SPRING 2022 – LOCAL695.ORG 23
The film has massive dialog scenes, and musically, it is a mix
of live and prerecorded PB vocals. Many songs required us to
prepare for live vocal recording and PB simultaneously. For
example, Steven Spielberg would shoot a few takes to PB, then
a few takes live with very little time for a sound switchover. As
you can imagine, each approach has vastly different needs and
requirements. We had to prep for every possible scenario—ready
for anything with little room for error.
A typical day on
WSS entailed wiring up to 22 actors, swinging
3 booms, hiding up to 4 wireless effects mics, deploying
up to 50 earwigs, a Thumper system, and many of our 15
wireless speakers. To further complicate things, NYC has sound
restrictions. We overcame this by using a lot of midsize wireless
battery-powered speakers placed strategically close within the
sets for playback scenes.
The truth was, we needed everything we had for
WSS. The dance
scene in the gym is a great example. We ringed the gym with
our large PB speakers, hid powerful subwoofers in the bleachers
for a thump track, earwigged all the primary actors, and wired
everyone who vocalized anything. On a film this large, focusing
on the singularity of a voice is overshadowed by the need to
capture everything!
Jerry and Terence walking wireless battery speakers to keep close to Ansel for playback
Me and Steven at my cart. a lighter moment on one of our few studio days.
