S1 Ep7: Sound Department with Lorenzo Millan and Paul Flinton - Updated

[00:00:15] Welcome to Homicide Life On The Set, a podcast about the Emmy Award winning television show, Homicide Life On The Street, with myself, Chris Carr and Susan Ingram.

[00:00:32] On today's podcast we're joined by Paul Flinton and Lorenzo Millan, who are both leading figures in the sound department on the show.

[00:01:07] Hello everybody, welcome back to Homicide Life On The Set. Susan, how are you? How are you doing?

[00:01:12] Hey, great. Hey Chris, how are you?

[00:01:14] Yeah, not too bad. Bit hot. It's hot in London at the moment. High humidity with heat, so...

[00:01:21] Yes.

[00:01:23] Learning I could live with some air conditioning at some point.

[00:01:26] I have horribly hot air. 100 degrees here yesterday in Baltimore, so...

[00:01:31] Bizarre. Of course, when we... well yeah, this will air right in the middle of it, so yeah, it'll still be hot.

[00:01:37] Yeah, people will still be hot listening to this.

[00:01:39] Yeah.

[00:01:41] Well, today we have Paul Flinton and Lorenzo Mian, who were both in the sound department on the show.

[00:01:49] And Paul was a PA who then became a utility and then became second boom operator.

[00:01:54] So he sort of progressed his career through the show.

[00:01:57] And Lorenzo was the primary boom operator on the show.

[00:02:01] We've got some really great stories coming up in this episode.

[00:02:03] I think it's a really great interview.

[00:02:05] And I think you'll learn a lot of interesting things that maybe, as a viewer, you might not have necessarily appreciated with the sound side of things.

[00:02:12] It's quite an art to it, especially of a show like this, with all the moving camera and things and actors sort of moving about.

[00:02:19] It's a lot of complexity to what they have to do to get good sound.

[00:02:23] So I think you'll learn a lot from this episode, even if you're not a filmmaker.

[00:02:27] Yeah, I think it's funny to say, but I think the sound department is sort of like the silent partners, right?

[00:02:32] Like when you watch a movie or a TV show, you're very aware of the acting, maybe the directing, if it filters down your head like, wow, this is directed really well.

[00:02:41] And obviously, the camera work is apparent.

[00:02:47] But I don't think when the sound is really good, people don't really think about the sound, of course, unless it's edited or it's a special effects show with a lot of explosions or something.

[00:03:00] But because they're not sort of really apparent, I think people don't think about how difficult, especially on this show, the sound recording is.

[00:03:11] And this was just a really entertaining look behind the scenes with with with Paul and Lorenzo, who I thought was interesting and was happy to have them on because of this.

[00:03:23] Both became sound mixers after this show so they can look back and with with the eyes and ears of a sound mixer, talk about what it was like to mix the show, even though, unfortunately, we weren't unable to have the sound mixer on at this point.

[00:03:40] So their their perspective, I think is really good.

[00:03:43] And I'd like to do if you don't mind, Chris, really quickly, just sort of a little glossary ahead of time for people.

[00:03:49] Yeah, because I think there are things that that words that they may not be familiar with.

[00:03:54] One is lavaliers or lav mics, which people may be familiar with, but they're little tiny, little tiny mics that clip onto the actors usually somewhere near their throat on their wardrobe and the wire runs around their body.

[00:04:09] And the transmitter and the battery pack are clipped on their backs.

[00:04:14] And this was not used very often on homicide.

[00:04:17] And you'll hear why.

[00:04:19] Also, the the episode we talked about, some of the episodes that were challenging or really interesting for sound, one of which we talked about the bus riot episode that was shades of gray.

[00:04:30] So if people want to go back and look at that because we're going to be streaming soon.

[00:04:34] Yay.

[00:04:35] They want to go back and look at that.

[00:04:37] That was the episode shades of gray.

[00:04:39] And then when Paul talked about the boom pole, I think we didn't really even explain this much.

[00:04:46] The sound person and also Josh with a light would stand with a 10, 15, 20 foot pole with their arms extended completely over their head.

[00:04:56] And that's painful.

[00:04:57] Yes.

[00:04:57] With either a microphone on the end or with Josh would have been the paper lantern on the end.

[00:05:04] And and think about the camera moving all the time everywhere.

[00:05:08] And a couple of guys or women, if we had a woman boom operator to holding those boom poles over their heads and trying to move around with the scene.

[00:05:18] And then he also mentioned the Zeppelin.

[00:05:21] So there are two kinds of things that go on the end of the mic.

[00:05:24] Sometimes it's sort of very close conical piece of foam rubber.

[00:05:28] But if you're outside or an environment where it's very windy or noisy, there will be a much larger apparatus around the microphone called a Zeppelin or the one he called a furry cat is is actually looks like a big gray fur piece that goes over the microphone to try to mitigate any kind of, you know, extra unexpected wind noises or sound.

[00:05:53] So that was just a couple of things I thought the listening public might might appreciate, understanding before we get into this really, really, really entertaining episode.

[00:06:04] Yeah, indeed.

[00:06:05] We talked about mag liners and and pushing our mag liners around.

[00:06:10] Those were the aluminum foldable aluminum carts that we use to transport our equipment on.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:17] And that's what I think he was talking about loading it up and having to push it up that three story ramp up into up into the squad room sets, which was our which was our big hump every day.

[00:06:27] We were on a squad room, but also very challenging pushing an aluminum cart full of, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment across cobblestones.

[00:06:39] That was always, you really had to let me the front tires were pneumatic, the front wheels were pneumatic tires, but the back wheels were hard little hard wheels.

[00:06:47] So what you'd end up doing is lifting up the end of the cart with the handles where the small wheels were and like lifting the cart up and pushing it along.

[00:06:57] So it was a it was definitely physically challenging, especially because we moved so much and worked so many different locations in day in practical, always in practical locations and always in the city.

[00:07:10] Excellent. Well, thank you for giving us that because, yeah, there are quite a few technical terms in this episode, but I think once you understand them, it will make a lot of sense with that.

[00:07:20] So thank you. Right.

[00:07:21] Well, let's go into the episode and we will catch you on the other side.

[00:07:45] Nice to see you guys.

[00:07:47] And it's been a very long time, but we're really great.

[00:07:50] Really happy to have you on on the podcast, Homicide Life on the Set.

[00:07:54] And I wanted to preface our interview with the sound guys by saying we did try to contact the mixer that was on the most episodes of the show, seasons two through seven.

[00:08:10] But we were not able to get contact with him.

[00:08:13] So I did want to talk to Lorenzo as a boom operator who is now an Emmy Award winning sound mixer who was on most the most episodes compared to all the other boom operators of which we had many.

[00:08:28] Lorenzo was on the show for 67 episodes from according to IMDB.

[00:08:33] And you can correct me, Lorenzo, if I'm wrong.

[00:08:36] Lorenzo was on the show from 1996 to 1999.

[00:08:39] And Paul was on the show originally, Paul, as an office PA.

[00:08:43] And then you can tell us about how you made that transition when we get into the conversation to working sound on the set as a utility person and then also booming.

[00:08:55] So let's just start out, you know, with our normal sort of background questions for people, which is how did you get into the business and what brought you to homicide?

[00:09:07] So I'm Baltimore born and I went to a school, obviously locally.

[00:09:15] And when I got to high school, one of my teachers had a film class where he taught super eight millimeter film.

[00:09:24] And that's kind of how I started was doing that, making movies and kind of on a lark.

[00:09:33] I applied to NYU to School of the Arts and got in really have no idea how how I got in.

[00:09:40] But so I went to I went to NYU and spent a total of five and a half years in New York.

[00:09:46] So almost two years after I graduated, I stayed.

[00:09:49] And by myself, by my second semester freshman year, I started doing sound.

[00:09:54] So I started I became one of two sound people that worked on everybody's movies.

[00:09:59] So I think I mixed 60 production, 60 student films.

[00:10:05] But I, you know, at that time, early 90s, Local 52, the IATSE Local 52 in New York was was very hard to get into.

[00:10:14] If you didn't know anybody, you weren't getting an easily.

[00:10:18] So I moved back here to Baltimore and I ended up taking over the film class at the high school.

[00:10:28] And I actually.

[00:10:31] My father was a physician, a physician friend of his went to medical school with the wife of a camera operator in town named Richard Chisholm, who did be camera sometimes.

[00:10:41] Yeah.

[00:10:41] Yeah.

[00:10:43] And so I got his phone number and called him and I went to his place on St. Paul Street and he gave me the phone number of five local mixers, one of which was Rick Angelo, who did season one.

[00:10:54] Right. Rick, I wanted to mention.

[00:10:55] Of Homicide.

[00:10:56] Yes.

[00:10:56] Yeah.

[00:10:57] Season one.

[00:10:58] Yeah.

[00:10:59] So I basically cold called all of them, got into the union here, local 47 and started working as a boom operator.

[00:11:07] And I did.

[00:11:09] This is like 94.

[00:11:11] Four.

[00:11:11] Yeah.

[00:11:11] I joined the union.

[00:11:12] Cause I'll be hitting 30 years in the union.

[00:11:15] And I started doing commercials and stuff.

[00:11:17] And then I did, I was doing second unit of Homicide season four.

[00:11:22] And then, uh, like April of 96, I get a phone call out of the blue and it's the sound mixer from Homicide Bruce Latecki and saying, Hey, I know you've done second unit.

[00:11:35] How would you like to join us as the boom operator for season five?

[00:11:40] And in my head, I know this is like either, either I say yes or I'm pretty much done in the business because I don't, I have to, I have to make the jump.

[00:11:50] And I was nervous as hell and I said yes.

[00:11:53] Right.

[00:11:53] And I was very green and, uh, but that's how I ended up on Homicide.

[00:11:58] That fast.

[00:11:59] I was 26.

[00:12:01] Nice.

[00:12:01] I want to throw out just, just so, so people understand also that when Lorenzo came in, um, in 96, we had had, let's see, I'm just going to throw the names out.

[00:12:11] Brian Mixis did 22 episodes.

[00:12:14] Chris Kellett did 16.

[00:12:15] Dwayne Dell did nine.

[00:12:17] Uh, the first season.

[00:12:18] I forgot about Dwayne.

[00:12:19] Yeah.

[00:12:19] John Gooch did eight.

[00:12:21] Uh, Paul, I think they have the wrong number for you on IMDB because I think they only counted.

[00:12:25] I think they do too.

[00:12:26] They counted your utility and not your booming.

[00:12:28] And then Carl Moeller, um, two episodes in 99.

[00:12:32] He was the utility season seven.

[00:12:34] Carl Moeller was.

[00:12:35] Oh, okay.

[00:12:35] Yes.

[00:12:35] Utility.

[00:12:36] Yeah.

[00:12:36] So, um, so a lot of people, but Lorenzo was there for the longest time.

[00:12:42] And, um, before we get into, um, what that jump was like for you and the job was like, let's flip over to Paul and Paul tell us your, your transition.

[00:12:52] Now you went to UMBC, but you were there after me, right?

[00:12:56] I was.

[00:12:57] Uh, it's funny.

[00:12:58] Uh, you say that.

[00:12:59] And when you, once you brought that up, I was like, oh yeah, UMBC like brings all this together.

[00:13:03] Yeah.

[00:13:03] The whole Baltimore film base.

[00:13:05] Yeah.

[00:13:05] And Richard obviously Richard.

[00:13:06] Richard Chisholm who made your connection, Lorenzo was at, uh, UMBC the same time I was.

[00:13:11] And we were, we worked in the cage.

[00:13:12] He ran the cage where we lent out the equipment.

[00:13:15] Um, but I also love.

[00:13:16] And boots ran the cage for a period too.

[00:13:18] Yeah.

[00:13:18] I think that was after, after I left.

[00:13:20] Cause I was out of there, uh, 82.

[00:13:23] Was it 80?

[00:13:24] No, no 80.

[00:13:26] Anyway.

[00:13:27] Um, and the other thing was interesting.

[00:13:29] Let me just flip back before we get to you, Paul Lorenzo, when you talked about getting interested in high school.

[00:13:34] Um, I had a high school class that got me interested in, in the film business too.

[00:13:38] So it's interesting that it goes back that far for many people and, and the progression of how we get in often is this really weird sort of tangled root, um, of sometimes just one saying yes once to one person or saying no to something else.

[00:13:54] Um, it's interesting how, how we all ended up there.

[00:13:57] So Paul, go ahead and tell us what your, your progression was.

[00:14:00] Uh, yeah, I went to UMBC too, to be for film school.

[00:14:03] Um, and they, UMBC offered us, um, more of a film program as opposed to the college park, which offered RTV and F.

[00:14:11] And at the time I didn't know the difference, but once I got a taste of UMBC, I realized it was a film program.

[00:14:18] So, uh, also Rick Angelo went there.

[00:14:21] Boots was there when I was there as a student.

[00:14:23] Richard Chisholm was there as a, as a teacher's assistant, I believe.

[00:14:26] And Dennis, the other sound mixer in town who did the sound documentary.

[00:14:30] Yeah.

[00:14:32] I think the thing that really turned my head direction toward specifically sound was a class and I was in with Richard Chisholm and he, we, that must've been whatever, in a small class, 12, 15, and most 20 of us.

[00:14:44] And he asked the group, how many people here want to be directors?

[00:14:47] And of course everybody raised their hand.

[00:14:49] How many people here want to be cinematographers?

[00:14:51] And most people raised their hand.

[00:14:53] How many people want to be sound people?

[00:14:55] And like, nobody raised their hand.

[00:14:57] And he said, this is the challenge because everybody wants to be a director and a camera person, but you still need a sound person.

[00:15:03] So if you want to work in this town, you might want to think about being a sound person.

[00:15:07] And I was like, that's great advice.

[00:15:09] And to this day, when you think about it, Susan and Lorenzo and Chris too, right?

[00:15:12] How many sound people come to work on a movie for free for my reel?

[00:15:18] Right?

[00:15:19] So I was always very, once I, once I just discovered that I was like, oh yeah.

[00:15:24] And sound is, is very cool.

[00:15:26] And Chris and I were talking earlier.

[00:15:27] It's, you can relate so much more.

[00:15:30] I shouldn't say so much more, but you can relate a lot of content with audio without picture versus the other way.

[00:15:38] So I was always interested in sound.

[00:15:39] Interesting.

[00:15:41] So yeah, UMBC and then PA-ing in town.

[00:15:45] I did some, I stepped away, did some traveling and then came back to this, the States and, and this TV show Homicide was, was getting ready to rev up.

[00:15:54] And all my film friends were like, oh yeah, you got to try to get it a PA job on that.

[00:15:58] And it, which was few and far between, you know, there's only so many jobs.

[00:16:02] I'm just going to throw in here for, for all the people who may be new to listening to us or new to listening about back behind the scenes film stuff.

[00:16:09] A PA is a production assistant.

[00:16:11] Um, the people that also known as gophers who do everything, who do everything that, that, that, that isn't being done by other departments.

[00:16:20] So go ahead, Paul.

[00:16:21] Sorry about that.

[00:16:21] That's all right.

[00:16:22] And I was fortunate to work out a friend of mine who was doing a commercial for the local television station.

[00:16:27] Susan, you might've been on this, the WJZ commercial.

[00:16:30] It was five days.

[00:16:32] Matt Craven was on it.

[00:16:34] Um, he got me on it.

[00:16:36] And, uh, it was a five day film commercial where we did everything from like rain scenes to, to whatever.

[00:16:43] And I was, I was a PA on that.

[00:16:45] And the, the girl who became the production coordinator, uh, on Homicide, Kathy Clark at that time, uh, was on that.

[00:16:53] And she's, and we met and she actually asked me to become, uh, the office PA for the homicide TV show.

[00:17:00] And I, and, uh, I told my friend, uh, who was another PA in town who desperately wanted to get on the show.

[00:17:06] And, and I said, uh, yeah, this girl, Kathy Clark called me.

[00:17:09] And, uh, Nadia said, well, what?

[00:17:11] She called you.

[00:17:12] You just got it down.

[00:17:13] Like we've been here for, I'm like, I don't know.

[00:17:15] She just called me to be in the office PA.

[00:17:18] And, and she's like, oh my God, what did you say?

[00:17:20] And I said, I wanted more money.

[00:17:23] I wanted, you know, I think the offer was like $500 a week.

[00:17:26] And I was like, no, I need, I need five 50.

[00:17:29] And all of my friends just slapped themselves in the head.

[00:17:31] Like, are you kidding me?

[00:17:32] Here's the golden opportunity.

[00:17:34] And you asked for more money.

[00:17:35] Right.

[00:17:35] Instead of saying, I'll do anything.

[00:17:36] I'll work for free.

[00:17:37] Right.

[00:17:38] Right.

[00:17:38] And, uh, and then she gave me the money and I, I went to work, uh, is the office PA for season

[00:17:43] three, but just long story short, Susan, that being in the office for season three, for me,

[00:17:47] being incredibly green and not ever working on a, on a large production like that was spectacular.

[00:17:54] And such a learning experience.

[00:17:55] Cause I could see, uh, you know, for the first time I'm sitting at a desk answering the phones,

[00:18:00] but I could see pre-production from, you know, the next episode while we're filming an episode.

[00:18:06] And then I could also be part of, you know, the conversations, not really part of, but I could hear

[00:18:12] and see the conversations for post-production at the same time.

[00:18:15] And it's like, wow, this is amazing how all these parts and pieces come together.

[00:18:19] And in order to move a company and have all those extras at a certain location at a certain time

[00:18:24] of day and to house them and feed them.

[00:18:26] And that's a huge move to big lift.

[00:18:29] And, uh, when you're on set, you don't see that at all.

[00:18:33] You just show up at the location and there are 50 extras here and there's food for them

[00:18:37] and there's a place for them to stay in those bathrooms.

[00:18:39] And, um, it was really quite an eyeopening experience being part of that, um, production office.

[00:18:45] Lorenzo, you, you mentioned, I think when we were chatting ahead of time that there were,

[00:18:49] that the, the set was miked so that, so, so Paul, could you also overhear what was happening

[00:18:54] on the set?

