Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
22 FA L L 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y woodwinds. It was a big enough band that I could tell how things are stretched out. And what I was hearing back, I tended to hear more of front chairs (the more senior players) on the Decca Tree (those main room mics) because everybody is a little further out. So, the spot mics (mics close to the individual players) became more of a thing than you would normally expect. [With] the room mics (usually a widely spread LR pair), you started to feel like you needed to use those more than you would [pre-COVID]. My next project will be in London to score at AIR Studios in a few weeks. What I would normally do in a day and half is now going to take three or four days. So, we're going to do 40 strings in the morning plus harp, and then the same thing in the afternoon, double track them. Because, it isn't a big enough sound with just 40 strings. You want that sound you get with a proper score, but double tracking never sounds like 80 stings, it only enhances it a bit. So, I have to do the 25 minutes of [recording] music in the morning, and do it again in the afternoon. Then, the next morning, you can do 20 brass players. I have a 19-piece brass section plus triple winds, 12 woodwinds. What we have to do is record the 19 brass in the morning, but then you have to have a two-hour gap between brass players and woodwind players to allow the air to get out of there [the air needs time to properly exchange]. So, there is a two-hour gap between anything and any woodwind section. The following day, I'll be doing percussion in the morning. There will be three or four percussionists and then there doesn't need to be a gap—because their blood-alcohol level is such that they are already disinfected, so we're fine! [Everyone laughs.] Then a choir comes in the afternoon, because if I did the choir in the morning, I would need to add a two-hour gap. This way it's only four people, so no additional time is necessary. So, that's how I'm getting through it. DS: Simon touches on something that is another aspect of all this, and that's the timeframe it takes to record a score now [that we need] to separate everything. I mentioned this recent score that was originally budgeted prior to this lockdown scenario for four days of scoring and it ended up being nine! And, that's going to be pretty typical of what 's happening. By the way, that's true across the board for making this … product. That's going to be the challenge. I have read estimates of 30 percent of cost additional to what would be the normal budget. And, honestly, I think that that is a tad conservative. So, if you imagine these huge projects, these big expensive movies and add 30 percent to a $300 million to $400 million project, that's actually some real money! But, I think it makes it even more challenging, honestly, for the low budget movie, the smaller, the independent movie which, regrettably, may even disappear. [This] is challenging to all of us. Because, back in the day, the bread and butter of our entire industry really was the mid-level project, the romantic comedy. Those movies don't really get made very much anymore. We could have a whole other conversation on budgets and the financial impact on everybody. That's going to be an even bigger issue now as production costs increase substantially. The "I'm Standing With You" music video