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34 F A L L 2 0 1 6 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Workflow for Musicals in Film and Television Production Presented by the CAS The moderator was Glen Trew CAS (Nashville, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights), and panelists included Gary Bourgeois CAS (Step Up All In, Janis), Phillip W. Palmer CAS (Better Call Saul, Glee, American Horror Story), Peter F. Kurland CAS (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Walk the Line, Hail, Caesar!), David Klotz (Glee, Iron Man, Game of Thrones), Gary Raymond CAS (Roadies, Get on Up, Rock Star), and Tim Boot (Jersey Boys, Dreamgirls, Hanna Montana, The Movie). Here are some of the major takeaways from the talk: The classic manner of recording for musicals is to prere- cord the final songs in a studio before doing the live action production sequence on set. Ensuring the transition from spoken dramatic scenes to flawlessly prerecorded music featuring key characters is complex and sync is often dif- ficult to retain. Quick camera work, complex choreography, and set acoustics make live recording from the set rare and often unideal. But live playback can capture the "perfect imperfections," as Glen Trew explains. This can add a level of realism and believability to a sequence. Glen Trew reflected on his work on Nashville, explaining that he gave an ear wig to performers on set to match rhythm and pitch to the studio-recorded material. This helps ensure sync in post and create a smooth transition from produc- tion to the engineered and recorded musical performances as the crosspoint of production to prerecorded material can be adjusted. Also consider live recording on set if the space will work. An authentic performance of material is always best to match to action and capture the characteristics of the real space. In fact, on Nashville, they record live on set as much as possible, especially for acoustic sequences. Glen explains that on set, live recording can catch "the nuances and detail of a perfor- mance." The panel gave the example of Peter Kurland's work on Walk the Line as a success- ful example of a live-recorded performance where instruments were discreetly fed and manipulated later in post to create an incred- ible soundtrack. Interestingly, the fast pace of the schedule often had the shoot happening before the actor had sung their music in stu- dio and thus had to lip-sync to a temp singer. Phil Palmer recalled on Glee that he would have 12 wireless mics ready on his cart with two boom opera- tors splitting the tracks frequently for live-music recording. Live mix was always track 1 and the music would always roll on track 2. "We have to be ready to record both live vocals during musical numbers, as well as dialogue mid music." The two-track mix has proven to be the best way to achieve that. The production schedule would have him completing an epi- sode in eight days with 5-10 musical numbers per episode. Music editor David Klotz said the workflow for him was very different on Glee than on nonmusical productions, as he was taking prerecorded studio tracks and preparing them for on-camera playback. Klotz and Palmer created a workflow that often turned music around overnight, which provided the music stems in a way that facilitated the playback on set. Those stems included an audio version of timecode, a click track, a 40 Hz thump track matching the click track, a mixed music track, each lead vocal on its own stem, back- ground vocals stem, and any other special music or vocal stem that may be needed. Having the timecode as an audio track allowed for speeding up or slowing down the music to match camera off speed frame rates, keeping the actual lip sync in tact. Gary Bourgeois expresses how there are "certain senses of reality" that must be included to sell a performance. He cites using cloth and/or Foley in addition to a clever crosspoint from production to music as key in selling the actor as giving a live performance where material is pre- recorded. Gary stated, "You must use Foley to sell even " We have to be ready to record both live vocals during musical numbers, as well as dialogue mid music. " –Phil Palmer CAS