[00:18:55] I could not.

[00:18:56] Uh, that was in, uh, the production manager's office.

[00:18:59] I think we started doing that.

[00:19:01] Later.

[00:19:01] I think it was probably either season five or season six where Finity could hear us,

[00:19:07] that Jim Finity could hear us because our, uh, uh, the frequency that everybody would listen,

[00:19:14] the frequency that the headsets were on that everybody could listen to, uh, for director or

[00:19:20] script supervisor and everybody, I think was like 87.5.

[00:19:26] And you had, if you had an FM radio station that could go that low cause they usually would end

[00:19:30] like 87.7.

[00:19:32] And then you could listen in.

[00:19:34] So teamsters could tune their car radios.

[00:19:36] Right.

[00:19:37] I do remember the teamsters did that.

[00:19:39] Yeah.

[00:19:39] Yeah.

[00:19:40] So, so, um, what I also think is interesting, you know, we're going to get the perspective,

[00:19:45] obviously Lorenzo, you were boom on the show, but you since then have become a sound mixer.

[00:19:50] So you can look back as much as you can remember.

[00:19:52] Cause I know there's many things I don't remember 30 years later, but you can look back and, um,

[00:19:57] and talk about, um, from the mixing standpoint, some, because you're a mixer now and understanding

[00:20:02] what Bruce was going through and how incredibly difficult, uh, the show was for the sound department.

[00:20:07] I want to reiterate that.

[00:20:09] I think I said it in episode one, um, that many people might not understand that in a traditional filmmaking,

[00:20:17] um, you'll often have a set, um, you know, the, the actors will go through the set and, and block and everybody will get marked.

[00:20:26] And everybody will get lit, but there would be a very set lighting situation and a set camera situation.

[00:20:34] So then the boom operator could rehearse to make sure that they're not throwing shadows, know where the best place to be.

[00:20:43] But this is an entirely different situation.

[00:20:46] There's no, no, very few, if any light stands on the set, which means the cameraman could go anywhere,

[00:20:52] which made it really difficult for the sound department, not just to keep up with him and where he was going and moving,

[00:20:59] making sure you're not throwing shadows on everybody, but also sometimes not knowing who you were going to.

[00:21:05] And also, um, you and I talked about this, Lorenzo, and you might, you might've talked about it in the chat ahead of time with Chris,

[00:21:13] that lavalier mics are going to make a lot of noise because there's a lot of movement also.

[00:21:18] So could you just talk about some of those, um, challenges for the boom operator?

[00:21:25] And, um, in addition to, this is too many questions at once.

[00:21:29] In addition to, we weren't on a soundstage.

[00:21:33] We were on, you know, for all intents and purposes of practical sets that were turned into, you know,

[00:21:38] practical locations that were turned into sets.

[00:21:40] We could hear the delivery trucks.

[00:21:40] You could hear the delivery, the beer trucks.

[00:21:41] Oh, we could hear the beer delivery trucks, the police chopper.

[00:21:44] You could hear the Teamsters talking, Ford and everybody.

[00:21:48] And besides the fact that the building we were in was the headquarters for Moran Tugboat.

[00:21:54] Moran Towing.

[00:21:55] So we had to know.

[00:21:56] The tugboat company.

[00:21:57] So they had to coordinate with the tugboat company when they could run.

[00:22:01] Oh, wow.

[00:22:02] I didn't know that.

[00:22:02] That's amazing.

[00:22:03] The tugs were downstairs when they had to go out, um, in and out.

[00:22:07] Or seagulls.

[00:22:08] And depending on whether we were in the set or, or out on the, um, you know, out on the rec pier,

[00:22:12] out the exterior part, they had to coordinate with them.

[00:22:15] So, so if you guys want to talk about that and also for people who don't know, Paul,

[00:22:20] um, jump in at some point and talk about, you know, the fact that what the utility person

[00:22:24] does while Lorenzo is trying to run around and boom, you know, what you're doing.

[00:22:29] So, so you guys just, just sort of fill us in on, on, on one, what you did, but also how

[00:22:35] different, very different it was from other productions.

[00:22:39] Uh, I just want to say just, uh, Susan, you pointed out, uh, Bruce Latecki was the, was the

[00:22:44] official mixer for most of that show, the whole show.

[00:22:47] Uh, and both, I think Lorenzo and I, uh, both coming in pretty green at that point, you know,

[00:22:52] he, he was an excellent mixer, uh, excellent narrative mixer.

[00:22:56] He got his start doing documentaries.

[00:22:58] Uh, and I learned so much from that guy.

[00:23:02] Um, just, you know, he, he could be very challenging to work for is no doubt, but I learned an amazing

[00:23:08] amount of, of, uh, sound work from him.

[00:23:11] The, you know, just the, the preparation of what to expect, you know, what's coming at you.

[00:23:16] And, and there's a, you don't always know what's coming at you, but you want to think ahead.

[00:23:23] Like, uh, I almost related to like waiting tables, right?

[00:23:26] Uh, where if you, if the, if the person's ordering French fries, you're pretty sure they're going to want ketchup.

[00:23:32] So bring the ketchup before the fries.

[00:23:33] Right, anticipate.

[00:23:34] Because once you do, you got to anticipate a lot of things, especially in a show like this.

[00:23:38] And he was really good at anticipating what's coming at you.

[00:23:43] And he was a perfectionist, I think on which, which I think was really challenging for him because this was not a show that was ever perfect.

[00:23:51] You know, that was part of its, part of its, you know, its soul.

[00:23:55] So I think Bruce's view is the same one that he taught me and Paul and the, what I have taught my, the people that have worked for me, um, and how I approach it is that we are painting.

[00:24:10] He was very clued in on editorial.

[00:24:12] He was very clued in on TV editorial and also understanding if there's a phone call and you're showing both sides of the phone call, they better match at level and intensity and background noise and everything.

[00:24:24] So that, that edit is, is, is tight.

[00:24:28] He doesn't want them to have to remix anything that he's doing.

[00:24:32] Right.

[00:24:32] And that's the approach that I have taken.

[00:24:34] That was his goal, right?

[00:24:35] Yeah.

[00:24:35] Yeah.

[00:24:36] So his, his thing was the city is a character in the show.

[00:24:41] He loved the trains going by.

[00:24:44] Everybody was like, we got to stop for the train.

[00:24:45] Man, that train coming by in the background gives you a texture that you're not going to get.

[00:24:50] And, and he would often stop after, let's say we cut this, the shot, he would not for the train, but just in between, he would ask, or obviously at the end, always, always, always let's roll 30 seconds of ambient sound.

[00:25:03] You want that, you want that feel.

[00:25:05] I guess everybody does that.

[00:25:06] Well, they do and they don't.

[00:25:07] I mean, but that, that adds a texture to what, now it depends if you like, if you're on the stage and you hear a train sound and you're doing like, it's supposed to be a lawyer's office.

[00:25:18] You don't want that.

[00:25:19] But when we were out on the street, we basically, you know, every place we were was where we were.

[00:25:24] Right.

[00:25:25] And I think, I don't think what, what people don't understand, especially for people getting in the business now, he was recording on a stereo time code Nagra.

[00:25:33] So he had two tracks.

[00:25:34] Nagra.

[00:25:34] Two channel Nagra.

[00:25:35] Two channel Nagra.

[00:25:37] So if he had, let's say he had love, like four lavaliers.

[00:25:40] Two channel.

[00:25:40] It was only two channels?

[00:25:41] Wow.

[00:25:41] Only two channels.

[00:25:42] Two channel, yeah.

[00:25:43] Wow.

[00:25:43] And, and we had Aton, the Aton camera and Aton code.

[00:25:47] So we jam it in the morning and we had 15 inch, no, was it seven and a half inch reels, which went about 14 minutes, something like that.

[00:25:56] Or was it 11 minutes?

[00:25:57] I'm trying to remember.

[00:25:58] It almost matched a magazine.

[00:26:00] But I remember, so if he had loves and a boom, he would put loves on one channel, I believe, and the boom on the other.

[00:26:09] And you had to make conscious decisions of how the scene was being played for what you recorded.

[00:26:13] Mix it.

[00:26:14] You would really mix it.

[00:26:14] You would really have to mix it.

[00:26:16] And it's so, it's like, it's like live show mixing.

[00:26:21] Right.

[00:26:21] Exactly.

[00:26:22] And it's so, I don't think people understand.

[00:26:24] Now you've got a track for every microphone.

[00:26:26] You've got 20 tracks, 16 tracks.

[00:26:28] You know, he had two.

[00:26:30] And he also went on, I went on to boom with him, for him on The Wire as well.

[00:26:35] And he had two tracks.

[00:26:36] It wasn't until, I think, season four of The Wire that he had multi-track, more than two tracks.

[00:26:42] And he was brilliant at it.

[00:26:44] And he always said that he didn't want to have to move the fader.

[00:26:48] So the job of the boom operator on a show like that was that because if you move the fader, you raise and lower the background sound.

[00:26:55] And then it becomes harder to cut.

[00:26:57] And he wanted the boom operator to mix with distance with the microphone, with the boom microphone, while avoiding lights and while walking around and doing all that.

[00:27:05] Was it true you had Watchmen around your neck?

[00:27:08] We did.

[00:27:08] We had the little Casio Watchmen.

[00:27:10] No, no, no.

[00:27:11] I never had it around my neck.

[00:27:12] I would only look at it to kind of get a gauge or if I was up in the rafters.

[00:27:15] But we had rechargeable batteries and I had the little Casio, which he used to sell at Radio Shack.

[00:27:21] And I would have that to kind of get a gauge.

[00:27:24] But so as a boom operator, I would stand beside the camera a lot and I would always watch.

[00:27:31] Jean always used wider lenses.

[00:27:33] You can correct me, Susan, of what, because you said you used Cook lenses.

[00:27:38] Is that what it was?

[00:27:39] Cook lenses.

[00:27:40] Cook prime lenses.

[00:27:41] It was Cook lenses, yeah.

[00:27:42] And we also had a short zoom that allowed him to, you know, reset the shot with a different length of lens.

[00:27:50] Yeah.

[00:27:50] But he liked to push in himself.

[00:27:52] Yeah.

[00:27:53] He would use a 12 and a 16.

[00:27:54] Now when it came to Alex, he would use like the 25.

[00:27:59] So Alex would be farther away.

[00:28:01] So I had to learn lenses by eye.

[00:28:05] And I always knew if Kyle was in the scene, he was usually the tallest or yafet.

[00:28:08] And I knew that I had about six inches to eight inches above their heads, turning my eye from the camera lens to their body to know where the frame line was.

[00:28:19] And I would have to judge that to know where my frame was.

[00:28:23] And you could tell if they would tilt down, they were going into some body or it dealt up.

[00:28:27] Since it was a prime, it wasn't so much of a zoom a lot.

[00:28:30] Alex was different.

[00:28:31] I would watch Alex's feet.

[00:28:32] If he turned his right foot to the side, I knew he was going right.

[00:28:35] If he turned his left foot for the side, I knew he was going left.

[00:28:38] So that's, that's the, I had to learn all that and, and get the lines.

[00:28:44] Yeah.

[00:28:44] So I'm just gonna, I was gonna throw in the tech, which is, um, the main lens was a cook 10.5 to 52.

[00:28:52] Okay.

[00:28:53] And, um, backed up with a full set of Zeiss super speeds and a Canon, the long, the long lens, the 11.5 to 138.

[00:29:00] Yeah.

[00:29:00] Quick, quick question.

[00:29:01] What was, what is the Casio Watchmen? Is that like a monitor?

[00:29:03] It's a little like, cause we had what's called modulus is, uh, which were basically illegal TV broadcast transmitters.

[00:29:12] Yeah.

[00:29:13] And they would go to channel.

[00:29:14] It was like there, it was like channel 16.7.

[00:29:17] I think I, or 16.

[00:29:19] Uh, so you could tune it in because the little, the little Casios were basically TV because everything was over broadcast at that time in the nineties.

[00:29:27] Yeah.

[00:29:28] And you could, you could tune in the camera.

[00:29:30] Right.

[00:29:30] Cause we had video systems, obviously video systems, you know?

[00:29:34] Yeah.

[00:29:34] Yeah.

[00:29:34] Ah, so you take a signal from the video system.

[00:29:36] We had video systems on the camera that was transmitting to everybody that wanted the look, you know, look, watch.

[00:29:41] Super helpful Chris too, for, uh, for, um, PAs who are, who are working background extras.

[00:29:46] Yeah.

[00:29:47] Didn't know when to send people.

[00:29:48] They could listen, they could see.

[00:29:50] Right.

[00:29:50] That's true.

[00:29:51] Yeah.

[00:29:51] And also for Lorenzo and I, so we could see where, where, where.

[00:29:54] We could see the frame was.

[00:29:55] The camera was, what he was looking at.

[00:29:57] It was, it was quite comical cause the screen is like an inch and a half.

[00:30:00] I know it's so tiny.

[00:30:01] It's a low color screen.

[00:30:03] And you're like, I think I see myself.

[00:30:05] I have no idea.

[00:30:06] I think I see a shadow.

[00:30:07] The, the other thing, and I'm sure just to pop down on Lorenzo and I'm sure Lorenzo was doing this too, but when you get used to working with people like that, you, you, uh, in terms of booming them as you're looking around and, uh, you can tell when somebody is getting ready to speak by that very subtle inhale they're going to do.

[00:30:26] Yeah.

[00:30:26] And now it's mentally, it's my turn to say my line.

[00:30:29] And they, they have a little bit of an inhale and you're like, that's guys going, he's going next.

[00:30:33] He's, you know, uh, and you, you would just pop over there, swing over.

[00:30:37] Yeah.

[00:30:37] And one of the things, one of the things that Tom, Tom and John both talked about was that, um, because John was so free flowing with the camera work that the actors never knew they always had to be on their toes because they never knew when he was going to swing around to them.

[00:30:54] Um, he always found, you know, like, you know, the sort of button shot, you know, at the end to get on the actor who has the reaction to whatever the scene is and that they all had to stay on their toes, uh, because they didn't know.

[00:31:08] How much, how much do you guys feel like you knew when you were, when you were booming?

[00:31:14] I think by the time we got, uh, proficient, cause it took a little bit for, I'm sure for both Paul and I to become proficient because it's unlike anything else we had worked on.

[00:31:28] Like you had to, I, Bruce's philosophy and has become my philosophy.

[00:31:32] I'm sure Paul feels the same way cause we talked about this the other night.

[00:31:36] Paul and I did is that you wanted to capture everybody in every take.

[00:31:41] Right.

[00:31:42] You didn't want to like, old school filmmaking was like, if somebody's off camera, you don't record them or you don't boom them on a traditional.

[00:31:50] Cause their performance isn't going to be good either.

[00:31:52] Yeah.

[00:31:53] And so I had to boom everybody.

[00:31:56] Paul and I together had to, we did a lot of two booming or, you know, even if somebody was going to stay off camera, maybe we put a plant mic for them.

[00:32:03] So it's still there.

[00:32:05] Um, because nobody ever knew, but you, you kind of learn the actors and learn their body and learn what they would do.

[00:32:14] Um, you knew their personalities and how they would change what they're doing.

[00:32:19] Um, Yafit was always my favorite.

[00:32:22] That way because inevitably between take one and take two, once he saw what everybody else's action was, he would decide to change his action.

[00:32:30] So, uh, take one, he'd go to the door.

[00:32:33] Take two, he'd go to the window.

[00:32:35] And so I forgot about that.

[00:32:37] Why did he do that?

[00:32:38] That's really interesting.

[00:32:39] Well, so it's, it's, this is old school and it's also old school film technique to know.

[00:32:44] I want to make sure the camera's on me so that they use me in the episode.

[00:32:49] And, and that is very, that is a, I've seen actors do it plenty where they just like, you know, they turn one direction in one angle, but they turn the exact same exact opposite direction on the other angle.

[00:33:00] So the camera sees their face in both shots.

[00:33:02] Lorenzo, you're right about that.

[00:33:03] Trying to make sure we got everything, every line in every shot, because even, even though, as you were talking earlier, Susan, we would, we would, uh, you know, we'd rehearse a little bit.

[00:33:14] John would rehearse.

[00:33:15] Josh would start to light.

[00:33:17] Josh and company would start to light.

[00:33:19] And, uh, Lorenzo, uh, and sometimes myself would jump in there trying to figure out lighting patterns.

[00:33:23] And then the choreography of how to capture everybody was the next phase for Lorenzo and I and Bruce.

[00:33:29] But, uh, even when John or the director would say, oh, we'll, we'll do this wide shot and as a one piece, and then we'll come over and get coverage of them and coverage of them.

[00:33:39] Dude, how many times Lorenzo did, did we do it once or twice?

[00:33:42] And everybody's like, that was great.

[00:33:44] Let's move on.

[00:33:45] That's it.

[00:33:46] We would never go in for coverage.

[00:33:47] We would never go in for coverage.

[00:33:49] Yeah.

[00:33:49] Because he would do the coverage.

[00:33:51] He would do the coverage while he's shooting his mask.

[00:33:53] In the one-er.

[00:33:54] Yeah.

[00:33:54] Yeah.

[00:33:54] In the one-er.

[00:33:55] Right.

[00:33:56] So.

[00:33:56] And swinging singles.

[00:33:58] Remember those?

[00:33:58] Yeah, swinging singles.

[00:33:59] Right.

[00:34:00] So, so just to give people a picture, uh, sorry, let me get back closer to the mic, uh, to give people a picture.

[00:34:06] So if, Lorenzo, you're out there with John and Boots is pulling focus and maybe, um, Josh with the, uh, with the Chinese lantern.

[00:34:14] Um, this is not, uh, a wireless boom mic, correct?

[00:34:18] So, Paul.

[00:34:19] No, it is.

[00:34:20] It is.

[00:34:20] It is.

[00:34:20] Okay.

[00:34:21] It was wireless.

[00:34:21] It is.

[00:34:22] Were there points where you, where you were pulling cable?

[00:34:26] No.

[00:34:27] On this show, we never had, we never had cable.

[00:34:29] Okay.

