Production Sound & Video

Winter 2021 – LOCAL695.ORG 27 processed and unprocessed channels, which gave Oliver and his team choices; rather than a 'one size fi ts 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 fi lmmakers, 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 fi lm and for larger set pieces, stunt work, and chase/fi ght sequences, we would shoot IMAX. We all left the theatre confi dent 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 workfl ow for lavaliers with Arthur, my Key 1st AS, who is a fi rst-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 confi dent 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 fi lmmaking 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 fi tted suits hang on the body if the placement of the pack isn't specifi cally 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 diffi cult costumes and that the two different mics could be mixed and intercut seamlessly. The really great factor with the 6061 was that we could fi t 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; fi rst, 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 fi rst Take, after which, I start fi ne-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 specifi c 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 diffi cult 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 confi dence 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 fi nd out whether

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