Features

Fisher Booms on Superstore

by Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

Steve Cain and the long reach of the Model 2 arm.

Aside from on-set COVID-19 safety protocols, one of the major health and safety concerns for Boom Operators in Local 695 is shoulder and back injuries due to the ever-increasing long takes while using boom poles.

In 1951, James L. Fisher designed a mechanical boom arm and base, known worldwide as the Fisher boom. Fisher booms were in use on most sets and locations for at least forty of the past sixty years. Changes in set design, the construction of four-walled sets and production’s reluctance to “fly walls,” made the use of the Fisher harder to employ on movie and television shows, although still prevalent on productions and sitcoms.

With the use of HD cameras, Boom Operators are forced to hold the boom pole for takes lasting between twenty and even forty minutes at a time. This is obviously untenable and unsafe.

Steve Cain, and his son Shannon, who are the Boom Operators of NBC’s Superstore, explained, “The first season we were living on eight and six-step ladders for the entire day. It was a really hard show, as we shoot with three cameras; two wing and a middle camera. The takes lasted a long time ’cause it was digital. They would reset and do several passes within each take without cutting.” Shannon continues, “You’re fully extended with a sixteen-foot pole pretty much the whole day.”

Sound Mixer Darin Knight went to production to explain that this was a health and safety issue, with the concern that someone could fall from the ladder and or drop the boom, injuring themselves or others. Takes were lasting fifteen minutes a piece with half a dozen shots for each scene. Darin successfully lobbied for one Model 3 Fisher boom with the Model 2 arm, that extends to sixteen feet. A second Fisher was added in season three and they operate with offset arms, extending the boom’s reach to almost nineteen feet each. Each boom is equipped with a microphone tilt hanger and Sennheiser 416’s.

The main set occupies two combined sound stages at Universal. Steve describes the scene: “This is a giant show, really, for sound, sometimes we have up to fourteen actors all on wireless mics, and two Fishers to move around.”

Shannon is busy wiring the cast and dealing with all the other equipment needs, and moves up to manage the second Fisher boom. Initially, the booms were hard wired to Darin, but this season they switched to a wireless configuration to avoid repeated returns to the sound cart, to stay within the COVID protocols.

Superstore incorporates a “Phase” system. Phase 1 is where camera will set up the shot and sound can move the booms in place. Phase 2 is for lighting, but often Steve and Shannon need to be there to move the Fisher base to accommodate set lighting. Phase 3 is for setting the background players, and Phase 4 is shooting.

Darin Knight’s sound cart and the two Fisher booms

Steve and Shannon were surprised by the crew’s acceptance of the Fishers. “A lot of the younger trainees and PA’s have never seen a Fisher boom,” Steve explains, “They don’t know what this is, more than half a dozen asked me if this is something I built myself. They had no concept of what this tool could do. I’d tell them, these were around before your parents were born.”

During the first season, seeing Steve and Shannon perched on ladders, the crew understood the need for the Fisher booms. The AD’s made the necessary compromises in placement of the Background Actors, and the Grip and Electric Departments worked to help them with their new tool. The Camera Operators were handheld in season one, then moved to dollies in the following season, making it better for Steve and Shannon on the Fishers.

The show’s DP, Jay Hunter, did some sound work early in his career, so he understood their issues. He was very supportive of Darin and the crew incorporating the Fisher booms. “He’s actually a fan of the Fisher as a piece of film equipment. He understands what a versatile tool it is, and how much more you can do with it than a fishpole,” explains Shannon.

“The hardest part I thought was getting the booms into the right position,” Steve continues, “realizing that this boom was a piece of gear that needed to be there, just like the dollies, just like the cameras. You had to claim your position and not feel awkward about telling people, you’ve gotta move that, as the boom has to be here.”

Unique to the show are the break room scenes with as many as thirteen cast members. Shannon and Steve are pleased at how they can cover those scenes with just the two booms. Steve said, “We have a couple of sets where we have to break it up into zones because of the size, and the way the dialog overlaps.”

The show is very unpredictable with the actors ad-libbing at will. Darin established a workflow of wiring the cast, but utilizing the Fishers in every scene. The booms can be raised high enough to reach over the shelving, so they can cover several aisles at a time. Shannon has often dollied the platform so Steve can cover many ‘walk and talks.’

They use two iPads, one to view the three cameras, and the second is for the script, using the Scriptation app. They have a talk-back system hooked up to foot pedals allowing them to communicate with Darin. The Fishers have proved most effective with two shots, as the actors are now at least six feet apart, although the camera angles cheat them as being much closer. “Even just two people talking, with COVID placement,” explains Shannon, “then the two overs, our typical setup for two people. We started to split those up, with two booms, just to catch ad-libs.”

Steve has mentored his son Shannon and speaks proudly of him, “He started with us about three years ago. I think the neat part about Shannon’s training on this show is that he’s learned to put mics and coordinate frequencies on the Venues, all the things that a Utility person would do. But he’s also got to watch how we’ve done it throughout our careers with two booms, and who’s covering who, telling a mixer how to set all that up. So, he has a really broad oversight of today’s sound.”

A typical Superstore setup: booms on each side of the center camera, with the two wing cameras (not pictured) shooting cross-coverage

Darin uses three Lectrosonics Venues, with fourteen wireless and three IFB channels for camera, the writers and the off-set feeds, with Shannon managing all of the frequency coordination. Due to the COVID protocols, the show is now shooting six-day episodes, but has a shortened order of thirteen from the original eighteen scheduled. Many actors are now wiring themselves, requiring Shannon to show them how to place them, switch them on and off, and mount the lavalier while Steve moves the Fishers into position.

Steve and Shannon took the Local’s Fisher boom training course from Production Mixer Eric Pierce, and have happily put their new skills to work on the show. They appreciate the accuracy and the versatility of the Fisher booms, as well as the safety they afford during long takes.

Local 695’s “One-on-One Intensive Fisher Boom Training” program is the only one of its kind, offering hands-on training on all of the Fisher microphone booms, including the 16-foot Model 2 boom and Model 3 Base, and the Model 7 boom and Model 6E Base, which comes in lengths of twenty, twenty-three, twenty-six, and twenty-nine foot. We go through safety, transporting, prepping, setting up weights, stringing and the use of accessories, and then we guide you while you get feedback from a live mic and work through an extensive set of exercises on the boom. The training is of course, important for Boom Operators and Utility Sound Technicians but also for Production Sound Mixers who need to know what the Fisher is capable of. Unfortunately, “One-on-One Intensive Fisher Boom Training” is not available at present due to COVID restrictions but we hope to be able to bring it back to you soon.

No Time To Die

Bond 25: (Part 1)

by Simon Hayes AMPS CAS

Daniel Craig as James Bond. Photo: © 2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM

The story starts in 1977 when I was seven years old. My father took me to the cinema to see The Spy Who Loved Me. Enthralled by the world of the secret service and the suave and debonair hero who loved cars and gadgets, I was sold. The deal was done when the Lotus Esprit turned into a submarine in the beautifully clear Caribbean, and then drove out onto the beach. I was hooked, from that moment.

I would watch the Bond movies in the cinema at every opportunity even when they were re-run on television, and each time I watched, I became more interested in the character and the franchise. When I eventually got a job in the film industry, it was my absolute aim to work on a Bond film. This was cemented during my time as an ‘in house runner’ (PA) at a commercials production company, as a teenager. I can remember clearly the respect for the crew members they were trying to book for a commercial by the Producers and Directors, when they were not available because “they’re on the Bond.” The more time I spent on film sets, the more I would be exposed to stories being told during camera turnarounds, lighting setups, or at lunchtime by crew members waxing lyrical about “when we were on the Bond.”

During my childhood, I built the franchise up to be one of the pinnacles of filmmaking. When I arrived in the industry, I realised that working on a Bond film was seen as a badge of honour; a sign that a technician was at the top of their game. And, boy—did I want be one of those technicians.

Fast-forward thirty years and I found myself booked for a Bond movie. Not just any Bond movie either; this was to be Daniel Craig’s last outing in the role, on the twenty-fifth Bond film. My crew and I had worked with Daniel on the film Layer Cake before he was cast as Bond, and we really enjoyed working with him. Daniel is a perfectionist, and knowing how hard he works and how much he values production sound, made me more excited about the project. We have an easy rapport which extends to my team, especially Arthur Fenn, my Key 1st Assistant Sound, who gets on extremely well with Daniel. I knew based on our previous experience that working with Daniel was going to be a pleasure. As so many of you reading this will know, if the star of the show respects and collaborates with the Sound Department, then the rest of the cast generally will follow suit.

I was invited to the offices of Eon Productions in Mayfair, London, an imposing building in the heart of the city. The production team wanted me to meet Cary Fukunaga; it is always quite intriguing meeting a director for the first time. To get myself up to speed, I watched a bunch of Cary’s work to learn his shooting style, and how he uses production sound. I was super-excited on how little ADR there seemed to be in his films. When I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by Producer Chris Brigham and invited to join Cary, as well as Producers Michael G. Wilson and Gregg Wilson. There was an ease to the conversation as soon as we started, and it became clear how interested everyone around the table was about sound, not only production sound, but theatre sound systems, home Hi-Fi, Dolby Atmos; it was literally like talking to other Sound Mixers. Cary asked me if I’d ever recorded on a Nagra. I told him that I was fortunate enough to have spent my first six years mixing on a Nagra, on hundreds of commercials, starting on a IV-S that I had converted to timecode when I’d saved up enough money. Cary looked excited and asked if I still had one, Gregg Wilson cut in saying, “I’ve got a Nagra, I adore them.” Michael G. Wilson talked about the Swiss workmanship, at this point I knew I was sitting at a very special table full of real film audio enthusiasts. I told Cary I still had my Nagra at home on display, and he said, “We have a flashback sequence on the film that I’d really like you to record on a Nagra to give it an old school feel.” I told him how interesting I found that, and that I’d also like to run my Deva 24, alongside the Nagra to give him a choice in post. I explained that perhaps when he listens to the Nagra through a modern digital theatre system, he may feel the analog sound is too old school. However, if he wished, he could use the Nagra as a reference, and treat the Deva digital recordings with a plugin to give them the warmth of the Nagra analog recording, but not going quite as far with the analog tape hiss. Cary said that is exactly how he likes to work—he wants choices in Post. I agreed, that is exactly my preference too: give the Director, Supervising Sound Editor, Dialog Editor, and Re-recording Mixer options to choose from. I am completely aware that the way a scene reads in a script may change completely once in picture editorial, and being locked into one specific production sound workflow can be limiting and irritating. As Production Sound Mixers record a scene, we cannot know, how loud the score is going to play or how the Director and Picture Editor may intercut the scene with others, to match dialog perspectives. Cary and myself were speaking exactly the same language, and a burgeoning relationship was developing.
Cary told me that some of the situations were going to be tough, as he wanted to use IMAX cameras for significant sequences during the film. He explained that he was aware they were noisy but he was also pretty sure the dialog on those scenes was going to be minimal, as they were mainly action and stunt sequences. I spoke to him about signal to noise, and how I would try to achieve dialog recordings on the IMAX sequences that would hopefully not need ADR. Cary doesn’t like to use ADR for technical reasons and if at all possible, he’d like to use the production dialog on the IMAX scenes, which would generally be loud sequences with the cast shouting. They would have a lot of FX and score laid underneath which we both felt would help to hide the IMAX camera noise without having to go too far with noise reduction in post. We spoke at length about the Schoeps Super CMIT’s I like to use when recording scenes where there is a lot of background noise, and he was impressed when I explained I would be recording two tracks from each boom mic; the processed signal with 10db off-axis noise reduction and the unprocessed signal with the usual 4db off-axis reduction of a standard CMIT microphone.

Director Cary Fukunaga, Linus Sandgren, DP, and Simon Hayes

Cary and the producers said that they’d like me to run some tests with the IMAX cameras that could be listened to by Supervising Sound Editor Oliver Tarney, so he could assess the camera noise, treat it with some different de-noising plugins, and see what could be achieved. It was a great idea and it would be really helpful for all of us to know exactly what the limits were in terms of proximity of the camera to the dialog, booms versus lavaliers and how each source would react to the de-noising. Cary said when Oliver had worked on the dialog, we could reconvene and listen to the results in a viewing theatre.

When I left the Eon building, I felt like I’d had a really collaborative meeting with filmmakers who deeply care about sound, and wanted to preserve the all-important original performances. I knew we were at a great starting point and rather than seeing the IMAX camera noise issue as a negative, I started planning how I could minimise the issue and make it work for Cary and our cast.

We set up a test where we ran dialog on exteriors and interiors, on different boom positions, and performance levels from whispers to shouts. For the exteriors, we used Schoeps Super CMIT’s and DPA 4061 lavaliers. On the interiors we tested my preferred interior boom mic, the Schoeps CMC6 and MK41 hyper cardioid.

The IMAX camera was loud, but I know that de-noising technology has really come on leaps and bounds in recent years, and what I needed to deliver to Oliver and his sound post team was a good signal (dialog) to noise (camera) ratio. The greater the ratio, the more ability they would have of successfully cleaning and preserving the original performances. I also knew that a Bond film is generally going to have a driving score and loud sound effects that would help the process of hiding the unwanted camera noise, and the de-noising process would not need to be too aggressive.

After Oliver received the tests, I spoke to him at length where he explained that the camera noise was filterable but only under certain parameters. The dialog needed to be a close perspective; whether that be the boom in close-up, or the lavalier didn’t really matter. This ruled out the possibility for a boom to be used in a mid-shot or wide position. In those instances, Oliver and his Dialog Editor, Becki Ponting, would use the lavalier as it had better signal to noise for the cleanup. We also discovered that the Schoeps Super CMIT should be used on interiors, as well as exteriors if we were shooting IMAX, as the wider pick up pattern of the Schoeps CMC6/MK41 was unsuitable for reducing the camera noise enough, even in a close-up position. Whenever we were shooting IMAX, we would be using the Super CMIT’s and DPA 4061 or DPA 6061 lavaliers to give sound post the best chance of cleaning the recordings. The Super CMIT’s supplied both processed and unprocessed channels, which gave Oliver and his team choices; rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach, and they would decide which channel to use in every situation and scene.

At the viewing theatre at Pinewood Studios, Linus Sandgren, Cary’s wonderful DP, joined us to listen to the tests so he could get a handle on how the noise of the IMAX would impact the performances. Cary’s 1st Assistant Director, Jon Mallard, was also present who would become an extremely strong ally of the Sound Department. Linus and Jon were absolute gentlemen, really enthusiastic collaborative filmmakers, who treated everything we did throughout the movie as team work.

After listening to Oliver’s cleaned-up tracks, it was evident to Cary that the IMAX could work for action sequences that would have loud dialog and a driving score. For softer level drama, we would shoot 35mm film and for larger set pieces, stunt work, and chase/fight sequences, we would shoot IMAX. We all left the theatre confident we had found a workable solution without too much compromise and that we could go ahead and use the IMAX cameras in certain conditions, without having to commit the scenes to ADR.

The next item on my agenda was to start to plan a workflow for lavaliers with Arthur, my Key 1st AS, who is a first-class boom operator and also manages the lavaliers and places them on the cast. A number of years ago, Arthur took on this role when we started shooting multi-cameras and we realised that the boom wasn’t going to be able to be prioritised in every scene. He has become an absolutely excellent radio mic technician who has an ease and ability to interact with the cast members with a very comfortable and confident charm. If you saw Arthur on a set without his boom pole, only his headphones would give away his role in the Sound Department. He carries a bag on his shoulder, with needle, thread, safety pins, and double-sided tape, giving the impression that he is a member of the costume department, and that is exactly how he behaves around the actors.

When we previously worked with Daniel, we were shooting single camera, and were at the stage in our filmmaking careers where it was possible to use lavaliers sparingly, as two booms could pretty much cover anything a single camera could throw at us. Arthur and I remembered that Daniel is very particular about how the transmitters can create problems in the way his fitted suits hang on the body if the placement of the pack isn’t specifically planned in advance. We also knew that Daniel likes his tie knots to be uncompromised so he can have them in the fashion that the particular suit he is wearing demands. This was very important because of the amount of time Bond spends wearing a suit. Based on this we knew, we needed to reduce the size of the pack and lavaliers Daniel would wear. We decided that Bond would always be rigged with the newly available and absolutely tiny DPA 6061. Having used the 6061 on a couple of movies, I was happy that its small size would not compromise its ability to deliver extremely rich and clear dialog. As far as I am concerned, it is just as good as my go-to lavalier, the DPA 4061. I could use 4061’s on other cast members who didn’t have such difficult costumes and that the two different mics could be mixed and intercut seamlessly. The really great factor with the 6061 was that we could fit one in Bond’s tie knot without it being seen and not compromising the type of tie knot appropriate for the style of suit Bond was wearing. Even a really modern, slim tie knot could have a 6061 hidden inside it invisibly.

We then started to discuss his radio pack. I generally use Lectrosonics for several reasons; first, the build quality is just phenomenal—if a pack gets dropped, it survives, and I have never had a pack fail from a fall. Second, all of my crew have the Lectrosonics app, LectroRM on their cellphones, and are adept at quickly changing gain settings when I ask them over our sound crew comms. We start with a base level on a rehearsal, or sometimes the first Take, after which, I start fine-tuning the gain settings, increasing three or 4dB for whisperers. It is rare for us to reduce gain as my base level setting is one that is impossible for the human voice to cause a square wave regardless of how loud they shout. This is assisted by the limiter in the Lectrosonics transmitters but also that I’m quite conservative with my base-level setting. As I manipulate the gains, I try to achieve a setting that won’t be so high that it engages the limiter on loud parts of the dialog. I try to record without any limiters through the whole recording chain, preferring to deliver raw, uncompressed dialog to Sound Post, so that Re-recording Mixer Paul Massey can choose to use compression later, based on how the dialog will play when mixed with the score and sound effects. I try to use enough headroom to minimise the limiter kicking in.

Our go-to radio packs are Lectrosonics SMB’s, which are really small. However, to really show Daniel we were pulling out all the stops, myself and Arthur decided to dedicate the tiny, super-micro Lectrosonics SSM to Bond full time. We generally only use the SSM for specific costumes (bathing suits, bikinis, ball dresses, etc.) as there is a slight compromise in output power and battery life. However, because I knew Arthur has a great relationship with Daniel if we needed to change battery at a difficult moment, it would be cool.

Obviously, that was never our intention, but the SMB will do a whole morning until lunch, whereas the SSM runs out about thirty minutes earlier. With the ability to ‘sleep’ the radio pack using the cellphone app, we knew that Arthur would be powering down Daniel’s pack wherever possible. This would not only give Daniel confidence he had privacy when not on set, but also increase the period between battery changes. Arthur would talk to Daniel before rigging the costume and find out whether he wanted an ankle pack, calf pack, in the small of his back, or hidden in his jacket. Daniel could base his decision on the action he was required to do, rather than where a ‘bulge’ would be less visible, because the SSM simply didn’t cause bulges in the costume. There were times when we asked Daniel to wear two radio mics, especially when he was in military webbing, because of severe head turns in action sequences, and clothing rustle the webbing can create. This generally happens on one side of the body but not the other, meaning that if radio one had a rustle on it, radio two on the other side of Bond’s chest was clean. Each mic was assigned their own track on the Zaxcom Deva 24. We didn’t overuse this strategy. Daniel was being very generous in letting us use two mics, and we didn’t want him to think it was a ‘belt and braces’ situation, so we only asked when we felt we really needed it, explaining why, and Daniel kindly accommodated the request.

The rest of the cast were assigned Lectrosonics SMB transmitters and DPA 4061 mics unless there was a specific costume that required an SSM and a 6061; for instance, Ana De Armas’s stunning ball dress.

Robin Johnson, my other 1st Assistant Sound, is responsible for frequency mapping all the radio mics and comms, so he assigned a general plan that would allow me to run twenty radio mics at all times, only having to adjust and fine-tune specific frequencies if we had issues on location. We were actually incredibly fortunate that during the making of No Time to Die in Norway, Italy, Jamaica, and the UK, we didn’t come up against any negative frequency situations, and apart from a few minor tweaks, our frequency plot remained the same throughout the film.

Vehicles are a huge part of what makes a Bond movie. Oliver Tarney asked me how I was planning to mic up the vehicles and I was happy to use whatever workflow he preferred. Whatever he asked me to do on main unit, I would also ask our Second Unit Sound Mixer, Tom Barrow, to mirror. Oliver asked for a stereo pair of lavaliers on the exhaust region of the cars that were being featured in each scene. He also asked that we use ‘spot mics’ (lavaliers) on any other parts of the vehicle that we felt gave interesting sounds. We would generally try to place a lav in the engine bay and then think about other unique sound effects the particular vehicle would give us. In Jamaica, Bond was driving an old school Land Rover, so it was the gear shift that had an old, grinding sound to it which I thought would mix well with the stereo exhaust tracks and the engine bay track, to wrap the theatre audience acoustically in exactly what it sounds like to be driving one. This was how we treated each vehicle—find the stereo sweet spot on the exhaust and then add spot mics to pick up the other effects that would build a unique sound of each vehicle.

