Production Sound & Video

24 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Summer 2021 out how to get wires on them, as booming was not going to be a great option. We had three cameras rolling, two of which were on cranes, going from a wide to a tight shot in an instant. Plus, there was the noise. Imagine how loud a waterfall is when you're outside standing next to it. Now imagine placing that waterfall, and five of its friends, inside a reverberant warehouse. When the falls were turned on, you had to shout to talk to the crew member next to you. Not only did we need wires on the cast to record the dialog, but they also needed to act as a comms system so the Director, Jude, could hear the cast in-between setups. I pretty much lived at my cart when we were shooting those scenes, always keeping the faders up so Jude could talk to the cast. For the reverse, so the cast could hear Jude, we used a pretty typical voice of god setup, a wireless handheld mic, and several speakers lining the set. But how do we handle wiring up cast that would inevitably get soaked? If the budget had been limitless and prep had been more informative, waterproof transmitters like Lectrosonics WM's and waterproof lavaliers like VT500's would have been a great choice. But I had Lectrosonics SMVs and Sanken COS-11's. Waterproofing an SMV is easy enough —non-lubricated condoms and rescue tape. Plus I tossed the whole rig in a ziplock bag for extra measure. When the lavs got waterlogged, luckily, usually toward the tail end of the scenes, my Thai Sound Utilities Katika "Art" Tubtim " The mud we had to wade through in Hawaii was epic. Production had to schedule staggered pre-calls during our last week so that each department could use a rented power washer to clean carts, cables, etc." –Amanda Beggs and Thanravipa "Noon" Pararoch would expose the mic on the actor and hit the mic head with about five to ten seconds of air from a hairdryer. Then fresh tape would be applied and the actor would be good to go. To help protect the mic from getting waterlogged as quickly, we made sure to mount the mics upside-down. I am happy to report that during the filming of all the waterfall scenes, not a single transmitter or lavalier sustained water damage. Even after being waterlogged multiple times, the ability of the COS- 11 to bounce right back into action astonished me. The plan of using a hairdryer on the actors saved us so much time. We initially considered continually swapping mics The cave in Thailand

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