Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/830490
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 39 ERIC JOHNSTON: PLAYBACK & SFX MIXER What originally sparked your interest in audio? My sister got Black Sabbath's Master of Reality as a birthday present and didn't care for it. So she gave it to me and, at 9 years old, I was hooked. That led me to collecting records and building a DJ mixer. I was also hanging out with friends who had bands—helping them out on gigs. I chased a rock-and-roll stage. Did that lead you into the studio with those bands? Not really. I actually ended up getting a "real job," working at the processing center of a bank. But I had hair halfway down my back and was not excited about my job. Then my parents said, "Why don't you do what you love?" So I went to sound school. That's awesome that your parents encouraged you to pursue your true interests. It was! And that led me to getting a job at Princess Cruises, then Leeds Rehearsal Studio where I'd take care of the studio and mix bands that would come there. How long were you there? About six months—because Le Mobile was next door to the studio and Guy Charbonneau [Le Mobile's owner] noticed me. I did everything I could there. Guy let me practice mixing on the multitracks he had and he'd teach me how to mix bet- ter. That's when I started to work on TV shows. I remember working on a show, it's two in the morning and I'm pulling cable in the rain. Next to me are the TV utility guys and they're laughing. I ask, "What are you laughing for?" And they go, "Everything is funny in double time." At that moment, I became aware of the union and realized that these guys were making in an hour what I was making in eight! That's when I sought out how to get in the union. Do you remember your first union gig? It was on a sketch comedy called All That in the early '90s and I was a Booth A2 for Evan Adelman. Now I'm a playback mixer because I'm controlling the levels of my material at the console. I then picked up Mad TV and did that for 11 years with Evan. Those shows gave me lots of experience with getting my tim- ing right because my sound effects had to follow the visuals and land in time. What was your first show that was truly live? It was one of the Soul Train awards type of shows—I forget the exact name. But since then, I've been fortunate to be a part of the crews for Mike Abbott, Tommy Holmes, Mark King, Bruce Arledge, Jr.—some really great guys. What kind of system are you using for playback? I use a proprietary software system called SpotOn. It's kind of like Abelton Live except it has button interactions and runs off a touchscreen. It allows me to have up to 320 cues that I can trigger, layer, and group however and whenever I want. For example, on the CMAs, I handle play-ons, play-offs, VOs, sound effects, and performance playbacks. So I'll have a VO bus, a bus with walk-on and bumper music, a sound effects bus, typically four stereo performance splits, a click track, a pitch track, and—this is great for synchronizing performance to lights and video playback—a timecode generator that cre- ates an LTC WAV file. That sounds really robust! It's great. The flexibility is perfect for live broadcasts. What's your typical schedule like for an awards show? I usually have four to five days for an awards show. A couple of weeks before, I'll have an idea of what the show's needs are and I'll ship my gear. I've built my system so it installs quickly with consoles. The style of the director will determine how the next three to four days of rehearsal go. Some directors wait until dress rehearsal to see how everything works and flows together. That approach gives me additional time to get my materials together. Other directors will want to top-and-tail the show at the start so they can be aware of any production issues and address them. That approach, o b v i o u s l y , requires me to get everything going really quickly. How about for Grease Live!? I showed up on the first day and installed my system. I then began gathering my m a t e r i a l s ; finding what the producers were thinking from a sound effects perspective, collecting music and other elements. After review- ing the rundown, I decided how to organize the material in SpotOn. I then loaded and built the show and assigned out- puts. I had about a day for that. How did you go about building the sound effects? Doing the show at Warner Bros. was great because they actu- ally gave me access to their sound effects library—which was wonderful. I built and scored all of the ambiences on Grease— and there were a lot of them. I'd have them on loops and then cross as the cast went from location to location. With SpotOn, as the show changes, I'm not married to a timeline. I have flex- ibility and can follow along live. How do you incorporate your sources with the material Mark is working with? We were on a 72-fader console and Mark gave me the first bank of faders for my sources. This is needed especially if I have to apply processing live. For example, one scene takes place in the hallway outside the gym. Inside the gym, the band is playing and there's ambience from the kids. In the hallway, Eric Johnston and his coffee roasters.