Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525020
28 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Fall 2024 slates, last-minute camera moves, a very large contingent of background artists that may need to be foot foamed, all of the Comtek's, all of the mic'ing of actors all the time continues to keep the entire four-person sound crew busy. Following the COVID season, the storyline moved on, though on the set, protocols stayed. The actors would block a scene, and the crew watched the marking rehearsal from a ring-style "surveillance" camera off a remote monitor. The second team would rehearse with the cameras and when the cast returned, filming began without a rehearsal. My collection of body mic transmitters had by now grown to fourteen, and I upgraded to the Sound Devices Scorpio recorder and the CL-16. I am using that to this day, and it's a great tool with easy track naming and assigning. (Since COVID protocols forbade the distribution of physical media off the studio lot, the SD cards are now uploaded to a hard drive with the camera media and that hard drive is sent to the post house.) I also have one Lectrosonics DSQD receiver for the two digital boom mic transmitters; I am still using most of the SMV transmitters, but replacing them slowly to all digital transmitters. The last few years has seen major changes in other departments. The set lighting is now mostly networked LED instruments. It is a bit surreal to see a SLT walking in with a lighting instrument already lit! And so the beat goes on. Due to last year's strikes, season twenty is only ten episodes long. There are about six people from the season two crew left, and, as one put it, "I intend to ride this pony till it dies, then carry it the rest of the way." (L-R): Mike "Fuzzy" Anderson, Beau Baker CAS, Maddie Phelps-Jaworski, Brandon Pert