the elements in the environment were stacked against us. First, we modified a sound cart for beach mode by installing bicycle tires and then made two sets of B-unit ‘run and gun’ style harnesses. We got waterproof cellphone cases and made them fit on transmitters. We added extra shrink-wrap to connectors on cables and to antennas. Our maintenance was immediate, with boom poles being disassembled and cleaned daily. Other than a zodiac-type boat being capsized and dumping my Boom Op in the ocean, we came out of the shoot just fine.”

Currently, women make up less than ten percent of the membership of Local 695, though we trust that there will be more women attracted to work in our technical fields of the industry.

We look forward to continuing this conversation and to drawing new voices into the dialog. Some one-liners to wrap up:

Eva: “I keep a positive attitude; nothing is an obstacle, just a challenge in determination.”

Jillian: “For me, being a woman in the tech world is a non-issue. The screensaver on my phone is a Steve Martin line: ‘Be so good, they can’t ignore you.’ I live by these words.”

Rosa: “Location audio recording is a fusion of art and science in the world of film production. I have always felt my work to be a part of the creative process on set, and negotiated potential difficulties using creativity and flexibility.”

Eva says, “Coping under pressure? I never take anything personally. The prime directive is to do your job exceptionally well while keeping a great attitude. Even if that means throwing on a flashlight and a pair of latex gloves to kill an ice machine in a dive bar …”

Amanda: “I love my job so much and can’t see myself doing anything else, so I’m excited to see where my career takes me. I like bringing something new to the table as far as not being what people expect in a Sound Mixer.”

Theresa Radka (2006) Y-1: “When I am told, ‘I’ve never seen a woman do this,’ I get over my shock and my pat answer is: ‘Well, they needed the best person for the job.’”

Glossary of Y Classifications

The Y numbers specify particular union work classifications as defined in the contract.
Y-1 – Production Sound Mixer
Y-4 – Supervising Sound or Video Engineer
Y-7A – Utility Sound Technician
Y-8 – Microphone Boom Operator
Y-9 & Y-13 – Sound and Video Service Person

Shooting the Cover

Peggy Names recruited her friend, retired cinematographer Julius Metoyer, to take a picture of as many of the women members of Local 695 as they could assemble in one place. They scouted locations together and settled on Brookside Park in Pasadena for its rugged, terraced look and its accessibility and available parking. With assistance from Linda Skinner and Nikki Riordan in the office, Peggy compiled a list of the 146 women members and invited each of them to participate. The first couple of attempts ran into some conflicts with the Academy Awards, rain and the K-Tek open house. When everything finally clicked, the ranks had thinned a bit but the attendees were a good representation of women active in the various disciplines of the Local.

1. Rocky Quiroz
2. Alexandra Gallo
3. Anna Wilborn
4. Carrie Sheldon
5. Valeria Ghiran
6. Amanda Beggs, CAS
7. Peggy Names
8. Jennifer Winslow
9. Susan Moore-Chong, CAS
10. Rosa Costanza Tyabji
11. Patrushkha Mierzwa
12. Veronica Kahn
13. Sunny Meyer
14. Victoria Thoma-Bowes

15. Shawn Holden, CAS
16. Sarah Chilson
17. Cara Kovach
18. Yvette Hill
19. Elizabeth Alvarez
20. Kathryn Ballard
21. Mihaela Jifcu
22. Felicia Starkey
23. Gilah Friedberg
24. Jackie Summers
25. Rita Rubalcava
26. Chantilly Hensley
27. Lisa Gillespie
28. Mary Jo Devenney

Boyhood

Growing Up With Boyhood

by Ethan Andrus, CAS

One of my first real breaks into the world of production mixing for feature films came fifteen years ago in 2000, when I had the opportunity to work on Richard Linklater’s film Waking Life. In 2002, I signed on to his Boyhood project and mixed the first six years. It seems appropriate that as my career has matured, so too has a film that I embarked on with Rick more than a decade ago.

Boyhood is a unique, innovative narrative with an honest and moving portrayal of life, family and growing up. It was a fascinating experience to watch all of the characters, especially Mason Jr., grow and mature throughout the film. We began shooting in 2002, filming approximately three to five days each year. At the final screening, twelve years had passed and the six-year-old Mason Jr. was now eighteen, a young adult beginning college.

I had the benefit of working on two Linklater films (Waking Life, Tape) prior to starting Boyhood, and two more (Fast Food Nation, A Scanner Darkly) during its filming. These experiences gave me insight into Linklater’s filmmaking style and how he would most likely use and mix the sound. In my experience, Rick’s films have always been very dialog-driven, relying heavily on the production track and without the benefit of a lot of masking by ambiences and sound effects. This made the role of the production soundtrack that much more crucial, often living in the mix alone.