I knew on No Time to Die we were going to come up against some huge SPL’s for extended periods, as a lot of the vehicles were highly tuned and would be driving at high speeds with tire squeal, etc. There was also a bunch of motorcycles to consider. This motivated me to buy some specific lavs for the job. As I am extremely happy with the famous DPA frequency response—i.e., pretty much flat from 20Hz to 20kHz—and I wanted to stick with the brand I knew and trusted, but I wanted to know I had the headroom to cope with anything, so I purchased some DPA 4062 lavaliers. These are acoustically the same as our favourite 4061, but give another whole 10dB of headroom, with the max SPL a huge 154dB. As soon as we tested them, I knew they were a great addition to the kit. They could be mounted very close to sound sources to make the effects we were recording clean of other unwanted noise, and were virtually impossible to square wave. These 4062’s became our ‘vehicle kit.’ Tom Barrow and our second unit sound team did the same.

We were ready to start shooting. We had been through each scene formulating a creative plan for our approach to the sound recording, and then putting together a technical plan to help us achieve our creative aims. The first week would be a pre-shoot in Norway, shooting the flashback scenes. This meant I needed to get my old Nagra IV-S TC from its display in my screening room at home, and check it was still working. It was, and just putting batteries in it, and loading a roll of quarter-inch tape had me reminiscing about the start of my career. The texture of the alloy case and the feeling of the record lever in my hand were so wonderful to feel again. The Nagra had not been used since 1995, so I decided I had better get it checked over. Back in the day, the man who had regularly serviced the machine and converted it to timecode was the famous David Lane, who has since passed away (RIP). I knew there was another famous London-based Nagra technician who collects, repairs, and deals in old Nagras, a former Sound Mixer called Mike Harris. One of the issues was finding quarter-inch tape stock, and thankfully Mike had a source in Paris, and ordered some. Mike did a fantastic job servicing it and resetting the tape bias for the new brand of tape we would be using, as the old BASF 468 tape is no longer available. Mike said the machine was in perfect condition and saw no reason why it shouldn’t display the same bulletproof reliability in Norway that Nagras have always been famous for.

In Norway, a significant percentage of the scenes would be filmed on IMAX cameras, and for that reason, I wanted to record on our usual Zaxcom Deva 24, alongside the Nagra. We could supply our usual ISO tracks to Oliver and his Post team, and I completely understood Cary’s wish to have an old school analog feel to the recordings. I also wanted to use two Schoeps Super CMIT booms to give Sound Post the best opportunity to remove the camera noise. Using two Super CMIT’s takes up four tracks, and I also wanted to radio mic every actor, so I knew we would potentially be running up to ten tracks on this part of the film. I recorded my mix onto the Nagra to serve as a reference for Oliver to create a ‘Nagra sound’ from my Deva 24 ISO tracks, it would give him the ability to remix and de-noise individual tracks, rather than being forced into doing a more general de-noise on the Nagra mix track. If I only supplied a mono mix on quarter inch, I worried that it would potentially lead to ADR. As per my usual workflow, it was my aim to supply Sound Post with the most choices possible to have the best ability to get usable production sound.

Dylan Jones, Video Playback, Simon on main cart, and Robin on Zuca cart,

It was the end of winter when we arrived in Norway. We were shooting in a forest, waist deep in snow, and on a frozen lake, both of which had their own challenges not least due to the extremely low temperatures we were working in. One of my methods of working in these conditions is to keep the sound cart and all the equipment on it powered up at all times, to avoid heat cycles and frozen switches. The best way to avoid equipment failure, and the way to keep it ready to roll at any time, is to not power cycle it at all. We would leave the equipment in a sound truck all night on location, with the driver instructed to keep the heating in the rear of truck turned on. When we arrived at work each morning, we would power up the warm equipment, and wheel it out into the freezing cold temperatures and leave it switched on all day. This is particularly important for the Nagra as it avoids the brakes from freezing.

It was mainly sound effects we were capturing when we started shooting. It became clear that any ‘camera perspective’ sound would be unusable due to the noise of the IMAX camera, despite the Super CMIT’s, so we concentrated on recording close-up perspectives. The sequence involved one of our lead cast members trudging through the forest in deep snow and arriving at the lake (I don’t want to give away story and plot lines here as you’re potentially reading this article before the movie’s release). I decided that the suspense could be built using the different textures of footsteps through the characters’ journey. We placed three lavs on the actor: one on his left calf, one on his right calf, and one on his chest for his breathing, which was heavy from the effort of walking through the deep snow. When I imagined what I would expect a scene in a Bond movie to sound like, it was these effects with the score that I felt would give Cary the ability to build layers of sound and create suspense in the final mix. The reason we mic’d up the actor’s calf rather than boots is because the snow was so deep that, had we have placed them on the boots, the lavs would have been immersed in snow on every footstep. The actor was wearing ‘crampons’ (metal grips used for walking in snow) that really gave us an ominous sound. Mixed with his deep breathing, I was confident we were getting the exact components Cary would use. To make absolutely sure we had everything covered, and were giving the all-important choices to post, we went off into the forest while the rest of the crew were shooting some high-speed MOS shots. We recorded one of my assistants wearing the same boots and crampons, walking and running at different speeds through different depths of snow, and on ice using the Super CMIT’s; effectively recording a library of on-set Foley for the scene, should Sound Post want to use these additional layers. Snow and ice underfoot are very unique sounds and may be difficult to reproduce on a Foley stage, so I felt it was important to make sure we were completely covered.

One night on the way back from our shooting location to the tech trucks, I was wheeling my cart across the frozen lake. I usually move the cart on my own, as it is a relatively lightweight Eurocart. This leaves my crew to manage the rest of the equipment: follow cart, etc. It was pretty dark and unfortunately, there was a dip in the ice that took me by surprise and one of the cart wheels dropped about twelve inches into a watery hole. This resulted in my losing control of the cart and it going down on its side. All of the equipment was strapped tightly to the cart except the Nagra, which I had not strapped up tightly enough since the last reload. It was on top of the Deva 24, and slipped into the watery hole and was completely submerged for about two seconds until I grabbed it. All of our recordings had also been mirrored on the Deva 24, but I was super concerned I was going to have to tell Cary the next day that the Nagra wasn’t working. The first thing I did was quickly remove the batteries from it to try to avoid shorting it out. We then took the equipment back to the warm sound truck and opened the Nagra up. Luckily, there wasn’t much sign of water ingress and we left the machine open, under an electric fan heater all night on the truck. We told the truck driver how important it was to not unhook from the generator overnight. I feared the worst when we arrived the next morning, we put the batteries in and I held my breath and switched the machine on—it powered up! I played back the previous day’s recordings and they sounded great. We weren’t sending the quarter-inch tapes with dailies to avoid causing issues in Editorial. We would give the whole batch to Sound Post at the end of the job. We took the Nagra to set and recorded on it, and it worked for the rest of the Norway shoot faultlessly. It reminded me why we used the Nagra, and why it stayed on top as the industry’s machine of choice for so many decades.

Part 2 of “Bond 25:” No Time to Die continues in the spring edition as Simon Hayes and crew travel to Jamaica.

News of the World

by John Pritchett CAS

Helena Zengel as Johanna Leonberger and Tom Hanks as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd.
Photo: Bruce W. Talamon/ Universal Pictures

Rising up over a hill, you turn onto the road leading to the Galisteo Ranch outside of Santa Fe, NM, looking across the cactus-filled desert to observe an odd sight. In the distance is a strange caravan being led by a small buckboard wagon pulled by a single horse and carrying a middle-aged man and a ten-year-old girl. They are having a mostly one-sided conversation. Behind the wagon is an even stranger sight, a parade of vehicles starting with a truck-like thing with a large crane and a bunch of bundled up characters hanging on all sides. That is followed by two very large vans festooned with antennas and such, and then by an extended line of assorted other vehicles comprising several smaller vans, smaller trucks, a trailer carrying supplies, and food, and finally, a trailer loaded with two portable toilets. The entire train is moving slowly across the largely uncharted wasteland, dodging cholla and saguaro and gopher holes to get to an end at some point, only to turn around and go back where it started.

The locations in New Mexico offer tons of unique, at least in this country, challenges for each department and cast alike. Many of the sets sat on dirt fields and roads that turned into mud morasses at the least rain, which we got plenty of. The Grips and Transpo were constantly having to assist in getting us out and back to work. And then toward the end came the snow! Years ago, while working on Wyatt Earp in many of the exact same locations, we had a surprise snowstorm as we were setting up to start a multi-day daylight scene. The decision was made to shoot anyway. By the next morning, the snow was all gone. Effects had to find and bring in snow, foam, and ice-making machines so we could continue to shoot. This is a pretty common experience in New Mexico. But the place is just too awesome to resist.

What I’m describing, of course, is the filming of a scene for a movie, in this case, the movie News of the World. This will be part of Paul Greengrass’ (Captain Phillips, The Bourne Ultimatum) latest effort, and his first Western. It stars Tom Hanks as Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, and Helena Zengel as Johanna.

(l-r) Steadicam Operator James Goldman, Director Paul Greengrass, and 1st AD Eric Heffron

The movie, set in 1870 after the Civil War, tells the story of Kidd, who is widowed, before he could arrive back to his home in San Antonio. He then leaves his home to travel to small towns and villages throughout the South and West, bringing news and stories from afar to the people; regaling them with tales of wars, triumphs, joy, and sadness that they would otherwise never know.

Along the way, he is offered money to bring a ten-year-old girl, stolen as a toddler by Kiowa Indians from her murdered family and raised as one of their own, back to her extended family four hundred miles away in San Antonio. She speaks no English, and at every opportunity tries to escape Kidd to get back to her Kiowa “family.” Adventure ensues.

This is also the story of the many challenges that arose trying to, in my case, record the audio on this enterprise. It turned out to be harder than expected. First of all, there’s the location. This was my third outing in the Santa Fe area. I know many of you who have shot here remember the wind, the dust, the sand, the wind, the rain, the snow, the wind and the ever-present Wind. There is a dust storm where Kidd nearly loses Johanna, that is a true brute! But what I hadn’t endured before was the challenge of recording dialog in a real practical buckboard, and driving it over open desert, and hard-packed regolith and unseen pits. It’s a very, very noisy vehicle! The amazing grip crew did yeoman’s work to try and de-rattle it, and often had good success. But some noises were insurmountable. I thought they would have to loop all the scenes in the wagon.

Turns out I was wrong. Thanks to the phenomenal work of Oliver Tarney and crew, the dialog was made usable. It’s here that I need to mention the terrific Second Unit and splinter crew that did so much to aid the soundtrack. David Brownlow came in to do all the insane chase scenes and the physical stuff with Boom Zach Sneesby and Utility Jason Pinney, while the magnificent David Sickles (I owe him money, I think) came in for a few days to cover for me when the company went high into the rock where some old guys (me) dare not venture.

This story would not be complete without mentioning the remarkable DIT Ryan Nguyan, who had to keep up with the constantly moving targets, and all the cameras, to give us great images. Finally, the very congenial Video Assist guy, Adam Barth. Adam’s job was especially difficult as we were constantly on the move. He rigged his SUV with monitors on the outside so his “village” could go anywhere it was needed, but still had to put up other villages, as well for makeup, hair, and costumes. He was a real trooper These fellows made it all look easy and helped out immeasurably.

As far as my setup is concerned, I’m a tad old school (or just old) in that I still use, and have for many years, the Zaxcom Cameo mixer and the Zaxcom Deva 8-track recorder. All of my wirelesses are Lectrosonics SMA’s and HM plug-ons. Mercifully, the Santa Fe area is a largely conflict-free zone for RF issues. Added, the costumes, being soft period garb, made wiring actors mostly problem-free. For all the moving shots, I used the Zax Mix 12 sitting on my lap as we traveled in the caravan. For the boom, I use the amazing Schoeps CMIT and the Cinela Piano. It turns out that the boom was extremely important as the winds were often hard to deal with on the wires.

My intrepid Boom Operator, Dave Roberts, would do the insane task of walking (jogging really) alongside the buckboard or the horse Hanks and Zengel rode through a manmade raging “river,” managing to not get hung up on the ubiquitous cactus or fall into a gopher hole, a scary sight to see. Our amazing Third, Rob Hidalgo, kept up with all the wiring and keeping the costumers happy. The large transport van was a godsend, saving us from the cold and wind, and gave shelter for myself, the Director, the DP (the brilliant Dariusz Wolski), Paul, Video Assist, and DIT.

Those of you who have been fortunate enough to work with Hanks know what a joy he is, never having any kind of issue with anything any department might ask of him. Add to that, Paul Greengrass’ amazing embrace of sound. Many times during most days, Paul would do something only Oliver Stone had done with me. He would come over to me, or ask me to come to his tent and request something specific for the sound. He had a very Robert Altman approach to crowd scenes in that he wanted to “let her rip” with everyone vocalizing fully which, of course, caused Hanks to play to that. It’s always a risky move, but Paul, for all the right reasons, wanted it. There is an energy there that is hard to get doing it the pantomime way.

About our Producer, Gary Goetzman, I cannot say enough good things. He’s one of the most supportive guys in the business. His encouraging words were always there when our confidence might ebb (remember the winds). I’ve had the great privilege of working for him over the years on several Hanks starrers, including That Thing You Do!, Larry Crowne, and Saving Mr. Banks. Many thanks to Gary’s Co-producer, Greg Goodman, who was always there taking care of everyone’s needs.

Wonder Woman 1984

by Peter J. Devlin CAS

On Father’s Day, June 17, 2018, my sound cart was set up on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., but I had a feeling all was not as it seemed. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had just visited the set with his entourage, our Director Patty Jenkins had just rehearsed the camera moves with our DP, Matthew Jensen, and our huge cast of extras were dressed from another era. Ben Greaves, my Boom Operator, was standing on top of a fire truck, gas-guzzling cars were idling in neutral, and everybody was waiting for our First AD Toby Hefferman to call action. I was on the set of Wonder Woman 1984, at a time when social distancing was not part of the vocabulary, and the only masks needed to be worn was when a dust storm hit our production in the aptly named Fuerteventura in the Grand Canaries, later in the year.

Peter rolling his cart onto the National Mall in D.C.

Washington, D.C., was our first month of production on WW84, and we showed off the wonders of the capital circa 1984. However, one of the more challenging locations was the rooftop restaurant, opposite the White House. Gal Gadot (Diana) and Kristen Wiig (Barbara) settled into their characters, with the Washington Monument behind them, but it was the sound of jack hammers that made a greater impression on me. With both actors wired for sound, Ben’s Sanken CS-3 sitting on the edge of frame for Diana, and local Utility Nate Sessions on 2nd Boom over Barbra, it was touch and go as far as getting the dialog above that noise floor. Of course, I had to make a request to the Location Department, “Can someone go over to the White House and see if they would work with us on “Cuts and Rolls”? I have to hand it to our great location crew, they tried but the answer from the WH was “No.” With a Sanken CS-5 pointed toward the White House, capturing stereo ambience, I believed we had managed to capture the performance and hopefully a scene that would not need to be recreated in ADR later.

Boom Operator Ben Greaves and I have known each other for many years. He hails from the UK and is another film craftsman who has spent time in the world of big screen superheroes. We both believe the key to success in radio mic’ing is preparation. It is so important to see the fabrics and costumes early on. Prior to WW84, we had both worked with our Costume Designer, Lindy Hemming, and her Set Supervisor, Dan Grace. Because of this relationship, our attention to detail, and their willingness to understand our concerns, we were able to change the fabric in one piece of wardrobe, as well as resoling shoes for actor Chris Pine. With our reliance on radio mics and the importance of clean iso tracks for editorial for all speaking characters, the relationship between Wardrobe and Sound must be truly collaborative.

In that busy first month, we managed to bring to life the world that Diana found herself in the 1980’s, featuring Watergate, Georgetown, and a nighttime walk and talk with the Lincoln Memorial as a backdrop. Our traveling circus made Leavesden Studios our next place to pitch our tents. Filming in the UK also meant that production licensed all my radio mics through OFCOM for the time I was there. It was here that I started with a new team of Adam Ridge, 1st Assistant, Milos Momcilovic, 2nd Assistant, and our Trainee, Pete Blaxill. I had several days of prep in London and time to get to know the local team. Milos had worked with me on Transformers 5 and so impressed me with a great attitude in challenging situations. Adam had come recommended to me by fellow Belfast Mixer, Mervyn Moore.

We got to know each other at the first order of business, a tech scout of a set that would be at the Royal College of Physicians in central London. I had been warned that it would be a sound problem. It was a critical scene in the film, where characters Diana Prince and Steve Trevor are reunited after a period of almost seventy years. It was a location with lots of background, high heels, and dialog underneath the center point of a semi-spherical ceiling; totally non-conducive to recording quiet dialog. My suggestion was to have acoustical engineers come in and put in some temporary baffling that could be later removed. I was told that nothing could be erected in the space, so our quick-fix solution was to have balloons filled with helium and floated to the ceiling to diminish and break up the reflections. It certainly helped and we managed to get out of that location unscathed. During those three nights, there were some questionable music choices from 1984 that were used as playback to motivate our crew and cast!!!

Photo by Clay Enos/DC Comics/2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment

As we moved into September the nights grew cooler, and we took advantage of many London locations that would double for Washington, D.C. One particular location called “Black Gold” in the film, was the home of one of our protagonists, Max Lord, played by Pedro Pascal. It was here that I was introduced to “Silent Wind.” Special FX Dave and Mark Holt, brothers, designed a system that would bring a quick blast of air to create movement in our actors’ hair and clothes. They built a system that keeps the main body of the wind machine far enough away and carries the air through tubes to the set, thereby minimizing the intrusion of noise on the soundtrack.

This was a welcome relief from an e-fan and a rheostat just off camera. I can’t thank Dave and Mark enough as they were always mindful of how practical on set Special FX can impact the Sound Department. They were always accommodating in adjusting for many scenes in the film. On one occasion they did ask, “Isn’t there a system on your cart that takes out that background noise?” Well, that is a discussion for another time, and another place!!!

With Carnet’s done, lithium batteries specially packed, we were on the road again mid-September, leaving 1984 behind. We were off to Fuerteventura, aka “Themyscira” for flashback sequences of Diana as a child with the amazingly talented Lilly Aspell. It was here that we encountered some serious dust storms, the residue of which is still making an appearance on my equipment. Fuerteventura is aptly named “strong wind,” yet for many of the dialog sequences we got lucky with a calmness that was uncharacteristic for that time of year.

Milos, who dealt with much of the wiring, was relieved that his rigs designed for 30 mph gusts were not needed, Adam was kept busy with Stereo FX recording when we got into crowd sequences, as well as dialog scenes with our Amazonian warriors. Trainee Pete Blaxill did a great job of cleaning and maintaining the equipment. For much of our time there, I was able to set up camp alongside Video Assist Dylan Jones in a Sprinter van that offered some relief on windy days and was also used for our driving sequences. Dylan was great company and kept a cool head at all times and had a great team of assistants with him.

Once we had finished our work in the Gran Canaries, it was back to Leavesden to concentrate on stage work that would take us through December. Although I didn’t get to see Simon Hayes at the same studio, I know he was very busy in prep for Cats. Fortunately, I was able to sit down with Simon and Chris Munro for the CAS podcasts In Conversation. My thanks to them for making the time on a Saturday to go into De Lane Lea in Soho. If you haven’t heard the podcast, check it out with others on the CAS website.

As I sat in these massive sets so beautifully designed at WB’s Leavesden, it brought me back to being a kid in Belfast, at the the Avenue Cinema, watching Christopher Reeve as “Superman” fly for the first time. With each film that I saw; Jaws, Earthquake, The Omen, and so many others, I became more determined to find a way to work in the film industry. I could never have imagined what would lie ahead.

We finally wrapped production of Wonder Woman 1984 on December 19, 2018. It was an epic journey and a wonderful opportunity to work with Patty Jenkins again. Our first outing together was on the film Monster in 2005. Patty is still as receptive to comments and suggestions regarding the soundtrack as she was then. She understands the practicalities of a set, having been a camera assistant. With a camera team that had Matt Jensen as DP, A Camera Operator, Steadicam, Simon Jayes, and B Camera Operator Simon Finney, we couldn’t have asked for a greater synergy.

Post-production was handled by Warner Bros. De Lane Lea. Richard King was the Supervising Sound Editor alongside Jimmy Boyle. Re-recording Mixers Gary Rizzo and Gilbert Lake were on an AMS Neve DFC in Theater A. Iain Eyre would be the Dialog Editor, along with many others in the talented editorial crew. On completion of photography. I spoke with them giving an outline of areas that could be problematic with noise, and a rundown of my methodology and equipment used.

