Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545202
52 S U M M E R 2 0 2 6 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y M E E T T H E W I N N E R S The winner of this year's CAS Award for Television Non- Fiction, Variety or Music – Series or Specials is Billy Joel: And So It Goes. It is an epic look across Billy Joel's entire career, interviewing musical influences, early bandmates, and important people throughout Billy's life. It features multiple looks at his stage show over the years, also focusing on more intimate moments of him playing musical examples on his piano while being interviewed. Capturing this broad range of topics, locations, and venues required a big crew, including production sound mixer Mark Mandler CAS, production sound mixer David Mitlyng, production sound mixer Michael Stewart, re–recording mixer Bob Chefalas CAS, score & music mixer Bradshaw Leigh, music mixer Brian Ruggles, and music mixer Jay Vicari. Four of the heart of the sound crew were available for interviews: Bob, David, Mark, and Brian. They shared their similar experiences working over many years on documentaries, and a deep connection with Billy Joel's catalog and career. Bradshaw Leigh came into the project having worked with Billy Joel on every record since 1978's 52nd Street, and more recently, doing Dolby Atmos remixes for a large part of his catalog "all in the last five years when they decided they wanted Billy's records in Atmos." This intimate knowledge of the original multitracks proved invaluable to the project as he TELEVISION NON-FICTION, VARIETY OR MUSIC – SERIES OR SPECIALS BILLY JOEL: AND SO IT GOES S01 E01 PART ONE by Kurt Kassulke CAS was able to create 5.1 mixes and stereo mixes for use in the documentary, along with instrumental-only mixes to be used as score within the project. Bradshaw also went back to original Billy Joel source materials for Cold Spring Harbor, and even further back to some 4-track Beatles-style recordings he did with his original band, The Lost Souls. Re-recording mixer Bob Chefalas CAS shares, "I remember [Bradshaw] was having one really tough time with a vocal, trying to get this slap delay on a vocal and he kept trying all these different numbers, and then he looked at the [recording] sheet, and he saw a number 23, and he goes, '23?' And then he dials in, like, 23 milliseconds, and boom, he goes, that was it!" Bradshaw also looked for more interesting archival material for the documentary. "The first thing I did was, long before the documentary even started, was just go through the vault and look for interesting, weird versions of songs, or dialogue between Billy and his producers, like Phil Ramone or Artie Ritz. We just scoured through the vault, looking for material that might work, be interesting, or provide information for the documentary. The thing I learned in the doc that I love was how close his songs follow the storyline of his life. Like, 'Say Goodbye to Hollywood' is a fun tune about how he was moving out of Hollywood." Billy Joel. Photo: Mark Mandler CAS