Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1257029
Abe Weissman (Tony Shalhoub) In that same episode, there was another big set piece that's a good example of the show's approach. It's set in the main hall of the Steiner Family Resort, a place meant to typify the old Jewish Catskills—the land of canoes and knishes— where families would go and spend the whole summer away from the sweltering city. It's also where some of our funniest comics like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, and Mort Sahl, among so many others, honed their comic chops. In the episode, Steiner director Pauly (Saul Rubinek) introduces our MC, Buzz Goldberg (Brandon Uranowitz), who starts the "Initial Dance Challenge," where you can only dance if it's with someone with your same initials. Pretty silly stuff. There was a big band pre-recorded by our Music Producer, Stewart Lerman, and about thirty to forty highly choreographed, spinning and stomping couples, swing dancing on a wooden fl oor to Benny Goodman's classic, "Sing Sing Sing." Midge Maisel dances and talks with a number of them while the Steadicam swirls around the dance fl oor in a big, unedited nine page oner. In addition, Rose (Marin Hinkle) and Abe Weissman (Tony Shalhoub) had dialog and there were eight dancing talkers, along with the host, and MC (both wired and also on a live stage mic). I also had a boom out and took music and timecode feeds from our Pro Tools operator. To handle all of that, we had a six-person Sound Department which is always fun since we're usually overwhelmed by seemingly dozens of camera people. My crew included my Boom Op, Carmine Picarello, and my Utility, Spyros Poulos, who had been a Music Producer for many years, and works with me planning much of the mic placement for our live music recordings. There were more tracks than I had radio mics for at the time, so I brought in an additional mixer, Julian Townsend, to handle the overfl ow. I assigned him specifi c cast and he fed his sub-mix to me which I then folded into the rest of my mono mix for dailies. In addition, we used more than thirty earwigs and had a thump track ready to go. L-R: Crew in the Catskills! Mathew Price, Production Sound Mixer; Spiros Poulos, Sound Utility; Julian Townsend, additional mixer; Carmine Picarello, Boom Operator; Frank DiMaulo, Earwig Wrangler; Egor Panchenko, Pro Tools Operator Crooner Shy Baldwin (LeRoy McClain) wows the audience. Photo by Nicole Rivelli