Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1277927
46 S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y showing the A-list Hollywood audience members with their fingers in their ears." Patrick has to be part diplomat and part traffic cop, understanding a performer's needs and their inexperience in live television. He strives to make the artist happy, but has to protect the show as a whole. A single performance is important but it's only one part of the overall show. Patrick is one of the best in the business, and because he knows how to walk that line, both the performer and the show shine. In addition to all presenters and performances, Patrick also has pre-recorded playbacks throughout the show. Those pre-records can vary from stereo to surround playback of nominated clips. Playing back film clips in the Dolby Theatre surround system gives the audience a sense of sound movement and excitement about these being awards for motion pictures and the theatrical environment they were created for. THE MUSIC TRUCKS Stepping out to the broadcast compound behind the theatre are two trucks for sound mixing. The first is a music mix truck with two back-to-back mix rooms. One is the orchestra mix room where longtime Oscars music mixer Tommy Vicari works. The second is the performance mix truck where music mixer Biff Dawes handles the on-stage guest performances. But before we go inside the truck, this work really starts across town over at Capitol Records. During the week ahead of the show, Tommy records every piece of music, including every cue, play-on, and play-off—more than 130 separate pieces of music. And yes, this includes each possible winner walk-up and walk-off theme. This work has multiple purposes. First, it gives Tommy and musical director Rickey Minor the opportunity to rehearse the show. It also allows Tommy to set up and prep for the musicians and material specific to that year's production. All the recordings are sent to Pablo Munguia, the Pro Tools playback mixer in the broadcast truck (more about this later). Though the orchestra plays live during the show, there is always a backup of pre- records done by the same orchestra and the same mixer in the event the music truck were to go down during the show. As a side note, there have been a number of times in recent years that the orchestra played live during the show from Capitol Records. This was generally due to the producer's desire to use the under-stage elevator system to bring set elements up and down during the show, thus making the orchestra pit unavailable. Aside from the challenges of managing audio latency to and from Capitol Records and the theatre, a large video monitor was mounted on the front lip of the first balcony, with a camera shot of the musical director. This allowed an artist performing with the orchestra to see the conductor as they would if they were in the pit below. Now, back to the music truck. Tommy Vicari does the main orchestra mix. He creates a complete stereo mix which he sends to Paul Sandweiss in the main production mix truck. Marc Repp, Tommy's second mixer in the truck, aside from assisting Tommy with mixing in additional guest artist band and vocal stems coming from Biff Dawes, creates the orchestra sub-mixes used in the monitor and house mixes. Tommy works closely with Patrick Baltzell in the setup and miking of the orchestra. Patrick has to lay out the orchestra pit to work with the physical confinements of the under-stage pit, while miking appropriately for a live environment. While Tommy has the freedom at Capitol to use mics and placement that work best on the soundstage, Patrick has to use mics, such as string clip-ons, that will give both the tone of the studio, as well as allow the levels needed in the house during the live show. Tommy and Patrick work together to match the sound of the studio recording to the live orchestra feed from the pit. Biff Dawes in the artist mix truck handles mixes for the guest musical acts and performances that take place on the stage, and creates the sub-mixes to send to Tommy. This recent addition to the music process was added several years ago and allows Biff to concentrate on performances, allowing Tommy to blend those elements into the main orchestra mix sent to Paul Sandweiss in the broadcast truck. This is especially important when artists perform with the live orchestra. Given the limited rehearsal time with both the orchestra and guests artists, both Tommy and Biff record each individual input from the stage to Pro Tools (more than 100 channels) during rehearsal. These recordings are done untouched, no EQ, no compression. This allows both mixers the chance for playback in their respective trucks to refine their mixes during times when the live performances aren't available. There are normally just three opportunities to rehearse live for the show: 1) camera blocking, 2) dress rehearsal (Saturday night), and 3) final rehearsal Sunday morning (show day). Tommy points out that "These are the best musicians in town, but you don't want to tire Music mixer and scoring mixer Tommy Vicari CAS at Capitol Records.