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24 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – SPRING 2022 The immensity of WSS repeated itself over and over. For 'Sargeant Krupke,' we wired and earwigged and boomed everyone. The entire song floats in and out of live and PB. Filming the song, we did Steven's—a few takes with PB, then a few takes live. When there is so much sound happening in a scene—vocals, natural effects, ambiences, music—sometimes it's easier for an audience to accept vocals as reality than in an intimate piece. Sometimes not. Almost everything in WSS is choreographed: from the opening scene where they pass paint cans in time with the music to fight scenes and even dialog. What looks like a simple sound scene becomes another moment for earwigs, effects mics, and soundscape building. However, a few songs were traditional two-character live vocal records (none without their obstacles, of course). "A Boy Like That" is a classic wireless/boom mix of Maria and Anita as they move through the entire apartment. Their volumes ranged from 0 to 100; I rode the pre-fade volume from -20 to +20 throughout. For "One Hand One Heart," we acoustically treated the concave ceilings of the church with Sonex to control some of the ambient bounce. "Somewhere" was all about Rita Moreno and her singular voice. In the scene, she started deep in the set, forcing me to start with a wireless (and ambient mic to open up the wireless sound), then switch to a boom when she was close enough. While WSS needed every bit of my 450-lb cart, tick, tick… BOOM! required far fewer inputs and outputs. Instead, this film demanded a hyper-attention to the singularity of a voice (similar to "Somewhere"), being inside someone's head, and staying sonically consistent throughout the entire film. In other words, if the quality of the vocal or ambient sound shifts every time prerecorded vocals are used, you lose a piece of your audience. TTB is filled with examples of how we worked to keep it real. The song "Boho Days" was filmed entirely live without music or click track (which doesn't happen often). We wired everyone, had three booms covering everything possible, and just let it fly. On the other hand, the scenes inside the theatre that tie the film together were filmed live using the practical SM-58 mics. Anytime there are practical mics, I always try to use them. For these scenes, we kept getting 'popping' on the SM-58's. We stuffed as much windscreen as possible under the mic's grill and worked hard with the actors on positioning the mics to avoid breath pops. There were also scenes where we had to pivot our plan and shoot from the hip. One example is when Andrew Garfield sings, "Why" at the Delacorte Theatre. In prerecords, he sang with emotion, but when it came time to shoot, Andrew's emotional state was far beyond where it was in preproduction. It was obvious we needed to record live. Everyone worked together to make it happen, and Paul in post stitched it together. Regardless of the size of the musical, the whole process begins in pre-production. This is where some of the most important sound decisions are made. Generally, I start a month before filming and use this time to develop a relationship with everyone who will be integral to what we are doing: Director, Actors, Music, AD's, Wardrobe, Production Designer, etc. Being the first 'sound boots' on the ground, I'm there laying the foundation for sound from prerecords through post. The first task in creating reality is eliminating the abrupt difference in sound quality from on-set dialog to singing. So, before vocal prerecords begin, I run a series of tests to match every actor to a particular lav mic that best matches the boom mic (different actors sound vastly different on different lavs. Jerry Yuen ready for live vocal recording TTB October 2020 Jerry Yuen with two effects mics - 416's with Shure Axient transmitters on armature wire and sand bags for West Side Story. Tod Maitland's preproduction Lav testing booth for Spirited. A 416 and 6 lavs recorded on separate tracks for comparison alignment