[00:34:29] I would say we were probably one of the earliest shows to be wireless that way.

[00:34:34] Wireless boom, yeah.

[00:34:35] Yeah.

[00:34:35] I think for years, nobody ever was because it was not as reliable.

[00:34:40] And am I right?

[00:34:40] That's quite innovative for, yeah.

[00:34:42] That's quite innovative for sound on TV, wasn't it?

[00:34:44] By being wireless.

[00:34:45] Because there are drawbacks, aren't there?

[00:34:46] But you got to remember also the RF field was not as, you know, packed as it is now.

[00:34:52] Right.

[00:34:52] But basically we had, you know, our boom pole with the cable to the microphone coming down the boom pole going to our hip to like a Velcro loop to hold it.

[00:35:01] To the transmitter on your hip, right.

[00:35:02] Well, yeah, to a power supply for the microphone.

[00:35:05] Right.

[00:35:05] To the transmitter.

[00:35:06] The power supply would last four hours on the battery.

[00:35:09] No, the power supply will last six hours.

[00:35:11] The transmitter will last four.

[00:35:12] So there were plenty of times where a battery would die right in the middle of a take because of nine-volt batteries.

[00:35:18] And you're like, oh.

[00:35:20] There it goes.

[00:35:21] You could see it too on the receiver sometimes.

[00:35:22] And you could start hearing noise of it too.

[00:35:24] And then you're listening on a Comtech, by the way, which is also battery operated.

[00:35:28] And as the battery slowly depletes your signal level, it starts to sound like crap.

[00:35:34] And you're turning up the volume louder and louder.

[00:35:35] Yeah.

[00:35:36] It's getting more and more distorted.

[00:35:37] So can we talk a little bit about the interaction with the actors?

[00:35:43] I know, Lorenzo, you and I were chatting on the phone a little while ago.

[00:35:47] And you mentioned a specific, a really specific, I thought, really interesting story that I think was really telltale about how well the actors interacted with the tech on the show, with the cameras and with the sound and with the lighting and how flexible and fluid they were.

[00:36:04] And it was, and I'll just remind you what it was.

[00:36:07] You probably already know.

[00:36:08] So we were doing a shot between the squad room and the coffee room.

[00:36:12] And every time we did it, Andre landed in a different spot.

[00:36:17] Yeah.

[00:36:17] And so there was a question about you not being able to get the boom in.

[00:36:21] Should we put, you know, should we put a mic on him?

[00:36:23] Tell that story because I loved how it ended up in the box.

[00:36:26] I think it was in the box it ended up.

[00:36:28] And you guys signaling each other about the sound and his understanding of what he needed to do for you, I thought was a great story.

[00:36:36] So to preface this, I don't know if you remember Joy Lusko, Susan, who was a-

[00:36:42] Of course, yep.

[00:36:43] Worked with the writers.

[00:36:44] Yep.

[00:36:44] And she had directed a short named Louisville in which Andre was in.

[00:36:48] Right.

[00:36:49] So, and I had recorded the voiceover for the movie as well in the box on set at lunch, like a couple weeks before.

[00:36:56] So we had a good working relationship.

[00:36:59] So the scene was from the squad room looking in, from the squad room looking through into the coffee room.

[00:37:05] And Andre was coming from the coffee room and Kyle was in foreground.

[00:37:08] Now Kyle's tall.

[00:37:09] So you can only swing the boom mic so far out towards the coffee room because we're looking a little bit up because Kyle's taller than Jean.

[00:37:15] So the camera's a little bit tilted up.

[00:37:18] And Andre kept on moving farther and farther back.

[00:37:21] So we liked perspective on the show.

[00:37:23] So even if it was, the mic was farther away, it matched the perspective of the shot.

[00:37:27] So it kind of felt right.

[00:37:29] That was a whole thing with Bruce and perspective, which I think is very important.

[00:37:34] But he kept on going farther and farther back.

[00:37:36] And I kept on talking to Bruce like he keeps on going farther back.

[00:37:39] I think Andre heard me and he's like, why don't you just put a lav on me?

[00:37:43] And I was like, wow, we really don't want to.

[00:37:47] Because it changes perspective.

[00:37:48] It changes perspective.

[00:37:49] Right now the microphone perspective is super close.

[00:37:51] Yeah.

[00:37:52] Yeah.

[00:37:52] And so we ended up doing that and we did the scene because he stayed farther back.

[00:37:58] And he finally ended up like in the scene he comes closer and then I boom him there.

[00:38:02] So then that was the last scene before lunch.

[00:38:05] And we had all the sound equipment in the box when we weren't shooting in the box.

[00:38:09] So I go back to the box.

[00:38:10] They call lunch.

[00:38:12] I'm putting my stuff away.

[00:38:13] And I walk out.

[00:38:14] And Andre approached me.

[00:38:15] Everybody had already walked out because our lunch was two blocks away at a church.

[00:38:18] I forget the name of the church.

[00:38:20] Andre came up to me and he was a little bit annoyed.

[00:38:23] And he goes, explain to me why it was a big deal.

[00:38:26] I want to know why it was a big deal that you had to put a lav on me.

[00:38:29] Like what's.

[00:38:30] And so we spent this.

[00:38:31] We spent the two blocks walking, having a conversation.

[00:38:35] And I basically said, so here's the issue.

[00:38:37] When you put a lav on somebody, it's right at their throat.

[00:38:41] It's a forced perspective.

[00:38:42] No matter how you mix it, the microphone sounds like it's a foot away from your ear, even if you're 100 feet away from camera.

[00:38:49] And we used the boom to create perspective, to create distance, to match the frame.

[00:38:55] So that was the basic conversation.

[00:38:57] And he was listening, whatever.

[00:38:58] We walked to lunch and what have you.

[00:39:00] So after lunch, we had a scene in the box.

[00:39:04] And I believe, I don't remember the name of the episode, but it was where a police officer killed another police officer, like her partner.

[00:39:10] Right.

[00:39:11] At a Chinese restaurant at night.

[00:39:13] I forget the name of the episode.

[00:39:17] So, you know, Bayless and Pembelton are interrogating the police officer.

[00:39:24] And we're doing the scene and filming the scene.

[00:39:26] And it's very tight quarters.

[00:39:27] And we're all kind of moving around and everything.

[00:39:30] And then I start hearing a helicopter flying over, which we had plenty.

[00:39:33] There was shock trauma and the police helicopter flying over.

[00:39:37] And it was the next line was Andre's line.

[00:39:39] And he starts playing with the folder and, as they would always say, I fucking the perp.

[00:39:48] And talking and talking.

[00:39:50] And, you know, I mean, he wasn't talking.

[00:39:52] He was looking at the paperwork, looking at her, looking at the paperwork.

[00:39:55] And the helicopter's flying by.

[00:39:56] The helicopter then starts going away.

[00:39:58] This lasted all about 25, 30 seconds.

[00:40:00] He's still doing it.

[00:40:01] And I'm sure everybody was like, what's going on?

[00:40:04] And then at one point, the helicopter's almost gone.

[00:40:07] He opens the page on the folder and looks up at me.

[00:40:11] And I nodded because the helicopter was far enough away.

[00:40:15] And then he went back into the scene.

[00:40:17] That's correct.

[00:40:18] And it's the first time that I was like, so, like, he wanted to know.

[00:40:22] And he was like that.

[00:40:23] He was very curious.

[00:40:24] He wanted to know how things worked.

[00:40:26] He was very interested in that work.

[00:40:27] And why.

[00:40:27] And why we were doing things when we were doing them.

[00:40:29] Yeah.

[00:40:30] And because it was like the first time that I felt like I had the respect of him.

[00:40:36] And because I respected the hell out of him because he just was brilliant.

[00:40:40] So, I mean, I still tell that story.

[00:40:43] And it's been 26 years, 27 years.

[00:40:46] That's a brilliant story.

[00:40:47] Thank you for showing that.

[00:40:48] That's really great.

[00:40:49] We were talking earlier about the rafters.

[00:40:52] And so I'm kind of still interested about the choreography of the camera and the sound

[00:40:56] and how you avoided getting in shot.

[00:40:58] And how you also managed to avoid picking up crew sounds as well.

[00:41:02] Because when people are moving around, crew are going to make a noise,

[00:41:04] especially in a tight space like the box.

[00:41:06] I don't know if anybody has any thoughts on that.

[00:41:09] I think we, like Paul was talking about, he heard his knuckles cracking.

[00:41:13] I heard my knees crack on the air episodes.

[00:41:17] Yeah.

[00:41:18] So I think at some point.

[00:41:20] On an episode?

[00:41:20] Is that what you're saying?

[00:41:21] You can hear your...

[00:41:21] Oh, yeah.

[00:41:22] I remember.

[00:41:24] I was like moving my...

[00:41:25] That's funny.

[00:41:25] I had like some knee problems.

[00:41:27] And I remember bending my knee and hearing the crack in the middle of the take.

[00:41:30] And then when I watched it, there it is.

[00:41:32] I know.

[00:41:32] I always worry when I hear the camera on whatever show I was working on.

[00:41:38] So that's funny.

[00:41:39] Yeah.

[00:41:39] Knees crack.

[00:41:40] I love it.

[00:41:41] Well, it was...

[00:41:43] I mean, Paul and I had a lot of fun.

[00:41:46] Because you got to remember, everybody on production is working for camera.

[00:41:50] And then there's the three of us working on the sound.

[00:41:53] This is 100% true.

[00:41:54] Everybody sees what it looks like.

[00:41:57] Yeah.

[00:41:58] Wardrobe, props, hair, you know, the desktop.

[00:42:03] But nobody...

[00:42:04] There's three people listening to sound.

[00:42:06] That's a good point.

[00:42:07] I tell people this all the time.

[00:42:10] When camera's in a panic because the sun's going down, I'm always like, you know, it

[00:42:14] sounds the same at night.

[00:42:16] So it's fine for us.

[00:42:18] And...

[00:42:18] We want to wait for a cloud.

[00:42:20] I know.

[00:42:21] We wait for a cloud.

[00:42:22] We wait for a cloud all day.

[00:42:22] But my God, if there's something else going on.

[00:42:25] That's right.

[00:42:25] Oh, my God.

[00:42:26] We wait for...

[00:42:26] Yeah.

[00:42:27] No problem waiting for a cloud.

[00:42:28] Yeah.

[00:42:29] It sounds fine to me.

[00:42:29] I'm good.

[00:42:30] We don't want to wait for a plane.

[00:42:34] Paul and I had a tremendous amount of fun.

[00:42:36] There were scenes...

[00:42:37] And I was telling Paul this.

[00:42:39] I remember...

[00:42:40] I forget what it was, but it was like eight people in the squad room going around the squad

[00:42:45] room.

[00:42:47] And Paul was in the rafters.

[00:42:50] So it was a drop ceiling.

[00:42:51] The actual ceiling of the recreational pier was like 40 or 50 feet high.

[00:42:55] But the drop ceiling was maybe like 12.

[00:42:58] And there were two by eights or two by tens, a grid all up top.

[00:43:02] So they could put lights.

[00:43:03] They could pull out the drop ceiling.

[00:43:04] Because it was like...

[00:43:05] You could pull out panels of the drop ceiling and shoot through and boom through a hole.

[00:43:09] Paul, in this particular scene, was getting three separate areas.

[00:43:15] He would lower the microphone, get the area, come back up, go to the other area, drop

[00:43:19] back down to get the line, come back up.

[00:43:22] And I'm...

[00:43:23] While I'm following the camera around the squad room...

[00:43:25] From the same spot?

[00:43:26] Or were you walking around in the ceiling?

[00:43:28] No, he had to walk around.

[00:43:29] You'd have to pull it...

[00:43:30] Yeah.

[00:43:30] Like you're fishing, like a fishing...

[00:43:33] Yeah.

[00:43:34] Fishing for sound underwater.

[00:43:37] Bruce was one of the first people I ever worked with that it didn't matter how tight

[00:43:41] the microphone was to frame.

[00:43:42] It's all about creating...

[00:43:44] You know, you can always take away some of the noise, but you want to be on mic.

[00:43:48] But hold on.

[00:43:49] I need to go backwards.

[00:43:50] So what was up there in the ceiling?

[00:43:51] Were there two by eights?

[00:43:52] What were you walking around?

[00:43:53] Two by eights.

[00:43:54] It was a grid on two by eights or two by tens.

[00:43:56] Oh, there was a two by eights.

[00:43:56] Okay.

[00:43:57] Yeah.

[00:43:57] So like almost like a standard...

[00:43:59] Like a standard...

[00:44:00] Yeah.

[00:44:00] Okay.

[00:44:01] Go ahead.

[00:44:01] Sorry.

[00:44:01] It was like instead of being like a speed rail grid for lighting, it was like a walkable

[00:44:07] grid.

[00:44:07] Was it quiet to walk on that?

[00:44:09] Because it usually does.

[00:44:10] No, absolutely not.

[00:44:11] Absolutely not.

[00:44:13] No, you'd have to tiptoe up there.

[00:44:16] Tiptoe.

[00:44:16] And don't slip.

[00:44:18] Yep.

[00:44:18] And remember, we did the episode where the Santa Claus, drunk Santa Claus fell through the

[00:44:23] ceiling into the squad room.

[00:44:26] So I'm glad you didn't do that, Paul.

[00:44:28] Me too.

[00:44:29] I almost hit Charles Durning with a panel.

[00:44:32] Because I was trying to move it and it almost hit him.

[00:44:35] And he looked up at me and goes like, it's like, I know you want me off the show, but really?

[00:44:39] He was one of my favorite guest stars of the entire run.

[00:44:43] He was great.

[00:44:44] But I remember we were doing the scene and Paul was up there.

[00:44:48] And all of a sudden, I don't remember if it was Jean or Alex or something.

[00:44:53] They wanted to change something.

[00:44:55] And it was something that changed dramatically how we were doing the scene and how we had

[00:44:59] already done it for about two or three takes.

[00:45:02] And they're like, okay, let's go.

[00:45:03] And I said, hold on.

[00:45:04] We got to figure this out.

[00:45:06] And they were like, well, we got to go.

[00:45:07] We got to go.

[00:45:08] We got to go.

[00:45:08] And I said, I actually raised my voice and I'm not a yeller.

[00:45:12] And I said, no, we need time.

[00:45:16] And they all stopped and looked at me.

[00:45:17] And Paul was right above me.

[00:45:19] And I heard Bruce on the talkback saying, do you need me to come out?

[00:45:22] I said, no.

[00:45:22] And I just opened the sides.

[00:45:23] I said, Paul, you go here.

[00:45:25] And then Paul's like, okay, I can get that.

[00:45:27] I can get that.

[00:45:28] And we needed 20 seconds.

[00:45:30] And we figured it out.

[00:45:31] And then we moved on and we got everything.

[00:45:33] But you had to defend yourself as well.

[00:45:36] Because I think we were forgotten to a certain extent.

[00:45:41] Because nobody really.

[00:45:42] It always just worked.

[00:45:42] We just made it work.

[00:45:44] We made it work.

[00:45:45] But nobody knows how we made it work.

[00:45:47] So sometimes we had to stop and be like, no, you need to give us that little bit of time.

[00:45:53] When you've taken the 10 minutes to figure something out, we could use 20 seconds.

[00:45:57] And sadly, sound does get forgotten.

[00:45:59] It's sort of the invisible art of a show a lot of the time.

[00:46:02] I don't know if it's always invisible.

[00:46:05] Right.

[00:46:06] I remember, speaking of sound, just to share a memory that I do hold dear for Jean and the show in general,

[00:46:16] was coming from Jean's documentary background and the energy of the show.

[00:46:22] We were doing a crime scene outside somewhere.

[00:46:25] I think it was on Eastern Avenue.

[00:46:27] Under some auditing, there was a murder scene and multiple characters.

[00:46:31] And there was a fire truck that started in the deep distance.

[00:46:35] And it just kept getting closer and closer.

[00:46:39] The scene was probably three, four, five pages.

[00:46:42] And it literally was driving down Eastern Avenue right by set.

[00:46:47] And at the last second, everybody kept going.

[00:46:50] The scene did not stop.

[00:46:51] All the actors just kept doing their lines and kept raising their voices

[00:46:54] to accommodate this ridiculously loud siren that's coming closer and closer.

[00:47:00] And then Jean, at the last second, spun around and shot the fire truck whizzing by the set.

[00:47:07] It was magical.

[00:47:10] I was like, this is the coolest thing.

[00:47:12] Because it answered the question, what is that background noise?

[00:47:15] Yeah.

[00:47:15] And much to Lorenzo's point earlier and Bruce's point,

[00:47:18] it's like, as long as you can see the train or the fire truck, it makes sense.

[00:47:22] Yeah.

[00:47:23] And it just lent energy to the whole scene, to the moment.

[00:47:27] Because it really was coming down on us.

[00:47:31] And brilliant on Jaron's part.

[00:47:32] And funny, in any other traditional TV or filmmaking,

[00:47:36] they would have cut as soon as you heard it at the head of the scene.

[00:47:41] So yeah, that's a great illustration of how a lot of it was seat of your pants.

[00:47:46] It's, you know, everybody was working seat of your pants.

[00:47:49] Yeah.

[00:47:49] Question for Paul, because am I right?

[00:47:51] You had to build some special rigs to accommodate sound.

[00:47:54] We did a lot of the car rigs.

[00:47:56] A lot of the episodes took place in cars.

[00:47:58] I shouldn't say full episodes, but there was a lot of car driving.

[00:48:02] And we had, I don't know how we got these cars,

[00:48:05] but we got these rock bottom price cars.

[00:48:08] Oh my God.

[00:48:08] Many of them were literally just showpieces and did not drive.

[00:48:14] So when you see, like in any of the episodes,

[00:48:17] you'd see six or eight or 10 of these cars,

[00:48:18] only two of them would actually drive.

[00:48:20] The other ones were just stationary, could not move, defunct cars.

[00:48:25] So the rattles, the rattles, yeah.

[00:48:27] The beat up cars that we did drive around were really beat up

[00:48:31] and they were clunky.

[00:48:32] And it was part of my job to de-rattle every moving car.

