CAS Quarterly

Winter 2021

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A Case Study: The 2020 Emmy Awards Broadcast Sound Mixing for Live Award Shows During COVID-19 I n the Summer 2020 CAS Quarterly, I shared some of my experiences and insights from working on the broadcasts of major award shows. With the complications and limitations presented from the pandemic, the learning continued. The 2020 Emmy Awards became the first of the traditional major award shows in the COVID era to do a live broadcast. In the wake of COVID-19, the show had to do a complete reinvent of how to accomplish a live awards show—with a host, presenters, nominees, but no audience. One interesting note before we look at how this was accomplished: Paul Sandweiss and Tom Holmes, the Oscar and Grammy production mixers, respectively in my last article, took the roles of the two main sound mixers on the Emmys. In recent Emmy years, Tom had been the production mixer, while Paul was the music mixer. With no live band and only a DJ this year, Paul took the production mixing chair, while Tom took on the new role of pre-mixing the 120 remote feeds from around the world. Let's start with the general concept for the show developed by Done+Dusted, the show's production company, along with ABC and the Television Academy. From the start, executive producers Guy Carrington, Reginald Hudlin, David Jammy, and Ian Stewart, along with director Hamish Hamilton, didn't want to do a "Zoom" awards. Guy Carrington said, "These nominees were already feeling they were in isolation. We wanted them to feel part of this event, along with their fellow nominees." Having Jimmy Kimmel already slated as the show host gave the team a great jumping-off point to do a total rethink. b y S t e v e V e n e z i a C A S

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