Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1491451
30 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Spring 2023 "As far as the initial sound testing was concerned, I just raised the flag and everybody agreed that with this new technology we needed to spend time with it. The earwigs and performances; we've gotta develop the techniques of how we're going to do it. The Music Department agreed, production agreed, everybody was on board for that two or three weeks in November and December of 2019. "We were still practice shooting in 2020 through January, February, and March, and then we shut down at the end of March due to COVID. We had a meeting and said, 'We can't, we just can't push it anymore.' Then we picked it back up with another three weeks of pre-production and started shooting the end of September until Christmas, and continued through to the following February in 2021. Once we started principal photography, it was an 18-week schedule." David approached every musical number with a plan to record all. "Elvis had his handheld microphone and he was also wearing a lav and it's very hard to tell whether it's just the playback. I must say when we did do playback, Austin was so good at it, I could have the playback of Elvis in one ear and Austin in the other and it'd be a mirror. He sounded just like Elvis. Austin turned up every day prepared putting in one hundred ten percent and just a humble guy." Ben Wyatt is David's Boom Operator, and Sophie Norfolk was hired as the Radio Microphone Technician. Sophie is from Western Australia and had experience and technical training working with wireless microphones in theater, film, and television in Melbourne. David and Ben met with Sophie, and booked her, describing that it worked out just wonderfully. "The Music Department was extraordinary," David explains. "We had Elliott Wheeler as our Musical Director, Co-producer Jamieson Shaw, and Cameron Bruce. Wade Keighran was our wonderful Playback Operator, who's a musician and a record producer in his own right. They were just geniuses in their craft as there was a lot of backup. Baz would throw a lot of curveballs every day. They were vital to look after the Music Department, and they took care of that." Wade Keighran worked with the Art Department to make all of the period microphones practical. "Elvis used the Electro- Voice RE15 and that was duplicated on set. There were many other practical mikes, so when the music stopped, we were still recording," describes David. David prefers Lectrosonics wireless and the DPA 6060, 6061's. He explains, "The performance costumes that Austin wore had large collars, an open chest and chains, and we often exposed the tiny mic. We were never going to see it, and if they do, they can just paint it out." With all of the dialog and music tracks needed to be recorded, David purchased the Sound Devices Scorpio, and one of the earliest SL-16's in Australia at that time. David decided to utilize Dante between his desk and Wade's Allen & Heath SQ-5 after extensive testing during the sound rehearsals in November of 2019.