Dummy Mic Update

The weighted packs made it into rehearsal hats last Friday. There was limited success. The actors found that packs were either sliding out, uncomfortable, or the hats were falling off. It's interesting the difference between an actor that is willing to make something happen and those that don't want to make it work.

I do appreciate all the work the costume dept. has put into rigging these hats. No word on when the actual hats will show up. I think costumes is going to be attempting some new positions within the caps.

A silly amount of work has gone into this mic swap at the end of show, but if it works the difficulty of it won't even cross an audience member's mind. This will be difficult to tech, especially with the director's typical desire to have things work well the first time and the relative inexperience of the crew. It will be a pity if we can't use the hat packs for any reason, but I still see a few variables in the distance that could put the nix on the swap.

Signal Line Diagram

Speaker Plot

Speaker Section

Intercommunications and A/V Monitoring Plot

Rack Schedule

Pit Plot

G2 Mass Connector Schedule

Dummy Mic Update

The costume department has partnered with us to attempt to get the body mics in hats for some problematic moments in the show. This week they had a working model, and soon our weighted dummy packs will be in rehearsals.

Mic Placement/Tracking

Tuesday I had a meeting with costumes and stage management concerning wireless mic tracking—a challenging but surmountable difficulty with this show. We are needing to be increasingly creative concerning pack placement, area mics, etc. The meeting went fairly well, and Matt F. and I gained a lot of information.

However, the next evening, we began to discover that there were discrepancies between what was talked about in the meeting and what truly happened in the rehearsal hall.

There is also choreography for the final number “Let It Go” which includes one of the six men doing a backflip with his policeman hat on…with one of our Sennheiser body packs inside. Chuck has been very adamant that we will try it a couple of times with the dummy pack, but that if it falls off, they need to either cut the choreography or cut his mic, because we can’t afford to have one of eight go down…even once during the run.

Final Production Schedule

We’re coming into prep week and I still haven’t seen a final production schedule come across my e-mail. I have a message out to Caroline asking when it will be out. As it is, it is inconveniencing my crew not to know what to plan for this next month. I have tried to give them as many details about this week as possible, including some lengthy training for the wireless crew, but am anxious to have the entire schedule out.

Sound Cue EQ

The Full Monty has developed a need for several different equalization challenges. While a moment may have music, the timbre and quality of the music depends on it’s presentation. Is it coming from a radio? A car’s cassette deck? Through a cinder block wall? We don’t necessarily pay attention to this in every day life, but our minds will certainly tell us if something is false. In this show, I have a faux radio station (which has one sort of frequency roll-off and compression), a car sound system (which has a different timbre and frequency response), music filtering into the club’s restroom (muffled and a ringing reverberation), and music heard from outside the club (whatever makes it through a wall or two—no windows since it’s a strip club). For many of these situations, there is no set rule or specific formula, I just have to trust my ears and those around me.

Mic Element Intentory/Repair

The elements we use for our wireless mic system sometimes have different caps that bring different sensitivity or timbre to the sound of the mic. Selection of this process is something that hasn’t been stressed up to this point. I pulled off all the caps, took them home, and after testing a couple of elements, I placed all the elements in our sonic jewelry cleaner. The unit seemed to adequately clear the windscreens of all makeup, etc that they had acquired over time.

In the repair of one mic element, the resistor had either gone bad or fallen out. We didn’t have any more, so I made a point of going by RadioShack on Saturday and matching the resistor.

Productive Friday

After speaking with my assistant designer and the workroom manager, we made Friday something of a workday. I put a list of tasks on the whiteboard, including an element inventory/test and repair session, organizing/inventory of the G2 mass connectors, ascertaining rigging for the JF100e’s (we’re not doing anything exotic…they currently only have rigging for one limited position), pulling/repairing all 50 ohm coax in stock, and testing our new KVM extender. We accomplished a lot, and everything is either finished or in process.

A Change in Plans

When I wrapped up the recording session, I went back to my office and saw that there were some notes from Aubrey concerning the preshow and intermission music. He asked to cut “Poison” by Bel Biv Devoe and “Mysterious Ways” by U2. I thought the U2 track was guaranteed, so I had Bob record some pieces with him specifically mentioning the song.