[00:48:38] How did you do that?

[00:48:40] You'd have to just get in the car.

[00:48:41] This is while, you know, in between setups, right?

[00:48:44] I'd run downstairs outside because I knew later in the day

[00:48:46] or the next scene would be in the car.

[00:48:48] So I'd run downstairs and just go through the whole car.

[00:48:51] And sure enough, the Teamsters would throw like all of the battle parts

[00:48:55] of the car, like anything broken or whatever would go in the trunk.

[00:48:57] All these like the tow hitch, loose metal objects, a jack, a spare tire,

[00:49:02] like all this crap would be in the back of the car.

[00:49:04] And it's like, that's all going to rattle.

[00:49:05] So I'd have to pull all that stuff out.

[00:49:08] And then just jiggle everything you could possibly think of.

[00:49:10] Make sure the windows were all tight, rolled all the way up

[00:49:13] and literally de-rattle the car.

[00:49:16] And was Bruce, I just had a flashback of Bruce being in the trunk.

[00:49:20] Oh, yeah.

[00:49:21] He wasn't in the trunk.

[00:49:22] He was.

[00:49:22] Okay.

[00:49:23] And Bruce is not a small guy.

[00:49:25] He's about like 6'3", 6'4".

[00:49:27] No, he's not.

[00:49:27] With a nagra.

[00:49:28] Right.

[00:49:29] White hair.

[00:49:30] And did you have foam?

[00:49:31] And you had foam packed around the inside of the trunk?

[00:49:34] Am I remembering that?

[00:49:34] Yeah, they had sound blankets.

[00:49:35] Yeah.

[00:49:35] Joe would bring sound blankets.

[00:49:37] Sound blankets, right.

[00:49:37] And a couple pancakes for his back.

[00:49:42] Yeah, we ordered this rubber.

[00:49:45] You got to be game to do that, man.

[00:49:46] Yeah.

[00:49:46] You got to be game.

[00:49:47] That's amazing.

[00:49:48] We ordered rubberized mats that, like rubber sheeting,

[00:49:54] lead sheeting that you could actually put on the inside floorboards, I did,

[00:49:58] of the car to kind of quiet down the road noise.

[00:50:03] And what did the actors have?

[00:50:04] How were you, yeah, how were you micing them?

[00:50:06] So we never, I don't think we never loved anybody, but because they were in and out,

[00:50:10] and again, to Lorenzo's point, is the clothing wasn't really love friendly,

[00:50:16] and there was so much motion.

[00:50:18] So we were always trying to boom them or mic them from away from their bodies.

[00:50:22] So we did things where we put a Sheps in between the two seats on a mount.

[00:50:29] Sometimes two Sheps.

[00:50:29] Sheps is a microphone, a very sensitive, very good sounding microphone.

[00:50:34] Very great sounding microphone.

[00:50:36] And you could interchange the capsules, which would give you a different microphone pattern.

[00:50:41] So the pattern could be directional or less directional or left-right only.

[00:50:47] So we tried that for a little while, but then when the actor would turn his head to the window,

[00:50:53] we'd lose them.

[00:50:55] And then depending on, again, perspective, right, if the camera was on one side of the car,

[00:50:59] we really need the perspective of the lens.

[00:51:02] So it didn't make any sense that when the person turned away from the lens that they sounded better

[00:51:07] or louder, right?

[00:51:09] Right.

[00:51:09] So then we moved on to, I put these, we had what we call PZMs or BLMs,

[00:51:16] boundary layer microphones, in the visors, which are flat sort of discs.

[00:51:20] I was going to ask you if they were in the visor.

[00:51:23] I had a thought of that too, that they were all clipped on the visor.

[00:51:26] Paul had to make, built them.

[00:51:28] Yeah, he took the, rebuilt the visor to put the microphone in the visor.

[00:51:33] And these are all wired, by the way.

[00:51:34] Nothing is wireless.

[00:51:36] These are all hardwired microphones.

[00:51:37] So they're all hardwired back to Bruce in the trunk.

[00:51:41] Right.

[00:51:41] If he was in the trunk of the car, or sometimes you did that tow rig,

[00:51:44] so then we would have to send it back another 50 feet to the tow rig.

[00:51:51] So it'd be a flat disc-style microphone that I would put in the visor,

[00:51:56] and then I'd put, I had to find some pantyhose.

[00:52:00] Right.

[00:52:01] Pantyhose stockings that would mimic the color of the interior of the car.

[00:52:07] And I would put the pantyhose or the stockings over that,

[00:52:11] so it still looked like a visor with that much of a bump in it.

[00:52:15] Yes.

[00:52:15] And then there's literally the wire.

[00:52:17] So the wire would have to literally get hidden along the crevices of the car

[00:52:22] and run all the way through the car, out the back of the car,

[00:52:25] and into the next vehicle where Bruce would sit and he would plug right into that thing.

[00:52:31] It sounded magical, though.

[00:52:34] Yeah.

[00:52:34] Did they often drive with the windows partially down?

[00:52:37] And what kind of problem did that create?

[00:52:39] No, they kept them open a lot.

[00:52:40] I mean, kept them closed a lot.

[00:52:41] Yeah.

[00:52:41] I think they were rarely open.

[00:52:44] Yeah.

[00:52:45] But I think also because they were driving on cobblestones a lot of the time.

[00:52:50] I remember Bruce telling me one time that Post had told him that the car stuff sounded too good.

[00:52:56] And he was like, are you kidding me?

[00:52:58] Look at the car we have.

[00:53:00] Oh, my gosh.

[00:53:02] Yeah, the cobblestones.

[00:53:03] And he was like, what do you want me to do?

[00:53:03] Record it worse?

[00:53:04] That's so funny.

[00:53:05] That's our job, right?

[00:53:07] I remember being in a van with a Teamster once, and he was, I don't remember which guy it was.

[00:53:11] If I thought about it, I could remember.

[00:53:13] Driving really, really fast.

[00:53:14] And I'm like, why are you driving so fast?

[00:53:17] He said, because if you drive faster, you don't hit the crevices in the cobblestones.

[00:53:23] Like it.

[00:53:23] It's smoother.

[00:53:24] If you drive faster, it's smoother.

[00:53:26] I was like, okay, I'm not sure about that theory, but I thought that way.

[00:53:29] So were you guys on the season where we did the Lily Tomlin episode where they cut the Cavalier in half?

[00:53:34] I was not.

[00:53:36] And then put the Plexi in the front and towed it, and I was going to ask about that sound.

[00:53:41] Were you there for that, Lorenzo?

[00:53:42] I think I was.

[00:53:44] Okay.

[00:53:45] I got to be honest, I don't remember much about that, though.

[00:53:47] Yeah, because I can't imagine what the challenge was for that, not just because the car was cut in half,

[00:53:55] but because then all of a sudden it's boxed in with Plexi and how different the interior of the car must have sounded.

[00:54:01] How's that going to sound?

[00:54:02] In addition to being towed down Route 70.

[00:54:04] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:07] So who was that?

[00:54:08] Was that Chris Kellett?

[00:54:09] I guess that might have been Chris.

[00:54:10] It might have been Chris.

[00:54:11] Season 4, episode 10, The Hat.

[00:54:13] There we go.

[00:54:14] That's Chris Kellett.

[00:54:16] Yeah, Peter Medick was the director.

[00:54:18] Send Chris an email.

[00:54:19] Chris, how did you do that?

[00:54:21] I loved it.

[00:54:22] Peter was great.

[00:54:23] Peter Medick.

[00:54:24] We love Peter Medick.

[00:54:25] I know.

[00:54:26] We were filming on the steps, and we were at the bottom, and the actors were walking down the steps,

[00:54:32] and I turn around, and I see Peter just changing the letters, the letters of that board where you could pull the letters out.

[00:54:39] Oh, one of those black, uh-huh.

[00:54:41] Yeah, the little black thing.

[00:54:42] He was changing the letters and making curse words out of it while we're rolling.

[00:54:49] There was a lot of-

[00:54:50] And then John swung around.

[00:54:51] There was a-

[00:54:52] Yeah.

[00:54:52] That's so funny.

[00:54:53] I, you know, part of the whole doing sound on the show was just having to have no fear.

[00:54:58] I had to get over my fear.

[00:55:00] Right.

[00:55:00] I think Paul probably had to, too.

[00:55:01] It's like, if I was going to end up in the shot, I was going to end up in the shot, and I had to be okay with that.

[00:55:07] And I would ask, like, Alex, the director of photography of season six and seven, I was like, is it okay if I'm here?

[00:55:14] And he said, oh, sure.

[00:55:15] And then he panned through me, laughing while he's panning through me.

[00:55:18] I'm like, thanks a lot, Alex.

[00:55:20] I remember that.

[00:55:20] And, but you had to kind of, you know, we kind of had to have that kind of humor.

[00:55:26] I was like, I would just do it again.

[00:55:28] Because we were always moving so fast, we could just go.

[00:55:31] We didn't have to wait.

[00:55:33] It wasn't like, well, we need to talk.

[00:55:34] No, let's just go and do it again, and we'll figure it out.

[00:55:38] And that was the fun.

[00:55:39] And I think it was, I know in an earlier podcast you spoke, and it was, I think that was fun for the actors because they didn't have to wait.

[00:55:46] It was going back into it, and they were keeping their momentum and keeping their moods.

[00:55:50] And there was definitely an energy level that was consistent.

[00:55:53] Yeah.

[00:55:54] Yeah.

[00:55:55] Were there, I know you sent some pictures last night, one of which was, was that, I assume it was you, Lorenzo, not Paul.

[00:56:00] I couldn't tell because it was a silhouette in, I assume it was the smoke from the fire episode.

[00:56:05] Was it the fire episode?

[00:56:05] It was the bus episode.

[00:56:07] The bus riot episode.

[00:56:08] Oh, the bus, okay.

[00:56:09] The riot.

[00:56:10] Because that's the same.

[00:56:11] The bus riot episode.

[00:56:12] Yeah.

[00:56:12] Where we also had lots of smoke.

[00:56:13] I boomed up from on top of the bus.

[00:56:15] So, yes, okay.

[00:56:16] I was booming on top of the bus.

[00:56:17] That's a good, that was a good lead in to my question was, can you think of any particularly weird or challenging locations or episodes?

[00:56:27] Like, that, that, that was like a full-on riot scene with that.

[00:56:32] Yeah.

[00:56:32] With the bus and people beating the bus up with baseball bats and breaking things.

[00:56:37] So, how do you capture, how did you capture that?

[00:56:42] Again, I think it's a similar philosophy of just, you want to capture what's there with the perspective of what's there.

[00:56:48] And it's, it's, I don't think there's that much thinking about it.

[00:56:52] It's like, what are we doing?

[00:56:53] What's happening?

[00:56:54] Well, let's just get it.

[00:56:55] And let's just go.

[00:56:56] It's, it's a very much a moving forward and not a stop and think.

[00:56:59] It's like, okay.

[00:57:01] You know, and it was the same thing with, I'm sure Paul can tell you as well.

[00:57:05] It was like, I, and I work with, I've worked with a lot of other boom operators where I'm partially like, well, I have to stand here because I'm out of the key light.

[00:57:14] And I'm like, you stand wherever you need to stand.

[00:57:16] And I've, I've stood on top of water heaters.

[00:57:19] I, there's a picture of somewhere of Paul and I in a toilet, in a bathroom stall.

[00:57:23] I think you have, I don't know if you have that picture.

[00:57:25] I have it.

[00:57:25] It's Paul, I, you know.

[00:57:26] Clark Johnson took a picture of the two of us with our heads poking out of the stall.

[00:57:29] So you're standing on the toilet, toilet seats?

[00:57:31] Yeah.

[00:57:32] I think so.

[00:57:33] And so it's like you did, you did whatever you had to do, whether it's from the rafters, you know, on top of a bus, wherever.

[00:57:41] Ever.

[00:57:42] I know you guys brought up the, the other day, the scene of, Susan, you brought it up talking about the scene between Andre and Kyle in the movie on the roof.

[00:57:52] Yeah.

[00:57:53] And that was all boom.

[00:57:54] And that was with an 18 foot boom pole.

[00:57:56] Wow.

[00:57:57] And I boomed, also boomed the wide shot and I pulled my rib cage after that.

[00:58:02] And I remember getting applauded after the wide shot.

[00:58:03] I was going to say, 18 foot, what's the longest boom pole you've ever operated?

[00:58:09] I mean, that sounds pretty extreme.

[00:58:11] About 18, 18.

[00:58:12] I think.

[00:58:12] Because we had extensions to go on our boom pole.

[00:58:15] And you got to remember the microphone and the windscreen itself, the Zeppelin with the furry cat that everybody calls it, is probably a good five pounds.

[00:58:25] And put that on the end of something.

[00:58:27] Yeah.

[00:58:28] On the end of something, you're holding with two hands.

[00:58:30] And so I boomed out that entire scene out on the roof in wind.

[00:58:36] And I remember the next day, I couldn't lift my right arm.

[00:58:39] I was going to say, when you started, when you guys both jumped up to booming, did you do special exercises or walk around your house with your arms up in the air for hours?

[00:58:49] Good question.

[00:58:49] Not enough.

[00:58:50] Because that's another physical skill.

[00:58:53] Like we talked to Jean about, how did you do that all day and come back the next day and do it again all day?

[00:59:01] Were you just sore all the time?

[00:59:03] No.

[00:59:03] I think after a while, you just build up those muscles.

[00:59:06] It's like Carol Everson, who's another Baltimore sound person, would always say that she looks great in a strapless dress from the chest up.

[00:59:14] Because her shoulder muscles were so, yeah.

[00:59:17] And you just kind of do it.

[00:59:21] And I don't know how Paul feels about this, but I would curse to myself while I'm booming.

[00:59:27] Because if I'm getting tired, I'd curse to myself and be like, you're not letting this go down.

[00:59:31] And I would have to talk to myself.

[00:59:34] Because at some point, you're just like, when an actor's like, let's start again.

[00:59:39] Let's start again.

[00:59:40] I'm like, listen, motherfucker.

[00:59:42] Get the lines right so we can go home.

[00:59:44] So I have to share this one.

[00:59:46] There was a scene we did in the waterfront at the bar.

[00:59:48] And if you remember, that bar is long.

[00:59:50] Yes.

[00:59:51] Long bar.

[00:59:52] And skinny.

[00:59:52] And the scene mostly took place at the end of the bar away from the windows, right?

[01:00:00] Away from the front door.

[01:00:01] Several people.

[01:00:02] And the Renzo boomed that bit.

[01:00:04] And there was one or two lines of dialogue at the far end of the bar by the window.

[01:00:10] And it was basically the way the scene was set up, it was going to be a one-er.

[01:00:16] And so my job was to boom the other guy at the other end of the set.

[01:00:20] And we're seeing the whole front of the waterfront.

[01:00:23] So I had to stand behind camera with the longest pole we had, which was a 20-foot pole.

[01:00:27] It was a 16-foot pole with a four-foot extension.

[01:00:30] And the scene was like four pages long.

[01:00:33] Maybe five pages.

[01:00:35] And the guy at the end only had like one line or two lines at the end of the scene.

[01:00:41] So I had to literally stand there for the whole four or five minutes straight, not moving, which is also the killer part, right?

[01:00:47] If you can move, you can at least reset.

[01:00:49] But without moving.

[01:00:51] And the pole was literally shaking at like the three and a half minute mark, four minute mark.

[01:00:57] And then it would be like, all right, let's start one more time.

[01:00:59] Hang on a second.

[01:01:00] Let me try.

[01:01:00] And I'm like, you couldn't even lower the thing into the room because it was so big.

[01:01:05] Right.

[01:01:05] It was pretty crazy.

[01:01:07] Particular sort of like episodes that were very challenging.

[01:01:11] And you kind of like afterwards thought, God, my God, thank God we got away with that kind of thing.

[01:01:16] You know, I, you know, I don't.

[01:01:18] They were all challenging because they just were challenging because we were practical locations.

[01:01:25] I know Paul, I'm sure, could tell you stories of having to go at the basement of the waterfront to shut off all the fridges and just because he would go in and start killing all the noises.

[01:01:35] And he had to go to some very unsavory places, I'm sure.

[01:01:38] Crawling underneath the waterfront particularly, right?

[01:01:41] We'd go there.

[01:01:41] There was 11, 12 refrigerators in that place.

[01:01:44] You had to crawl on your hands and knees and reach your hand behind stuff.

[01:01:46] I remember you had labeled all the fuse box.

[01:01:49] Yeah.

[01:01:50] Downstairs.

[01:01:51] Back in the day, that place was pretty rough before it changed hands.

[01:01:54] Meanwhile, you know, back in the day also flooded every time we had a heavy rain, probably the basement probably flooded like every place else.

[01:02:01] I remember jumping into a location we were loading in and it was still, it might have been pre-dawn, pre-light, I should say.

[01:02:09] And it was the first thing in the morning.

[01:02:11] And Bruce and I are loading into trying to figure out the scene is somewhere and then we have to be in some little hovel of a room in some row house somewhere.

[01:02:20] And literally the first thing I did was I brought some cases and put it down and a rat ran across my foot.

[01:02:26] Oh, lovely.

[01:02:26] And this is pre-7 o'clock in the morning.

[01:02:29] And Bruce was standing and we both were like, oh, there you go.

[01:02:32] We started our day.

[01:02:34] Like, oh my God.

[01:02:36] The glamour.

[01:02:36] This is cool.

[01:02:39] I know every time we had to, oh, Susan, you might remember this.

[01:02:44] We used to ride, I mean, it was probably completely unsafe, but we would, if we were going back to the stage or going back to Sal's point, we were somewhere else.

[01:02:53] The steak bed, we'd ride on a steak bed in the back of a steak bed with all the camera gear.

[01:02:57] And I remember, I think the driver's name was, it wasn't Vince, it was Sal.

[01:03:01] And I remember, Susan, you're going, Sal, we're going to the waterfront.

[01:03:04] And he took us to the literal waterfront, to like the water edge.

[01:03:08] And you were like, I remember your face, Susan, you were like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm here right now.

