Production Sound & Video

Winter 2021 – LOCAL695.ORG 29 the most choices possible to have the best ability to get usable production sound. 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 fi nal 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 confi dent 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 diffi cult 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 fi rst 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. Dylan Jones, Video Playback, Simon on main cart, and Robin on Zuca cart, Clockwise from top right: Ben, Arthur, Simon, Frankie Matera Zuca cart contents Simon mixing boat to boat, Italy

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