The shooting was broken up over twelve years, but the approach was much like a standard feature narrative. We had scripted dialog; rehearsals with the actors took place prior to filming. Our locations at times presented a challenge, as this was a low-budget film, and we didn’t always have the luxury of “owning” our more public locations. Linklater consciously tried to utilize public spaces “as is” to further reinforce the authenticity of the character experience. A few particularly demanding scenes that I recall were the bowling alley and the Astros game at Minute Maid Park, where a live game was taking place.

A critical aspect of this film was documenting the narrative within a real time period that we can all relate to, so it was important that the actors were filmed during an actual baseball game, rather than a staged event. We opted to wire all the actors in this scene in order to get useable dialog during the live game, and also to avoid the excess attention brought on by swinging a boom around in the stadium seats. They naturally spoke up because of the high ambient level around them, which helped a lot, and with a little Post help, the production track made the mix. We did surround our talent with extras, but only in adjacent seats, so no actual spectator would accidently look at the camera.

When presented with the concept of shooting a small portion of a feature length film over the course of twelve years, I knew the issue of changing technology and archiving would be a significant challenge to address. Had production begun just a few years earlier, I would have started with a Nagra and spanned almost the entire continuum of film sound recorder technologies. For production sound recording in this film, the story begins with timecode DAT and ends with digital multi-track field recorders. I utilized multiple machines throughout the process. I began with an HHB Portadat, and then switched to a Fostex PD-4. Shortly thereafter, digital multi-track field recorders became the standard and years 3–6 began with a Fostex PD-6 and ended with a Zaxcom Deva IV. All of these recorders offered different sound deliverables (DAT tapes, 8cm DVD Ram cartridges, DVD RAMs, CF cards and external hard drives), and it had to be coordinated with Post Production Sound for dailies and archiving purposes. All the different formats had to make their way into Pro Tools in preparation for the final mix.

Although I had many recorder changes, my microphone selections remained fairly consistent throughout my years on Boyhood. I used Sennheiser MKH 60s and 416s for exteriors and Sennheiser MKH 50s and Schoeps MK41s for interiors. My wireless changed a bit during the project, switching from Lectrosonics analog wireless to digital. I utilized both cart and bag modes for this film, so my receivers changed from Lectrosonics 211s to 411s and a Venue system with VRT modules. My lavalier microphones were mainly Sanken COS 11s, with an occasional Countryman B6 used.

Unlike camera, where 35mm film was chosen as the consistent image medium, sound recording was a dynamic and ever-changing process. I give credit to Editorial (Sandra Adair) and Post Production Sound (Tom Hammond) for their work on this film, as they were able to adapt to so many different audio formats.

As Mason Jr. aged, so would his voice and this presented a special challenge to this long-running production. We were aware of this situation so Linklater arranged for studio time to re-record any problematic lines after each filming session. That avoided problems with voice matching and ensured a quality track. As I watched the film’s premiere, so many distant memories of our production days and locations became crystal clear, sequentially rolling frame by frame:

• Familiar neighborhoods and schools in central Austin
• The bowling alley and café, just three blocks from my old home
• Sterile apartment buildings and the suburbs on the outskirts of the city
• Downtown Houston
• Minute Maid Park
• The Butterfly Museum and Herman Park
• Mile-long treks through Pedernales State Park
• Process trailer after process trailer, rolling down city streets and country roads

These are great memories, and seeing the completed work gives me the feeling that my role has contributed to a greater artistic whole, which has always been the main aspiration of my filmmaking career.

Needless to say, Boyhood was an extremely interesting and innovative project to work on, and I feel very honored to have been a part of it. Everyone involved was highly invested in this amazing experiment in filmmaking. There was a strong sense of unity and family on the project, each year a family reunion, as we all worked together year after year to see it to fruition. Rick, Producer Cathleen Sutherland, the actors and the crew were all there to accomplish a common goal, and seeing the final product gives me a deep sense of satisfaction.

Unlike a typical feature, filming occupied less than a week each year, so I can only imagine scheduling actors and crew would have been quite the juggling act. Understandably, dates could be somewhat unpredictable and varied from year to year, but we all worked together to make it happen. My tenure on Boyhood ended with the fatherson camping trip, right before Mason Jr. moved to San Marcos. I was able to work on the first six years of the project; in subsequent years, production conflicted with other film commitments.

Fortunately, my colleagues Benjamin Lowry, Benjamin Lazard and Mack Melson, CAS did a great job on the remaining years, and thanks to an outstanding Post Production Sound Department, the sound remains consistent throughout the film. Together, we were able to contribute our part to this film becoming such an exciting success, and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.