[01:03:14] And I remember like, no, no, the bar, Sal, the bar.

[01:03:18] Yeah.

[01:03:18] The set we call the waterfront, remember, like across the street from our home.

[01:03:22] And so many things you do when you think in the moment, well, you don't think in the moment how dangerous they were.

[01:03:29] Oh, yeah.

[01:03:30] I was working on Return to Lonesome Dove in Montana.

[01:03:33] And I wasn't in the steak bed, but Dave Thompson was and some other people that actually turned over.

[01:03:41] Oh, boy.

[01:03:41] They were trying to go across some uneven terrain or something.

[01:03:45] So, you know, I'm just thinking about how many times I rode in the back of an open camera truck with all that gear flapping around, sort of strapped down.

[01:03:54] And then thinking about Bruce, you know, working from the back in the trunk.

[01:03:59] I mean, so many things we did.

[01:04:00] I think somebody said in one of the episodes, that's probably illegal now.

[01:04:04] And I thought, I said it, I think it was illegal then.

[01:04:07] Sort of dangerous thing.

[01:04:09] Yeah, it's illegal now.

[01:04:09] And I know we still do stuff like that.

[01:04:11] Yeah.

[01:04:12] Yeah.

[01:04:13] And you don't think about it.

[01:04:14] You just try to accommodate what needs to be done in the moment.

[01:04:17] And you don't think about it often.

[01:04:20] Don't think about the danger.

[01:04:21] But I will say, except for the guns, which the prop guys were very, I want to say that because that's like a big deal now with the guns.

[01:04:28] The prop guys were incredibly professional with the guns and always, you know, always, always, always on top of that.

[01:04:35] So that was not one thing that was, that definitely was not, that was a huge safety issue that was always followed correctly.

[01:04:45] I do remember one of the not pleasant things of, let's say if we move back to the stage, the recreational pier, to load in, you had to go up a ramp that probably, it was three sections that was probably a good four stories high or something like that.

[01:05:31] That was quite high.

[01:05:32] Oh, God.

[01:05:34] Paul's apparently blocked that out.

[01:05:36] Yeah, I forgot about that too.

[01:05:37] Yeah.

[01:05:38] Yeah, that was, that was, yeah, I remember every time we worked there, worked on the pier in the squad room sets, pushing the camera cart up that ramp.

[01:05:51] And I would be fully extended, like my arms fully extended, my legs fully extended behind me.

[01:05:57] And people would stop, on the way by, like the grips and electricians, like taking their stuff up that was lighter.

[01:06:03] Hey, you want some help?

[01:06:04] You want some help?

[01:06:05] And they're like, no.

[01:06:05] No, because that was like my big challenge for the day to get that cart up that, you know, three story ramp or whatever it was by myself.

[01:06:15] But yeah, that was, that was a challenge.

[01:06:17] What are any particular sort of sets or locations that were just always an inherent challenge?

[01:06:23] You would think yourself, oh my God, we're in here again.

[01:06:25] The waterfront was a challenge.

[01:06:26] The morgue set wasn't bad.

[01:06:28] Waterfront was always a challenge because the fans, they had ceiling fans.

[01:06:31] We would have to take off the ceiling blade, the blades.

[01:06:35] So we'd always have to take that.

[01:06:37] It just, it was a challenge because it was lots of pools of light, long, where you were in it.

[01:06:44] And just, you know, people on the street looking in.

[01:06:51] It was, I mean, it was, all the sets were challenging because of how we shot the show.

[01:06:58] It wasn't so much that the sets were like, this is the hardest set we've ever been in.

[01:07:01] It's like, well, we're going through the entire house.

[01:07:03] We're going out here.

[01:07:05] We're going there.

[01:07:06] So that was the challenge and you kind of had to figure out a way to make it work.

[01:07:10] Yeah.

[01:07:10] It was the, it was the geography of the scenes that were more challenging.

[01:07:14] No matter what the set was, it was really the geography of what was happening and who

[01:07:19] was talking where and where camera was going, which would never necessarily be the same every

[01:07:25] time.

[01:07:25] Yeah.

[01:07:26] Right.

[01:07:27] And all it took is for somebody going through a doorway and stopping and talking or staying

[01:07:31] before the doorway and stopping and talking.

[01:07:33] That would make, that would make all the difference in the world.

[01:07:34] So if that person, yeah, crossed the threshold and was on the other side of the doorframe,

[01:07:39] even though it looked, the camera may or may not even notice the doorframe.

[01:07:42] It might be inside the doorframe, but for us, it was impossible to reach that person now.

[01:07:46] So you guys are both sound mixers now.

[01:07:49] Although, although what's your title?

[01:07:50] You're a sound manager at NFL Films, Paul?

[01:07:53] I'm a manager of location sound at NFL Films.

[01:07:56] Yes.

[01:07:56] Okay.

[01:07:58] So obviously this is a long time later and, and Lorenzo, you're working on film.

[01:08:03] Like we, you worked again with the David Simon production.

[01:08:08] We own the city and lady in the lake and lioness, a bunch of your most recent or more recent

[01:08:14] things.

[01:08:15] How different is, so you're not working with a two track nagra now.

[01:08:19] What, what are you guys recording on all digital tiny things or what?

[01:08:25] I don't, I have no clue.

[01:08:26] What, what are, what are you recording on?

[01:08:28] I mean, I, I use saxcom recorders right now and usually 12 or 16 track recorders.

[01:08:34] And are they digital or is still, it's not tape anymore?

[01:08:37] I mean, it's a, no, there's no tape.

[01:08:39] You're basically recording to cards.

[01:08:41] Okay.

[01:08:42] Either compact flash or SD cards.

[01:08:45] Um, and you're backing up.

[01:08:48] It's all, you know, zeros and ones and, and you either have a digital signal or an analog

[01:08:52] signal going to a digital.

[01:08:53] And, and when did it switch?

[01:08:54] When did everything switch from tape to digital?

[01:08:57] So it went from nagra to, to then dat.

[01:09:04] Yeah.

[01:09:05] Yeah.

[01:09:05] It was awful.

[01:09:06] Yep.

[01:09:06] Yeah.

[01:09:07] So the wire we did on dat part of it.

[01:09:09] And then we went to, then Bruce went to the canthard.

[01:09:11] Which was still just two tracks though.

[01:09:12] Around.

[01:09:12] The dat recorder was only two tracks.

[01:09:13] I want to say.

[01:09:14] So not long after homicide because it was the corner and then the wire.

[01:09:17] So not.

[01:09:18] Five, six years.

[01:09:19] Yeah.

[01:09:19] Okay.

[01:09:19] Five, six years that we started moving on to.

[01:09:22] Yeah.

[01:09:23] Um.

[01:09:25] Yeah.

[01:09:25] And then they, they just got more and more tracks as they went along.

[01:09:29] I don't remember which devices came out at the time.

[01:09:31] It went away from the nagra within like four or five years.

[01:09:35] And then you got to four tracks and then it quickly escalated from there.

[01:09:39] Four track recorders and, um, and blew up from there.

[01:09:44] For, for us, Susan, to answer your question, we do a lot of different things in terms of,

[01:09:48] uh, uh, we do everything from single person at a football game.

[01:09:51] We would, you know, maybe just a boom mic recorded on the sidelines or we have shows

[01:09:57] that we do, you know, six to 10 wires at a game.

[01:10:00] So we'll record all that and usually back it up.

[01:10:03] So we'd have two, um, you know, 10, 12 track recorders.

[01:10:08] Uh, we mostly use sound devices.

[01:10:11] So six, three, threes, eight, three, threes.

[01:10:13] One question to feed onto technology for a moment.

[01:10:16] If, if, um, if homicide, the next generation happened tomorrow and you were all called back

[01:10:22] in to Baltimore, is there any technology that you would use now?

[01:10:26] Oh, that's sort of different.

[01:10:28] Then it would make your life easier.

[01:10:29] What would you, what would you do?

[01:10:30] How would you approach it?

[01:10:32] Um, so the way things have gone now as a, as a mixer on, on narrative productions is that

[01:10:38] they want you to wire everybody.

[01:10:41] Producers will tell you, we want everybody wired.

[01:10:44] They want to have all those tracks and I don't like it, but I mean, at some point that's,

[01:10:50] I end up having to do it.

[01:10:51] It's just what it is.

[01:10:53] Um, but if, if I had my choice, um, I would, I think homicides should be done the same exact

[01:11:00] way.

[01:11:01] I don't think there's really much, I don't think there's much different.

[01:11:05] It's, you know, the, some of the boom mics really haven't changed that much.

[01:11:10] Um, they've come out with some, I don't like them.

[01:11:12] I like the old mics.

[01:11:13] I think they sound better, but it's just, um, you can maybe, you could have more mics.

[01:11:18] You could do plant mics.

[01:11:20] Let's say put a mic on a desk and, and you'd have more tracks, right?

[01:11:24] You'd have more tracks to have the more, more capability.

[01:11:28] And you could take an educated guess.

[01:11:30] And if it didn't work out, it wouldn't matter.

[01:11:31] But I, yeah.

[01:11:33] Lorenzo, when, on your previous shows, were you micing everybody and, or how much did

[01:11:38] the boom come into play on your bigger move, on your other, sorry, series?

[01:11:43] Especially the wire, actually.

[01:11:44] Yeah.

[01:11:45] Well, the wire was, was a lot of boom.

[01:11:48] Wasn't always, I mean, it was wires and boom, but it was not much different than homicide.

[01:11:53] But we could plan it out a little bit better because the camera was on the dolly.

[01:12:00] Uh, but, and we also would rehearse it.

[01:12:02] That was a much different animal as far as hours worked and how we shot it.

[01:12:08] Um, it was, I mean, we were, it was a lot of long hours.

[01:12:14] Um, uh, so it's different.

[01:12:17] But like, let's say on House of Cards, we were able to, because of how the show was shot,

[01:12:22] we were able to put the booms in the shot.

[01:12:24] They would, we would get a mat.

[01:12:25] Um, we were the first real show to do that.

[01:12:28] And I wrote some articles about it, but, um, we were able to like, because the camera was

[01:12:33] on a dolly and usually static.

[01:12:34] A lot of like, I know somebody mentioned this in the, in the writer's podcast about how

[01:12:40] a lot of shows now have big wide, you know, kind of tableaus.

[01:12:45] Um, House of Cards was basically known for that and a lot of symmetry, but the camera

[01:12:49] would be static.

[01:12:50] So, um, because they had an in-house, uh, VFX person in editorial, we would get a bunch

[01:12:57] of clean frame.

[01:12:58] And as long as the microphone didn't throw a shadow on the actor, didn't, uh, cross

[01:13:02] an actor and a bunch of other parameters, we would then put the booms in the wide shot.

[01:13:08] Um, and be able to boom that.

[01:13:11] So when we got to closeups, we didn't have to, we never had, we didn't have to wire them

[01:13:14] a lot, which they loved.

[01:13:17] Um, but that was, that was the, you know, David.

[01:13:20] That was all very static.

[01:13:22] Yes.

[01:13:22] It was, it was very, like if there was movement, the movement was all dolly, all dolly movement

[01:13:27] and boom, uh, boom on the dolly, booming up and down motivated.

[01:13:31] It was very little hand, like camera movement, actual camera movement, um, by the operator.

[01:13:37] And then, and usually they'd get to a point and lock off.

[01:13:40] And at that point we'd come in, uh, with the booms.

[01:13:44] And then at the end of the take, the camera operator would keep rolling.

[01:13:47] We'd pull the booms out and get that static frame to, for them to take the booms out.

[01:13:52] So the, the actors loved it because then we didn't have to wire them.

[01:13:56] Um, it also helped us with the actors, uh, because they would appreciate that we weren't

[01:14:03] just wiring them up to do it.

[01:14:05] It wasn't just an exercise in, in, in this kind of, to enter their personal space so that

[01:14:11] when we did need to wire them for something, they were much more receptive.

[01:14:15] In a similar vein of like this story with Andre, it's like if, if you, if, if a lot of actors

[01:14:21] understand, and some actors aren't open to it, some actors are.

[01:14:23] Um, but when they understand that you're coming at it with a narrative viewpoint and trying

[01:14:31] to tell the story best way possible so they don't have to recreate it in a studio, um, then

[01:14:38] they start understanding that you're working with them and not against them.

[01:14:41] And, and there's, there is some, you know, there are some flack towards sound departments

[01:14:45] that, that, that can be kind of, um, inhibit the, the, the storytelling because of trying

[01:14:56] to nail down the actor and to do certain things or, or, or to have to force them to be wired

[01:15:02] all the time because they don't want to be, because it's, if they're, they can feel that

[01:15:07] there's a pack on their back while they're performing.

[01:15:11] Um, and I try to take that into the account with actors and talking to them, be like,

[01:15:15] look, we're, we're doing this because we have to, it's not because we want to, um, you know,

[01:15:20] because of how the scene is being shot, but we want, but if you like, if we're coming

[01:15:23] to a closeup and you don't want to wear it anymore, we'll take it off.

[01:15:26] You know, we'll, we'll, we'll try to accommodate all of that.

[01:15:29] And it's, it's a, uh, I, as a sound mixer and as a boom operator understood where

[01:15:37] sound fell in the grand scheme of things.

[01:15:39] And I had to understand that to be able to move forward with the job, because if I was

[01:15:45] like banging my fist down and saying, well, it sounds the most important thing.

[01:15:48] That's unrealistic.

[01:15:50] If I figure out a way to cooperate with every, it is, but you know, it is unrealistic.

[01:15:54] But if I found a way to cooperate with everybody and I showed them, I can tell you stories that

[01:16:01] I knew I would have to talk to Gaffer and the key grip because the lighting was kind

[01:16:06] of, you know, screwing me with how I had to boom the scene.

[01:16:10] And I would talk and Bruce would talk in my ear and be like, do you need me to come out

[01:16:14] and talk?

[01:16:14] And I said, no, Bruce, I got it.

[01:16:16] And I would make it seem like what I had to do because of their lighting was much harder

[01:16:20] than it actually was.

[01:16:23] And I would fake them out and be like, oh God, it's so hard with the lighting.

[01:16:27] I'm like, no, this is easy.

[01:16:28] But I had to kind of make this play to say it.

[01:16:31] So the next time when it was hard, they would cut me a break.

[01:16:35] And also, no, you know, you mentioned earlier on that Bruce didn't want to re-record anything.

[01:16:40] And also, you know, there was that sort of philosophy, no reshoots.

[01:16:44] Yeah.

[01:16:44] So, you know, you really had to get it and get it good, you know, on a production day.

[01:16:52] Speaking of getting it good, I remember, Susan, earlier you had asked about, we would do it

[01:16:57] for ADR, which we didn't do a lot of.

[01:17:01] But in my days in the office, part of that, I got to drive the actors to the ADR set across

[01:17:09] town occasionally.

[01:17:09] Where was that?

[01:17:10] I don't even know.

[01:17:11] And it was in studio.

[01:17:14] Was it Flight 3?

[01:17:15] Was it Flight 3?

[01:17:16] Yeah.

[01:17:16] Flight 3, yeah.

[01:17:17] Yeah.

[01:17:18] It was at Flight 3.

[01:17:19] And I got to drive them up there.

[01:17:20] I remember one time, I took Belzer and a couple other people up there.

[01:17:24] And there was a scene, I think this would have been season 3.

[01:17:28] There was a scene that occurred on multi-layered scaffolding.

[01:17:32] So the camera's able to look down at scaffolding and see them and look up at scaffolding and

[01:17:36] see them.

[01:17:37] Oh, gosh.

[01:17:37] And, you know, obviously wide shot, very challenging for both a boom, but also for a wire because

[01:17:43] they're constantly running up and down these metal stairs as is whatever.

[01:17:46] So the line was for Richard Belzer was, he's below you.

[01:17:51] Hey, he's below you.

[01:17:53] And Belzer couldn't say, blow you.

[01:17:55] Blow you.

[01:17:56] He blow you.

[01:17:56] He's blow you.

[01:17:58] And he kept, and being the funny guy that he is, of course, he just turned the next,

[01:18:03] you know, 10 things that I'm in this, in the little booth there with the mixer at Flight

[01:18:09] 3 and just cracking up because he's just, blow you.

[01:18:12] Blow you.

[01:18:12] No, no.

[01:18:12] Blow you.

[01:18:16] Again, really cool stuff that I got to do as the office PA that I never would have had

[01:18:22] the opportunity to do if I just jumped straight into sound.

[01:18:25] One of the things that we were talking about before, the technical aspect, we had four wireless

[01:18:30] microphones, four wireless LOVs with a cast of like 10.

[01:18:36] So again, you had to, like, that's it.

[01:18:38] And nowadays, and one of them, one of them was for, we had, we had four audio limited

[01:18:44] transmitters.

[01:18:46] And then we had two of the, the, the transmitters for the Booms.

[01:18:49] So, so we, we were limited how many actors we could wire as well.

[01:18:57] So then up until, I think until the last season where we could do six.

[01:19:02] And, and so then you think of those limitations.

[01:19:04] Now you've got a cast of 20.

[01:19:06] Everybody's wired.

[01:19:07] And everybody, it's like this free flowing thing.

[01:19:09] Now it's like, no, we had to find a way to make it work.

[01:19:14] I do remember, and I, I'm trying to remember, it's the episode with Elizabeth Marvel.

[01:19:18] I think it's season six because I've worked with her later on.

[01:19:23] It's where a little child is kidnapped from the merry-go-round.

[01:19:26] Oh yes.

[01:19:27] Yeah.

[01:19:27] And I remember, and that was her first TV show.

[01:19:30] And I worked with her years later on House of Cards and on Homeland and other things.

[01:19:35] Um, I remember Bruce coming up to me because he would get, and I found out later as a mixer,

[01:19:41] you'd get the list of what lines they were doing for ADR.

[01:19:43] And I remember he walked up to me and he walked up from 20 feet away with a grin on his face.

[01:19:48] And he goes, look at this.

[01:19:49] It was one line of dialogue.

[01:19:51] That was an off camera line.

[01:19:52] That's all they had to redo.