In November of 2019, I set off to London again to sit in with the post team on the final mix, and to watch and listen as those raw tracks become part of something that connects performance to all the other elements. One of the greatest thrills for me was Patty Jenkins inviting me to watch Hans Zimmer at work as they recorded the score for the film. The orchestra and choir were absolutely amazing. It is that circle of talent that makes the connection, becoming one with picture to make a finished soundtrack.

Equipment List
I decided I wanted two mixers on the cart. I love the pre-amps of the Sonosax but I wanted the ability to integrate the Zaxcom Mix 16 if I went to a bigger track count.

With the Deva 24 having the settings memories to switch between different setups, it was fairly easy to go back-and-forth or have both mixers working in tandem. The one thing that I find indispensable, in using the Zaxcom TRX743 transmitters, is the ability to remote gain them. When paired with the technology of Never Clip, it is difficult to be caught by surprise when an actor goes from a whisper to a scream in an unrehearsed scene. Zaxnet offers so much control from the recorder. The ZMT’s onboard record capabilities were essential to cover the expansive areas on Pennsylvania Avenue with Wonder Woman. Driving sequences in Fuerteventura were handled with the knowledge that if the picture car went beyond the range of our follow vehicle, all the performances would be captured by the onboard sd cards in the Zaxcom transmitters for later transfer or remix.

Equipment Package
Exterior Mics – Sanken CS-3 in a Cinela Blimp
Sanken CS-1 in a Cosi Blimp
Stereo FX on a Sanken CS-5 or spaced Sanken CS-3’s
Interior Mics – Sennheiser MKH50’s in Cinela mounts, Sennheiser MKH 8050’s in Cinela mounts
Interior Stereo FX recording, crossed pair of Sennheiser MKH50’s
Lavaliers – Sanken Cos 11’s
Button or exposed mic – Countryman B6
Wireless Transmitters
Zaxcom
TRX743’s
ZMT’s
Lectrosonics
SMQV
SMVL
SSMWB
SSM

Cart Front
Mixer 8 Channel Sonosax SX-ST (Digital Busses)
Zaxcom Mix 16
Lectrosonics Venue 1 Blocks 19, 20, and 25
Lectrosonics Venue 2 Blocks A, B, and C
Zaxcom RX 12 Receivers, Wisycom Powered Antenna Distribution
Wisycom HTP40 Transmitter
Meon Life + Meon Plus
Marshall Link Monitors

Cart Back
Jack Field
Lectrosonics Dual Receiver (Boom Ops Talk Back)
Wisycom MTP40S IFB Transmitter to Boom Ops
Sound Devices 3 Channels Receiver for Boom Op Talk Backs
Comtek BST-25 Transmitter
IFBT4 Transmitter
Zaxnet IFB system for remote control of Zax Wireless
Denecke GR-2

I would like to thank Lorenzo Milan and his crew who joined us for Second Unit in Washington, and Shaun Mills in London, who handled Second Unit there. Paul Munro was on hand to handle additional photography whilst I was on Star Trek Picard, and the many others who joined us on dailies through the course of the shoot in London. You can check out who they all are on IMDb as it’s a long list and would take up this entire magazine.

In particular, I would like to conclude in thanking my crew in the US, Ben and Nate for starting the show on a particularly exciting morning at the Air and Space Museum in D.C. In London, Adam, Milos, and Pete, who throughout the course of our many days and nights brought a level of positivity and professionalism that made our time together memorable. Especially our night at the Air Museum at Duxford, where clothing noise became an additional character in the scene that wouldn’t take the hint and leave, and when I considered a career break!!!

Recording MTV’s Video Music Awards

Recording MTV’s Video Music Awards from My Bedroom

by James Delhauer

On September 14, 1984, the first Video Music Awards presented by MTV aired live from New York and began a tradition of excellence that continues to this day. Though initially conceived as an alternative network competitor to the popular Grammy Awards, the VMA’s grew in size and prestige to the point that the Moon Person Trophy is now a distinctly coveted prize among artists. The production became an annual spectacle that united creatives and audiences around the world. Year after year, craftspeople innovated creative solutions to new challenges in order to make the spectacle bigger and grander. Then 2020 happened. In light of the SARS-CoV 2 novel coronavirus pandemic, there was a great deal of uncertainty about whether or not the show would go on. Social distancing orders, safer-at-home recommendations, and travel restrictions made it impossible to assemble the necessary talent to put on a live event of that scale. The transition from a live to pre-taped experience presented new challenges for the Local 695 Video Engineers tasked with recording the show.

Traditionally, this particular awards show would air from a single location. New York, California, Florida, Nevada, and most recently New Jersey have all played host to the VMA’s at one time or another. The pandemic made it impossible to safely achieve that sort of gathering and so artists and craftspeople in different parts of the country had to come together to remotely build a show worthy of the production’s legacy. Performances were recorded by separate teams in California and New York. This normally live event was shot over the course of seventeen rigorous days. COVID testing and contact tracing protocols were put into place. Skeleton crews worked in shifts with sanitation breaks scheduled regularly. Anyone who could work remotely did.

Jillian Arnold worked on location to record the Los Angeles segments of the VMA’s.

Personally, I was surprised that my job could be done from home.

In recent years, Viacom and MTV have opted to record the VMA’s utilizing a server-based media platform called Pronology mRes. Instead of recording a single camera signal to a single memory card that must be offloaded and then transcoded before an editor’s work can begin, server-oriented recording allows engineers to simultaneously record multiple cameras directly to multiple storage units. This unique standalone encoder is capable of recording three tiers of compressed or uncompressed video per input channel—allowing recordists to deliver a high-resolution media file, an edit proxy, and a streamable proxy as soon as the director yells “cut.” This is achieved by routing camera signals into a series of mRes servers and then networking them to multiple pieces of network attached storage via a high bandwidth network switch. In recent years, the go-to network attached server unit for the job has been the solid-state drive-based rNAS, also from Pronology. The video from the SDI inputs is stored in an uncompressed format on the mRes server’s internal drives and then an operator utilizes timecode to select “in” and “out” points to create media files across multiple pieces of storage on the network. In conjunction with a transfer client application, post-production media can be wirelessly delivered from site to post in near real time.

So imagine my surprise when I got the phone call saying, “Yeah, you’re going to be doing all of that from your apartment.”

I had no idea how I was going to do that.

And so, discussions began as to how we would achieve a herculean task. We needed to record every camera of the performances in New York in real time, create a primary and a backup copy on site, forward a copy of the complete show to Geiger Post so they could splice it with content being shot in Los Angeles, and deliver screeners to producers for review—all without me ever leaving my bedroom.

First and foremost, I had to clean my apartment. Potentially historic television couldn’t be made in my home if I was tripping over pandemic clutter. After coming to terms with and conquering a lifelong problem with hoarding, I set to work preparing my space for the show.

I needed to be able to take remote control of up to twelve servers at one time and needed to be able to switch between them rapidly. I utilized two computers as controller devices while a third allowed me to maintain rapid communication via email, Slack, and text messages—all of which came in rapidly throughout the shoot. Every TV and monitor in my apartment was drafted into service just so I could keep track of all the devices on site.

On day one of prep, the leg of my desk broke off and I was forced to replace it with a series of pop-up tables from my garage. The production mailed a comms PL system to my address, which would allow me to communicate with various parties on site and in remote locations during work. Installing this upstairs in my room required me to run an Ethernet cable downstairs and across the living room to my router. Of course, it wasn’t quite long enough and some furniture had to be slightly rearranged to move things closer together.

In New York, mobile truck engineers on site powered on the twelve required servers, routed the camera signals to them, installed the network attached storage, configured a high-speed internet pipeline, and gave me Wi-Fi access to two of the machines on the network. It quickly became a game of the blind leading the blind as I communicated with NEP Group’s Dave Goodman, Jeff McEntire, and Orin Smith in order to describe what buttons to push and what ports to use when I couldn’t see what they were doing. Likewise, I would often have to work off of equally vague and confusing descriptions from them in order to make things work on my end. Eventually, we found success and I was able to take remote control of those two machines using Remote Desktop Connection, a Windows-based networking application designed to facilitate remote computer repair work. I was then able to make the computer I was remote controlling take remote control of any other machine on the network, allowing me to control any of the twelve machines I needed through just the two Wi-Fi-enabled ones and transfer data to all necessary destinations.

Once I had access, I passed control to Thayne Knop, a networking and IT expert at Viacom, who set up a Signiant Transfer Client and watch folder on the network, giving us the ability to upload files directly to Lead Editor Hector Lopez at Geiger Post. During the show, the First Assistant Director would call for a record to begin via the PL system. Using one remote control, I would begin recording the show for the editors and with the other, I would make a screener copy for producers and talent. When they called for a cut, I would migrate a copy of the recorded segment into the Signiant Transfer Client watch folder, which would upload a copy of the media directly to the post-production team over a high-speed connection. This allowed editors to begin cutting the show together mere minutes after the performance concluded. Terabytes of data were transferred across multiple network attached storage pieces and I never stepped in within 3,000 miles of it.

In 2019, this workflow would have been laughable. Setting up a daisy chain of twelve computers remote controlling one another so that the show could be recorded from home without ever having to get out of bed is a joke that plenty of recordists used to make on set. It was the sort of thing that someone would say to a tech manager, who would laugh it off before telling everybody to get back to work. Now that joke has become a potentially life-saving precaution.

This process was not without its flaws. My home internet dropped out once. Sometimes I’d have to hop on the PL and ask someone to go push a button if a machine needed to be rebooted, which is just so much more inconvenient for all parties involved than it sounds like it should be. Watching a video feed via remote control is inherently unreliable as the image degrades and drops out constantly, meaning I had no true quality control capability from my location. The equipment in New York often reacted at a slight delay to my input commands in California, leading to some delays for production. As more segments were added to the transfer queue, the network on site slowed down considerably and I lost my connection to it several times. That was scary.

For the Los Angeles end of production, a fully remote recording workflow was not possible. My counterpart on the production, 695 Vice-President Jillian Arnold, has helped shape and develop the workflow for every VMA’s show in the last four years. In keeping with its tradition of ever grander spectacle, Viacom enlisted XR Studios to facilitate virtual reality-based screens and projection content—necessitating a more hands-on recording workflow. Jillian’s records featured a mixture of content of varying frame rates and resolutions, as well as a mixture of recording platforms. Content captured using an mRes system was able to be sent directly to Geiger in a manner similar to my own workflow but content recorded utilizing AJA’s KiPro decks needed to be manually offloaded to local storage before being uploaded. This required several overnight transfers and careful management of digital real estate as upward of 30 terabytes of data were recorded across the shoot.

But we did it. On August 30, MTV brought their award ceremony back for its 37th annual broadcast and 6.4 million people tuned in to see Lady Gaga steal the night. Now, more productions are following the VMA’s in safely returning us to work.

In spite of the sheer volume of sanity destroying negatives associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 as a whole, there is something to be said for the innovation that’s been made in what will (hopefully) be remembered as the worst year of our lives. Emerging communication technology and infrastructure have allowed us to adapt in ways few would have imagined just a year ago. In March, the sets of Hollywood went dark as social distancing protocols, safer-at-home recommendations, and travel bans were implemented nationwide. And while the end of the pandemic is still a ways away, production was able to resume in just six months. Comical and outside of the box thinking is overcoming unprecedented challenges. Remote working solutions and new set procedures agreed upon with the AMPTP in compliance with CDC guidelines have allowed us to resume our craft. And what we learned from early productions such as this year’s MTV Video Music Awards ceremonies have informed our workflows on productions going forward. Moreover, our achievement in adapting to the current crisis and continuing our craft as artists cannot be understated. New infrastructure, technology, and responsibilities may put us in the enviable position of being more in demand than we were before the pandemic in spite of the push to move workers off set. Now it’s up to us to prepare for this coming moment of opportunity so that we may grasp and use it to get our lives back on track and begin to move past this entire dystopian tragedy.

Building Diversity in 695

LEADING BY EXAMPLE: Building Diversity in 695

by Steve Nelson CAS

In March of 2020, the world lurched into lockdown, trying and failing to get ahead of the pandemic caused by the SARS CoV-2 novel coronavirus, which, as you read this, has taken well over 250,000 lives in this country and more than a million worldwide. The entertainment industry, like most others, was at a standstill. Virtually all production shut down; no one anywhere was working, but your union leadership was very busy trying to figure out how best to serve the membership during this crisis. Dues reduction, how to continue healthcare coverage and pension benefits, and negotiations with AMPTP on how to get us safely back to work, all required our attention at that moment.

Late in May, in the midst of this global health crisis, thousands of people took to the street in sorrow and rage to protest the Minneapolis death-by-police of yet another unarmed Black person, George Floyd. It was one more in a long tragic line. After four hundred years, it seemed unlikely that one more could move the needle, but this was different. Caught on cellphone video, the world saw a killing that was more than shocking in its cold brutality. Even amidst the pandemic, so many people rose up in solidarity to be seen and heard in every major city, even in small towns with virtually no Black residents, and later throughout the world, in vociferous protest of the never-ending racial disparities, violence, and systemic oppression of people of color in the United States.

Many of our members here in Los Angeles joined the marches, as safely as possible, and our Local 695 Facebook page was boiling over. Where was our statement of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter led movement?

A group of Board members came together (virtually, of course) to craft a statement proclaiming our intention to stand with BLM. Should anyone think that it is a simple thing to put out such a statement, even if it seems so obvious and so right, then that person has likely not been in the position of representing a diverse group of almost 2,000 dues-paying individuals who don’t always agree with one another but are part of a larger and ever watchful organization in an industry where words count and actions have very real consequences.

The Local’s well-crafted and strong statement of support was timely enough to satisfy most of our members but nothing these days is without controversy. Some expressed their unhappiness with this statement; their feelings cannot be discounted.

Then the real question arose. What could we, as a union, actually do to support the goals of this essential movement? Making a “We stand with BLM” statement was necessary, but there is a fine line between meaningful support and mere lip-service; between acting as allies and gentrified “Black-washing.” After all, every corporate oppressor has a public relations department ready to create and publish a full-page statement of support in any newspaper, magazine, or online venue they like. What could we do to make a real difference?

At our next Board of Directors meeting, a new committee was proposed, eventually to be called the Committee on Equity, Diversity & Outreach. Our mission statement:

Recognizing the value in a diverse and inclusive community, the Local 695 ED&O committee works to create an environment where members of all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds can thrive. In the workplace, it focuses on improving access to mentorship and giving new members a chance to forge a career path for themselves.

It was decided that our first action would be a public event on Zoom, during which these issues would be discussed among our members. The proposal was met with resounding support and enthusiasm by the Board.

Beginning on June 23, the ED&O Committee met weekly for about two hours on Zoom. We started small, with just Board members and staff. Word got out and we quickly grew in size as dedicated and enthusiastic participants began to reflect and represent the diversity we seek.

Guests such as Veda Campbell, one of the first women of color to become a 695 mixer, would drop in to join the conversation and lend their unique perspective to the discussion. Without work to occupy their time, our members passionately dedicated themselves to the fight against inequity. This was really the place to be on a COVID Tuesday morning; everyone showed up ready to do the hard work and engage with these challenging and sometimes difficult issues. Our President, Business Agent, Field Reps, Officers, Trustees, and Board members were regular participants. The support given to this work by the Board and membership was so encouraging. As an institution, we are committed to positive and inclusive change.

We learned that Local 695 already has a powerful tool for change that has already been deployed. We have in our contract the Y-16A classification of Production Sound/Video Trainee, which allows for the hire of a person without roster status for training purposes. After thirty days of employment, they can join the Local, gain roster status, and all that comes with it. Some of you might be familiar with this and might have been beneficiaries of it. We have brought in several members this way and now it is being formalized as the Sound & Video Opportunity Program for Diversity & Inclusion. The development of this program is already in progress, with the Local partnering with community-based groups in Los Angeles to find and vet candidates and prepare them to begin on the path to a career they might never have considered. This mechanism can create potentially life-changing opportunities where there were none, increase diversity and equity in our Local and in our workplace, and demonstrate to our employers that there is a cost-efficient way for them to achieve their goals and increase productivity. At this time, we have placed five of the first seven candidates on shows going forward. Jamie Gambell and Ben Greaves have been the driving force behind the program since early last year, working with the Local to bring this to fruition, and it is already paying off. Looking forward, this will be a strong tool for change that could bring in an estimated twelve candidates per year. This ensures that our system and labor pool will not be overwhelmed or become oversaturated while ensuring quality candidates are given the opportunity to join our ranks. It should be understood that these trainees do not do the work of any other sound or video person; they work in addition to existing sound teams and their responsibilities are quite limited until they actually become members.

One of the most important aspects of this committee was the creation of a “safe space”—where we could openly discuss and explore solutions to the issues that brought us together, such as a lack of inclusion, inequity, and the mostly monochrome and male dominant nature of our Local and our workplace. These are not easy conversations but these are the issues of our time. There was a lot of learning in these meetings. Those coming from a place inside the dominant power group benefited from the honesty and patience of our members of color and women and progress has been made. In addition to the Trainee Program, the committee has begun development on a mentorship program that will allow members to partner up, informally, with folks who are further along in their careers and gain the benefits of their knowledge and experience. (This may be a slow start due to COVID restrictions.)

Panelists from left to right: Anna Everett, PhD, Willie Burton, Veronica Kahn, Susan Moore-Chong, Chauncy Godwin, Anthony Ortiz, Douglas Shamburger, Yohannes Skoda

Crucial to the underrepresented being heard is organization. There is now a Black Sound & Video Caucus. Women, Latin-X, and our LGBTQ members are all coming together to be heard within our Local. To create change, you must have a seat at the table. We should be seeing more representation from these groups on our Board. On October 3, the Local followed up its public event with a virtual town hall chaired by Ronald Hairston Jr. This event— which was limited to Local 695 members, persons of color, women, and allies—acted as a venue to engage these issues in more depth than the original open forum allowed.

Meanwhile, work continued on the public livestream event “Diversity in Local 695: A Conversation.” The key to a great panel is a great moderator. It seemed obvious that this person should not be one of our own, and of course a person of color. On the list of potential moderators was Anna Everett, PhD, whose many accolades include professor emeritus of film and media studies at UC Santa Barbara; a scholar of Black film history; former Interim Vice Chancellor for Diversity Equity and Academic Policy; activist; and author of several books and innumerable articles. As an academic, she is a veteran of many panel discussions. As a friend of many years, I knew she would be perfect for this role. Still, it was quite a pleasant surprise when the Board passed over all the big industry names on the list to unanimously select Dr. Everett, who was honored and thrilled to accept the opportunity.

In addition to moderating the panel, which included a fair amount of prep to understand what we do, who we are, and the Y-16A Program (a major talking point), I tasked Dr. Everett with opening remarks in order to provide a broader historical context to frame the discussion. This she did brilliantly, drawing on her research to illuminate the importance of sound in Black cinema since the earliest days and to Black audiences. If you missed the livestream, you can view it here: http://www.local695.com/html/diversity.html

ED&O Committee Zoom on a COVID Tuesday morning

Diversity. That is a word with a lot of possibilities and subject to a great deal of misinterpretation, a word heavily freighted—especially these days. It is one of those buzzwords like “affirmative action,” “empower,” “identity politics,” “quota,” or “minority hire” that, while seeking to describe and remedy the baked-in inequities that permeate our world, have insinuated themselves into the conversation in a manner that serves to inflame and divide.

Nevertheless, this often-controversial word best describes our goal: to increase the heterogeneity of our membership and give voice to those usually unheard and unseen, and to show not only who we are, but who we aspire to be.

The composition of the panel would be critical for a successful discussion and to achieve the representation we’re seeking. It required the right balance of our members, professional people, engineers, and craftspeople at the intersection of race, gender, age/career trajectory, craft, and discipline/classification (so many Y-…’s!) And that is to say nothing of the people willing put themselves out there, in public, for what could be a challenging discussion on a sensitive subject. From what we’d learned in our meetings, we felt we could extend our safe space to include this panel and with the help of our experienced and gifted moderator, the conversation would flow.

We did well. A talented, accomplished, eloquent, and brave group representing who we are and what we do opened up about their unique histories, journeys, the challenges they’ve faced and continue to confront as people of color, as women, as professionals, younger, older, Black, Latin-X, Asian-American, Sound, and Video.

One of our panelists had joined via the Trainee Program and could speak to its benefits. We had only one Video Engineer on the panel and it is a major lapse that we had not one Projectionist. It is not easy to distill our essence into only seven little boxes on a Zoom screen!

