Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1504940
50 FA L L 2 0 2 3 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Lukas, on the other hand, did most of his job in the basecamp. We always prefer putting the radio mics on actors in the basecamp for a couple of reasons. We wanted to be 100% ready when the actors arrived on set. Plus, it was quite difficult to do any adjustments later on, so the radio mics needed to be perfect from the beginning. We were very lucky that, given the extreme conditions, the cast was super- friendly and easygoing and Lukas did an absolutely amazing job. As for the sound crew members, we were in our usual lineup. I have been working with Ondrej and Lukas for several years now and they are always my first choice when it comes to boom operators. We make a great team together and I was really lucky they were both available because I could not imagine going through this production with anyone else. We also had a sound trainee, J. Mesany, for selected days who was a great help for us. There were some really difficult scenes in the trenches which required, for example, physically moving antennas tens of meters back-and-forth. In those difficult scenes, Lukas was usually swinging the second boom, so having a trainee to take care of all the cables was necessary. We really tried our best to "fly under the radar" with so many things happening on the set and having one extra person definitely helped us to achieve that. This is the equipment we used: Aaton Cantar X3—I simply love this recorder, it has never failed us; Sony PCM-D50 for quick SFX wild tracks; Lectrosonics SMDWB radio mics with DPA 4061/6061 lav mics; Schoeps CMIT-5U, MK41, and MK5 for non-combat (dialogue) scenes; and Sennheiser MKH60 and MKH416 for explosions and gunfire. Even though Schoeps microphones are great, you can't really use them for explosions and other "war stuff," not even using cable instead of Lectrosonics HMa. Edward Berger (director) and the script supervisor used Sennheiser IFB for monitoring, as well as my assistants. We also had multiple Comteks for whoever needed to listen to dialogues (cam OP, focus puller, AD's). And we used wireless antennas (Sharkies) and timecode boxes (TCX-2+) from the Czech company Betso. On a positive note, the location was really great for the production sound. The trenches were built in Milovice, which is an old tank training area 45 minutes from Prague, so there were no highways, no frequency issues, no air traffic … oh wait, that was because of the pandemic. Above: A reconstructed tank. Opposite page top: A hundred-year-old truck; bottom: period limousine from World War I