[01:19:55] Nice.

[01:19:55] And his, his pride in that.

[01:19:56] For the whole episode.

[01:19:57] For the whole episode.

[01:19:58] Wow.

[01:19:58] His, and I think we only got one line on a wire and the rest was on my boom.

[01:20:03] And I remember the pride in his face of like, this is why we're doing it.

[01:20:07] This is why we're doing it because this is why we're working so hard because we want that to be real.

[01:20:12] And I, I remember that vividly.

[01:20:15] Oh, and by the way, they, they only did one day of sound post, two days of picture editorial, one day of sound post in New York.

[01:20:22] Wow.

[01:20:23] That's that perfectionism.

[01:20:24] Yeah.

[01:20:25] Yeah.

[01:20:25] So why do you think, and I think part of the answer to this question is because of everything we've been talking about,

[01:20:32] but why do you think the show has retained its interest in the fans 30 years later?

[01:20:40] And, and, you know, and I blabbered all about this, how great the show looks and it doesn't look dated.

[01:20:47] I like went on and on about that, the other episodes, but it doesn't.

[01:20:51] Um, and the sound is great and, and, and the visuals are great.

[01:20:55] Um, and talk, maybe both can sort of jump in on why you think it still has retained that.

[01:21:02] 30 years later, people still want to watch it.

[01:21:05] Yeah.

[01:21:06] It has this cool doc feel to it.

[01:21:09] And it's, you know, watching it, um, on my large, on my television, I've seen it on my computer many times,

[01:21:16] but, uh, watching on the television, it, it really is, there's so much energy going on with the camera moving constantly.

[01:21:24] And, uh, um, uh, I think that, that is unique.

[01:21:30] I remember, uh, uh, we were doing our show for a little while for Homicide, but then later on, um, the Law & Order show started coming out with this.

[01:21:39] It was the, the camera was on a tripod and the head would, they would just constantly be moving the head.

[01:21:45] And you've seen that kind of cheap imitation of a handheld camera.

[01:21:49] And it's so, I hate it, right?

[01:21:51] Cause it's just fake.

[01:21:53] It's fake handheld.

[01:21:54] It was on a, it was on a dolly on a sandbag.

[01:21:56] I found out.

[01:21:57] Yeah.

[01:21:58] Yeah.

[01:21:59] Uh, uh, and it just, it's, when you see the real handheld action that is driven, not by just whatever, but actually driven by the narrative and the motion.

[01:22:12] And, and, uh.

[01:22:13] Driven by the action.

[01:22:14] It adds, it adds a, yeah, it, it adds a dynamic where you're in it.

[01:22:20] You as the viewer are in between those three people who were talking.

[01:22:24] You're not outside the group, you're in the group.

[01:22:26] I, and I, the camera was a character as much, the camera was a character as much as the actors were.

[01:22:31] And you really, you felt like you were, unlike like the mockumentary shows, like The Office and things like that, you felt like you were just a fly on the wall going, these are these people's lives.

[01:22:41] And, and, and, and let's face it, these things are still happening.

[01:22:45] You know, socioeconomic issues, you know, the crime, everything.

[01:22:50] And this is not Baltimore.

[01:22:51] It's any place really in the Rust Belt.

[01:22:53] If you, um, you know, all the way to, you know, Michigan and Illinois and Philly and New Jersey and all that kind of this part of the country.

[01:23:03] It could have been any one of those cities.

[01:23:06] And it, the, the, it was just, there was a lot, there's still a lot of life in it.

[01:23:13] You can't tell me that the story of, let's say, like Adina Watson, you know, isn't happening now somewhere else.

[01:23:22] Mm-hmm.

[01:23:23] You know, 30 years later.

[01:23:24] Yep.

[01:23:24] Or here, or wherever.

[01:23:26] Still unsolved, right?

[01:23:27] Yeah.

[01:23:28] And, and I, it's, it's, um, if you think about the difference from 30 years ago to now, and then 30 years from the show and, you know, in the past, you go from, you know, what the, you know, mid 60s to the 90s, how different it was.

[01:23:46] But it hasn't changed that much from the 90s to now.

[01:23:49] Mm-hmm.

[01:23:50] Interesting.

[01:23:50] That's a good point.

[01:23:51] And, and I, I just think it's, it, I was watching, um, the first episode, season five, the other day, and the scene with G and Pembleton on the ramp, where G's getting him, continually getting him to walk on the ramp, like, you need to walk, you need to walk.

[01:24:08] And Pembleton's angry because he's becoming like an office guy, like getting coffee for people.

[01:24:13] And just the energy of that scene, and it's a simple scene in an hour-long episode, is just like, it brought me back.

[01:24:22] And I still remember the lines of dialogue.

[01:24:24] I still remember the lines of dialogue, and I still remember how they wrote.

[01:24:28] They wrote beautifully with a rhythm that was unlike the only other shows I've ever come across that kind of rhythm is The Wire and We Own This City and how those writers write, which is very similar, which is, there's almost a cadence.

[01:24:41] You almost knew when the line ended, the next one started, without ever having read the script, because of the rhythm that they wrote.

[01:24:49] It was beautiful.

[01:24:51] And it was easy to boom that way, because you knew that person was ending and the next person was starting.

[01:24:57] You just knew it.

[01:24:58] Right.

[01:25:00] I always love those scenes in the ramp, because they had to be very creative with the lighting, because, you know, they had that one sort of interior window.

[01:25:12] Yeah.

[01:25:13] But I love that, you know, they would let it fall off, and often some of the scenes were done where one of the characters was just in silhouette.

[01:25:20] Yeah.

[01:25:20] But you guys didn't have a lot of room in there.

[01:25:22] There wasn't a lot of headroom in there to boom.

[01:25:23] No.

[01:25:24] That was mostly wires.

[01:25:25] That had, there was very little we could do on the, yeah, I know.

[01:25:28] It was so echoing.

[01:25:29] And that was Pat Moran's office, the one interior window.

[01:25:32] That was tight.

[01:25:32] That was the casting office.

[01:25:33] Okay.

[01:25:34] I don't think I do that, Pat.

[01:25:36] That's funny.

[01:25:43] The memories of the whole experience doesn't need to just, you know, be on the set or whatever.

[01:25:47] Can I share a shout out to Jim Finnerty, the producer, was being able to be in the office with him for a season and meeting this guy who was very hard and the classic, you know, hard exterior, soft interior guy.

[01:26:08] And I didn't realize how, because again, it was my first big show like that, you know, him setting up parameters of the 12-hour days, which I just thought was normal, right?

[01:26:20] And just his care for the crew.

[01:26:24] He really did, he really gave a shit about the crew, about the members of the crew, about food, about how we were treated in his, in his, he didn't want anybody necessarily to see that, but he really did care about it.

[01:26:36] He was, he was the tough guy.

[01:26:37] He said the tough guy.

[01:26:39] Right.

[01:26:40] He was the tough guy, but he was, the purpose was to, was to make sure, yeah, make sure everybody was well cared for.

[01:26:48] So, huge appreciation for that.

[01:26:50] And to him, I have fond memories of working with him.

[01:26:54] I had a lot of fond memories working with him.

[01:26:56] It was my first real show.

[01:26:58] And just, the actors were as much fun as the crew, as the teamsters.

[01:27:05] We were all kind of, I think, and I've, because I've worked so long at Baltimore, I always feel like Baltimore has a crew base of people who care.

[01:27:14] Because if you go to a lot of the other film cities, sometimes people are jumping from job to job to job to job.

[01:27:19] And here, this was like, this was our show.

[01:27:22] Yeah, it's not personal.

[01:27:23] I mean, this was very personal to everybody on the crew.

[01:27:26] And I've kept in touch with some of the actors and some other people.

[01:27:29] And it was more like, they were all happy for each other.

[01:27:33] And, you know, we all gave, it was like a bunch of siblings.

[01:27:37] Because we all gave each other shit.

[01:27:39] And we all kind of like, and I just remember instances.

[01:27:42] Frank Farrell, one of the first ADs, I remember towards the end of season seven, looked at me and he goes, I don't think people get it.

[01:27:48] This is the best we're ever going to have it.

[01:27:50] And we would laugh and just, I mean, you look at, Paul has these quotes that he kept.

[01:27:57] And some of them are just, it was just the conversations.

[01:27:59] The actors weren't going to trailers, really.

[01:28:02] Though Belzer would go to his trailer, but that was for completely medicinal reasons.

[01:28:05] Yeah, and I love all those.

[01:28:07] I've heard some things about it.

[01:28:09] And all those quotes that Paul wrote down were because you had, you guys had headphones on all the time and were listening even when we weren't shooting.

[01:28:19] Yeah.

[01:28:19] So you were hearing, you know, all this, the banter.

[01:28:23] And I love, and it's funny, I had forgotten that you had done that, Paul.

[01:28:26] I love that you wrote some of them down.

[01:28:29] Paul, jump in.

[01:28:30] You want to like pick any of those out?

[01:28:31] Oh, I actually have a small book in front of me.

[01:28:35] I just was reading through this this morning.

[01:28:38] Here's one I love.

[01:28:40] Nick Gomez, let's just stick to the mediocrity we all know, we all enjoy so much.

[01:28:45] I was like, what is he talking about?

[01:28:49] Let's see.

[01:28:50] All of my living relatives watch this show.

[01:28:54] That's Reed.

[01:28:54] Reed said that in 617.

[01:28:56] I think there was a quote, I think, from Reed also.

[01:28:58] It's like, so the eyeline is Alex's penis.

[01:29:02] Because Alex was on, the DP was on a ladder.

[01:29:05] Standing on a ladder.

[01:29:06] Standing on a ladder.

[01:29:07] Frank Farrow had some classic ones.

[01:29:09] Let's get Alex A to move his thingy.

[01:29:14] Hey, guys, come on.

[01:29:16] They're not going to let me finish this episode if I don't finish this episode.

[01:29:20] That was Ken Fink said that.

[01:29:22] I love Ken Fink.

[01:29:24] Callie was, is that a real joke or did you just make that up?

[01:29:28] I like, there's one from Alex.

[01:29:30] Let's go, let's go.

[01:29:31] This is a disaster.

[01:29:35] You know, it's just that idea of just, we just have to keep going.

[01:29:38] So you remember this, I know you guys all remember this part.

[01:29:41] A bird just shit in my mouth.

[01:29:42] I can't talk right now.

[01:29:44] Clark Johnson said that.

[01:29:45] He was directing.

[01:29:46] And then the response was, here's the response.

[01:29:50] Remember Bright Bike Bruce?

[01:29:52] Bicycle Bruce.

[01:29:53] Bicycle Bruce.

[01:29:55] I've had worse.

[01:29:57] There's one I love.

[01:29:58] There's one I love from Andre Brower to Carl Sekel when he's directing saying, seeing what a pleasure it is working with yourself.

[01:30:07] It was just, it was like, it was nobody went to their, I remember Andre, it was a season six.

[01:30:12] He had in his notebook the list of his entourage that he wanted to have.

[01:30:16] And everybody could chime in.

[01:30:18] He's like, he had a yes man, a no man, a hair man.

[01:30:21] It was like a 25 list.

[01:30:22] And he would just question people.

[01:30:24] And like, people were talking.

[01:30:25] And it was just, it was just like, we were all going to like hang out at a fraternity.

[01:30:32] And we, I mean, and in this, I thought about this earlier in a similar way that the real homicide detectives had to have gallows humor.

[01:30:40] We are nowhere near in any kind of, you know, awful, difficult environment that they were in.

[01:30:46] But because it was such a high paced show and it was so frenetic that it was, it was, it was definitely a grind that we kind of all had this kind of awful sense of humor.

[01:31:00] So I'm, I'll tell you a quick joke.

[01:31:03] This is Joe Kurtz.

[01:31:04] And Joe Kurtz is very surly.

[01:31:07] And I'm Colombian descent, which is, well, his jokes were always like just right under the surface.

[01:31:14] And I'm Colombian and I'm, I'm Latin.

[01:31:17] And it was right after Thanksgiving.

[01:31:19] And he looked at me and he said, what'd you guys have for Thanksgiving?

[01:31:22] Chalupas?

[01:31:22] And I said, what'd you have?

[01:31:23] Raccoon?

[01:31:25] And, and he just looked at me and went like, huh, that's, that's pretty good.

[01:31:29] And just turned around and walked away.

[01:31:31] They would drill the door shut to the bathroom.

[01:31:34] They drilled my pants to the wall in the box.

[01:31:38] They would box in Alex Appelfeld, the video assist with camera, with like grip cards.

[01:31:43] It's just, I mean, I have a picture of myself, Alex Appelfeld and Josh and Joe in the back of a steak bed during a driving shot.

[01:31:51] And they would hit each other with gobo arms, like in the knee.

[01:31:55] I mean, it was just, I don't know how we got a show done.

[01:31:59] Because it was like, it was pretty, you know, and you know, it's, it's, we've got it done.

[01:32:06] But it was like, you know, there was a, the episode where we see Kyle Secor taking care of his uncle, I believe.

[01:32:14] And all that, it's a very serious episode.

[01:32:17] And, and Andre, we did a shot with Andre outside the house going to investigate where Bayless is going to.

[01:32:24] And it was very sunny, but it was backlit.

[01:32:27] So Josh Spring had a big foam core, you know, foam reflector to get bounce board.

[01:32:36] Bounce board.

[01:32:37] And he's holding it up, right, to kind of, as we're walking back with the camera and the thing.

[01:32:43] And if you watch the episode, I swear it's there.

[01:32:46] At one point, the wind hit it.

[01:32:48] The thing broke in half and hit Josh right in the face.

[01:32:51] And you see Andre crack a smile as he's creeping along this house in this very serious scene.

[01:32:57] He gets a tiny bit of a grin in the take because he just saw this happen right behind camera.

[01:33:03] Wow.

[01:33:03] I didn't remember that.

[01:33:04] Oh, yeah, it was hilarious because I started laughing, too.

[01:33:07] I think I hit Yafet the head with the boom mic one time in the hospital, the thing.

[01:33:11] Because we would all go flying down the hallway.

[01:33:13] This is the, when the school shooting, that was season five, where Yafet's walking down the hallway.

[01:33:18] I had to look behind me and look forward and look behind me.

[01:33:21] We all ran into the wall.

[01:33:23] And Alex was shooting.

[01:33:24] He ran into my chest.

[01:33:25] I'm, like, got my elbow in Josh's face.

[01:33:27] And we're laughing.

[01:33:29] We're, like, giggling because it's so ludicrous because we ran out of room and they hadn't finished the scene.

[01:33:34] And now, by this point, my boom pole is past the actors because they got so close to us.

[01:33:39] It's, like, it's all awful.

[01:33:40] I think we're within minimum focus.

[01:33:42] It was just a disaster.

[01:33:43] But we're just laughing.

[01:33:44] And this happens, it was every day, you know.

[01:33:48] I remember shooting 11 1⁄2 pages after lunch with Alan Taylor at the courthouse because it took us six hours to do three quarters of a page, you know.

[01:33:57] Oh, the courthouse.

[01:33:59] Remember the?

[01:33:59] That was the worst.

[01:34:00] Oh, the courthouse was challenging.

[01:34:01] You know, going with the wind before lunch.

[01:34:03] It was always 100.

[01:34:04] It didn't matter.

[01:34:06] Right.

[01:34:06] It didn't matter what time of the year it was.

[01:34:08] It was 120 degrees inside that courthouse.

[01:34:10] So it was always hot.

[01:34:11] It was the bad HVAC system they had.

[01:34:15] It was an old, pretty beautiful building inside.

[01:34:17] Yeah.

[01:34:18] Mitchell courthouse.

[01:34:19] They were like, hello.

[01:34:20] But we were all having fun.

[01:34:22] And I think it showed because we all cared how it came out.

[01:34:26] And yes, the jokes make it sound like we didn't care.

[01:34:29] But we did.

[01:34:30] And that's why we could joke that way.

[01:34:32] Because we were all just in it.

[01:34:34] Oh, shoot.

[01:34:34] And the energy we had.

[01:34:36] And everybody had that energy.

[01:34:38] And everybody was so good at their jobs.

[01:34:40] I mean, it was a great, it was a good bunch of people.

[01:34:44] And I know, I was thinking last night, you know, Susan, it was 30 years ago.

[01:34:48] Maybe I'm like not remembering all the horrible stuff.

[01:34:51] But, you know, it is lots of really good, lots of really good memories.

[01:34:57] And to Paul's point about the 12 hours in Jim Frinity, and a big shout out to him, I

[01:35:02] think we went over 12 hours maybe four or five times in the 67 episodes that I worked

[01:35:08] on.

[01:35:09] And to the writer's credit, they were flexible too, which was what's nice about having those

[01:35:15] writers.

[01:35:16] Oh, yeah.

[01:35:16] They were great.

[01:35:17] I remember, I forget what episode it was, but it was Yash was the writer.

[01:35:21] And we were, we had finished the, we had finished, we had a night scene to do, but we had finished

[01:35:27] at like five, the other scenes.

[01:35:30] And sunset was like 730.

[01:35:32] And Yash just walked up, he goes, it's a day scene now.

[01:35:35] Here we go.

[01:35:36] And we almost didn't finish it before sunset.

[01:35:38] But they were like, okay, it's fine.

[01:35:41] Let's just go.

[01:35:42] Let's do this instead, right?

[01:35:43] Yeah.

[01:35:44] So do you guys, as we wrap up, do you guys want to just sort of mention, you know, what

[01:35:48] you're working on now, give yourself a plug, what you've been doing?

[01:35:53] Well, I've, I mean, I don't know if anybody wants to hear this, but since the writer's

[01:35:58] strike and the actor's strike and everything, it's been a very slow grind in Maryland.

[01:36:03] So.

[01:36:03] Even coming back from it.

[01:36:04] Yeah.

[01:36:05] Because then now IATI's negotiating their contracts and Teamsters have to negotiate their

[01:36:09] contracts right now.

[01:36:10] So there's really not much, you know, I, there's inklings of John Waters and some other

[01:36:17] stuff, but it's really.

[01:36:18] I heard that.