The committee brought some thematically relevant questions to get the conversation started, which was facilitated in part by the hard work of Eva Rismanforoush and Jennifer Winslow. Dr. Everett skillfully worked the questions to facilitate a dynamic event that encouraged and modulated the flow of conversation to allow our panelists the opportunity to dig deep and bring out aspects of their lives and careers that would otherwise remain unseen. These experiences are essential for the rest of us to understand and appreciate as we move forward. If you missed the livestream, I strongly encourage you to take a couple hours and have a look. You may begin to see things in a different light, which is the first step toward the change we need. http://www.local695.com/html/diversity.html

Over one hundred sixty people registered to attend “Diversity in Local 695: A Conversation,” which took place the morning of Saturday, August 1. Most were 695 members, but there were many from outside, thanks to our publicity effort. This topic is high on the agenda of many organizations in our entertainment industry and most everywhere; I’m proud that we are taking the lead.

Zoom Town Hall: Lifting Up Your Sisters & Brothers in Local 695

This groundbreaking event would not have been possible without the strong support of our Board of Directors, particularly President Mark Ulano and Business Agent Scott Bernard. Much gratitude to all who gave their time to do the work on ED&O for many weeks, to our guests who dropped in to share their experiences, their wisdom, and sometimes outrage. Laurence Abrams did a stellar job of making this a seamless Zoom experience; Vice President Jillian Arnold and Representative Heidi Nakamura expertly handled the Q&A. Much appreciation for our astute and talented moderator, Dr. Anna Everett, and especially to our panelists, consummate professionals all, who brought their wealth of experience to the proceedings. Thank you, Willie Burton, Susan Moore-Chong, Chauncy Godwin, Veronica Kahn, Anthony Ortiz, Doug Shamburger, and Yohannes Skoda for being such a stellar panel.

I’m well into my fourth decade as a Production Sound Mixer, lucky enough to work on some great projects with amazing and talented and brilliant people all over the world. I’ve spent more than a few years serving on the Board of Directors of this Local. This part of the journey has been perhaps the most exhilarating and rewarding ever. Like on a good show, there is the joy of working with a great team, new people, learning new ideas and techniques, meeting challenges, and that difficult-to-describe, very rare sensation of working on something much bigger and more important than oneself; feeling that it might make a difference. Open, supporting, dedicated, courteous, and respectful, together we created a safe space where we could go places I’d never been, where mistakes could be made without fear, and where progress was achieved. Where a more-than-middle-aged well-intentioned white man could blunder his way into becoming an ally and with some gentle but firm guidance, stay on the right path. We are living through a time like no other. Existential crises beset us from every direction. Predating all, sadly, is the matter of race in America. For four hundred years, race has always been the defining issue. From the days of colonialism to a bloody Civil War and through decades of Civil Rights Movements which have led to this very day, we have never achieved the American promise of equality for all. In spite of this, I am proud that, however belatedly, Local 695 is taking steps to address the systemic racism that has characterized our industry for more than a century.

Living With Hearing Loss

Living with Hearing Loss Attenuation, Isolation & Adaptation

Bruce Beacom performing at The Troubadour. April 2017. Photo by Reid Murphy

by Bruce Beacom

At the age of twenty-five, I started my career, humbly in 1995 as a studio PA, at a recording studio in New York City called National Sound at the National Video Center. I worked my way up to become an Assistant Engineer; handling all the daily loads of projects to be mixed, creating music bed playlists to be licensed and used in editing sessions, extensive mic setups in sound booths for music, and voice-over recording sessions and handling duplication requests of all formats for nationally broadcast and syndicated TV shows. It was a great way to cut my teeth in the TV industry, but after three years of not seeing the sunshine, I knew I needed to be out in the field. I left post and started ENG mixing doing corporate freelance work during the day and for four nights a week, I worked at a live music venue called ‘The Living Room’ in the Lower East Village, mixing three to five bands a night. It was exhausting, but I was immersed in mixing on two separate fronts and loved it. In 2000, I moved back to Los Angeles, where I had gone to college, transitioning solely to mixing for unscripted and reality TV. Notable productions I’ve worked on are CBS’s The Amazing Race (fifteen consecutive seasons) for which I received three honorary Emmy certificates for my contributions as a Sound Mixer. HBO’s Project Greenlight (Season 4) for which I was nominated for an Emmy for Sound Mixing, Bravo’s Top Chef, ABC’s American Idol, The Bachelor and Netflix’s recent notable documentary, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich.

As a singer, songwriter, guitarist, I have produced two records, and I am currently writing material for my third. My band and I have performed regularly in LA at iconic venues such as the Troubadour, The Roxy Theatre, The House of Blues, The Viper Room and many more. If it weren’t for my love of music, I realize I would not be a Sound Mixer today, as the two are inextricably connected and both rooted in the other.

If anyone were to tell me at thirty that I would be spending the next eight years of my life losing ninety-five percent of my hearing to an invisible hereditary disorder, and fighting to get it back, I would’ve never accepted the challenge. I had no choice though. With everything I’ve been through, I clearly understand that when a challenging event occurs in our lives, it’s not the event that defines us, but how we choose to handle it. I chose to never give up hope, and I painfully learned what it means to become an advocate for myself, and to never stop searching for answers.

Losing my hearing educated me to appreciate what I had lost, and to take nothing for granted. It taught me about survival through adaptation, by which I found ways to keep writing music and mixing sound. In the first three-plus years of my hearing loss, I adapted to mixing by monitoring my headphones in a “mono” setting, and turning the volume up to a point that I could feel the vibrations. I developed a keen sensibility for paying close attention to the VU meters like never before. As for my music, I adapted by playing my acoustic guitar as an electric. I can feel the acoustic vibrate against my body, which puts me more in tune with the instrument. I still continue to play this way even after getting my hearing back, as it led me to develop a sixth sense with my acoustic guitar. It’s a style and sound which I would have otherwise not discovered

Bruce at The Viper Room, 2019. Photo by Darren Bunkley

The ringing in my ears started in my late twenties and to say it caught me off guard would be an understatement. I had normal, healthy hearing until I was about twenty-nine years old, but that’s when I first began to notice signs that something was very wrong. It started slowly in the beginning with sporadic ringing, sometimes accompanied by buzzing, clicking sounds, and even pulsating sensations, like crickets chirping that would sometimes have the ability to throw me off balance. I didn’t think much of it at first as it was very irregular, happening only one to three times a week just for a few moments each time. As I reached my early thirties, these episodes became frequenter, more pronounced and almost constant to the point where they began interfering with my daily life and communications with others.

As a musician and Sound Mixer, protecting my hearing has always been one of my highest priorities. I was confused as to what was happening to me, but I was very proactive in searching for answers to uncover the underlying cause. The path to my diagnoses was uncertain, fraught with dead ends, with many unanswered questions, and at times it was simply terrifying. I spent the next few years going to numerous doctors, ENT’s and specialists, undergoing many forms of diagnostic testing, but not one doctor could give me a clear answer as to why my hearing was in such decline. The vast majority said I had severe tinnitus, with many misdiagnoses; one doctor even telling me I had lupus, which was later retracted. The entire experience was exhausting and unnerving.

At the age of thirty-two feeling helpless, I begrudgingly got fit for a cheap pair of hearing aids; not an easy choice or reality to accept for any musician or Sound Mixer. To say the least, it was humbling. The hearing aids were helpful at first, amplifying external sounds above the volume of the ringing inside my head, and allowing me to adapt. It was short-lived as my hearing continued its rapid decline, so much so that within a year, these cheap hearing aids had no benefit in overcoming the ringing at all. Even if they were turned all the way up, they would just feedback in my ears and create more confusion in my head. After years of searching and still no definitive answers, I was in a dark place, isolated and ready to give up.

I felt the only option left was to seek out a better and more powerful pair of hearing aids. With my wife Holly by my side, we found an Audiologist in Culver City, by the name of Dr. Sol Marghzar. During my initial screening, he discovered that I now suffered ninety-five percent hearing loss in both ears. To our surprise, he said he wasn’t willing to sell me new hearing aids until I had specialized surgery on both of my ears. Holly and I were both stunned, but it was the exact bit of elusive information we’d been searching for. There were so many new questions: “Surgery?! What kind of surgery? What’s it called? How? Where? When?” After all this time of being lost, perhaps there was a reasonable explanation to my dire situation. Honestly, this was the first moment I recall feeling some semblance of hope.

Dr. Marghzar suspected I had a rare genetic hearing disorder called ‘otosclerosis’ which is inherited, and caused by an abnormal overgrowth (mineralization) of bone in the middle ear. This condition stops one of the three bones (the stapes) from vibrating, therefore limiting the transmission of external sound from the outer ear (tympanic membrane/ear drum) through the middle ear (hammer, anvil, stapes) to the inner ear, (cochlea) where the signals are then sent along the auditory nerve to the brain.

A1 on baking show at Tastemade Studios in Santa Monica, CA. Feb. 2020. Photo by Wes McLean

Mic’ing Micky Dolenz for Spotify Music Happens Here shoot, Feb. 2017.

Mixing interview with actor/comedian Elon Gold for web docu-series,
The World According to Jeff Goldblum, on March 2, 2020. Photo by Ross Alexander Wilson

If his conclusions were correct then I could be a candidate for surgery called a ‘Stapedectomy.’ This is a specialized procedure where the diseased “stapes” bone in the middle ear is removed, and replaced with a titanium prosthetic. Once healed the new bone allows sound to pass normally through the middle ear to the inner ear.

Dr. Marghzar recommended I go to the House Ear Clinic in Los Angeles. He then put me in touch with Dr. William H. Slattery and got me an expedited appointment with more blood tests and another CT scan to confirm his suspicions. In the meantime, Dr. Marghzar loaned me a pair of higher quality hearing aids, which helped me to continue working and adapt to daily life.

After further testing at the House Ear Clinic, the results confirmed Dr. Marghzar’s findings; my prayers had been answered. I was scheduled for my first of four ear surgeries with Dr. Slattery, between 2004 and 2007, which restored as much of my hearing as possible. Most cases of otosclerosis requires only one surgery for each ear, mine was so bad that I needed two for each ear (initial surgery and a revision). You can only have one surgery done at a time which required a six-month recovery between surgeries. As they were staggered over four years, it felt like a long endless road.

To better illustrate what was happening to me, it helps to draw a comparison between the anatomical functions of the ear and the mechanical functions of a live PA system. Think of the ear drum (outer ear) how the diaphragm in a microphone works by picking up acoustic energy—sound waves and transmitting them through a connected XLR cable, (middle ear) into the PAs amplifier, (inner ear) where they are then amplified and made distinguishable (the brain). Now, imagine if you were to impede the signal flow through the XLR cable, or even worse, cut it off altogether with wire cutters? The outcome is obvious. No sound waves can now pass between the microphone and the amplifier. This is exactly what happens to a person living with Otosclerosis. It’s also called “conductive hearing loss,” because the bones in the middle ear (XLR cable) stop working as a conduit to the inner ear (amplifier).

As for the internal ringing which accompanies otosclerosis, it’s my understanding that much of mine was generated by the abnormal growth of the stapes bone. In a normal situation, the bones in the middle ear only move when the ear drum vibrates in reaction to external sound waves. As the diseased stapes bone mineralizes, it slowly freezes into place against the cochlea, therefore generating the excruciating internal ringing, screeching, clicking, and buzzing sounds that otherwise do not exist externally. It can be absolutely maddening.

First show back since lockdown. Quibi socially distant Zoom interview, June 22, 2020

Today, I have titanium prosthetic bones in both my ears, and I have regained sixty percent of my hearing. Additionally, Dr. Marghzar fitted me with digital hearing aids gaining twenty percent more and bringing my hearing to about eighty percent. I remain vigilant in managing my hearing loss and preserving it. Otosclerosis is a progressive disease, which if left unchecked, and without taking a daily prescribed dose of a fluoride-calcium called ‘Florical,’ it will revert to where it was before my surgeries, and do further damage to my inner ears (cochlea), which is non-correctable.

After everything I’d been going through, the one hurdle I never expected to face—and one that completely blindsided me—was discrimination at work. I know it sounds unimaginable but the bias is very real and exists within the TV industry. This challenge I found to be just as hard to cope with as overcoming my hearing loss. Specifically, because you can’t control someone else’s lack of compassion, education, or willingness to understand a person’s handicap. There were many occasions where I found out, after not getting a job, that I wasn’t hired because an Executive Producer or Supervisor didn’t want to hire a Sound Mixer who wears hearing aids. I became so dismayed with this reoccurrence that it led me to ask many new questions and also take note of certain biases within our industry; how many Camera Operators wear eye glasses (a lot)? I ask this; “If it’s perfectly OK for a production company to hire a Camera Operator who has ‘assisted sight,’ then why is it not ok to hire a Sound Mixer who has ‘assisted hearing’?” This was an epiphany for me and it became my rallying battle cry from that moment forward in order to open people’s minds to this prejudice within our industry. I’ll never forget the first time I employed this analogy when speaking to a Line Producer who was clearly on the fence about hiring me by asking, “aren’t you the deaf sound guy? The one who wears hearing aids?” I responded, “Yes, I do wear hearing aids, but how many Camera Ops have you hired who wear glasses? What’s the difference?” First, I was met with silence on the other end of the phone, and then a reply I didn’t expect, but was happy to hear “Well, you make a very good point there.” It was literally music to my ears because for the first time, I felt like I had gotten through to somebody. I also realized that I was still having to learn to be an advocate for myself, but only now in this completely different context.

There’s not one day that I’m not thankful to Dr. Marghzar and Dr. Slattery for saving my hearing. First thing I do every morning when I wake up is put my hearing aids in, turn them on and I am beyond grateful when the sounds of the outside world begin to filter through and I can simply hear my wife and son’s voices. To be able to continue writing music and working professionally as a Sound Mixer is even more than I could have ever hoped for. Without the love and unending support of my wife Holly, I’m keenly aware that I would never have been able to get through any of this. I have so much gratitude for it all with the lessons I’ve learned. It is my hope that by sharing my story, I can help to inspire others to keep searching, especially in the face of overwhelming circumstances, and in turn, become advocates for themselves to never give up.

Tenet: A Journey

A Conversation with Willie Burton, Douglas Shamburger, and Rene Defrancesch

by Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

Elizabeth Debicki and John David Washington film a complicated speedboat race scene.
Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon. © 2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The release date of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet was delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and finally reached screen audiences in the United Kingdom on August 26 and the United States on September 3, in IMAX, 35mm, and 75mm. Tenet opened in over fifty territories worldwide and was available to about eighty percent of the screens in the U.S., among the forty-five states that permitted indoor viewing. Unfortunately, moviegoers in both New York City and Los Angeles were denied the opportunity. To date, the film has grossed three hundred and forty-one million dollars, which demonstrates the enthusiasm audiences have for a Christopher Nolan film.

I had the privilege of speaking with Production Sound Mixer Willie Burton, his longtime Boom Operator Doug Shamburger, and Utility Rene Defrancesch in Atlanta, New Mexico, and Glendale respectively.

Willie, Doug, and Rene began to describe the nearly five-month shooting schedule with the seven countries they filmed in. It went like this:

Rene: We started in Estonia. We went from Estonia to the Amalfi Coast in Italy, then to London, from London to Oslo, Norway, and from there to… Do you remember the name of the city in Denmark? I can’t remember the name of that city.

Doug: Copenhagen.

Willie: We were in Southampton right before London.

Doug: Yeah, the Isle of Wight. We were shooting off the coast. And we forgot Mumbai, India, that was another…

Rene: And then, of course, Indio, California, and Victorville.

I counted over forty-three locations in all, basically it was Tenet—the World Tour. The initial interview with Chris Nolan went well for Willie as he explains, “I did say one thing, that I’m a little old school/new school, and I think he liked that because he likes the old school way.” Doug picks up the conversation, “It was really bizarre. We were doing a scene on stage and I come out with the wireless boom, ’cause it’s a dolly. We’re dollying backward in the corridor with two actors walking and talking, and Chris looks down at me and doesn’t see a cable, and says, “You’re not hardline? I like to do hardline sound, I don’t like the compression from wireless.”

From that point onward, their department had microphone cables, lots of cable. Rene explains, “It’s easy to get a cable in there, you’re not worried about it too much. But there were a couple of takes in a couple different countries where we’re in a big open space, and a ton of background, and crew members working, and we got hundreds of feet of cable out there, and just people dodging it.”

Doug Shamburger continues, “While I’m back-pedaling, Rene is pulling my cable with two or three other PA’s all trying to help, as we’re doing a Steadicam shot. It was quite a feat.” Willie adds, “Also there were times in long dolly shots that I had to dolly my sound cart, pulling the sound cart and mixing. Rene and a couple of other people are helping him out pulling cables, and I’m dollying at the same time. Chris Nolan looks around at me and he says, “That wheel on your dolly’s makin’ more noise than anything.” “We did what we had to do, and there were times that I had to go portable, while doing three sixty shots. Doug and I, we’re dancing around, I’m running with the recorder on my shoulder and Doug is getting the boom in there. We made it work because that’s how we used to do that old school style. It was great, it sounded good.”

Willie and his team often had to wrap the gear at the end of a long shooting day and get it ready to ship to the next location, usually another country. “We worked a lot of hours,” says Willie, “we would be in one location sometimes just three days. I think, in Oslo, we were only there for a couple of days, we would finish shooting and we would have to wrap the equipment, and get it ready to ship that night. Then we would go out the next morning. It was a lot of hours spent packing, and unpacking equipment, getting ready to ship.”

The entire schedule was not always like this. They spent six weeks in Estonia, filming in Linnahall, shooting a complicated car scene. Willie spent the bulk of that time in the chase vehicle with rooftop antennas, as well as a Deva Fusion in the picture car. The actors wore wires, as well as hard-wired mics in the vehicle. They also filmed in Tallinn, which doubled for the Opera House in Kiev. Then there was a three-week stint at the Amalfi Coast, in Italy filming on the luxury superyacht the Planet Nine measuring just over two hundred forty feet long, it has six decks and its own helicopter pad.

Himesh Patel, Robert Pattinson, and John David Washington

Doug Shamburger, Rene Defrancesch, and Willie Burton on their truck in Mumbai, India.

In South Hampton, England, they filmed a complicated speedboat race scene. Willie describes the challenges, “The boat had to be launched by seven o’clock. So Rene and I had to arrive at six to wire the race boat with my Deva 5.8, set it up, and test it out. We used a quarter-watt transmitter at the stern of the boat in order to transmit the sound to the chase boat that we would be on. I would turn on the recorder and from seven in the morning, it ran the whole time until the boat got back in. The Deva on the picture boat transmitted to the chase boat, where I was also recording the dialog. We used the headsets worn by the actors on the speedboat. The speedboat could go much faster than our chase boat, so sometimes they would take off and we’d be trying to catch up. There was so much wind and water hitting them, it was pretty incredible and very challenging. I think we did a really good job on that.” They also had a mock-up of the hero speedboat attached to a picture boat, where Doug was able to boom the dialog, of course hardlined.

As in all Christopher Nolan films, the plot is complicated, with many scenes where the characters move forward and backward in time, as well as wearing breathing masks. Rene explains, “Because of the nature of the story, you needed a specific type of oxygen. Whenever you were in reverse mode, they had to have oxygen to breathe.”

Fortunately, Willie and his crew had time to prepare how to mic the masks. Willie said, “We did research with Trew Audio and also Location Sound, and found that the Sennheiser lavalier was the one that had the lower sensitivity. There was a tube that came from the mask to their body, and we would mic the very end of the tube, it worked fine. This was based on all of us testing and testing.” Rene adds, “It had to work with the masks, you couldn’t hear the actors clearly with the boom. This is probably the only time Chris accepted the use of wires on his show.”

Every few days in prep, Chris would have meetings called “results meetings,” with every department attending. “The wardrobe department would let us have the mask and the helmets to take with us,” explains Willie, “Rene and I would be doing tests, as Chris allowed us to work a couple of days testing while they were doing camera tests. It made it so much easier because without that, you start a shoot and you’re cold. We had time to figure it out, which was really most important.”

Nolan filmed with 70mm cameras and Willie and crew also assisted in engineering blimps for the IMAX camera. It knocked the camera noise down slightly, but Cinematographer/Operator Hoyte Van Hoytema would hoist the IMAX camera on his shoulder doing it handheld so the blimp proved too cumbersome. Doug Shamburger would have the actors re-enact their movement and dialog immediately after a successful shot to capture a clean performance, wild.

Willie Burton prefers the Zaxcom Deva, with a Fusion, two Deva 5.8’s and a Mix-12. His wireless are Lectrosonics, with a varied mixture of microphones; Sennheiser MKH 50’s, and the Schoeps CMIT 5U, whatever is best for the situation.

I asked them how it was working with Christopher Nolan. Their first comment is that Chris does rehearsals, which allowed them the opportunity to figure out how to boom the scene effectively.

