Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521562
46 S U M M E R 2 0 2 4 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Meaning what, in a practical sense? MP: Well, they hired really good people in terms of locations, a good location department. Meaning, they are not noisy locations? MP: Yeah, more or less. They chose locations well, and I was there on location scouts, and I would at least have a say. And fortunately, I kinda had horseshoes on that show, because a lot of locations were very good for sound. The more difficult things were [like] the traveling shots, the cars; they were concerned off the top about the driving stuff and how we were going to get the dialogue in the truck. I was thinking about that specifically after having re-watched this particular episode. They are driving across a field at speed, trying to have a three-way conversation between Joel (the main character), his daughter, and brother. I thought to myself, "That's not easy!" MP: Ha! No, we got pretty lucky on a lot of that stuff. Because that's a pretty noisy setup, and especially the pod-car where the stunt driver is on the roof of the truck in an apparatus, steering, and the players are inside acting! You're telling me the brother was not driving the truck! MP: Ha! No, no! There are a lot of action sequences in this show, but also a lot of really intimate stuff where the actors are in a tight room or out in the wilderness where there is nothing going on beyond the environment they are in. I'm assuming these all must require a different technique or approach. Do they? MP: Yeah, in a way. We are always looking at acoustics, especially in the more intimate spaces, like sets where things may look like concrete but are actually plywood. Anything we can do to improve that [like] using materials to dampen echoes and things going on in a space that we don't want to hear. What sort of tech did you bring to the show to help you with this? MP: On this show, it was a package I always use, but my boom op also brought a package, and we incorporated the two. For this show, we found that we needed shorter mics with smaller blimps that could fit in tight spaces and still have reach. So, we used a variety of boom mics for most of the show, supported by body mics and plants. We even wire up actors who have no dialogue. They may have no lines, but there might be a breath we want to get. So, we put mics on actors no matter what nowadays. I assume that's because folks don't want to ADR that breath or what have you later? MP: That's right. And I've got lots of tracks and lots of mics and the people to install them, and our boom op is a real go-getter; he's always planting mics and watching blocking so that everything doesn't end up being strictly lav mics. How wide does this track count get? MP: We get two booms and [maybe] eight lavs on occasion, but that would be huge on this show where dialogue can be sparse. Well, that's not insignificant, because you are attempting to make sure it is all usable audio. MP: That's right, I'm trying to create a mix that's good for the people on set to hear. You know, there are probably 20 people on set listening. The script supervisor needs to hear what the Re-recording mixer Kevin Roache CAS Boom operator Louw Verwoerd, production sound mixer Michael Playfair CAS, and utility Valerie Siu shooting on Fortress Mountain