Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541535
Winter 2026 – LOCAL695.COM 29 Jim was always five steps ahead and to keep up we had to be prepared for everything at any time. Playback, earpieces, rapid cast, and environment changes. We are there to service Jim's vision, and we could never rest on our laurels thinking we had the day covered. Something new and challenging would always present itself and we had to be ready to meet those challenges. We had to stay sharp, prepared for anything. There could be no second chances. Sound had to be clean, immediate, and seamless. Beyond dialog, we recorded entire musical sequences: tribal songs, dances, ceremonial drums all performed live. These were captured with help from Simon Franglen, Composer and Dick Bernstein, Music Editor. Earpiece playback ensured clean vocal takes. Performers like Zoe Saldaña, Kate Winslet, and Oona Chaplin delivered haunting, powerful renditions. It was honest and raw. While recording to my Cantar, audio was sent via Dante to the Pro Tools rig to record side by side. When we moved into the water work, things got really interesting. We had two tanks: one small, circular one for singular performances and testing, and the main stage tank, which was 90x40x20 ft (27.4x12x6 m), holding around nine hundred thousand gallons of water. It was so big that operations had to be conducted from a flight deck at the surface and a bridge that would span the sides. The water environments were dynamic—wave machines, adjustable floors, even a water turbine system that could simulate a river with current up to five knots. It could be a beach, a swamp, a river, the reef shallows, the back of a Tulkun or out in the deep ocean. Anything Jim could dream up. Performance capture in water is an entirely different science. Reflective surfaces disrupt optical tracking and bubbles confuse capture cameras. The solution? Thousands of translucent plastic balls to break the water surface while allowing light through. The problem was they made a LOT of noise. How would we solve this? We always have a couple of boom mics near the surface but as with the stage volume, and the nature of the performances, we really needed a mic on each helmet. Signal-to-noise ratios would always determine what the best method was. We mounted Lectrosonics WM transmitters on the helmets, with antennas carefully positioned above the waterline. Even at shallow submersion, water kills RF signal, so mic and transmitter placement became a fine art. For underwater action with no dialog, we used an Ambient Soundfish ASF-1 Hydrophone which captured sound effects but also used it to monitor the underwater comms too. If there was ever an issue with the comms, we would know immediately and could fix it. The real challenge is depth. At thirty feet, even waterproof lavaliers buckle under pressure. The diaphragm collapses, just like a human eardrum. We couldn't risk losing the moment when a character bursts to the surface, gasping, those moments carry the emotional core of a scene. A quiet scene in the tank with foam balls dispersed to remove the unwanted sound of the plastic balls A discussion about the next scene and how to capture it