Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/757053
RICHARD LIGHTSTONE CAS, Past President, Production Mixer Current project: Netflix's Dear White People Richard owns 12 Lectrosonics RF's and depends on their "smart tune" to find usable RF frequen- cies, along with a "fre- quency finder" app. He typically uses 4-6, up to 9 RF's. His two booms are hard-wired 80%-90% of the time but when wireless, he uses Lectrosonics SMa into a Denecke 48V box. For IFB's, his crew listens to Lectrosonics R1 receivers with producers and others on Comtek PR 216's. DONAVAN DEAR CAS, Production Mixer Recent and current projects: Roadies and Scorpion Donavan uses his own 16 Zaxcom RF's, a Comtek system for producer monitoring, along with Shure "In Ear" RF monitoring for two boom operators. At each location, the Zaxcom software programs guide him to the best usable frequencies. However, Donavan described several real chal- lenges recording Scorpion. "The director has a limited num- ber of camera hours for each episode and the network asks the script be written for all actors to speak as much as pos- sible in every scene." With limited time and an ambitious shooting schedule, on occasion, there are RF dropouts. To protect the recording of this much dialogue, Donavan uses the time-stamped file recorders built-in to each trans- mitter to retransfer any missing lines. What is slightly scary is where directors stressed by time constraints may lean too heavily on transmitter files to save production time. While this seems more an issue in televi- sion episodes than fea- tures, it could lead to a further excuse for dimin- ished dialogue quality. GLEN TREW CAS, Board of Directors, Production Mixer Recent and current projects: Hannah Montana: The Movie, Country Strong, Stoker, Red State, 42 (shared with Jeff Wexler CAS); presently shooting Nashville. Glen uses six Lectrosonics bodypack RF's and two Zaxcom plug-on RF's and uses their software programs to determine the best usable frequencies. He finds Nashville (the area) has reasonably clear RF channels available. The two Zaxcoms are used for wireless booms. As a protection, he also uses their capability to record a file in the transmitter. So far, he hasn't had any dropouts where retrieving the back-up file was necessary. Glen runs up to four monitoring and foldback systems. These include Comtek 216 systems for producers, Lectrosonics IFB's for crew with separate systems for booms and music playback to Phonaks for talent. He's recently resolved some RFI issues between his foldback systems and production RF's. DEVENDRA CLEARY CAS, Production Mixer Current projects: The Last Man on Earth (Fox), Secrets and Lies (ABC), Murder in the First (TNT) Devendra owns 18 Lectrosonics, typically using eight wire- less on talent and two wireless for booms on narrative proj- ects. He uses Lectrosonics' Wireless Designer for choosing frequencies and runs three channels of IFB's for producers, clients, and booms totaling 13-14 fre- quencies. He is a big promoter of antenna height for better, more con- sistent reception. Devendra has writ- ten a companion article about anten- nas in this issue as a tutorial for effective antenna protocol. Donavan Dear's sound cart on Roadies