Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1314046
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I FA L L 2 0 2 0 53 b y M a t t Vo w l e s C A S, L i s l e E n g l e C A S, a n d M a c e M a t i o s i a n Gamel turned to other sports for work after the Dodgers ceased all away feeds for their games. He saw more remote work come his way and began working out of Fox Tech Center. He went from covering the Dodgers season to mixing anything from golf to football across the nation. But he believes it only sped up a process coming their way. "I had a friend of mine say to me, 'It only took a pandemic to drive us 10 years into the future.' I thought that was a very observant comment because that's what it's done," noted Gamel. "In some ways, I don't think it's a bad thing because I think we needed to streamline the process." The streamlined process came in hard and fast when work returned, however. Crews went from 60 or more people at the field for both away and home feeds to one team of three utilities and one mixer for a home feed—and that was just the beginning. W ith mics hidden in bases, a pair of shotgun mics pointed at home plate, crowd mics, a mic at first and third, and outfield mics, baseball stadiums are wired to the fullest extent. If there's a noise, the mixers capture it. The rest of the sports world, well, they 're as wired as baseball with microphones focusing on the key areas of play. With so many microphones and cables out, sound utilities used to spend a large amount of time checking equipment before the games, but it's not that way anymore. Social distancing guidelines and less contact protocols forced utilities to adjust in their jobs. They primarily focus on working pre- and post-game if need be. They no longer check headsets— leaving this to the announcers to avoid cross contamination—and simply check voltage every day. If a piece of gear goes down prior to when teams arrive, they address the problem. But if something breaks or gets misplaced during a game, they can no longer make the adjustments the A1 may need. Hurd shares, "Once the players show up on the field, we're no longer allowed to go to the field. So, if a piece of equipment breaks, you're SOL! There's nothing you can do. We don't have access anymore. The major challenge at this point in time in the COVID world—regardless of all the health issues—is lack of access; we no longer have access to go fix something if something breaks." And in live sports, there's no going back to get a better take when something goes wrong. "Excuse me, can you hit the ball over the fence one more time? I missed it," joked Hurd. "That's what is really different about music and sitcoms. You can always do another take in those atmospheres. Here you can't." Gamel concurs, "You get it right the first time and walk away, but you plan it that way. That goes back to God's in the details. You have to look at the details and it's all about that." Lack of access presented only one of the many challenges with COVID. H urd and Gamel both experienced a new concern with crowd noise. The absence of crowd noise filled the TV airwaves with nothing but dead air. With no prior need for manufactured fans, leagues left mixers to experiment with the dead air that was left behind because there weren't any fans in the seats. MLB mandated pumping sample noise into the stadium to help cover up the shuffling of the catcher's feet. Boxing struggled to find a suitable solution as mixers ran into problems with a manufactured crowd and no bodies in the seats, but found solutions like a cheer app created more problems. Hurd eventually discovered a ballroom crowd noise added the right amount of atmosphere to boxing. Some sports like soccer fell perfectly in line with a dull, constant crowd noise—which ended up sounding nearly the same as it did pre-COVID. Hurd explained, "It's like pink noise, like white noise. It was really bad and sounded horrible to me. The Dodgers did their own thing, spent their own money and did some really nice samples, and their crowd noise is really good." Jaime Sanchez, Antony Hurd, and Dave Wolcott help capture the Dodgers sound for games.