Willie elaborates, “You just have to be prepared with Chris. Chris works hard, he’s always there and you have to pay attention to what he’s doing, ’cause he’ll change things. Thanks to Doug and Rene, who were always there diving in. We could be shooting in one place, the next thing is, oh, we’re over here. But we had everything that we needed. One thing I can thank Chris for is that he took me to scout on all the locations we were filming, all the department heads and now how cool is that!”

“I had this large sound cart, this huge sound cart,” continues Willie, “but by being able to scout the locations, I sized down to a very small cart and now I would never go back to my large one. It’s small and very simple, we could pick it up, move it around, it really paid off.”

“There’s no way you can’t know what’s going on ’cause you’re standing right next to the man,” explains Doug, “I’m talking rain, sun, he’s standing, we’re all in the rain, he’s got his hood off and the rain is pouring down, while he’s looking at these little monitors, these little Casio monitors—was the only video village to speak of, and that was around his neck. When you’re right around camera, he’s standing all day, so if anything, you feel like a soldier, and you’re gonna stand right there next to him shoulder to shoulder with the dolly grip, the DP, a Camera Operator, the First AC, all the immediate people that are primarily involved. It’s just an old school way of doing it, but it’s quite effective. I felt that’s the way movies should be made, not fifteen- to twenty-minute takes where no one can reset or adjust. Chris’s takes run three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, and then we make our adjustments afterward, and improve upon the next take.”

Rene continues, “There was no video feed, but Willie was often close enough that he could see the action.” Doug jumps in, “There’s a sense of camaraderie working on a Chris Nolan movie. He’s a foot soldier, he’s right in the trenches with you. There’s just such teamwork. You’re out there, you may be on a boat with a camera, the camera operator, focus puller, we’re handing mags over to load the camera. We’re all tugging on the same rope trying to make this quality project and it’s just really a unique set of circumstances. Chris Nolan sees, he sees it all and he’s watching how we all work collectively.

“No one’s disconnected or looking at their phone,” says Doug. “You’re totally one hundred percent vested in every given moment throughout the course of a twelve- to thirteen-hour day. He’s right there with you, and he’s got a good sense of humor too. We laughed a lot. Throughout the course of the day, he’s not uptight, but he’s no nonsense. Chris jokes around, with a dry sense of humor, but he’s still right there, making it. It was really an adventure.”

Willie sums it up: “Obviously, it’s a challenging film and when you’re working with Chris, it’s very challenging. But we all lived up to that. Some films are simple, you’re mixing two or three faders and that’s all you do. I like the challenge of figuring it out to get the best possible sound and I like the way Chris works. He’s definitely demanding, but that’s how it should be. I think as a department head, you go to work to give one hundred percent, that’s how Chris works, he won’t ask you to do anymore than he would do. You do a movie like this (unfortunately, I haven’t seen it), but the end result is the most important thing that counts. For me, the performance is in the voice, and when it clicks, it’s very musical.”

How Important Is the Production Mix?

by Simon Hayes AMPS CAS

This question has been asked again and again, over the last two decades on production sound forums, and in conversations between Production Sound Mixers, Picture Editors, and Sound Editors. This is a divisive subject often leading to heated debate especially on forums and professional social media groups. I thought I’d share my thoughts and opinions.

Years ago, we PSM’s mixed to a mono quarter-inch Nagra track, and professional reputations were forged or lost by our production sound mix. There were no ISO tracks to save us should we miss time a fader cue or miss an actor ad-lib. With the careful blending of score and effects, our production sound dialog mix was pretty much what the audience heard in the theatre (give or take some equalization and level changes in post), and if the production mix did not work, the scene would be marked down for ADR.

There was change necessitated by some Directors shooting style; a well-known example being Robert Altman, who required multiple tracks of lavaliers, so his cast could overlap each other, and the advent of multiple track tape-based equipment; the Nagra D or Tascam Hi 8, followed quickly by nonlinear systems from Zaxcom, Fostex, Aaton, and later, Sound Devices, leading us to where we are today.

Similarly picture editorial and sound editorial were moving into nonlinear systems with multi track audio capabilities, the prototype systems of which are in use now; picture editorial using Avid with the ability to import multiple audio tracks, and sound editorial using Pro Tools.

The movies I work on now, I’m finding that the picture editing team is becoming increasingly adept at creating a really great sounding Avid playout with score, and sound effects added seamlessly to the production sound mix.

I have also found that for the last twenty years or so on the projects I work on, that the Dialog Editor will generally rebuild the production sound mix from the component ISO tracks I deliver.

Is this a bad thing? Does this process compromise the PSM’s importance in the filmmaking process? Has the PSM given up an element of control that we previously had when providing a single track mix? Has the advent of the Dialog Editor rebuilding the mix been helpful or a hindrance to the Production Sound team working on the set? And finally, how important IS the production sound mix in modern times?

I’ve been party to recent discussions that PSM’s have become ‘recordists’ rather than ‘mixers,’ and the importance of the production mix has been relegated. In my experience, this could not be further from the truth. I have actually found that the production sound mix is actually becoming more valuable rather than less so, even though the Dialog Editor is likely to rebuild the dialog mix using Pro Tools from the ISO components provided by the PSM.

“When Directors are hearing a really great burgeoning soundtrack in the cutting room from day one, they are more likely to be supportive of production sound rather than feeling ADR is the answer.”

There are a number of factors, the main one being the audio integration of Avid software, and the huge increase of audio skills with Picture Editors and First Assistant Editors using the Avid platform. Directors are increasingly expecting their Avid cut to sound polished, like a finished product. Picture Editorial are committing more time to getting the cut sounding great. The First Assistant Editor is literally working on the Avid sound mix in real time on a lot of the films I work on. The Picture Editor is making shot decisions so that when the Director arrives in the cutting room to catch up after the day’s shooting, they can watch a cut and be completely immersed in a scene that has added score and sound effects.

Increasingly, I am seeing Picture Editors cutting in 5.1. Ten years ago, this was rare but the phenomenon has become more and more the norm over that time. In my opinion, this attention to audio detail in picture editorial is great for production sound.

Hearing the sonically polished Avid cut from the very beginning of the project promotes confidence in the performances we capture on the set. When Directors are hearing a really great burgeoning soundtrack in the cutting room from day one, they are more likely to be supportive of production sound rather than feeling ADR is the answer. A pessimistic view of the quality of the production soundtrack from Directors means the production sound crew is less likely to get that all-important directorial support, which could lead to more collaboration and respect from our colleagues in other departments.

Another positive for our production sound mix as the Avid cut has started sounding better and better is that Directors and studios are more likely to use it for early test screenings of carefully chosen audiences to gauge opinion while still editing. There was a time when it was rare for the Avid cut to get shown without a proper temp mix by the sound editing team closer to the end of picture editing. Nowadays, using the Avid audio mix, the test screening process can begin far earlier.

The ability for the Director to be able to show the Avid cut at almost any stage is incredibly positive for the production sound mix. The temp mix is still vitally important when the test screenings audience gets bigger as the movie is closer to picture lock. Every time the production sound mix is screened the Director and Picture Editor become more confident in the mix and its ability to support the performance and narrative, and less likely for the Director needing to use ADR for technical purposes. I am fully supportive of the use of ADR for performance or storytelling reasons, but I personally feel it is a shame when performances are re-recorded for technical reasons, unless absolutely necessary due to poor location sound.

The time from picture wrap to theatrical release is often growing and the production sound mix remains within the Avid for many months (sometimes over a year!), due to a number of reasons, the main one being VFX delivery. Since this is the only reference the Director has to the performances, our production sound mix has to be great, and instil confidence, not just in the technical aspect of the recording but in the creative realm as well.

So why is it necessary for the Dialog Editor to rebuild our production sound mix from the ISO’s? I always look at it from the Dialog Editors’ perspective. They understand that often we are shooting rehearsals; dealing with ad-libs, watching a monitor as we mix, assessing if we could get more carpet in for the next take to reduce footfalls, giving our boom ops edges of frame through comms as we shoot with two or three cameras, particularly if the cameras are using zooms.

With the additional ISO tracks we record, there is so much more we are having to cope with. Along with the critical part of our jobs, adjusting input gains on mic pre-amps as we record. We are having to react to so many more variables during a take than purely mixing our faders. I feel it is more important to get the input gains on my mic pre-amps absolutely dialled in to provide technically excellent ISO tracks, rather than making sure the modulation on my mix track is perfect to nearest 1db. I am confident that the Dialog Editor will read my sound reports to find out which ISO components I used in my mix track, and work through my ISO’s to decide whether my instinctive and fast-paced decision to use a boom for a line of dialog was misplaced, and the track would have benefitted from the actor’s lavalier. We are able to provide choices for the Dialog Editor and it would be arrogant to assume that we always make the right choices between the lavs and booms when we are in the moment, during the creative process of a take. For that reason, I carefully write the elements of my mix on the sound reports, going into detail if need be. I am confident that I am delivering the best mix possible for what I perceive to be the Director’s vision.

I am also conscious that if I was the Dialog Editor, I would use the mix as a starting point, but go through the ISO tracks and listen to other choices. Even if the PSM made all the correct choices, I would still go back and rebuild the fades and balance levels using the ISO’s in the comfort of a quiet cutting room, listening through studio monitors critically, with the time to audition a mix, replay and adjust if necessary. Rebuilding the mix using the ISO components allows the Dialog Editor and the Re-recording Mixer the opportunity to “steal” words or even syllables from previous takes to help performance, or remove unwanted background noise that is unfilterable.

When I spoke to Re-recording Mixers and Dialog Editors about this article, what was most prominent was their use of de-noising plugins in subtle and creative ways with the ISO tracks. They can achieve finer detail with each ISO track rather than far broader brush strokes leading to obvious artefacts when using the same process on the mix track. This workflow is incredibly important to reduce ADR, and protect the creatively fragile original performances we capture on the movie set.

Mixers on the set have read the script, understand the story, and do their best to convey the narrative that best fits the Director’s vision. Once shooting wraps, the Director and Picture Editor may decide that two scenes in the script in linear form will be better served by intercutting to build tension or other qualities the Director wants to convey.

“It is wonderful that we are able to give creative choices to our Directors and colleagues in picture and sound post, that previously we were unable to.”

Let’s say on the first scene the PSM has mixed using the booms, with beautiful perspective; the wides sound wider, the mid shots sound mid and the close-ups sound close. In the next scene, there was an ambience or background noise issue with the booms, or perhaps the Director wanted to shoot wide and tight at the same time, so the booms never got close up coverage, forcing the PSM to prioritise the lavaliers in the mix. This scenario is very common, and it simply doesn’t work to be cutting between the two scenes with one playing air around the mics with camera perspective on the booms, and the other scene using the forced perspective of the lavaliers. Thankfully, the Dialog Editor has the ability to completely remix the first scene with the lavalier ISO tracks to intercut seamlessly with the second scene. When the audience watches those scenes in the theatre, there are no uncomfortable shifts in audio perspective that takes the viewer out of the cinematic experience.

Another pertinent point in this discussion is the picture cut and the relationship with the score. The Director may have been presented with a beautifully written and performed score by the Composer. The Director decides that this new piece of music really enhances the emotional performances in the scene and he/she asks the Re-recording Mixer to really push the volume. In our example, the PSM has been presented with a beautiful location or set to record in, with no acoustic or background noise issues, a single camera or two with matching headroom allowing us to play the camera perspective, letting the acoustics breathe and use the booms alone in our mix.

Now that the Director has asked to push the volume of the score, they will reach a point, while using the fantastic sounding camera perspective boom mix, that the Re-recording Mixer has to say to the Director, “We can’t push the score any louder without swamping the dialog on the wide and mid shots as there is room acoustics and the dialog is less upfront.” The Re-recording Mixer can offer to use a lav-only mix which allows the score to be pushed a few decibels higher without swamping the production dialog, as the lav perspective is all close regardless of camera angles. A second bonus is that the louder score will potentially hide any clothing/costume rustle from the lavalier tracks that we were concerned about while shooting the scene!

There are numerous ways in which ISO tracks are being used creatively to support the Director’s vision, both visually and acoustically. I am particularly proud we are able to supply the components, and it is wonderful that we are able to give creative choices to our Directors and colleagues in picture and sound post that previously we were unable to. With this reason, I see no negative in the fact that on films and higher budget television shows our production sound mix is usually re-mixed to support the narrative and final picture cut. It simply means MORE production dialog is likely to make it into the movie theatres with LESS reliance on ADR for technical reasons, which can only be a good thing for our craft, the theatre-going audience and the protection of the actor’s original performances.

Emmys

Creative Arts Emmy Sound Mixing Winners 2020

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A VARIETY SERIES OR SPECIAL

The Oscars
ABC • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Paul Sandweiss, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team
Audio Maintenance: Jeff Peterson, Alex Guessard
Monitor Assist: Phil Valdivia
Lead A2: Steve Anderson
A2’s: Bruce Arledge, Debbie Fecteau, Eddie McKarge,
Larry Reed, Craig Rovello, Ric Teller
Orchestra Setup: Dan Vicari
Pop-Up Mic Tech: David Mounts
Pls: Keith Hall, Stephen T. Anderson, Juan Gallardo
Tommy Vicari, Orchestra Music Mixer
Biff Dawes, Music Mixer
Pablo Munguia, Pro Tools Mixer
Kristian Pedregon, Post Audio
Patrick Baltzell, House PA Mixer
Michael Parker, Monitor Mixer
Christian Schrader, Supplemental Audio
John Perez, VO Mixer
Marc Repp, Music Mix Engineer
Thomas Pesa, Orchestra Monitor Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A NONFICTION OR
REALITY PROGRAM (SINGLE OR MULTI-CAMERA)

This image released by Neon/CNN Films shows a scene from the film “Apollo 11.” (Neon/CNN Films via AP)

Apollo 11
CNN • CNN Films, Statement Pictures, Neon

Eric Milano, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE

Watchmen • This Extraordinary Being
HBO • HBO Entertainment in association with White Rabbit,
Paramount Television, Warner Bros. Television & DC Comics

Douglas Axtell, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Chris Isaac, Jesse Parker,
Steven Willer, Patrick Anderson, Colt Logan, Josh Tamburo
Joe DeAngelis, Re-Recording Mixer
Chris Carpenter, Re-Recording Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A COMEDY OR
DRAMA SERIES (HALF-HOUR) AND ANIMATION

The Mandalorian • Chapter 2: The Child
Disney+ • Lucasfilm Ltd.

Shawn Holden, Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Ben Wienert, Veronica Kahn, Jamie Gambell, John Evens, Daniel Quintana, Phil Jackson
Bonnie Wild, Re-Recording Mixer
Chris Fogel, Scoring Mixer

OUTSTANDING SOUND MIXING FOR A COMEDY OR
DRAMA SERIES (ONE HOUR)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel • A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo
Prime Video • Amazon Studios

Mathew Price CAS, Production Sound Mixer
Production Sound Team: Carmine Picarello, Spyros Poulos
Ron Bochar CAS, Re-Recording Mixer
George A. Lara CAS, Foley Mixer
David Boulton, ADR Mixer

*Names in bold are Local 695 members

Back to School Season

Back to School Season:
How to Prepare for the Return to Work in Hollywood

by James Delhauer

Our industry has changed. A disease that would have felt right at home in a dystopian sci-fi flick brought the world grinding to a halt and Hollywood stopped right alongside everything else. The soundstages, sports arenas, and production sets where we make our art have been quietly empty for months. Debate continues to revolve around new safety etiquette and protocols to be implemented on set and while strict regulations have yet to be codified. It has become apparent that all of our jobs will have been changed by the pandemic by the time we return to them. For 695 Video Engineers—whose responsibilities can include media playback, on-set chroma keying, off-camera recording, copying files from camera media to external storage devices, backup and redundancy creation, transcoding with or without previously created LUT’s, quality control, and syncing and recording copies for the purpose of dailies creation—our role is going to become critical. With what time remains before a full-scale reopening, it is highly recommended that industry workers take advantage of current learning opportunities and endeavor to prepare themselves to meet these new challenges.
The first and most important priority going forward is safety. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) advisories regarding sanitation, wearing masks, and social distancing are still in effect and should be adhered to strictly. Beyond that, it is imperative that workers familiarize themselves with the industry white papers and documentation being compiled by the IA, DGA, SAG-AFTRA, the AMPTP, the Teamsters, and the studios. These protocols are for the protection of everyone and must be followed consistently and correctly if they are to be effective. To do this, everyone on set must have a thorough understanding of what these new protocols entail. Moreover, it would be wise to look up local city, county, and state health guidelines for any production on which you are hired as different regions present different degrees of risk.

On an equally important note, the coronavirus has either created or exacerbated negative mental health issues across the world. After months out of work, civil unrest, and seemingly unending uncertainty, emotional burnout is a growing problem. As we strive to navigate this brave new world, it is crucial that personal well-being and care be taken into account. Depression and anxiety, which have become pandemics in their own right, impair executive function and will make returning to work more difficult for many. Fortunately, there are many mental health resources available. Mental health services are available through the MPI Health Plan, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, Optum Health Services, and many private health insurance plans. Optum Health, in particular, is the mental health service provided through the MPI and should be taken advantage of by those to whom it is available. If you do not qualify, services such as BetterHelp and TalkSpace work with individuals to match clients with a licensed counselor at a price that they can afford. There are also public and private agencies available to help those in need of low- or no-cost mental health services that can be found by searching for “Federally Qualified Health Centers” within a local community. For daily guided meditations and assisted relaxation, the app Headspace is currently available for free for those who have lost their jobs as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

On the set, the most notable change that we are likely to encounter is decentralization. The days of congregating behind video village after a quick stop at the buffet-style craft services table are over. Social distancing guidelines will require the usage of the cloud-based and streaming services to communicate information and content quickly between relevant parties on set. While it may sound rudimentary, Skype and Zoom are going to be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Learning one or both of these programs now, while things are slow, should be a top priority. Free platforms such as OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) can be used to simultaneously record and stream camera inputs in compressed formats so that content can be sent directly to the required parties’ personal devices in real time but can also be uploaded to the cloud for future use. This is a practice already commonly used in the creation of gaming content, giving film and television production an ample supply of examples to draw from. In2Core’s QTake—a commonly used video assist platform—can be configured to stream media to intended recipients over an end-to-end encrypted cloud service while allowing clients to view metadata, enter annotations, and comunicate with Video Assist Operators in real time. Services such as MediaSilo and Frame.io are used to share dailies among necessary individuals and allow for metadata tagging, notations, and near real-time feedback.

Much of this will require the integration of computer networking in ways it wasn’t previously being utilized. Closed network access can allow productions to collect and distribute digital assets as needed in a manner that secures files from unwanted access. More digital files will require more network-attached storage devices, such as the rNAS from Pronology—a solid-state-based system developed by Local 695 member Jon Aroesty. Server-based recording in conjunction with file-acceleration services such as Signiant and File Catalyst remains the fastest way to deliver content from set to post-production. As such, a baseline familiarity in storage, network switching, routing, and IP configuration could prove invaluable.

As many video engineers serve as an intermediary between production and post-production, it is also necessary to possess a fundamental understanding of post-production workflows. Remote editing work may continue for some time for our brothers and sisters in Local 700, meaning that there is no room for error when it comes to the files we provide. Nonlinear editing applications such as Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve form the core of their workflows and so they must be a part of ours. Each application relies upon or excels with specific video formats or codecs, meaning that engineers will need to be familiar with the most prevalent ones, which include the Apple ProRes suite, the Avid DNx family, REDCODE .r3d files, ArriRAW, and the various h.264 formats. More recent codecs, such as ProRes RAW, Blackmagic RAW, and HEVC h.265 have not seen wide adoption on set as of yet but are projected to become more prevalent as products support for them continues to grow. Many of these formats require the usage of high-end workstations to process efficiently (or at all) and so a basic understanding of computer hardware may prove advantageous.

There is a wealth of information available for all of these products and services online. White pages, product manuals, workflow guides, and technical support information can be downloaded from most manufacturer websites. Many offer certification programs for the purposes of familiarizing users with the ins and outs of their products. LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an educational platform where users can take classes across a staggering variety of subjects and is available for free to all IATSE members at https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil. Experts across just about every subject imaginable have flooded no-cost platforms like YouTube with videos, overview, courses, tutorials, and discussions that allow a layman to become an expert in due time. With the majority of the nation’s higher education institutions opting not to reopen their doors in the fall, course loads have migrated online. Low-cost community college courses can be taken more conveniently than before the plague. As a bonus, workers enrolled in accredited online courses may be eligible for student discounts on computers and software, potentially nullifying the cost of the class entirely. Many four-year universities offer free online continued educational opportunities to their alumni. In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Local 695 Board has allocated funds to continue education programs for its members. Members who are interested should be sure to view the “Education and Training” page of the Local 695 website and keep an eye on the 695 Announcement emails for news on upcoming training. Requests for new training content can be submitted to edu@local695.com.

