Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1505029
10 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Fall 2023 Pre-ramble: When I asked Pete Korpela, one of two percussionists playing in the orchestra at the Academy Awards this year, how he was doing, he answered, "Living someone else's dream." It was a great reminder not to take any of my experiences for granted. Sure, the dream of being on the crew of a major motion picture, a big live-television show, or just being able to make a living doing what we do must seem to many like a reverie, a fanciful and impractical idea. I'm sure at one time, it seemed that way to me. For those of you who follow these rambles, first of all, I thank you and appreciate every bit of positive feedback. And by feedback, I mean nice comments, not the ringing, squealing, or screeching sound that makes mixers wish they could defy the laws of physics. On that subject, is anyone else bothered by the fact that nearly every time a person in a movie or on a scripted television program steps up to a microphone, it feeds back. The truth is that it rarely happens in real life, even on live shows. Do you suppose some long- forgotten director stepped up to the mic in a very important pat-yourself-on-the-back moment and his comments were masked by the accidental acoustic meeting of an input and an output? From then on, as payback, he was determined to make us cringe each and every time a mic appears on camera by adding that undesirable sound. My favorite feedback, in case you wanted to know, can be heard at the beginning of "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles. John Lennon's guitar, "Nnnnnnwahhhhh!" according to Paul, Geoff Emerick, and my Friend, Robyn. And now, the pink tape story. If you have worked on award shows or specials in the last twenty years, chances are you might have run into something labeled in pink gaff tape. It is my labeling tape of choice. Others use gray, green, purple, and even white. I prefer pink. You may ask, how did this come about? I'll tell you. In 2003, I was invited to be a band A2 for the 45th Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York. At the time, Local One wasn't very interested in letting visitors work freely on stage. I was told that I could not be the band patch master. Hmmm. That was my job. They assigned a Broadway mixer to work with me. Although he was an experienced sound engineer, patching a three-hour live show with multiple bands was not in his comfort zone. I knew better than to argue the decision and proceeded to label everything in bright pink gaff tape. Together, my new friend and I patched the heck out of a very difficult show with many Ric by Ric Teller bands and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Pink tape became my go-to and is still used today. The story among friends is that when I run out of pink tape, I get to retire. Walking out of a very busy, tiring 2022 Grammys at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, I complained to Craig that I was worn out and my bag felt very heavy. Unbeknownst to me, several coworkers had gifted me with new rolls of two-inch pink tape. Enough to last many more shows. Not long ago, I was talking to some people not familiar with our business. I mentioned that I am on the crew of Jeopardy! and one of them asked when we film. 1987 was my smarty- pants answer, a product of early onset Weisenheimer's. That year, I received a phone call from mixer Russ Gary, asking if I knew anything about the film world because we were going to be the sound crew on a new sitcom shot on 35mm called Take Five. Haven't heard of it? I'm not surprised, we completed six episodes, but only two aired. The star, George Segal, played banjo in a band. He could really play, but the other cast members in the band were not musicians. George wanted the music to be live, so he played on camera while the other cast members finger-synched to a live band playing just off-camera. We recorded audio on two Otari reel-to-reel machines that were about the size of our Maytag washer and dryer. Although it has been a long time, Bruce Arledge, Jr., Rick Luckey, and I had the same recollection about channel assignments. The ½" 4-track captured dialog, music/sound FX, audience response, and 60hz tone. We had no timecode. The ¼" 2-track only recorded dialog and music/ sound FX. The show was mono, and we had no iso tracks, no prefade, nothing else. Comm was primitive. AD's used walkies, boom operators had basic two-channel RTS (audio PL and program), and the camera operators and dolly grips communicated with the camera coordinator using a half- duplex system of Maxon Radios that may or may not have been the prize from boxes of Cracker Jack. The other thing Pink tape in the patch room at the Oscars Rambles