Aubrey also requested that we include The Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men” and Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams.” A little bit of research yielded that “River of Dreams” wasn’t recorded until 1993 and “It’s Raining Men” came late, late disco right around 1981. The recordings that Bob did mentioned a “One Hit Wonder Weekend” and “The70’s at 7” but where Aubrey requested The Weather Girls doesn’t jive with either of those scenarios.

I currently have an e-mail out to him making him aware of the anachronisms and the eventuality of re-recording if he wants these pieces in and “Mysterious Ways” out…but I’m not holding my breath.

Preshow and Intermission

Aubrey requested that we set up a faux top 40 radio station from 1991 for preshow and intermission music. I happen to know that this was an idea for The Pajama Game that didn’t develop. Aubrey suggested I speak with Bob Pavlovich to see whether I could gain his voice talent for the DJ. I set up a time with him, and in the next couple of days did a bit of research on Buffalo and a specific Top 40 station, 98.5 WKSE Niagara Falls, Buffalo. When Bob came to record, we spent about a half hour discussing and creating some fairly specific spots for the DJ. I recorded Bob with an EV RE-20, a standard mic for radio. Pro Tools was acting up, but otherwise the session went very well and I was happy with the material.

Recording

We were able to get one small voice recording accomplished last night at rehearsal. Malcolm's mom dies in Act II, and the director wanted her to cry, "Malcolm" and then hit the floor. Rather than making her do that every night offstage, we decided to record it. Here's my assistant sound designer with my personal recording setup (laptop, Pro Tools 7 LE, Mbox, headphones) and a mic borrowed from our stock (AKG C414).

Array flown, amp racks moved

Thanks to some departmental cooperation, the array used for The Full Monty was flown on Saturday morning. We also were able to completely rack three of the amp racks for the show and they were moved up to the sound booth in PCT to await patching.

Dummy RF Transmitters

So, we are placing mic transmitters in hats at points to circumvent some of the problems with mic placement. What that requires is a lot of work from costumes and ourselves to guarantee that it works well.

Responding to a note late last week, Dean, Kathy, and Jessica all agreed it was important for the leads to have weighted hats while rehearsing choreography, etc. I rigged 6 Altoids cans with pennies and paper (to kill the noise) to approximate the weight and size of our wireless transmitters.

The goal is for costumes to be ready to put them into rehearsal Friday evening. They currently have several of the dummy packs, which will hopefully aid them in the extra construction they have to do for the hats.

So, I have 6 packs of Altoids with no cans. If your breath needs some help, please swing by CCPA 1463 and I'll be pleased to accommodate.

Rehearsal Wednesday Night

Adam, Matt F. and I attended rehearsal Wednesday night. The cast ran through most of the musical numbers while we listened, took notes, etc.

We received a few more salient details...and oh yeah, there is a backstage chorus mic now.

Car Found

The car being used for The Full Monty has been found and decided upon. It is a 1990 Toyota Camry. So I will initially be looking at import 4 cylinder engine fx, but ultimately what sounds right is more important than what is right. I imagine other design areas also find that connotative value is much more important than rigidly sticking to a certain idea or fact. This is not the actual car, by the way.

One Month Mark

The Full Monty opens one month from today, which surprises me, but I am looking forward to testing and expanding the limits of my knowledge and stamina.

Offstage Chorus

There was the possibility of an offstage chorus, word of which came from both the music director and the stage manager. However, I have gotten the official word that there is no offstage chorus, which is nice. It frees up a couple more inputs on the console, which I think are going to be filled by shotgun mics--mostly as a worst scenario backup.

End of Week Update

A few things have been put on hold while all the drafting occurred this week. I have had a difficult time getting the director to reply to my e-mails with specific responses to questions I have posed. He is also out of town off and on for the next few weeks, which will make meeting with him challenging.

I am going to be putting together preliminary sound effects this weekend. I need to find a time to do some live recording for the scenes in the strip club. My asst. designer continues to be helpful. Things seem to come in waves, and there is another wave of meetings on the near horizon. Specifically, I need to speak with both the lighting and scenic designers to approve final speaker positions, I need to speak with the director concerning sound effects, music choices, etc. I must sit down with the costume designer and begin tracking out exactly how everything is going to work concerning the wireless microphones. It is also about time to begin getting crew involved a bit.

It always seems like shows are way out there and then they're here full force. I'm not behind...this week is where I began to fall behind during The Pajama Game, but I am keeping myself a bit edgy to guarantee that I am ahead instead of behind.