When all else fails, Google is your friend.

But more than just education and learning, we need the two things that Hollywood has always thrived on most: diversity and creativity. In this time of unprecedented change, there are no experts in what the new sets of tomorrow will look like. No one person has all of the answers. Our membership is one of diverse backgrounds and experiences. The lives we have lived have prepared each us for today’s challenges in different ways. Moreover, Local 695 members remain the best in our fields and we all have different tools at our disposal. As our responsibilities evolve on set, it is up to us to lead the charge in finding solutions to new problems; to find new and unconventional ways of utilizing the resources at our disposal for the safety and betterment of the entire set. This is the time when standing in solidarity with one another is going to matter most.

Soon, productions will begin again. When they do, it is likely that all of us will be facing a deluge of work as content creators strive to make up for lost time and appease a starving audience. This is a very real light at the end of a very dark tunnel. New infrastructure, technology, and responsibilities may put us in the enviable position of being more in demand than we were before the pandemic in spite of the push to move workers off set. Now it’s up to us to prepare for this coming moment of opportunity so that we may grasp and use it to get our lives back on track and begin to move past this entire dystopian tragedy.

Increasing Production Efficiency While Working Through a Pandemic

by Steve Nelson CAS

As we prepare to return to our jobs doing sound and video on scripted television and features, there is much work being done to develop guidelines and practices to ensure our health and safety while working in an extremely risky environment, the likes of which we’ve never seen.

As I write, the world is beginning to open up, the stay-at-home orders are being relaxed—even though in many places infections and fatalities are still on the rise. It is important to keep in mind that barring some miraculous and unexpected turn, by the time Hollywood starts up again, it is highly unlikely that there will be either a cure or a vaccine for COVID-19. In the meantime, when you are offered work and you have questions or doubts, call the union, whether you’re a member or not. If you are uncomfortable or feel unsafe, speak up.

The logistics of workflow, the details of equipment sanitation and distribution, PPE and personal hygiene, lunches, transportation, etc., will come having been vetted by the proper authorities, medical and governmental, labor and management. We will work out equipment handling protocols, shared equipment, the need for increased audio and video distribution throughout the set and beyond, and who exactly does what.

We do know that when we return to work, things are going to look pretty different, but our mission will remain the same: performing our job as excellently and smoothly as possible.

I’d like to focus on what Local 695 members can do in our departments to make this a more friction-free enterprise and thereby increasing production efficiency while maintaining a safe workplace.

As we all by now know very well:
Successful Infection =
Exposure to Virus x Time
–Erin Bromage PhD, Comparative Immunologist, Professor of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

The AMPTP with the IA safety committees will devise plans to reduce exposure, but whatever Local 695 members do to reduce the time factor will help make for shorter days and less chance of infection. This may also offer us an unparalleled opportunity to address some longstanding issues in the workplace under the banner of safety.

Shorter working hours are under serious consideration, industrywide, as a way to avoid stressing immune systems and reduce fatigue-induced sloppiness and mishaps. (Somewhere, Haskell Wexler is cheering.) Time has always been the issue; moving forward, everything will be slower and more difficult than before; time will be an even more precious commodity.

The work that we do in video engineering and production sound is dependent on so many factors outside our control. The best remedy is prophylaxis, done in anticipation of future problems. Knowing our craft, anticipation, communication: these are the tools we must use, more than ever.

Pre-Production
This is the time to dig in and solve problems before they happen. Analyzing the script, doing your breakdown, reaching out, and communicating with the departments and individuals who will have the most impact on your work. In feature films, pre-production tends to be more leisurely with a bigger window to identify and solve problems; our participation is expected and we can be an integral part of the process. In episodic television, we may be hired late in pre-production, and invited on the final tech scouts. We’ll attend the final production meeting but due to our crew size, it will be impossible for us to participate in the scouts or meetings during the season. We rely on information from other departments to keep us ahead of the curve.

One possible benefit of the new guidelines is that scouts and meetings will be held online which may make it easier for us to “attend,” though it will still be challenging for us to participate, again due to our staffing and our on-set responsibilities. The drawback is not having that time off-production to get to know the players before the shooting starts by bonding with the other players during the long van rides to the locations.

This time of FaceTime and Zoom meetings is a great opportunity to be an advocate for sound in pre-production. It is incumbent upon us to take advantage.

Your job interview with the producer(s) and director is when you can ask about shooting style. Will this be a cameras-on-dollies show or handheld? How many cameras, and will they approach the scenes with similar lens sizes and head room? Removing overhead mics with visual effects, known as painting out the boom, has become pretty commonplace; is this a practice they can employ? Who are the crew members who must be provided video monitors for live preview and playback and where will they be located?

By asking lots of questions, even if the answers change on the day, you’ll be ready.

Radio Mics
They are not going away, mixers are too heavily invested in these tools to give them up and neither will our colleagues in editorial and post. In episodic, it is expected that cast will be wired, and they will come by the Sound Department first on their way to set. I’m not saying that we should wire everybody in every scene; sometimes it’s not necessary or wrong. However, if everyone, including the cast, is OK with it and it’s expected, why not? Even if it’s not in your mix, it might provide the one piece of track that allows the Dialog Editor to enhance the scene and avoid ADR.

We’ll do it safely and efficiently to keep all the arrows in our quiver available and ready with the one thing that brings us in closest contact with cast, in concealing the mic and having it sound not just good but great! Since we have already broached the subject of using the fantastic and increasingly more affordable technologies available for visual effects, how great would it be if we could bring that tiny mic out into the open, just a little; how many problems would that solve? While not as easy as painting out overhead booms, exposed lavaliers can be removed by VFX. The VFX Supervisor on my last show estimates about five hundred dollars per shot, with the cost diminishing with subsequent shots.

If you haven’t read the story about the Oscar-winning sound on Les Misérables, do not delay, look up the 695 Quarterly from way back in Winter & Spring of 2013 (it’s on the website) and you’ll learn some things about how to take an impossible situation and make it sound great.

Video Village
With the need to minimize the number of crew members on the shooting set in Zone A, much more remote video monitoring will be needed to provide live preview and scene playback to multiple crew members in many locations. Video Assist Technicians and Video Engineers can provide a wider reach for video distribution with expanded Wi-Fi for near-set use, as well as network and cloud streaming for much broader coverage, capable of relocating some crew members far off the stage and reaching anywhere in the world.

Locations
All too often we arrive at a location that seems to have been chosen for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes not just for sound, but for every other department as well. There is a myriad of reasons why this happens, but when a director falls in love with a location, there is little remedy. However, to avoid these problems, we should do our due diligence and judge in advance of the company’s arrival with the help of our virtual scouts and communication with the Location Department. Forewarned is forearmed. Are there measures to be taken that would mitigate the problems? Can traffic be controlled, the construction paused, the dogs housed in a kennel? Acoustic treatments? Or are the problems insurmountable and we move on?

We should always be prepared that the location will in fact, suck for sound. Perhaps the powers that be are aware of the issues and are counting on our ingenuity to “make it work” and, if not, to accept the loss and “fix it in post.”

The performances happening on the day are important—and we know time is of the essence, and we’ll do all we can to try to ensure suitable locations are chosen.

Camera
The use of multiple cameras has become absolute in our world—with a few rare exceptions. This style can indeed increase production efficiency and, if done properly, without impacting our work. It’s best if ground rules can be established early in the process. Similar headroom and focal lengths, avoiding the wide & tights can all make a big difference in keeping the work flowing smoothly. We can establish ahead of time that the boom can bust the frame to catch the simultaneous tight shot, or that we have a great wireless option to use. That is why we have all those tracks available. Even if this modus operandi has not been clearly established in prep, there is always time to have the conversation and make new ground rules. Which is a much better alternative to stopping the proceedings to get clearance every time this happens.

Costume
An actor might be dressed in a costume and accessories so noisy that it conflicts with the body mic and even affects the boom track. What can we do to avoid these situations?

The best remedy is always prevention; communication and preparation can help prevent the problem before it shows up. With the longer prep schedules for features, you can meet with the Designer and Supervisor, tell them your concerns and enlist their support. If costumes are recurring, it is possible to have them build-in your wireless, or at least make accommodations. In episodic television, this may be a luxury as many times the actors are cast the night before they work so it is a mad scramble for everyone. But if the Designer is aware of the impact their choices can have on our work, they can make a huge difference. Try to get shoes treated with soft soles. Work with the background costumers and production to have the background show up with soft-soled shoes. It saves a lot of time ferreting out the noisy BG walkers and treating their shoes or laying miles of carpet.

Other Considerations
Other changes in the way we work will include greater physical/social distancing on and around set to reduce the potential viral load in the workspace. The Sound Mixer will be even further from the set. For some of us this is normal, others might have to make some accommodations. Solutions can be to remote your receiving and transmitting antennas or receivers. Be ready with an open mic and to distribute audio for the very first marking rehearsal of the day, and subsequent rehearsals, as we will not be allowed all those people on set like we used to.
We’ll have to reduce our interactions with other crew, particularly regarding shared equipment. Perhaps wireless timecode slates that don’t require physical jamming, and giving the Camera Department its own rechargeable batteries and charger of course. Plan for Comteks to be assigned to individuals or departments for the run of the show, much like walkie-talkies. Supply them their own batteries and chargers that they’re responsible for. No more shared headphones; they are single-use/single-user or they should provide their own earbuds. Finally, take that courtesy cellphone charger off your cart!

It is certain that when we do get back, the highest priority will be keeping our workplaces infection-free. Despite the meticulous and rigorous guidelines, there will always be the chance of someone getting sick. There is talk of two weeks’ sick pay for those that do, much more generous than what we normally have. If someone in your department falls ill, it would be best to have a backup plan to stay functional and not derail the work. This will be more complicated than grabbing another transmitter to replace one that’s failed! When staffing, consider having as much redundancy built-in as possible. Your utility can certainly boom, but can they run the cart and mix? Keep a short list of available crew who are familiar with your setup and could step in. There will be a vetting process for admitting new people to your production bubble, likely to involve testing; keep your people close, just in case. If you’re not already working, keep your status updated on the Available to Work page; perhaps the Local can update it more frequently with more detailed information.

Everything at work is going to be very different and pretty intense for a while. We’re hoping for some great medical breakthrough that will allow us to return to something closer to normal. In the meantime, we might have a chance to address some longstanding points of friction and create improvements to make our work run more smoothly that will carry on into the “newer” normal.

Here are the links to the Les Miz articles. Well worth the time! It may really change the way you think about what you do.
https://magazine.local695.com/magazine/winter-2013
https://magazine.local695.com/magazine/spring-2013

An Update on EXOSKELETONS

Hands Held High

by Bryan Cahill

In my dual roles as a height-challenged Boom Operator and Chair of the Injury Prevention Committee at IATSE Local 695, I have spent the last two years testing exoskeletons to determine if they are a viable support system for boom operators in avoiding repetitive injuries due to excessive takes. In my previous articles, I’ve articulated which exoskeletons best fit our needs.

After extensive on-set trials by myself and many other boom operators, I have concluded that exoskeletons are without a doubt, useful when holding a fishpole boom at shoulder level or higher. During testing, I auditioned equipment from three manufacturers: the EksoVest by Ekso Bionics, the ShoulderX by SuitX, and the Airframe by Levitate Technologies. While each unit has unique qualities, the Airframe by Levitate Technologies stands out due to its ease of use, lightweight, and freedom of movement.

Levitate Technologies has also been very responsive to my suggestions and continues to show great interest in entering our market. Based on my feedback, Levitate has been making prototype components exclusively for our industry and continually improving performance of the Airframe.

The Airframe in the last year has been on the set of Schooled with Chris Walmer and Rachel Schroeder, The Goldbergs with Howard Eriksson, American Housewife with Dave Hadder, American Horror Story with Raam Brousard, as well as several other sets. The reviews have all been very positive.

My belief is that within five years, Airframes and/or other exoskeletons are going to be on almost all sets, similar to an Easyrig for the Camera Department. The question is how do we get from where we are now to the Easyrig scenario?

Through the articles I have written for Production Sound & Video, along with my posts on social media, I am getting texts, emails, and phone calls from sound people all over the world asking how they can get their hands on one.

So far, I have been unable to help anyone outside of the Los Angeles area.

My goal is to reach a point where exoskeletons are available whenever and wherever boom operators feel they will be beneficial. However, the cost of around five thousand dollars per unit makes buying one a difficult decision, especially for someone who hasn’t experienced the benefits firsthand. If users were able to rent one or even better, get production to rent one, the financial burden would be removed.

Unfortunately, rental units have been unavailable. None of the manufacturers are in the business of renting out their equipment. On top of that, these devices are so new to our industry that none of the local rental houses are carrying them yet. Therefore, I have purchased an Airframe, available for rent, to help bridge this gap and get an exoskeleton into the hands of boom operators.

The next step is convincing line producers to lease a piece of equipment they have never leased before. I’m sure a few years ago, people scoffed at being able to get a production to rent an Easyrig. Now, they are on almost all the sets I visit because it is a SAFETY ISSUE! This is how to pitch exoskeletons to producers.

Extended takes are causing injuries to boom operators and the AMPTP is well aware of this SAFETY ISSUE. Scott Bernard, our Business Rep, is very supportive of the effort to make exoskeletons available on set. Scott has told me that he would be extremely interested to learn if production declines a request for rental of an exoskeleton when presented as a safety device.

When the line producer asks, “Is it really necessary?” present them with a copy of the Safety and Health Awareness sheet available on the Contract Services website at: https://www.csatf.org/extendedsuccessivetakes/ and reply, “absolutely!”

A friend and excellent boom operator recently went on permanent disability at age forty-five. I was out six months last year due to rotator cuff surgery. Most of us know of many similar stories. If you find yourself in a situation where you are unable to work due to injury, Local 695 is able to grant disability dues waivers and I encourage you to contact the Local. My concern is and has always been for the individuals who can’t work due to injury, but this SAFETY ISSUE has effects extending beyond just the Sound Department reducing production efficiency en masse.

An experienced boom operator can actually improve production efficiency by anticipating problems and quickly devising solutions before production is even aware of the situation. As a boom operator gains experience, they pay an ever-increasing toll due to the repeated effects of excessive takes leading to a greater chance of injury. Loss of experienced boom operators due to disability is a loss of institutional knowledge.

I might not be as strong now at fifty-seven as I was at twenty-seven, but I am a smarter boom operator with thirty years of experience and still quite capable of filling the needs of any production.

I do not see a future where take length is being limited due to the possibility of injury. That seems to be an intractable position. I can however, foresee a time quite soon when we all have support equipment available to us that will help keep us safe. From a personal standpoint, I cannot wait and when I am booming, I will have an exoskeleton.

If you or your production decide you would like to have an exoskeleton available to you, I will bring it to your set, properly fit you and give you access to a number of online tutorials, a manual, and other information produced by Levitate Technologies. The rental rate for the Airframe is the same as an Easyrig for camera: $125/day, $375/week, or $1125/month. It is a modest but exciting step forward.

Currently, I am testing another exoskeleton, the CDYS, made by Crimson Dynamics in China. It may offer a more affordable alternative. I am also still bringing the loaner given to me by Levitate out to sets for a week at a time. If you want to try one, it is a great way to get a test drive at no cost. So, let me know if you are interested in renting or a free trial or purchasing your own. You can contact me on Facebook, LinkedIn, or through the Local. I’m confident I can put you in contact with the right people.

José Antonio Garcia CAS & Da 5 Bloods

Directed by Spike Lee, Da 5 Bloods, streaming on Netflix, tells the story of four African-American vets who return to Vietnam, searching for the remains of their fallen squad leader played by Chadwick Boseman and the promise of buried treasure. The cast of Delroy Lindo (Paul), Clarke Peters (Otis), Norm Lewis (Eddie), and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Melvin) are later joined by Paul’s concerned son Jonathan Majors. Together, they battle their own demons, rivals and nature, while being confronted by the lasting devastation of the Vietnam War.

(L-R) Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Melvin, Norm Lewis as Eddie, Clarke Peters as Otis, Delroy Lindo as Paul, Jonathan Majors as David in Da 5 Bloods. Photo by David Lee/Netflix ©2020

When did you begin shooting and where were your locations?

José Antonio Garcia: It was a year ago. We were based mostly out of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. We spent a couple of days in Bangkok and a week in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in Vietnam,

Now how long was the shoot?

José Antonio Garcia: It was three months and it was very intense. The locations were very difficult and the logistics to get all the gear up there. Sometimes it took half a day. The locations weren’t close. Call times would be very early, we’d have breakfast and then climb up the hill, and then shoot until sundown. It was a good twelve hours and by the time you got back to the hotel, it could be fourteen.

The dialog recording is very good, what did you use?

José Antonio Garcia: Most of the sound is wires because we were shooting with two cameras constantly, pretty wide most of the time. In some instances, we were able to plant mics, but the majority was the wires, because of the logistics of light, the sun, two cameras, and lots of ‘oners.’

(L-R) Jonathan Majors as David, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Melvin, Norm Lewis as Eddie, Clarke Peters as Otis, Delroy Lindo as Paul walking through the rice paddies. Photo by David Lee/Netflix ©2020

The camera setup for the rice paddy scene.

Was it difficult to wire because the costumes had to be sweaty or wet?

José Antonio Garcia: That was a major battle because they were constantly keeping the costumes wet, spraying them with water mixed with glycerin to look like sweat. I was constantly washing the Sanken lavs because eventually the element gets wet. The humidity and the heat prevented anything from sticking. For most of the actors, I had them wearing the URSA lav chest straps. My wires are Lectrosonics and I was recording on the Sound Devices 688 with the CL-12 mixer. Sometimes I needed two 688’s because of the amount of people involved, eleven in some scenes.

Your longtime Boom Operator is Jonathan Fuh, and he prefers the Sennheiser 50.

José Antonio Garcia: I love the ‘50,’ my favorite sound. Other brands of microphones wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in the humidity and heat.

Were you mostly with a bag rig or did you have a cart?

José Antonio Garcia: I had both. We sometimes went with the bag, but that was limited to six receivers. If I needed more, I’d take the Venue off the cart and just go with a battery.

There is a lengthy boat scene where they go upriver, sort of an homage to Apocalypse Now. There couldn’t have been much room for you and Jonathan between the cast and the camera.

José Antonio Garcia: There was no room. Jonathan got in there, he never stands down, but you know, he is a filmmaker, so yeah. Most of the time, it was a fight to get space on the boat. I was on the roof. We started with myself and Video Assist, but then we were going under some bridges that were kind of iffy, so I wanted to minimize the danger. I ended up running the video system, and the audio from the top. Always ready to jump in, in case the bridge was too close for comfort.

That’s very challenging. The entire movie is on location. Did you have any built sets?

José Antonio Garcia: Very few. There were a couple of them, an old house they redid very nicely, another was the radio studio set of Hanoi Hannah, a little set built at the same location of the Apocalypse Now Disco in Ho Chi Minh City.

How was it working with Spike Lee?

José Antonio Garcia: I love the man, he is so energetic, so contagious with his energy. I think it defines him very well that the first day of shooting we did the Black Lives Matter scene. A lot of people think it was an afterthought, but that was day one of the shoot. He flew all these people from the States to Chiang Mai. It was amazing, that’s the spirit of Spike, he’s very convinced about his beliefs. He really pushed us with his vision and it’s very, very contagious. This project reminds me of my origins; documentaries. The way Spike shoots is very similar to a documentary. There was barely any time to prep and, just get there and shoot, move on. Sort of like carrying a piano up and down the mountain. It was intense, but I love working with him.

What were some of the other challenges that you faced?

José Antonio Garcia: I would say mostly the many different locations. The crew was really cohesive and we worked very well together. The actors were always cooperative. Delroy Lindo can be very intense, but when it was time to switch out a lav, he was very cooperative. The biggest challenge was the logistics. We had very limited time, and we were moving very, very fast. Obviously, the humidity, and the wardrobe department with its need to keep the costumes wet with “sweat.”

(L-R) Director Spike Lee, Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Melvin, Delroy Lindo as Paul, Jonathan Majors as David, Clarke Peters as Otis, and Norm Lewis as Eddie of Da 5 Bloods. Photo by David Lee/Netflix ©2020

In the scenes where Delroy was walking through the jungle, all handheld. How did you manage that?

José Antonio Garcia: The terrain was very uneven. Jonathan had to boom between the branches and stay above the camera to be safe. There were moments he could come in, but mostly, I would say I stayed with the wire. Most of the show, I wish we had had more opportunity to use the boom because it sounds richer, fuller. We had two locals helping, one called “Pop,” Charat Phonwon, who was very good and experienced and Ford Samart, who had never been on set, he was a trainee, but he had a trerrific disposition. He would help us get things from the truck. Pop was pretty good at wiring. We would have a whole row of cast, and Pop and I would wire one after the other. Because I had a washing machine, I was doing the laundry for the chest straps every night.

