Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541535
28 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2026 Jim wanted every breath, every reaction, every word— improvised or scripted—captured in real time. The scale of the sound team's responsibility reshaped my understanding of what production sound could be. Each scene was played and directed like in theater, everyone talked. With the versatility of performance capture and the nature of Jim's direction, it could be everyone's close-up during one single take. Every actor wore a helmet that holds the face camera, and we affixed DPA 4071 microphones onto each helmet. We used around fifty in total, and rigged every helmet beforehand. The mics were placed on the camera arm to the side of the mouth ensuring the elimination of any plosives that could affect the resulting performance and a corresponding transmitter connected at the offset. I was using Lectrosonics transmitters but swiftly changed to the Astral system as the NEXUS control protocol made changes simple and quick. The range of dynamics in the performances demanded versatility and the simplicity of gain structure that the Astral system gave us, its 32-bit float system made this possible with little or no interruption to the actors on stage. Every time an actor entered the Performance Capture Stage, we assigned a TX and changed metadata to correspond to their track. Editorial had to cope with an extraordinary number of tracks, and they needed this metadata to be exact and precise. With twenty actors in any scene at a time, we had one mix track for editorial purposes, two booms and then twenty ISO's relating to each actor. The final twenty-fourth track was used as reference for any playback (music or FX) we had. On average, we had around fourteen witness cameras that filmed every nuance and expression so that Jim could review immediately after each take. Video playback was undertaken by Shahrouz Nooshinfar and Dan Moore who I provided with mix tracks to go alongside the video matrix they created for Jim to review. All our systems, virtual and live, had to sync up with each other. We spent at least thirty minutes at the start of each day running sync tests to ensure that happened. Ambient FX and musical cues were piped in live, either through stage speakers or personal earpieces. Actors heard the world they were meant to inhabit, and their responses became more visceral. With Assistant Editor Ben Murphy, I developed real- time soundscapes played through Pro Tools, running on a MacBook Pro and Focusrite 4i4 interface. Audio throughout was via Dante to the main cart. It wasn't just noise, it was narrative. Such effects help actors react instinctively, allowing their performances versatility and reactive to a world enhanced by our playback. For instance, the sound of a menacing helicopter hovering overhead can shift the energy of a scene, enabling actors to channel the environment into their portrayals organically. For specific cues, like a sudden explosion, beeps from machines, breeching Tulkun, gunfire, etc., I used Ableton Live to trigger these effects. The use of live sound effects on set further enhanced the performance quality and gave real-time reactions to real-time sonic events; much better than an AD shouting BANG! Simon Franglen and our amazing troupe recording one of the many tribal songs and chants, with Phonak earpieces and playback from Pro Tools.