Preliminary Design Complete

My prelim. drafting is due today. I handed my advisor 6 of 7 plates yesterday, with the final one being handed in today. The seventh plate is new (reference last post) and still needs some more discussion on how much info. should be included. The paperwork inluded:

1. Signal Line Diagram
2. Speaker Plot
3. Speaker Section
4. A/V and Comm. Plot
5. Pit Plot
6. Rack Schedule
7. G2 Input/Output Schedule

We review it in Sound Design II this afternoon, at which point I will begin revisions for the finals due next Friday.

Drafting process

At the request of my advisor, I have been trying to wrap my head around the best way to delineate some patches that have (up 'til now) only been assumed. The problem is this: while fairly dependable, the patching system in the PCT sound booth is unwieldy and is made up of mass connectors which partially patch to other mass connectors.

Until now, all our draftings have shown the signal going into the booth patch and coming out of the booth patch. What happens in between is magic as far as our paperwork has been concerned. It seems that everyone designing in that space gets their butt kicked the first time they roll in to patch that system together...I did on Noises Off. That being said, that memory is odious enough that I will allocate a lot of time and strategy to that process, whether it is all worked out on paper or not.

So, tomorrow we're going to look at whether it needs to have a graphic representation (on the signal line diagram or not), whether a spreadsheet with all the pertinent information is better, or whether there should be some stipulation about people having their mass connectors prepped and labeled at some point before load in.

I am not a fan of more paperwork for the sake of paperwork, and neither is my advisor. So, we'll see where we end up.

Signal Line Draft: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

I sat down and scratched out the signal line diagram (SLD) tonight on a sheet of 11X17. The meetings on Monday and Tuesday greatly informed a couple of additions to the plan. We're currently looking at 21 loudspeakers, 37 microphones, 51 inputs, and more patch points than I care to count. We are in good shape for the Jan. 19 deadline for the prelim. paperwork.

Comments on the Score

So, after listening to a lot of mid-to-late 80's for this, I was surprised at how derivative some of the music is. For example, "Big Black Man" sounds just like "Word Up" by Cameo. "It's a Woman's World" also appears to be a take on Genesis' "I Can't Dance." I don't think this is bad necessarily, I am just surprised.

Full Monty Instrumentation

Coming out of the meeting with the music director, the instrumentation is as follows:

Keyboard 1
Keyboard 2
Electric Bass
Guitar (Electric and Acoustic)
Drum Kit
Percussion
Reed 1
Reed 2
Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Trumpet 1
Trumpet 2

Andrew is providing one of the keyboards; we are providing the Kurzweil. We are going to need at least one musician to bring their amp. I will make the decision to either close mic or area mic soon. I would prefer to close mic, but we may not have enough open channels on the mixing console.

Music Cues

I compiled and dropped off two CDs to Aubrey's office today. One of them had sentimental 80's selections for the scene where Malcolm tries to off himself. Here's what that playlist looked like:

1 One More Try – Timmy T

2 Take My Breath Away – Berlin

3 Broken Wings – Mr. Mister

4 In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel

5 You’re the Inspiration – Chicago

6 Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me – George Michael and Elton John

7 Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad – Def Leppard

The other CD had pieces of 80's music that will be coming from the proximity of the club. There are moments both outside and in the men's room that will be more effective with music pumping from the club. Here's what that playlist looked like:

1 Word Up - Cameo

2 Unbelievable - EMF

3 I Can’t Dance - Genesis

4 All 4 Love – Color Me Badd

5 Gonna Make You Sweat – C+C Music Factory

Even though I had more material, I've found that about 5 songs at a time is an effective way to narrow down what a director is looking for or drawn to. If he doesn't find something he likes on these, I will continue to look.

Production Meeting

Tuesday the 9th was a production meeting, and there was a lot to discuss. We spoke with the scenic designer about the car that will be onstage, and Brian was very helpful in saying that he would create a crate for one of the necessary speakers. The other will sit inside the car and will have a cable run to it.

The TD dept. gave us the go ahead to fly the vocal array at the load in for the next opera. This has been done in the past and tends to save us some time on the day we do the changeover.

We are meeting again with costumes after she meets with Aubrey.

We are waiting on headshots from the makeup department.

The lighting designer and I spoke briefly about speaker positions that could potentially be in their way.