Did you bag the transmitters because of the sweat?

José Antonio Garcia: Most of the time, the transmitter was in their pants pockets. We placed the mic element of the Sankens upside down so they wouldn’t get wet, but eventually the glycerin would find its way in. I would wash them in water and hang them and hope that they will work fine again the next day.

Jonathan Fuh finding the perfect spot to boom.

Antonio doing video and mixing on the river boat.

Does Spike like to have the actors improvise?

José Antonio Garcia: In a scene between Jonathan Majors and Delroy, there were lots of cicadas, Spike had them improvise “What is that sound?” Delroy, “cicadas.” Jonathan answers, “Cicadas don’t sound like that in Brooklyn.” That was the reason for that. Their levels to the cicada ratio was good so that helped.

What was it like shooting in Vietnam?

José Antonio Garcia: I loved it, Saigon is amazing. The French influence, the styles, architecture, a fantastic city. Fantastic. Very alive, very, very different. I really enjoyed my time there, but I wish I could have been able to stay longer to see the rest of the country, but I had to come back to do a Clint Eastwood project.

(L-R) Clarke Peters and Delroy Lindo. Photo by David Lee/Netflix ©2020

The movie is full of references to other films.

José Antonio Garcia: Yes, Spike does that with Apocalypse Now and the walk-through the rice paddies and The Treasure of Sierra Madre, with the line, “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” The homage to Marvin Gaye, I think is beautiful, where they’re singing while walking. That was very difficult to achieve, and I’m very proud of that one. It was the entire song, so it was a very long walk. We remoted the antennas for the wires and my team was walking them back. Without walking the antennas, I wouldn’t have had any reception. I got a lot of exercise. I lost serious poundage.

The script is fantastically written and delivered. The long scene with Delroy walking through the jungle talking to the camera was amazing. I couldn’t see him, but when we filmed that scene, I got chills. It was really intense. Sometimes with the performances, I turn off the image because it’s all in the voice. The image can stupefy you, it’s beautiful, beautifully composed, you can get distracted. For me, the performance is in the voice, and when it clicks, it’s very musical.

Mixing The Mandalorian: Season One “This Is the Way”

by Shawn Holden CAS

Imagine my excitement when I was invited on board as the Production Mixer on The Mandalorian, the first-ever live-action Star Wars television show. Now, amplify that when I learned that we’d be shooting with the never-been-done-before technology and techniques for an episodic series. Naturally, I was beyond thrilled to be part of such a groundbreaking shooting experience and the future of filmmaking.

The largest and most sophisticated virtual filmmaking environment of its kind; I’ll always remember that first day stepping into The Volume. With its twenty-feet-high LED screens wrapping two hundred seventy degrees around with two 18×20-foot-wide panels behind the camera that moved in and out of position, creating an almost perfect circle with about a seventy-five-foot-diameter performance space in the middle—topped off with a LED video ceiling.

This technology and the way it was being used allowed the filmmakers to have real-time, photo-realistic effects captured in-camera. It gave us pixel-accurate 3D virtual sets, using powerful gaming and motion-capture technology. The background content would move along with the camera to allow for perfect camera perspective. This was all done with tracking balls on the camera and infrared cameras around the set.

The images that were projected on the LED screens were amazing. A beautiful sunset could be kept at magic hour all day! Maybe a few more clouds passing overhead to reflect in The Mandalorian’s helmet? Just load in a different sky passing over in the LED ceiling.

On the set of The Mandalorian, season one. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Volume was indeed something to see in action, but with all the advantages, came an array of unique sound challenges that we had to address. There was a dot on the floor at the dead-center point of The Volume. In our first meeting during prep, I walked out to this spot with one of our producers, and we started having a conversation to experience the effect that The Volume produced. Speaking to each other at a reasonably low volume, I could hear my voice, amplified, coming from behind me!

It was then that I knew I was going to need some help. I called in a specialist, an acoustical engineer, Hanson Hsu, with Delta H Design. From the center point of the space, he calculated our voices would reflect every two and a half inches around the entire perimeter of the wall at one hundred percent with no decay. Hanson explained that the best solution to allow us to capture usable dialog in this space would be to somehow change the pitch of the LED wall by just a few inches.

Photo by Francois Duhamel/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Of course, changing the wall’s pitch, the angle of the LED screens, would not be possible. Why? In changing the pitch of the screens, you render the desired effect of the LED’s useless. Working with Hanson, we were able to come up with what we hoped would be a workable solution. He had developed a technology—ZR Acoustics. For our application, ZR Acoustics are screens or devices as Hanson refers to them, measuring four by eight feet, and about an inch and a half thick, weighing just over twenty-five pounds that we hung on rolling stands, vertically. The screens don’t absorb sound or deflect it, rather they take the air that sound travels in and breaks it apart to make the reflecting sound disappear. It’s actually quite remarkable.

The screens could help us provided we could get them placed within four to eight feet of the actors to work correctly, but therein was the challenge. The images that the LED screens were projecting were at times spilling light into the scene. When this was the case we could only use the sceens sparingly between the space where the light was emanating. We also had to be keenly aware of the infrared cameras being used for the camera positioning data. Add to this that we had to be extremely mindful of the potential of the screens reflecting in The Mandalorian’s armor. These challenges were met, gratefully, with a spirit of collaboration, thanks to our DP’s Greig Fraser and Baz Idoine, Jeff Webster, our Gaffer, and the gaming engine crew. When we were able to position the screens where they could best be utilized, knocking down unwanted sound reflections, it allowed us to capture usable dialog in this challenging environment.

It also helped a great deal when practical set pieces were placed within The Volume to break up the reverberant space. Of course, anytime we were shooting inside a spaceship, cabin, or any interior space within The Volume stage, we were able to get great sound.

Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Lucasfilm Ltd.

Shooting in The Volume was not the only challenge. In addition to The Volume, and an additional conventional stage, we used an exterior backlot location. It was an old asphalt lot covered in layers of sand and dirt. Like many exteriors in Los Angeles, this backlot area was enveloped with ambient noise—air traffic, road noise, and train tracks well within earshot. Freight trains would slowly come through, loud, and inevitably stop and idle. Along with the freight trains, a nearby Metrorail train would pass through. The good news was that the Metrorail passing by sounded much like a spaceship coming in for a landing!

The backlot location was mostly utilized for action sequences, stunts, pyro, and shootouts, and less for big dialog scenes. Production was very aware of the challenges of this location and those times when we did have heavier dialog scenes we knew that with luck, cooperation, and coordination from our entire team, we could all get what we needed. But sometimes when things didn’t go our way, you just have to understand that it is what it is and not stress about it. I think anyone ever shooting an exterior dialog scene in Los Angeles knows what I’m talking about.
My crew on the first season of The Mandalorian consisted of Ben Wienert on Boom and Veronica Kahn on Utility duties. I could not have asked for a better sound crew. They both stepped up to the challenges of this show and excelled. It was a pleasure to have them on my team.

Shawn Holden CAS. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Lucasfilm Ltd.

This show has its own set of unique challenges when it comes to sound. When watching the series, you may have noticed that our lead character, The Mandalorian, has a very shiny costume. We see absolutely EVERYTHING reflected in it!

Production loves seeing the reflections of the environment rolling by in his helmet or the stars reflecting in his suit as he’s flying through space. There was always a delicate balance of how and where the boom can be placed to stay out of all these reflections, and my team did a fantastic job of doing just that!

On the set of The Mandalorian, season one. © 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd.

When we were able to position the screens where they could best be utilized, knocking down unwanted sound reflections, it allowed us to capture usable dialog in this challenging environment.

Unlike most other episodic television shows, we are fortunate that most of our main characters have one costume that they wear throughout the season. This enables us to build microphones into costumes and leave them in place. We built a microphone and transmitter inside The Mandalorian’s helmet. The first season, he had six different helmets. We built mics into each one so we were always prepared no matter which helmet he would wear. He also usually wears an earwig to hear the other actors, as well as the VOG mic from the director. We have actors in animatronic masks and some with prosthetics that also need the earwig communications to hear direction properly, as well as to hear the other actors. To facilitate communication on our sets, we always have the VOG and speaker set up and ready to go.

I record the show on a Cantar X3 using my Cooper 208 mixing panel. My Boom Operators use Schoeps CMIT’s and a combination of Sanken, DPA, and an occasional Countryman B6 for lavs. When we plant mics, it can be a Schoeps CMC6/41, CMC6/4, or DPA 4098.

As a Production Mixer, The Mandalorian has indeed been an exciting show, and one with unique challenges. I’m proud of our great sound team and an excellent collaboration from our filmmakers and crew. Together as a team, we have all learned so much, and I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to be part of this groundbreaking show, utilizing techniques that I believe will be the future of filmmaking.

2020 Primetime Emmy Awards

Nominations for Outstanding Sound mixing 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards
September 12 & 13

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

Better Call Saul
“Bagman”

Phillip W. Palmer, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Aaron Grice, Andrew Chavez
Larry Benjamin, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Kevin Valentine–Re-Recording Mixer

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
“A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo…”

Mathew Price, CAS–Production Sound Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Carmine Picarello, Spyros Poulos
Ron Bochar–Re-Recording Mixer
George A. Lara–Foley Mixer
David Boulton–ADR Mixer

Ozark •Netflix•Media Rights Capital
“All In”

Felipe ‘Flip’ Borrero, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Jared Watt, Akira Fukasawa
Larry Benjamin, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Kevin Valentine–Re-Recording Mixer
Phil McGowan, CAS–Scoring Mixer

Star Trek: Picard
“Et in Arcadia Ego: Part 2”

Peter J. Devlin, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: David Raymond, Chris Hall, Brandon Loulias
Todd M. Grace, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Edward C. Carr III, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer Michael Perfitt–Scoring Mixer

Stranger Things
“Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt”

Michael Rayle–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Dan Giannattasio, Jenny Elsinger,
James Peterson, Julio Allen, Nikki Dengel, John Maskew, Patrick Miceli, Jesse Parker
Mark Paterson–Re-Recording Mixer
William Files–Re-Recording Mixer
Craig Henighan–Re-Recording Mixer

Westworld •HBO•HBO Entertainment in association with Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television
“Parce Domine”

Geoffrey Patterson–Production Mixer
Jorge Adrados–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Jeffrey A. Humphreys, Chris Cooper
Keith Rogers–Re-Recording Mixer
Benjamin L. Cook–Re-Recording Mixer

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited Series or Movie

American Horror Story: 1984
“Camp Redwood ”

Alex Altman–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Raam Brousard, Brenton Stumpf,
Ethan Biggers
Joe Earle, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Doug Andham, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer Judah Getz, CAS–ADR Mixer

Devs •FX Networks•FX Productions
“Episode 3”

Lisa Piñero, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Randall L. Johnson, Charles Stroh, Michael Primmer, Renzo Garcia
Mitch Low–Production Mixer
Production Team: Stephane Malenfant
Howard Bargroff–Re-Recording Mixer
Glen Gathard–Foley Mixer

El Camino:
A Breaking Bad Movie

Phillip W. Palmer, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Mitchell Gebhard, Andrew T. Chavez
Larry Benjamin, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer Kevin Valentine–Re-Recording Mixer
Stacy Michaels–Foley Mixer

Hollywood
“Hooray for Hollywood”

John Bauman, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Ace Williams, Kris Wilcox
Joe Earle, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Doug Andham, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer Bob Lacivita, CAS–ADR Mixer

Watchmen •HBO•HBO Entertainment in
association with White Rabbit, Paramount Television, Warner Bros. Television & DC Comics
“This Extraordinary Being”

Douglas Axtell–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Chris Isaac, Steven Willer
Joe DeAngelis–Re-Recording Mixer
Chris Carpenter–Re-Recording Mixer

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

The Mandalorian •Disney+•Lucasfilm Ltd.
“Chapter 2: The Child”

Shawn Holden–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Ben Wienert, Veronica Kahn,
Jamie Gambell, John Evens, Daniel Quintana, Phil Jackson
Bonnie Wild–Re-Recording Mixer
Chris Fogel–Scoring Mixer

Modern Family
“Finale Part 1”

Stephen Tibbo, CAS–Production Mixer Srdjan Popovic–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
William Munroe, Dan Lipe,
Richard Geerts
Brian R. Harman, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Peter Bawiec–Re-Recording Mixer
Dean Okrand, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer

The Ranch
“Fadeaway ”

Laura L. King, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team: Vic Ortiz,
Matt McFadden, Gilbert Castro,
Joanna Copland, John Hart
Bob La Masney–Re-Recording Mixer
Kathy Oldham–Re-Recording Mixer

Schitt’s Creek
“Happy Ending”

Bryan Day–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Andrew Chung, Constance Hilton
Martin Lee–Re-Recording Mixer

Space Force
“SAVE EPSILON 6!”

Ben Patrick, CAS–Production Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Jeffory Haddad, Cary Weitz,
Corey Woods
John W. Cook ll–Re-Recording Mixer
Bill Freesh–Re-Recording Mixer

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
“Jessie Reyez”

Tim Lester–Production Mixer
Patrick Weaver–Front of House Mixer

Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones

Brian Riordan–Re-Recording Mixer
Connor Moore–Re-Recording Mixer

62nd Grammy Awards

Thomas Holmes–Production Mixer
Mikael Stewart–Production Mixer
John Harris–Broadcast Music Mixer
Eric Schilling–Broadcast Music Mixer
Ron Reaves–FOH Music Mixer
Thomas Pesa–Stage Foldback Mixer
Michael Parker–Stage Foldback Mixer
Eric Johnston–Playback Music Mixer
Pablo Munguia, CAS–Pre-Recorded Music Mixer
Juan Pablo Velasco–Pre-Recorded Music Mixer
Bob La Masney–Supplemental Audio Mixer
Josh Morton–Post Audio Mixer
Kristian Pedregon–Video Packages Mixer
Paul Sandweiss–Video Packages Mixer

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
“Episode 629”

Steven Watson–A1 Production Mixer
Charlie Jones–Supervising Music/Production Mixer
John Kilgore–Music/Recording Mixer
Steve Lettie–Front of House PA Mixer
Paul Special–Music Mixer
Tony Rollins–Monitor Mixer
Dave Swanson–Pro Tools Playback Mixer
Jayson Dyer Sainsbury–Pro Tools Music Mixer

The Oscars

Paul Sandweiss–Production Mixer
Tommy Vicari–Orchestra Music Mixer
Biff Dawes–Music Mixer
Pablo Munguia–Pro Tools Mixer
Kristian Pedregon–Post Audio
Patrick Baltzell–House PA Mixer
Michael Parker–Monitor Mixer
Christian Schrader–Supplemental Audio
John Perez–VO Mixer
Marc Repp–Music Mix Engineer
Thomas Pesa–Orchestra Monitor Mixer

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

Apollo 11

Eric Milano–Re-Recording Mixer

Beastie Boys Story

William Tzouris–Production Mixer
Jacob Feinberg–Production Mixer
Martyn Zub–Re-Recording Mixer

Cheer
“Daytona”

Ryan David Adams–Re-Recording Mixer

Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time

Gary A. Rizzo, CAS–Re-Recording Mixer
Stephen Urata–Re-Recording Mixer
Danielle Dupre–Re-Recording Mixer
Tony Villaflor–Re-Recording Mixer

RuPaul’s Drag Race
“I’m That Bitch”

Glenn Gaines–Production Mixer
Ryan Brady–Production Mixer
Erik Valenzuela–Re-Recording Mixer
Sal Ojeda–Re-Recording Mixer
Production Sound Team:
Krysten Kabzenell, Justin Garcia

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness
“The Noble Thing to Do”

Jose Araujo–Production Mixer
Royce Sharp–Production Mixer
Jack Neu–Production Mixer
Ian Cymore–Re-Recording Mixer

BAFTA TV 2020

Winners for the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy TV Craft Awards
BAFTA Craft Awards Winners were Announced July 17

Outstanding Sound: Fiction

Winner
Chernobyl
“His Dark Materials” •Bad Wolf•BBC Studios•HBO/BBC One
Dillon Bennett, Jon Thomas,
Gareth Bull, James Ridgway
Production Team:
Jeff Welch (Boom Op)
Jason Devlin (1 Assistant Sound)
Sarah Quinn (Boom Op)

Outstanding Sound: Factual

Winner
Battle of the Brass Bands
“Seven Worlds, One Planet” •BBC Studios/BBC One
Graham Wild
Kate Hopkins

Names in bold are Local 695 members

The Road Back

by Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

As productions all around the world began shutting down in mid-March, we were faced with a sudden and unprecedented work stoppage. It was a chaotic time with the expressed belief that this was only a two-week thing, or maybe a month, but no longer. Some four months later, the industry is making efforts to wake from its dormancy, but definitive start dates are still theoretical.

All of us struggled to fathom the sudden hardships and navigate applying for unemployment or other means of financial aid, as well as keeping ourselves and our families whole. Forgotten for the moment in this pandemic was our friendly, reliable sound equipment sales & rental houses, and equipment manufacturers. These businesses are part of our family too.

I decided to survey them and find out how they dealt with the sudden closure orders and what the future of their businesses might look like. I spoke at length with: Glen Trew of Trew Audio; Gene Martin, Audio Department; Mike Paul of Location Sound and Peter Schneider of Gotham Sound. Amongst our manufacturers: Charles Parra, Denecke, Inc.; Gordon Moore of Lectrosonics; Brenda Klemme of K-Tek; Ron Meyer of Professional Sound Corporation, and Jon Tatooles of Sound Devices. I did reach out to both Zaxcom and Wisycom, but I received no responses.

All of these companies were considered “essential businesses,” as they supply the broadcast industry, but the reaction to the shutdown orders and the threat of COVID-19 forced all of them to completely reassess their business needs.

Glen Trew explains, “We never shut down Trew Audio, but we furloughed a lot of the staff probably eighty-five percent, and kept on all of our service technicians. They haven’t missed a beat since the beginning, primarily doing repairs and custom parts for broadcast video. We decided to apply for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help us, and it allowed us to hire everyone back in the United States on April 20.”
“Our initial response was the hard one,” said Gordon Moore of Lectrosonics, “we furloughed the entire plant, and told them to apply for unemployment. We continued to pay all of their health insurance. There were about eight people coming in on a daily basis; payroll still had to be processed, there were shipments still in transit, critical parts, a normal load of repairs, and a lot of it from the news divisions of NBC, ABC, CBS, all sending gear in to be serviced. We called in our Service Department and said you guys can keep working.”
The Audio Department were by appointment only. K-Tek immediately considered the safety of their employees and had only essential staff come in to the shop to make sure vital orders went out. “I had to set up a home office so I could manage the kids being out of school while trying to keep the company going,” said Brenda Klemme. “It’s been a huge challenge and I am grateful that my employees have been so understanding. We also had to put our new product launches on hold, which has been frustrating. Sales will be back and new products released, but we have to wait for our customers to go back to work.

“We furloughed some staff, and kept our remaining staff on with reduced hours. New York State has an amazing program called ‘Shared Work,’ which allowed us to reduce the hours and rotate people accordingly. Georgia has a similar program too, so we were able to remain open the whole time providing support for the broadcast media.”

Over at Location Sound Corporation, Mike Paul said, “Around the 15th or 16th of March, we looked at could we stay open with a skeleton crew, but it became obvious that we were just going to have to completely shut down. We did go for the PPP loan, and we officially opened to the public Monday, June 1, with a very reduced staff.”

Charles Parra of Denecke, Inc. said, “We just sent the guys home on March 20, and kept them on the payroll. Kim and I would come in and basically, we had a few repairs in the two months span or so. During the downtime, I started working on new projects. So, the good part of that is we’ll probably have some cool new Denecke stuff later on in the year.”

Professional Sound Corporation furloughed the staff, but continued to pay for their health insurance while they were on unemployment. Ron Meyer continued to come in to work and deal with any customer needs. “We’ve been in business over thirty-five years. I’ve been through writers’ strikes and 9-11, earthquakes, and other things that have disrupted business. But I’ve never seen it taken down to this level so fast in my life. It’s a new learning experience for sure.”

Jon Tatooles of Sound Devices spoke to me from their Reedsburg (Wisconsin) office. “We closed the Madison office, and since we were defined as a company that supplies broadcast tools to organizations worldwide, whether it’s the BBC, Al Jazeera, White House communications, NBC, and all the relevant players, we had to maintain operations to continue to support those customers and any repairs.” Jon continues, “We also recognized that there was a need for face shields and PPE, so we put a little skunkworks group together, all working at their homes to come up with how to manufacture an open source design that the University of Wisconsin had put together.”