[01:36:19] Yeah.

[01:36:19] But it's, it's been, it's been, and it's, it's not just here.

[01:36:22] It's New York, LA, Atlanta.

[01:36:24] It's not just.

[01:36:25] No.

[01:36:25] It's not just.

[01:36:26] And unless the shows were already in pre-production, not much has started because they're waiting

[01:36:31] for the other.

[01:36:31] Right.

[01:36:32] So it's been, it's been a rough time right now.

[01:36:35] I don't think you want to include that.

[01:36:37] But of course, Paul, football lives on.

[01:36:40] Oh yeah.

[01:36:40] Of course.

[01:36:41] It doesn't matter what's happening.

[01:36:41] So how long have you been on NFL films?

[01:36:44] It's a long time, right?

[01:36:46] It's been a while.

[01:36:46] Yep.

[01:36:46] I started as a freelancer, uh, in 2001 with the, um, if you remember the Ravens did the

[01:36:52] very first hard knock show, which is the summertime training camp show for it's airs

[01:36:56] on HBO.

[01:36:57] So we started there.

[01:36:58] I started there with them because I was local, uh, through, uh, a recommendation through Chris

[01:37:03] Kellett actually shout out through him.

[01:37:04] Cause I worked on, worked with him on this show.

[01:37:06] Right.

[01:37:07] Yeah.

[01:37:07] Cause Chris was on NFL films first, right?

[01:37:09] Chris was on it too.

[01:37:11] Right.

[01:37:11] Right.

[01:37:12] So, um, you know, as Susan, as you said earlier, it's funny how you say yes to one thing and

[01:37:18] it opens other doors.

[01:37:20] Um, so, uh, that was, uh, my introduction to films, uh, and then eventually started working

[01:37:26] with them seasonally, which means for the football season, I would be exclusively working for them.

[01:37:30] And then in 2016, they hired me full time.

[01:37:35] So, um, my wife and I moved up to Philadelphia.

[01:37:37] Hi Donna.

[01:37:38] Uh, to be theirs.

[01:37:40] And, and Paul, don't be shy.

[01:37:41] How many, how many sports Emmys do you have?

[01:37:44] Like nine.

[01:37:45] Nice.

[01:37:46] Nine.

[01:37:46] Well, congratulations.

[01:37:47] Yeah.

[01:37:48] Yeah.

[01:37:48] Oh, you know, okay.

[01:37:49] I just gotta, I just gotta say this.

[01:37:51] They give the, they give those out like candy.

[01:37:52] My brother.

[01:37:54] My brother.

[01:37:55] I'm just kidding.

[01:37:56] You can buy them on the street.

[01:37:58] My brother's a, uh, video engineer, um, at first on the NASCAR circuit for 10 years.

[01:38:03] And now he's on mostly golf and PGA circuit.

[01:38:06] And he, like, he, he never fails to rub in.

[01:38:08] He's got six, six or seven, uh, Emmys, you know, in a case at his house.

[01:38:14] And I'm like, I have, I do not have one award.

[01:38:16] Well, I have journalism awards.

[01:38:17] I should like flash those at him.

[01:38:19] But, uh, but no, I'm just kidding.

[01:38:21] No, that's cool.

[01:38:21] That's cool.

[01:38:22] That's very impressive.

[01:38:23] And, and of course, and of course, well, Lorenzo has his, his, his Emmy too.

[01:38:29] Yes.

[01:38:29] I gotta say Miami is, is, uh, uh, is shared with several people on cruise.

[01:38:34] So, uh, who have done fantastic work.

[01:38:37] And we, I think that's the most exciting part of what I get to do now is I get to work with

[01:38:42] really good sound mixers from around the country on these bigger projects where we have, you

[01:38:47] know, we might have, we might have eight or nine sound guys on a, on a show for five weeks.

[01:38:52] Yeah.

[01:38:53] And you just did the Superbowl, right?

[01:38:54] I have been fortunate to do every Superbowl since 2001.

[01:38:57] That's crazy.

[01:38:58] I have a bonus question just before we do leave.

[01:39:01] So, um, in previous conversations, uh, I wanted to talk a little bit about Baltimore food and we found out like the grip department were living off gizzards and apparently the writers living off scrapple.

[01:39:13] Were the sound department living off any particular, any particular Baltimore delicacy or anything like that?

[01:39:19] I know we'd, I mean, obviously we had coffee from the grind across the street, which I don't think that's been mentioned yet.

[01:39:24] Yeah.

[01:39:25] The grind was good.

[01:39:26] Yeah.

[01:39:27] And it was an old, uh, carriage house.

[01:39:30] The daily grind.

[01:39:32] They're still there.

[01:39:33] They have a different digs, but it's, it's, uh, and we, I mean, deep as squallies, uh, get subs from deep as squallies.

[01:39:40] I mean, wherever neighborhood we're in, we were finding what we, um, something.

[01:39:44] And we were always in that area.

[01:39:45] Deep as squallies.

[01:39:46] Is that, that in Highland town?

[01:39:48] The old one.

[01:39:48] It's off, uh, it was, was it band?

[01:39:51] Uh, no, was it, um, it was your street.

[01:39:54] Wasn't it?

[01:39:55] Was it, was the street you lived on, Paul?

[01:39:58] It was on golf street.

[01:39:59] It was on golf street.

[01:39:59] Golf street.

[01:40:00] No, I was on bank street.

[01:40:01] Bank street.

[01:40:01] Deep as squallies was on golf street.

[01:40:03] Oh, bank.

[01:40:03] I don't know.

[01:40:04] Yeah.

[01:40:05] Deep as squallies.

[01:40:05] I'm going to go in the back room back there for lunch.

[01:40:08] Yeah.

[01:40:08] Yeah.

[01:40:08] Grabbing a sub.

[01:40:09] We did, uh, I know we did a lot of Jimmy's in the production office every day.

[01:40:13] Uh, Finnerty would want to have a, uh, a breakfast sandwich from Jimmy's.

[01:40:17] I memorized that.

[01:40:18] I memorized that phone number pretty quickly.

[01:40:21] Have any of you been back to the squad?

[01:40:23] Well, not the squad room, but the, the building that was the squad room.

[01:40:27] Cause it's now a hotel.

[01:40:28] Oh, absolutely.

[01:40:29] Yeah.

[01:40:30] It's gorgeous.

[01:40:31] Have it, Chris, have you ever been over there?

[01:40:33] No, I've not been yet.

[01:40:34] I'm planning to.

[01:40:35] Well, you have to let us know when you come.

[01:40:37] I've been to.

[01:40:38] Yeah.

[01:40:39] Well, I'm hoping, I'm hoping maybe we can get together some kind of launch party where we

[01:40:44] can all, you know, all meet at Cooper's and then go invade the country.

[01:40:48] I, you know, I, I miss the old recreational pier.

[01:40:51] I miss that, that era, that era of kind of that area is kind of, it was a fun time being

[01:40:58] down there in the nineties.

[01:41:00] I don't know if you remember Alex, uh, our video assist guy, Alex Applefeld.

[01:41:04] Um, Bruce would call him the minute man because he lived on Bond street all like three blocks

[01:41:10] away.

[01:41:11] And it was like, we would, we would be loading in and setting up the truck and camera would

[01:41:15] be setting up the truck.

[01:41:16] We're wrapping before the first day of shooting.

[01:41:19] We're getting done.

[01:41:19] It's five 30.

[01:41:20] And here comes Alex pushing his car down 10th street from his house to load the truck

[01:41:24] with his stuff.

[01:41:25] Yeah.

[01:41:25] And he's just pushing it down, down the middle of the road.

[01:41:28] And there was just, it was a feel of everybody knew we were there.

[01:41:31] Everybody had fun.

[01:41:32] Everybody like knew us.

[01:41:33] And it was, we had a, you know, it was very much a community feel.

[01:41:39] Vince lives around the corner.

[01:41:40] If it's praying to go.

[01:41:41] Susan, you might remember.

[01:41:42] Yeah.

[01:41:42] Vince did too.

[01:41:43] Uh, Susan, you might remember that, um, the Christmas episode where we made, where

[01:41:46] we turned Tame street into the whole, we covered the whole Tame street area around the

[01:41:51] building with snow.

[01:41:53] Uh, that was spectacular.

[01:41:55] Yeah.

[01:41:55] You know, Josh reminded me of that.

[01:41:58] I had said, we know, we never had, um, we never had cover sets.

[01:42:01] We worked in the snow.

[01:42:03] We never made snow.

[01:42:04] And Josh reminded me and he, he sent me a picture of the snow we made on Tame street.

[01:42:09] And was it in the middle of the summer?

[01:42:10] I think everybody had shorts on and there was fake snow in the street.

[01:42:13] Yeah.

[01:42:13] It was definitely not winter time.

[01:42:15] Uh, and it was a Christmas episode.

[01:42:17] Uh, I actually invited my parents down to let them know we were filming that day.

[01:42:21] So we did, there was quite a crowd scene, um, watching the show because it was such a

[01:42:26] big setup for us outside.

[01:42:28] It was pretty cool.

[01:42:30] Sure.

[01:42:31] A whole street.

[01:42:32] Yeah.

[01:42:32] So funny.

[01:42:34] Yay.

[01:42:36] Excellent.

[01:42:36] Good.

[01:42:37] Well, thanks you guys.

[01:42:38] Yeah.

[01:42:39] Thank you.

[01:42:39] It's been amazing.

[01:42:40] It's been really fun.

[01:42:41] You're welcome.

[01:42:43] Thanks for having us.

[01:42:44] Uh, absolutely.

[01:42:45] And, uh, you know, of all the shows I've worked on, you don't realize when you're

[01:42:51] in it, how special it is until you go to the next thing I'm, you know, and it's not

[01:42:56] the same, you know, it's just, it wasn't the same.

[01:42:59] This was something unique.

[01:43:02] It was, it was a special situation.

[01:43:04] I think so too.

[01:43:05] For every department, I think the way we had to work.

[01:43:08] Can I leave you with a quote?

[01:43:09] Yeah.

[01:43:09] This is, uh, Steve Buscemi episode 621.

[01:43:13] Okay.

[01:43:14] Okay.

[01:43:14] He leans into the car.

[01:43:15] Okay.

[01:43:16] This scene will have the windshield wipers on, the radio on, and if one of you could fart

[01:43:21] uncontrollably.

[01:43:24] Okay.

[01:43:24] That's a great, great thought to leave with it.

[01:43:28] Thank you very much, everybody.

[01:43:30] It's been really great.

[01:43:30] Thank you.

[01:43:31] Yes.

[01:43:31] Absolute pleasure.

[01:43:32] You're welcome.

[01:43:33] It's been a pleasure.

[01:43:55] Yeah.

[01:43:56] Well, that was Paul and Lorenzo.

[01:43:58] I thought that was a fantastic chat.

[01:44:00] So yeah, Susan, what were your thoughts on all that?

[01:44:03] Well, first of all, like, like we said in the introduction, people often didn't think

[01:44:07] about sound.

[01:44:07] And I just think this was such a great look behind the scenes at what, um, what it took

[01:44:14] to get good sound on Homicide.

[01:44:17] And especially, I love that story where I think it was Lorenzo said how proud Bruce was, the

[01:44:25] sound mixer was of the day.

[01:44:26] They had only one line of dialogue scheduled for ADR.

[01:44:30] And ADR means additional, either additional dialogue or additional digital recording.

[01:44:35] And of course, producers don't like to go back and re-record things because there's an

[01:44:40] expense to it and a time, you know, time element to it.

[01:44:43] So the fact that he could, under such challenging circumstances, get sound so good that they almost

[01:44:49] had to do no re-recording in the studio is really a testament to how good the sound

[01:44:54] crew was on the show.

[01:44:56] Yeah.

[01:44:56] ADR is quite a complicated thing.

[01:44:58] So if listeners are not familiar with it, as you were just saying, it's when you re-record

[01:45:03] the dialogue.

[01:45:04] So the reason you do it.

[01:45:05] So if there's a sequence where somebody's talking and then there's a big sort of noise

[01:45:09] over one of their lines and it's in the recording, then I'm going to be

[01:45:13] after the fact.

[01:45:14] They'll probably want to remove that sound.

[01:45:16] But the only way to do it is to re-record the line on its own.

[01:45:19] And the thing is, that creates a lot of problems because number one, when you re-record

[01:45:24] the line, it's going to be in a studio.

[01:45:26] So it will sound different.

[01:45:27] And so for the final sound mix, that's going to be a bit of a challenge for the sound

[01:45:32] mixer to kind of make it sound like it was recorded on location.

[01:45:36] And then as you were just saying, obviously there's an extra expense because of the time

[01:45:40] of getting an actor to go to a sound studio.

[01:45:43] This would be done during a production day.

[01:45:45] So they would have to be scheduled out of filming to be able to go to the studio and do the audio

[01:45:51] replacement.

[01:45:52] So it's quite a complicated thing.

[01:45:54] So a sound recordist will naturally, onset sound recordist would naturally not want to

[01:45:59] have to have any lines that need re-recording.

[01:46:02] And yeah, and it's one of the big battles of filming in the real world, really, because

[01:46:07] one of the things I found quite interesting from the interview was the fact that the location

[01:46:11] for the squad room was affected by background sounds such as the tugboat, beer deliveries

[01:46:16] for the nearby bars, people talking.

[01:46:20] Do you know what this reminded me of?

[01:46:21] It reminded me of the kind of the films I work on, the corporate films and the short

[01:46:26] films where we don't have much of a budget.

[01:46:28] I once was filming in a theatre and you could hear people walking outside and it was a nightmare.

[01:46:34] And then like there was a bar nearby that got a massive delivery and it just holds everything

[01:46:39] up.

[01:46:39] And it's so the fact that that happened on Hummer side as well as a bit of a eyebrow raise.

[01:46:44] And also I think Jean mentioned that she in his interview that even on Law and Order,

[01:46:49] they have trouble with helicopters from time to time in their squad room.

[01:46:52] So it's...

[01:46:54] Right.

[01:46:54] Yeah.

[01:46:55] And we were, in addition to the beer truck deliveries, we were just a few blocks, you

[01:46:59] know, number of blocks from shock trauma who would send out, you know, their state police

[01:47:06] jet helicopters.

[01:47:07] Yeah.

[01:47:08] So that, yeah, that was pretty constant.

[01:47:11] But I also liked the fact that they talked about how Bruce appreciated and wanted to get

[01:47:17] the depth of the location sound because then it sounds like you're really there.

[01:47:23] It doesn't sound fake.

[01:47:24] It doesn't sound dead.

[01:47:26] And that that was really important to him to include those.

[01:47:31] And I loved, I think it was Paul's story where, which was also, I don't use that word too much,

[01:47:38] but a testament to the show where we're shooting and an ambulance siren starts in the distance.

[01:47:46] Yeah.

[01:47:46] And it gets closer and closer and closer.

[01:47:49] And so true in any other kind of traditional television or filmmaking.

[01:47:53] As soon as the sound mixer heard that, he would have said cut.

[01:47:57] Somebody would have said cut and waited for it to go by.

[01:48:01] But the fact that not only the sound mixer kept rolling, the camera, Jean kept rolling the camera,

[01:48:07] and the actors kept going.

[01:48:09] The actors did not pause.

[01:48:11] The actors kept going because they were that, then put them in the environment of what we're

[01:48:16] talking about.

[01:48:17] Like, what are we talking about?

[01:48:18] We're talking about working and living and being a homicide detective in Baltimore.

[01:48:24] And the fact that he let, that everyone let the siren go.

[01:48:28] And then at the last second, Jean whips around and gets, you know, gets a shot of the ambulance

[01:48:34] going by.

[01:48:35] So then, you know, then you connect the sound with the location.

[01:48:38] It's happening right there in the moment.

[01:48:41] Really great stuff.

[01:48:42] And probably, you know, 30 years later when I watched that episode, I might have thought,

[01:48:47] well, was that something that, you know, we planned and there was an AD up the street

[01:48:51] going, but you know, you don't, you don't plan for ambulances going by.

[01:48:55] Right.

[01:48:56] Do you remember which episode that was?

[01:48:57] Because I'm desperate to find it.

[01:48:58] Gosh, was it the, I want to say, and I don't know the title.

[01:49:02] Was it the Korean grocer killing one?

[01:49:06] Oh, okay.

[01:49:07] I don't know.

[01:49:07] I'd have to look it up just because that was one where there was, we were in Highland

[01:49:11] town, I believe.

[01:49:13] And a lot of, of day, you know, day, daytime, there's a long daytime scene on the street in

[01:49:20] front of the store.

[01:49:21] But, you know, I, I don't know.

[01:49:23] I'd have to, we'll ask our super fans to let us know if they know which one that was.

[01:49:28] And actually, Paul might remember specifically which one that was.

[01:49:32] Yeah.

[01:49:32] The other interesting thing was that the sound recorder they were using, which is a device

[01:49:37] called a Nagra, it has these two reels that are the tape and it goes from one to the other

[01:49:41] is so cool.

[01:49:43] And, and very heavy as well.

[01:49:44] But it only had two channels, which obviously is quite limiting.

[01:49:47] And so they were very reliant on the actual mixing on set, which again is a testament to

[01:49:53] the skill and the importance of the sound recording on set.

[01:49:56] Yeah.

[01:49:56] And that's why they call them sound mixers because they are mixing sound live as, as you went.

[01:50:03] Right.

[01:50:03] Not just, it's not mixed, you know, in a sound recording booth later.

[01:50:07] It is remixed.

[01:50:09] Yeah.

[01:50:09] But obviously having to do it live too.

[01:50:12] Well, this is it.

[01:50:13] Yeah.

[01:50:13] And sound is still one of the more unforgiving recording formats.

[01:50:18] You either get it good or it's not.

[01:50:20] And it's, there's only so much, I mean, things are changing.

[01:50:23] There's new technology that's come out now, like with, there's some new digital technology

[01:50:26] where you can start to play around a little bit with the levels and things, but it's still

[01:50:30] not the same.

[01:50:31] Um, and, um, you know, there was an interesting conversation, uh, that Paul had that he mentions

[01:50:37] of Andre about mic placement and sound perspective.

