Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1433345
30 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2022 The Harder They Fall was shot entirely on location, the majority of the shoot about forty-five minutes outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the Tom Ford Ranch, where Production Designer Martin Whist and his team built a four-block-long mid 1800s Western town. Most of the film was exteriors, which came with its challenges for our team, and the entire shooting crew. One of our biggest challenges on location in New Mexico was the harsh environment, not only the physical daily grind of location access, weather, and equipment transportation, but the RF noise floor, which to my surprise was extremely crowded. The U.S. military has a big presence in this region, so the first call of order every day, even when at the same location, was the coordination of all needed frequencies. Each day, I stood at the foot of our tailgate, looking as far as the eye could see into miles and miles of vast empty and beautiful New Mexico landscape, where it was hard to comprehend how crowded the bandwidth was. It was as crowded as any major city like downtown Los Angeles or NYC. The next day could bring a completely different scenario on the airwaves. Lectrosonics Wireless Designer made our efforts much easier to scan, manage and coordinate frequencies in a more efficient manner. There is a great opportunity to do some preliminary RF scanning while on location scouts and start understanding what is coming your way with coordination and allocation of frequencies during production. The RF Explorer, in conjunction with Touchstone RF spectrum analyzer software, are great tools which allow us to put in perspective in real time what we will be faced with. One important step is to reach out to the AD or Production Department to find out who the vendor is for the walkie rentals. The rental company might have an in-house frequency coordinator and see if they can provide a list of the walkie frequencies intended to be in use (sometimes called a conventional personality list). The 400MHz range seems to be popular for walkie frequencies, so it is very important we take that into consideration. After I had a better understanding of director Jeymes Samuel's expectations, I decided that the need for more tracks was going to be essential. I had a Sound Devices 688 as my main recorder, with the CL-12 as my control surface. Moving onto a recorder that provided more than twelve tracks was a must as The Harder They Fall had such a large ensemble cast, live instrument recordings in our saloon scenes, more tracks needed to capture sound effects of our period wagons, horses, weapons, and stagecoaches. My experience with Sound Devices was more than positive, so transitioning to the 32-track Sound Devices Scorpio was the obvious choice for me. We were originally scheduled to begin principal photography March 2020. On the last few days of our pre-production work, COVID-19 hit and the project was halted. With the cast and crew safety as a priority, commencing filming was to be postponed until further notice. After a few months at home, our Line Producer, G. Mac Brown, got in touch with great news; a new start date for The Harder They Fall was set, and we would head back to New Mexico in early September. I had sent my production sound package back to Los Angeles until the film was to resume, and fortunately, the new Sound Devices CL-16 control surface was released. I had been eagerly awaiting its arrival, as I knew the CL-16 was going to help make our efforts on The Harder They Fall much more efficient with its new features and capabilities. (L-R): Jonathan Majors as Nat Love, Delroy Lindo as Bass Reeves, RJ Cyler as Jim Beckworth. Photo: David Lee/Netflix ©2021