They manufactured their FS-1 and FS-1NL face shields and by March 24, they began to sell them at cost to healthcare workers and hospitals to help protect them from the COVID-19 pandemic. “We started producing about four hundred per day. As we’ve increased production to thirty thousand per day, one of the most difficult aspects has been procuring enough parts to build consistently,” said Matt Anderson, CEO and President of Sound Devices.

Between May and June, with the assistance of the PPP loans, most of the companies brought their employees back with shorter hours, rotating shifts, or part-time employment. They all enforced social distancing, wearing masks, face shields, sanitizing surfaces, plexiglass dividers, and curbside pickups. There were little to no customers due to the production shutdown. The PPP loans covered about an eight-week period, once they were depleted, several companies had to reluctantly furlough some of their employees once again.

Brenda Klemme explains, “We have most of our machine shop and assembly crew back, but we are going slow. Everyone has their own space and are wearing masks. No one is allowed in the shop except for employees. We are getting a small boost in boom pole sales from media crews which is helping keep us busy.”

At Lectrosonics, “Right now we’re back in a full-time basis,” said Gordon Moore. “Everybody is working, getting a forty-hour paycheck and, no overtime. We’re maintaining a very safe work environment. We have a mask requirement, we temperature test when they arrive in the morning. If they’re over 100.4, they go home. We’ve had zero COVID cases with one hundred and forty-eight people. Goal number two is that we keep everybody’s job, and goal number three is of course, we keep the company alive. Whether I make a profit or not, I couldn’t care less this year, as long as the company can continue to move forward.”

The nine companies I have spoken with have all survived a protracted and demoralizing economic downturn. They have taken care of their employees with a remarkable sensitivity toward their welfare, while weighed down with continuing expenses of just keeping their businesses operating.

Once production begins again, how do they see the future?

Glen Trew said, “They’re starting to buy more equipment in preparation for the comeback and get stuff repaired, or maybe get things fabricated. Every week, we’ve seen an increase, so the confidence level is coming up. It’s coming back.”

“I think we’re going to see a lot more implementation of wireless PL systems,” Peter Schneider posits, “interfacing two-way radios with the wireless PL and wide-area communications on top of that. The role of the Sound Department is going to be greatly expanded, because now you really need wireless frequency coordination and communications coordination.”

At K-Tek, Brenda explains, “We are looking at selling more interview-style boom poles, extendable hand grips, and more mic accessories that allow for social distancing. We are also looking at our organizing bag products to see how they can be used on sets to carry a new array of supplies to keep sets safe.” As for the future in product announcements and customer relations, “It feels like we have quickly adapted to online Zoom meetups and product announcements but we really miss meeting our customers. I can’t wait until we can plan our Boom Right with Ken Strain seminars in person or K-Tek road trips. People want to see and demo products in person.”

With the new set of protocols and limited interaction with crew and cast, I asked what technology might become more useful.
Charles Parra immediately spoke of their new sync box, the JB-1, which is as small as a nine-volt battery and can be handed off to the Camera Department, maintaining sync for the entire day as a way of jamming the timecode slates and cameras.

Because of the recommendation of more off-site viewing, Peter Schneider said that they work on what they call that “first mile of connectivity” from the set to a broadband connection. Gotham Sound works with their customers to facilitate the connection of the video and audio signals. “We have to allow for as natural an experience as possible and how to get that communication going with ultra-low latency.”

The increase of Zoom-type meetings will continue and companies like Sound Devices with their MixPre series, provides an excellent means of better sounding computer-based interactions. Gordon Moore feels that their PDR and SPDR mini-sized recorders might find increased use with cast as we will be required to limit our contact.

But everyone is confident that once production begins, it will roar back and we will be needing everything from PPE, expendables, to new recorders, microphones, and wireless.

Glen Trew sums it up: “I think probably now more than ever, supporting your local bricks-and-mortar is very important because it does make an absolute difference. If they can stay open and keep their local people employed, it will make the biggest difference now than ever before.”

Adapting to a New Reality

by Laurence B. Abrams

Office Meeting 2020

Local 695 received its Charter and joined the IATSE on September 15, 1930

On September 15 this year, Local 695 celebrates ninety years since receiving its Charter as a Local Union in the IATSE. In those ninety years, the membership has experienced dramatic periods of industry growth and contraction, with the latter putting strains on our membership during the tough times of natural disasters, financial disasters, and international wars. But nothing compares to this global health crises and the complete industry shutdown that it caused.

Events are evolving quickly, and we know there’s still a long road ahead. But we’re confident that the picture will be getting better for everyone and we want to fill you in on some of what the Local has been working on.

In the days preceding Gov. Newsom’s and Mayor Garcetti’s stay-at-home orders back in March, the Local 695 office staff had already completed preparations for the changes we saw ahead. By the time we were forced to close the office, all software and training were in place to seamlessly enable a fully functioning off-site working environment with remote desktop access and teleconferencing for the entire staff. Without interruption, the unusually high volume of phone calls and emails from members continued to flow as usual. Maureen, Casey, Cindy, Linda, and the rest of the 695 staff had full access to all software and data needed to run the Local, and all member inquiries and issues were promptly handled.

One of the first tasks we faced was to pass on to the members—via phone, email, website, and Facebook—the massive and continuous flow of quickly-changing information that was coming to us sometimes hourly. This included matters pertaining to paychecks, health and health insurance, pension, unemployment, government relief, financial and social assistance programs, and many more areas where our members were seeking news and guidance. The COVID-19 Information Page on our website continues to be an active resource for important and continuously updated information to assist the membership in every way we can.

During those first weeks of the crisis, when the industry halted all film and television production, Scott, Joe, and Heidi teamed up with the IA and other Locals to reach out to as many production companies as possible to convince them to offer some form of severance pay for members released from their jobs. Having worked so hard for these companies throughout our individual careers, we were grateful to see that virtually all the major studios and most of the smaller companies came through with at least two weeks of separation pay, and sometimes even three, four, or more weeks. For many members, this was an important stopgap before unemployment benefits and newly enacted government assistance programs began distribution of much-needed payments, grants, and loans to our members, providing at least partial replacement for wages lost.

Another project Scott launched was having the office staff place phone calls to each of our Local 695 Retirees to check in on them and make sure they’re OK and to see if there was anything the Local can do to help. Linda and Heidi have been making those calls and they say without exception that the members are happy to know the Local is reaching out and they appreciated the effort to help them access the many assistance resources that are available.

Through these stay-at-home weeks, we’ve also been continuing our education program by offering members a diverse assortment of free training resources. In addition to online tutorials, teleconferencing has proven to be a very effective training platform and we’ve already conducted many specially adapted classes, including “Communication Skills on Production” with Blas Kisic, as well as “Networking Crash Course: Audio & Video IP Essentials” with James Hunt and “Qtake: Streaming Networks for Video Assist” with Jeb Johenning. This is very important training for our members, especially now, with such high demand for IP Networking skills that can enable new workflows to relocate some crew members at a greater distance or completely off the set, creating a safer working environment for all. Watch for more of these classes.

However, we’re disappointed to announce that exactly at the wrong time, when this training is needed the most, Contract Services has suspended the CSATF Skills Training program, which includes courses that were either free or reimbursed two-thirds. We’ve proposed a scaled-back training program and will continue to work with CSATF in an attempt to do so but in the meantime, Local 695’s Board of Directors has authorized emergency funds to allow us to continue training, with the support of the IATSE’s Training Trust Fund, as well. Please take advantage of this time and review the many free training opportunities announced via email and listed on our website.

Throughout these two months since the stay-at-home orders went into effect, daily staff meetings on Zoom have been the glue that holds the 695 office team together—usually at 3 p.m. for the entire staff, with additional smaller group meetings taking place throughout the day, very effectively achieving the same level of continuous collaboration we’re accustomed to at the office. We’re still receiving a high volume of calls and emails asking for help, and as you have probably seen, the office is getting to them right away, resolving issues as they come in. If there is anything we can help you with, don’t hesitate to email or call the office.

As of this writing, we’re beginning to see the outlines of a path back to film and television production. We don’t know when that’s going to happen or what that’s going to look like, but one message we can send the producers today is this… All of the two thousand Sound, Video, and Projection professionals of Local 695 stand ready and anxious to come back to work for you. We’ve been cleaning our gear, building new cable and training up a storm, ready to implement the newest Audio, Video, and Projection innovations to solve your most complex production challenges. Very soon, let’s celebrate together the re-opening of movie theaters across the country and let’s continue to develop the networks and streaming media services that served us so well as Americans sought safety at home. Look at the great work Local 695 members achieved in the last ninety years, and imagine where our creativity and new technologies will take us in the years ahead.

The Video Engineer

Leading the Industry Back to Work Using Networking

by Thomas Vanasse, Local 695 Video Engineer

OVERVIEW:

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a worldwide disruption and the entertainment industry is no exception. Faced with barriers to work that didn’t exist a few months ago, Video Engineers have updated existing workflows to help circumvent some of those challenges and solve the problems of how to get back to work. These workflows are viable regardless of the length of the disruption and will increase efficiency afterward.

This article will highlight aspects and details of some of those workflows and outline a future roadmap. In short:

• Safety – Distance is key, and networked separation allows necessary crew to maintain proper distance.
• Security – Encoding, watermarks, two-factor authentication, account approval, and tested secure networks allow sensitive content to remain in the proper hands.
• Efficiency – Networked delivery of live and recorded video, audio and metadata to on, near, and far set. 24/7 access to creative, footage, VFX, and post. Instant collaboration empowers all departments to coordinate better and faster product.
• General Workflow – Illustration of the video engineering networked workflow, and simple description of connections and procedures.
• Road Map – The future of data-driven production, and how Video Engineers are already at the cutting edge.

SAFETY:

The primary obstacle productions face is safety. Without that, the rest would be a non-starter. For this situation, the answer is distance. Some of what was once achieved by congregating on set must now be achieved by monitoring.

Monitoring at a near distance, whether it be in a separate building or a near set trailer, can be achieved by setting up a local network in wired or wireless configurations. Access to the live stream or previously recorded shots is accomplished by either a monitor or an interactive access point such as a phone or touch screen. Support teams can occupy previously sterilized spaces and issue instructions over a chat line, with an audio feed, or physically interact with the set on a limited basis if that is the only option.

Far distance monitoring can be achieved by cloud streaming to offices and residences. Various available hardware and software solutions may be utilized depending on the needs at distance. The cloud services can include live streams with playback only, or also include remote clip viewing 24/7 on home or mobile devices.

This system was used recently on an episodic series, where the actors each had cameras at their homes. The multiple video and audio feeds, along with the metadata, were recorded by the Video Engineer. Live monitoring, playback and assorted cues & overlays were simultaneously fed to the director, DP, 1st and 2nd ADs, script supervisor, and five actors in their respective homes. The footage was relayed to editorial and there was almost no person to person interaction.

SECURITY:

The secondary barrier is security, as many productions have sensitive content and communications. Local 695 Video Engineers have adapted several different secure encoding and transport protocols to ensure that the streams and files are viewed only by approved parties. From open source methods such as SRT to Qtake to Core-verified cloud services, encryption provides the necessary assurance that the creative is contained. In addition, watermarks and streaming approval with two factor authentication of both the live feed and any clips ensure that even approved sources are limited only to the work at hand and that all data is traceable. There has been an immense amount of testing by the studios to confirm the security of these networks.

Although the streams and files are encrypted, there is still very little latency, so that all monitoring departments can comment and give input in real time. Proxies to editorial can have burned in user data to accelerate identification and origination source, as well as director and script notes embedded in their metadata.

EFFICIENCY:

Instant feedback while safely maintaining distance eliminates the third barrier of delay due to distancing by speeding up what could otherwise be a much lengthier process. While not optimal, having all departments focused on monitoring the work allows necessary duties to be performed while priority access is organized. Crews can see when they are needed rather than having to be located and directed.

Remote linking is also an improvement as creatives would not be required to travel to set, freeing up their time and room in production budgets while still allowing immediate creative input and feedback for post production and VFX. Witness cameras can also give an overview for lighting, Art Department, blocking, and parental supervision—all at a distance.

Pre-visualizations, scores, visual effects, and roughs are immediately available and can be altered as soon as the supporting departments update them.

Recently, the set for a large blockbuster in production was relocated so that the director and crew could work remotely. The Video Engineer was able to record, play back, and live stream from a completely different location.

GENERAL WORKFLOW:

The flowchart shows a generic workflow that is applicable now and into the future.
At the hub of operations is the Video Engineer cart. Signals are received from on-set cameras and processed for distribution. Second or third units on other stages or on distant locations are streamed via LAN or cloud to the cart as well. All video is sent to the Video Assist cart and sound cart, allowing video with embedded audio to be received back from the Video Assist cart and forwarded to several destinations. (Depending on the size of the production, some of these operations may be combined.)

Signals are sent to any secondary villages, lighting board ops, and star production trailers, regardless of distance. The Video Engineer also encodes the signals to an NDI (network device interface) or other codec and sends them over the network to wardrobe, lighting, grip, and camera trucks. Simultaneously, the signals are streamed wirelessly to devices around the area, as well as to an SRT server for distribution to editorial, writers, and VFX offices. Another destination is cloud streaming to devices, either by the Video Assist or Video Engineer.

The Video Engineer’s coordination of signals—wireless, wired, video, audio, and metadata—will result in vast improvements to the efficiency and stability of the workflow.

This workflow has the ability to scale up or down and has the capability to reach anywhere there is internet or cellular service with very little latency. Any video or audio codec can be ingested and many streaming codecs can be used for distribution.

Bandwidth and storage requirements are also scalable, so costs keep pace with production needs and aren’t wasted.

ROAD MAP:

Network scaling maximizes savings and efficiency by only using resources that are needed during production, while enhancing interconnectivity and ensuring safety.

The Video Engineer is also on the forefront of the virtual set, providing workflows for motion-capture-based productions or Video Wall environment productions (sometimes called the Volume). These systems utilize networked digital environments to represent reality and are part of a growing re-thinking of entertainment production that is larger in scope than possibly any previous industry-wide change.

Whatever the change, the Video Engineer is currently developing the workflows at the leading edge of the technical curve and will continue to provide the experience and creativity that powers the technical future of the industry.

CLOSING:

The use of network workflows has solved many aspects of the current dilemma imposed by the pandemic. They are applicable to almost any production and will scale and continue to improve as the Local 695 Video Engineers adjust to the changing needs of production.

Dead to Me

by Steve Morantz CAS

In July of 2018, I was in New York City on vacation with my family when I got a text from one of my favorite producers, Jessica Elbaum, asking me if I was interested in doing a Netflix series with my most cherished actress, Christina Applegate. I already had another job lined up to start in September, and I would have usually said no, but with a two-and-a-half-month window and the opportunity to work with two of my favorite people at the same time, I couldn’t refuse. The show was Dead to Me.

I first met Christina Applegate in 2007 when I worked on the pilot and two seasons of Samantha Who? To this day, I consider it my best all-around experience I have ever had on a job. If you ask the majority of the crew, they will tell you the same, it was something special. When the show was cancelled, I was extremely lucky to move across the CBS Radford lot to mix five amazing seasons of Parks and Recreation which turned out to be my second-best experience.

I kept in touch with Christina through the years, and we worked together again on the Up All Night pilot and later, the Los Angeles portion of the feature film Vacation.

I worked with Jessica Elbaum the first time on the feature The House. She came over to us and said, “I’m Jessica and I am good friends with Christina. She speaks the world about you and your team.” Since then, I have done four projects with Jessica.

Dead to Me centers on ‘Jen’ (Christina Applegate), a recently widowed mother of two, whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run accident. In a grief counseling group, she meets a free spirit named ‘Judy’ (Linda Cardellini), who recently lost her fiancé. They bond and have many late-night phone calls helping each other cope through their difficult times. Judy is not who she seems, as her dead fiancé, ‘Steve’ (James Marsden), is actually very much alive, and eventually it is revealed that Judy and Steve were the ones who hit Jen’s husband with their car.

Judy moves into Jen’s guest house and between dealing with Jen’s two children who are having a hard time, the police investigating the hit-and-run, the Greek mafia, and Jen’s mother-in-law, things get crazy really quickly. There is a substantial amount of crying in Seasons 1 and 2. It has been labeled a dark comedy and it is definitely that. There is so much going on, enhanced by Liz Feldman’s fantastic writing and a great cast. Liz makes it all flow into one big roller coaster ride with each episode ending in a cliffhanger. It has become a big hit with Season 2 quickly greenlit. The reason for that success is that the majority of the writers and directors are women.

Both seasons have substantial practical locations The show is set in Laguna Beach, which they used for B roll. Instead, we spent a lot of time filming in San Pedro, the San Fernando Valley, and Raleigh Studios Hollywood in Season 1.

L-R: Steve Morantz, Dirk Stout & Mitch Cohn on the last day of Season 2

In Season 2, we shot in Glendale at Riverfront Stages, which had constant construction and a nearby equipment rental warehouse with condors running all the time.

The locations were not the most sound-friendly either, what locations are these days? We were always under the flight path when shooting in the Valley, close to the ocean in San Pedro, and a lot of locations by the freeways. The scripts called for a lot of soft-spoken dialog, when they weren’t crying or screaming, but we were able to always get what we needed.

My incredible team of Dirk Stout on Boom, working with me off and on for more than ten years, and Sound Utility Mitch Cohn, sixteen years and counting, always make my job easier than it should be.

My cart consists of a Midas M32R Mixing Console, two Lectrosonics Venue 2’s and a Lectrosonics D2, a Sound Devices Pix260 and 970, Lectrosonics SMV’s, Comtek’s, and IFB’s. At the end of the season, I added a second D2 and one less Venue 2. My two Zaxcom 743 plug-on transmitters for the booms have been replaced by the Lectrosonics DPR.

My mobile setup is on a PSC Eurocart with a Sound Devices 688, Sound Devices SL-6, Sound Devices Cl-12, and Lectrosonics SRC’s. The 688 is in a bag, so whenever I need to go over the shoulder, I just disconnect two cables and I’m off and running.

For Season 1, my go-to lavs were the DPA 4061 and 4071 with the Sennheiser MKE-1 used in specialty situations, as well as the Sennheiser MKH-50’s and Schoeps Mini CMIT for the booms. In Season 2, we added the DPA 6060 and 6061’s into the mix.

On my first television series, I learned to always keep an open dialog with post production, and I check in every few weeks to make sure I am addressing all their needs with editorial and the post producers. If we are in a really bad location, I always drop them a line to give them a heads up as well. When I have time, I try to go to the mix sessions of every show I work on, which is a good way to get face-time with the re-recording mixers and to see if there is anything I can do to assist them in getting the best tracks possible.

Season 2 of Dead to Me premiered on May 8 on Netflix.

Features

Bond 25: (Part 1)

Recording MTV’s Video Music Awards from My Bedroom

LEADING BY EXAMPLE: Building Diversity in 695

Living with Hearing Loss Attenuation, Isolation & Adaptation

A Conversation with Willie Burton, Douglas Shamburger, and Rene Defrancesch

Creative Arts Emmy Sound Mixing Winners 2020

The OscarsABC • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Apollo 11CNN • CNN Films, Statement Pictures, Neon

Watchmen • This Extraordinary BeingHBO • HBO Entertainment in association with White Rabbit,Paramount Television, Warner Bros. Television & DC Comics

The Mandalorian • Chapter 2: The ChildDisney+ • Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel • A Jewish Girl Walks Into the ApolloPrime Video • Amazon Studios

Back to School Season:How to Prepare for the Return to Work in Hollywood

Hands Held High

Nominations for Outstanding Sound mixing 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy AwardsSeptember 12 & 13

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

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Limited Series or Movie

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

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special

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

BAFTA TV 2020

Winners for the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy TV Craft AwardsBAFTA Craft Awards Winners were Announced July 17

Outstanding Sound: Fiction

Outstanding Sound: Factual

Office Meeting 2020

Leading the Industry Back to Work Using Networking

OVERVIEW:

SAFETY:

SECURITY:

EFFICIENCY:

GENERAL WORKFLOW:

The Video Engineer’s coordination of signals—wireless, wired, video, audio, and metadata—will result in vast improvements to the efficiency and stability of the workflow.

ROAD MAP:

CLOSING:

The Oscars
ABC • The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Apollo 11
CNN • CNN Films, Statement Pictures, Neon

Watchmen • This Extraordinary Being
HBO • HBO Entertainment in association with White Rabbit,
Paramount Television, Warner Bros. Television & DC Comics

The Mandalorian • Chapter 2: The Child
Disney+ • Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel • A Jewish Girl Walks Into the Apollo
Prime Video • Amazon Studios

Back to School Season:
How to Prepare for the Return to Work in Hollywood

Nominations for Outstanding Sound mixing 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards
September 12 & 13

Winners for the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy TV Craft Awards
BAFTA Craft Awards Winners were Announced July 17