Monday Meeting #3

The third meeting was with the Andrew, the music director. The meeting was fairly predictable and Andrew reaffirmed what my asst. and I had discussed about the sound of the show. We got a list of how many players and what type of instrumentation. He didn't really know how that pit laid out, so I gave him a copy of the pit groundplan to reference. I told him that I would be contacting him in a week to check on his decisions for pit positioning.

We also found out through him that Aubrey is using an offstage chorus at least once, which adds a video monitor and two microphones to a system that is already mushrooming a bit. It is good that I tend to have a "keep it simple" approach, because the system could really be getting out of hand otherwise.

Monday Meeting #2

My asst. designer and I met with the director at noon. While the main crux of the meeting was discussing sound cues, we had a lot of things to speak about. I had prepared a list of sound cues with questions on the sheet so Aubrey could look down the list and start answering things. Many of the questions about whether something is sourcing from stage left or stage right will not be answered until more staging is accomplished.

We did find out that we need to add at least one more loudspeaker in the house to fill out the crowd effect at the club. Aubrey asked us to talk to props about the need for six wireless handheld dummy mics. I also told Aubrey that he can plan on us adding a couple of mics on the third level where Ethan and Malcolm have their song.

I also pitched the idea that Malcolm has picked out a specific song to listen to while he tries to asphyxiate himself. Aubrey was open to the idea, so I told him I would get him some things to listen to.

Aubrey engaged me for the last five minutes or so about the mess surrounding tech for us and the Friday rehearsal previous to that. He kept pressing me about it, and I felt like I handled it well considering. I expressed that we wanted that Friday to be productive time for as many areas as possible, and that we're just trying to ensure that the sound is great by opening night. We left the meeting with an understanding that it would need to be discussed on the Tuesday meeting.

Monday Meeting #1

I met with my advisor and my asst. designer Monday morning to talk about the show. After showing Chuck roughs of the basic signal line diagram and the speaker plot, we moved on discuss some specific points.

The wireless UHF mics have been a concern from the beginning due to the amount of steel used in the set. We're using some new antennae positions in an attempt to minimize dropouts that the steel may cause. We typically place antennae stage left both upstage and downstage, but we're pulling everything downstage, probably in front of the proscenium on the torm positions. Hopefully this will work well.

After seeing Drew use remote computer control through Timbuktu on The Pajama Game, I am planning on using a similar set up on The Full Monty to minimize down time. Once technology is implemented that has a direct affect on the director or the tech process, it is difficult to go back since people tend to expect it from there on out.

With our drafting standards close to being completely done, we are adding a section of drafting to the SLD which details the patching of mass connectors in the booth. The thought is that this will minimize problems up there in the future.

Word from the director

Well, it's official. Pink thongs will be used. I currently have an e-mail out to the costume designer asking where precisely these are being used, and whether there is any possibility of building a pocket into the jock...

I have meetings scheduled on Monday with my advisor (to go over system choices and miscellany), the director (for sound cue decisions) and the music director (overall aesthetic, pit placement, details on players). I will update after those meetings are completed.

Meeting with assistant designer

Matt Fish has already proven himself a valuable asset as my assistant designer. He swung by today of his own volition to check in and see what he needed to be doing. We arranged 3 meeting times per week: Tues. and Thurs. at 2pm and Fri. at 10am.

I shot out several e-mails today arranging meetings and checking details. I am quickly moving into the system design as my preliminary plots are due in two weeks.

Wireless Crew Chief

We had a bit of a predicament with who to make wireless crew chief for The Full Monty. We have two sound students on the wireless crew, Phil Hipskind (grad) and Sean Luckey (soph). However, neither of them have yet been on a wireless crew. We rarely have a situation where we expect someone to run a crew without first being a crewmember.

Phil has a conflicting requirement on the last performance with a jazz show (part of his G.A.), so I made the decision to make Sean the crew chief. I may step in on the last show to provide support in Phil's absence, but we'll see.

Production Due Dates

Jan. 19 - Preliminary Design Due (incl. signal line diagram, speaker plot and section, comm. and video plot)

Jan. 26 - Final Design Due (Six plates of drafting, cue list)

Jan. 31 - Shop Order Due

Feb. 11 - Changeover

Feb. 18 - Tech

Feb. 22 - Open

Mar. 4 - Strike