[01:50:40] Um, and you know, where you place the mic, um, is as much part of the story as where you

[01:50:45] place the camera and, and, and, which I think that's now by the sounds of things, there's

[01:50:50] a little bit of a dying art because now a lot of producers on shows want everybody to

[01:50:54] have the, the lavalier mic you're talking about where it's underneath.

[01:50:57] So the perspective of sound is now sort of disappeared a little bit.

[01:51:01] Now everybody just sounds the same level throughout.

[01:51:04] Uh, certainly when I watch TV these days and a lot of the, um, kind of industrial films

[01:51:08] that I work on, we work in that way because you just want clear sound the whole time.

[01:51:13] Um, but, uh, certainly next time I go into a drama project, I'm going to have a think

[01:51:17] about sound perspective and see if there's something we can do with that because it's

[01:51:20] really interesting.

[01:51:21] Yeah.

[01:51:21] And that had to do, that actually was Lorenzo's story with, with, um, with, with Andre, but that

[01:51:26] I think it really tied in.

[01:51:28] We talked a little bit about this, the give and take with the actors, um, with the camera.

[01:51:32] And then here is a really good story about the give and take with, with an actor, uh,

[01:51:37] trying to understand like what is happening that, you know, it's a problem where I stop,

[01:51:43] you know, even if it's only a foot or two different, what's happening.

[01:51:46] And for him to want to know, for Andre to want to know and Lorenzo to explain it to him and

[01:51:51] then to be live running the shot in the box and Andre finds a little bit of business to

[01:51:57] do while the plane's going over.

[01:52:00] And then, you know, checks with Lorenzo, you know, surreptitiously, uh, before he starts

[01:52:05] his dialogue.

[01:52:06] So I think that also was just, just showed that, that, um, maybe, and, you know, I don't

[01:52:12] know, I haven't worked in the business for 30 years, but, um, and that was the last show

[01:52:16] I worked on, but, you know, maybe it does show a special connection between sound camera and

[01:52:22] the actors that may not be necessary or apparent, uh, in other shows where, like you said, everybody's

[01:52:29] got a lav mic on, everybody has their own like perfect sound happening.

[01:52:33] Um, the, the, the, the shots are set maybe like, I think Lorenzo or Paul mentioned, I think

[01:52:39] Paul mentioned, um, maybe more set and quiet, like tableau scenes, um, that House of Cards

[01:52:46] was, was famous for, uh, which, which, um, Lorenzo won an Emmy for.

[01:52:51] And so that I think was a very special, a very special circumstance, uh, the give and

[01:52:58] take and interplay between the actors and the camera and the sound people.

[01:53:03] Well, I've got a question for you.

[01:53:04] So can you explain swinging singles?

[01:53:07] Swinging singles.

[01:53:08] Well, my interpretation would be, uh, normally on a traditional filmmaking, if you were going

[01:53:14] to do singles or closeups, um, you know, you would do the wide shot, you would do maybe

[01:53:19] a couple of overs from each actor, meaning shots over the shoulder to one actor and shots

[01:53:25] over the shoulder to the other actor, and then do closeups.

[01:53:27] Uh, swinging singles would be John swinging the camera around, getting closeups slash, um,

[01:53:35] you know, singles, single shots on each actor, uh, as well as the moving, uh, master shots.

[01:53:45] So that's my interpretation.

[01:53:47] Somebody can correct me, but I'm pretty sure that's what it meant.

[01:53:50] But that, that speaking about the swinging singles, the, the, the, the point where Paul

[01:53:56] started talking about having written down the things that they, cause they had the headphones

[01:54:01] on all the time, even when we weren't rolling because they are constantly checking what they're

[01:54:07] doing while we're lighting.

[01:54:08] They're looking for camera shadows.

[01:54:09] They're talking to each other about what's happening as things are getting set up.

[01:54:14] What's, you know, what are the challenges going to be of the shot?

[01:54:16] So then Paul's writing down ridiculously funny, um, you know, non sequiturs, um, you know,

[01:54:25] inside jokes, uh, and had a, I mean, he could have probably put a book together of all the

[01:54:30] things, all the things he wrote down, which is, which was really priceless.

[01:54:35] And I really thank him for bringing those up.

[01:54:36] Those are really terrific and shows the sort of spirit, uh, you know, what's going on behind,

[01:54:43] you know, behind the scenes.

[01:54:45] Yeah.

[01:54:45] Yeah.

[01:54:46] Yeah.

[01:54:46] Indeed.

[01:54:47] Wow.

[01:54:47] Um, is there anything else you'd like to add or?

[01:54:50] I did actually, I'm going to throw a question out there to them when they're listening.

[01:54:54] Um, and, or, or actually you may understand it better when, when Lorenzo talked about,

[01:55:01] um, using having, you know, they had these tableau shots where it's a really wide shot.

[01:55:04] It's like, and you can't get in there with the boom pole unless the boom pole and maybe

[01:55:09] even part of the mic is in the shot.

[01:55:11] Yes.

[01:55:12] Now, what I understood him to say was the technology had advanced so much in 30 years

[01:55:17] that they were removing digitally.

[01:55:19] They would do the shot with the boom pole and or the microphone in the shot and they

[01:55:24] could digitally remove it.

[01:55:27] So they could get the good sound and then get, get rid of the microphone in post, fix

[01:55:34] it in post, which is, which was a, you know, a constant, a constant joke on the set.

[01:55:39] Oh, don't worry.

[01:55:40] They'll fix it in post.

[01:55:41] Of course we didn't really have a post.

[01:55:42] Yeah.

[01:55:42] Yeah.

[01:55:43] It wasn't really happening.

[01:55:44] No, only in certain circumstances can you do it.

[01:55:46] Cause I think the camera needs to be relatively locked up.

[01:55:50] Locked.

[01:55:50] You need to get a kind of plate shot afterwards.

[01:55:54] I mean, you can remove it with movement, but it requires an awful lot of time.

[01:56:00] So on a TV show, they wouldn't have the budget to do it, but on a movie they do.

[01:56:04] It makes sense what you said, because they were these locked off tableaus, but that, that

[01:56:09] what you just said clicked in my head.

[01:56:10] So yes, they would do the shot with everybody in it and then do the shot, which what, what

[01:56:15] you just said, what we call a plate shot, which is just, you know, just normally a plate shot

[01:56:21] would be a landscape where you're going to like, you know, put somebody in, put the

[01:56:25] wagon train in or something, you know, but this would, yes, would be a plate shot of the

[01:56:29] same scene with nothing in it without the, you know, the boom pole and the mic in it.

[01:56:35] One other crazy thing on House of Cards, I only noticed because I've read about it.

[01:56:39] They would sometimes even use bits of different takes in a single shot.

[01:56:43] So if you've got a shot with two people, it might not necessarily be the same take the

[01:56:48] two people are in.

[01:56:49] They might've digitally taken a bit of one take and a bit of another.

[01:56:54] It's a sort of a thing David Fincher has sort of been doing in his movies in recent years.

[01:57:00] He did it a lot in Girl with Dragon Tattoo and other films.

[01:57:03] So that's quite interesting.

[01:57:04] And one last thing as well, Mission Impossible Fallout, the sixth Mission Impossible film,

[01:57:09] is a bit where Tom Cruise jumps from one building to another.

[01:57:12] So the shot of him leaping towards the camera, when he watched the behind the scenes footage,

[01:57:18] the crew are completely visible behind him in the camera's view, but they remove the

[01:57:23] crew in post.

[01:57:25] There's all sorts of stuff they're doing just so they can get a shot.

[01:57:27] So, cause they had multiple cameras and I think they only got, you only get one time

[01:57:30] to get Tom Cruise to jump from one building to another.

[01:57:33] Interesting.

[01:57:33] So it wasn't, it wasn't green screen.

[01:57:35] No, no, no.

[01:57:36] He did it for real and he broke his ankle too.

[01:57:38] So they literally only did have one shot at it.

[01:57:41] And I live quite near the building they used.

[01:57:43] It's quite funny.

[01:57:44] So I sometimes go past it and think of poor Tom Cruise breaking his ankle on that building.

[01:57:48] Because yeah, he does a lot of his own stunts.

[01:57:50] Obviously they make it safe, but, and, but they digitally remove things after the fact,

[01:57:54] like the safety cables, et cetera.

[01:57:55] Um, so no, and with digital and even to some extent with film that they put through a digital

[01:58:02] intermediate process, I believe is the term, um, you can remove a lot of stuff now that

[01:58:07] you couldn't, is it actually easier to remove things than it is to create things from my point

[01:58:11] of view.

[01:58:11] I've seen a lot of movies where they create way too much.

[01:58:15] It looks really phony, but it's amazing how invisible it is when you remove stuff or,

[01:58:20] um, you know, or, or merge things.

[01:58:22] If you get it right, it can, it's mind blowing what you can do.

[01:58:26] So it's, yeah.

[01:58:26] Yeah.

[01:58:27] And I think that, that, that story from Lorenzo sort of underlined, you know, one of the things

[01:58:31] that you ask pretty much everybody, um, that we've interviewed, what, what, what, what

[01:58:36] would homicide look like if you shot it today?

[01:58:38] What's what, you know, what, what kind of digital technology, well, new technology would

[01:58:43] you, um, would you take advantage of today?

[01:58:46] And that would be one thing because yeah, removing anything from, you know, super 16 millimeter

[01:58:51] film, um, at a time when even, well, obviously we had, you know, digital transfers and stuff,

[01:58:57] but you know, 30 years ago, it's not going to be, um, the kind of tech that we have now.

[01:59:03] Um, so, so yeah, that, that, that was a good, that was a great sort of comparison.

[01:59:08] I think.

[01:59:09] Yeah.

[01:59:10] Brilliant.

[01:59:10] Yeah.

[01:59:11] No, no, that was, it's very interesting.

[01:59:13] And, and the other funny thing as well with the show they did, they were innovators with

[01:59:16] wireless boom mics, which aren't used that much, um, these days, but well, they, they

[01:59:21] aren't that often used because of there's too much, there's a lot of interference and

[01:59:25] wireless frequencies these days.

[01:59:27] So there's a lot of fear about using them.

[01:59:29] But back in the day, uh, on homicide, um, apparently there was a lot less people using

[01:59:33] a lot less of the channels.

[01:59:35] So there was less chance of interference.

[01:59:36] And so your show was the, uh, one of the innovators with using wireless mics, which is

[01:59:40] great because then obviously on a boom mic.

[01:59:43] So you've got your 15 foot pole, you need a 15 plus foot cable to go with it.

[01:59:48] And that can be a nightmare, um, with actors and moving cameras and things.

[01:59:52] So I can see why they went with the, uh, the wireless boom mic.

[01:59:57] Yeah.

[01:59:57] So we were, I mean, if you were around and you had a, you know, and you had a, uh, an RF,

[02:00:02] uh, or a radio that you could tune into the frequency we were at, you know, which,

[02:00:07] which they mentioned, which would have been below where public radio is somewhere in

[02:00:11] the eighties in the mid eighties, you know, when your AM dial or maybe as FM, I guess.

[02:00:17] Um, that, you know, we were, that's, that's the channels that we were using at the time,

[02:00:22] which like you said, we're not crowded, um, the way they are with, uh, with so much different

[02:00:26] and, you know, additional technology using airwaves now that it wasn't happening.

[02:00:31] Yeah.

[02:00:32] If only fans knew back then, cause they could have got scoops and storylines like, oh my

[02:00:36] goodness, this happens.

[02:00:37] And I'm going to sit outside and record that.

[02:00:39] Right.

[02:00:39] It's so funny.

[02:00:41] Yeah.

[02:00:43] Oh my word.

[02:00:43] Excellent.

[02:00:44] We just want to say to everyone, we are so excited, uh, that, uh, NBC announced, I believe

[02:00:50] it was on July 22nd, that, uh, homicide all seven seasons and the 2000 movie, uh, homicide,

[02:00:59] the movie will be streaming on Peacock as of August 19th.

[02:01:03] And we're hoping that will bring an entirely new dimension to our podcast because now people

[02:01:10] that aren't super fans, uh, I assume the super fans all have the DVDs and are, you know,

[02:01:16] scrounging things up and finding episodes on, you know, on YouTube or elsewhere, but, uh,

[02:01:21] people that have never seen it coming to the show, uh, and then maybe finding, hopefully

[02:01:25] finding our podcast.

[02:01:27] Really exciting stuff.

[02:01:28] Yeah.

[02:01:29] I'm really excited to see, see what happens in the show and just see it in 4k.

[02:01:33] I think it's going to be really interesting.

[02:01:34] And I think I'm hoping if anything, it might bring out the lighting a little bit more because

[02:01:38] the DVD I have, the transfers are weenie bit dark.

[02:01:42] Um, so there are some scenes where it plays a bit darker than it probably was intended.

[02:01:47] And it'll be really interesting to see some of those night scenes and how they kind of

[02:01:50] play out in 4k.

[02:01:52] So I'm super excited.

[02:01:53] Yeah.

[02:01:53] And it, it, I'm also really excited and curious to see, and I assume they're going to start

[02:01:59] promoting it soon.

[02:02:01] Like now, this is the first of August, second of August.

[02:02:03] Yeah.

[02:02:04] Yeah.

[02:02:04] Yeah.

[02:02:04] Um, it'll be when people hear this, it'll be what the 8th of August, but, um, just to

[02:02:08] see how they present it, how they promote it, um, to a brand new audience, but also to

[02:02:14] try to reel back in, uh, the people that remember it from the nineties.

[02:02:19] Yeah.

[02:02:20] Yeah, indeed.

[02:02:21] Wow.

[02:02:22] Yeah.

[02:02:23] So, but, uh, uh, this will come out just before the, um, streaming of the show.

[02:02:28] Um, so yeah, I just hope that this, uh, enhances your experience when you do end up watching the

[02:02:34] show.

[02:02:35] So yeah, tune in.

[02:02:35] It's the 19th of August.

[02:02:37] It will be on Peacock.

[02:02:39] Um, and yeah, let us know what you think about the show, um, in the, yeah, in the

[02:02:44] the age of streaming.

[02:02:46] It's a whole new era for homicide.

[02:02:48] A new age.

[02:02:48] Brave new world.

[02:02:50] Yeah.

[02:02:50] So then bring on season eight of homicide.

[02:02:53] Right.

[02:02:54] Or homicide the next generation.

[02:02:56] Gosh.

[02:02:56] And I, I read an article, I think it was in Vulture.

[02:03:00] Yes.

[02:03:01] Where that Vulture article, I think I sent, I sent you where Tom and, and, and Barry and

[02:03:05] NBC sort of toyed with the idea of a homicide reboot.

[02:03:09] So let's just throw that out there.

[02:03:10] Oh yeah.

[02:03:11] Yes.

[02:03:12] Yeah.

[02:03:12] Exactly.

[02:03:13] What would that be?

[02:03:13] Yeah.

[02:03:14] It'd be really interesting.

[02:03:15] I can, I can imagine stories.

[02:03:17] We can bring in some of the surviving cast back and it's all sorts of stuff you could

[02:03:21] do.

[02:03:22] Um, and obviously with like shows like the wire and things, which really push the envelope

[02:03:27] and ways of storytelling, um, providing that homicide is allowed to do what it does well

[02:03:34] and not be interfered with or turned into some sort of family show or something stupid.

[02:03:40] Um, I think, you know, maybe even allow swearing.

[02:03:44] My goodness.

[02:03:44] That'd be interesting.

[02:03:45] Um, you could suddenly have a lot of window.

[02:03:48] Yeah.

[02:03:49] There's a lot of possibility of where a new season of homicide could go as long as, um,

[02:03:54] the powers that be in networks, um, commit to that.

[02:03:58] If it were on HBO today, homicide would be a very interesting show.

[02:04:02] Um, and it'd be winning Emmys again.

[02:04:05] I'm pretty sure of that.

[02:04:06] So, uh, you know, it's very much, uh, I think a prestige show.

[02:04:10] It's not one for the lighthearted and it would be a mistake to try and turn it into,

[02:04:15] I don't know, CSI Baltimore or something stupid, you know?

[02:04:19] So, uh, yeah, they've got to keep to the spirit of it, but there we go.

[02:04:22] Interesting.

[02:04:23] Food for thought for sure.

[02:04:24] Yeah, indeed.

[02:04:25] Thank you everybody for listening and, um, I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

[02:04:29] It was a really great interview and thank you again to Paul and Lorenzo for joining us.

[02:04:33] Don't forget you can follow us on social media.

[02:04:36] We're just at homicide pod on Twitter, Instagram threads.

[02:04:41] And, uh, don't forget you can also listen to interviews on YouTube if you wish.

[02:04:46] And so that's it from us.

[02:04:47] So until the next episode, you will take care, have a wonderful summer and, uh, please don't

[02:04:52] get sunburnt and we'll catch you in September.

[02:04:55] We'll see you.

[02:04:56] And, and I hope everybody's learning.

[02:04:58] These are really interesting behind, I'm learning from these interviews.

[02:05:02] So I hope, I hope people are sticking with even the technical interviews because I think

[02:05:06] they're just really fascinating and fun.

[02:05:09] Yeah, I think so.

[02:05:10] I think they add a whole new perspective on just the challenges.

[02:05:13] Cause I think as a viewer, everything kind of, if it's gone right, looks quite natural

[02:05:19] and ends up looking like, Oh, they just showed up and did their thing and went.

[02:05:23] And in reality, it's never that easy.

[02:05:25] Um, so I'm hoping that the technical episodes just give an insight into some of the kind

[02:05:29] of challenges, both physical, um, both acts of God, both, uh, artistic.

[02:05:36] Or whoever acts of whoever, acts of Jim Finnerty.

[02:05:40] Or, yeah, or, yeah, or Jim Finnerty and his watch, you know, so there's so many factors

[02:05:44] in play, um, when you're making a piece of, uh, art or drama.

[02:05:49] So, uh, yeah, I hope, uh, hope this is shining a light on that.

[02:05:53] Thank you everybody.

[02:05:54] Take care.