I’ve fallen into series television for the last 2 years, mostly because Judd Apatow has hired me, and because many of the features I might have chased are out of the country. This is not to say that I’m slumming or that I consider features superior; to the contrary I’m happy and privileged. It’s just a different way to work and the differences are dramatic. Many Directors, Producers, and UPMs will look at a Sound Mixer’s résumé, see television credits, and pass because "he’s a TV guy." The reality is they should be looking to hire a good series television mixer.

That being said, I’ll argue that sound is the only film craft that has to go to work and beg to do the job it was hired to do. With features, sound is the only job where as you get more experience and move up the ladder, what you do everyday means less to the production. This is partly due to bigger budgets and more time means that the sound can be readily fixed later. In many cases, the studio wants you to use their dubbing stage. Any sound problem on the set is a frustration and not to be dealt with. I still don’t know how this came to be but it is prevalent today.

Not so with television. The pace and smaller budgets put pressure on time. It was refreshing for me to return to a setting where production sound has real value again. On Law & Order if the cast had to come in from their homes in the suburbs to loop on a Saturday, there was a problem. So too with Freaks And Geeks. We had many cast members who were minors and it suddenly became all about when they were in school and how many hours they could even work. A 2nd AD would deliver the three boys to the set and announce that we had 42 minutes to shoot the next 5 page scene. In television, they really need to use the production track and that’s refreshing. Not that I get everything I want (or have any real leverage) but when the noise level is so excessive that I can’t hear the dialog at all; where there’s an air conditioner whose switch somehow wasn’t found; when the background crosses are tromping over the dialog; I can usually get it fixed.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t often transfer onto the radar for Location Managers and UPMs. They generally ignore the location’s suitability for sound in favor of budget or logistics. Everything must fit the larger picture. You can’t make 3 company moves in one day to help sound. Sometimes when a coffee shop is needed, and it has to be shot today, you can’t help but find one within shuttle distance from base camp, no matter how noisy. That’s reasonable, but increasingly, the crew will come back to the set from a scout (that we weren’t invited on), and joke about how sound’s going to really hate this or that location. And very often we go back again and again to a completely unsuitable place to record sound because it’s cheap or convenient.

It’s also a real drag when you’re coming to work on the crew van and some AD or teamster tells you laughingly that you’re not going to be able to get anything useable today. Can you imagine anybody saying that to the DP? Still, it happens all the time.

Sometimes it’s not just extraneous sound. The curse of time and television is the wide and tight. One camera tries to get something of a master shot and the second camera steals a close-up. In spite of what I’ve just said about the value of the production track, this happens all the time. DP’s and Producers lobby for it. It cuts down on a set-up and they can’t justify having a second camera crew standing idle.

Back to the wide and tight. So you have this camera on a wide angle, sometimes even a locked off shot. The DP is lighting for the big shot and sure enough, just as the cast is coming in and the director is ready to start takes, the second camera (whose operator has "found" a shot), dollies in and grabs a close up of this or that. So now the sound team is screwed. You scramble to wire a bunch of actors at the last minute, while explaining why you’re not ready, the time is taken anyway, and the track is compromised by a crappy radio mic, not to mention the last minute distraction for the cast. It’s the sound team’s biggest problem and it happens all the time.

You shoot the next five takes, with the big wide camera keeping your boom out of range, while the director perfects the performance of the actor whose close-up he sees on the video monitor. So what happens next? You get to editorial, the wide shot is left on the cutting floor (now with the Avid, it’s not literally on the floor), and the editor wonders why the eye-line in this close-up is off, and why the hell did the sound guy use a radio mic for this shot anyway? Of course he doesn’t know the two shots were filmed at the same time.

We all know that in television you never stay on a master for more than a few seconds. It’s a small screen, and you have to see eyes to sell the performance. Don’t believe me? Watch any show. Why do you think series television, especially ER and West Wing, have discovered the Steadi-cam? The camera moves from place to place - a nice medium shot - close enough to see the actors and yet you still get production value out of the wardrobe and set. This all speaks to shooting experience and understanding the medium. Of course there’s always a purpose for a master shot, even in limited use for television. The really sharp TV directors sometimes block a master that becomes a piece of coverage. These directors understand and pre-visualize how the shot will ultimately be used. If I have any leverage, any sense that the director or producer will be open to a suggestion from the sound mixer (hey, it could happen), I lobby to split the shots and I’m ready to explain why. On Freaks and Undeclared, this happens regularly with certain directors and for that I’m thankful.

Proper use of two cameras is a great tool and will move your day along, but too many times I’ve witnessed the disaster of trying to find a shot for the second camera. When time is critical many seasoned directors will rest the second camera to move faster, and that’s experience talking again. On every feature I’ve done there are multiple cameras, sometimes as many as seven if it’s a big action/stunt picture. The difference is, those cameras generally are used much more profitably. Of course with the smaller page count, there is time to plan their use. In television, sometimes speed kills.

Don’t forget, were all here to support the performance and it’s a bummer for the actor who gets the "stolen" close-up. He or she’s up to bat right out of the box. Also, occasionally a problem with the logistics of the scene presents itself and can be corrected before any film is wasted on coverage. The classy solution is using the cameras both wide to start. You get two nice complementary masters with better production value; you don’t compromise the sound or lighting; it lets the actors get comfortable with the blocking and the scene; and most importantly, it saves time. You only need to shoot a take or two.

The old adage holds in any situation: Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick any two!

If a production sound mixer can deliver good useable tracks while shooting ten pages a day, he or she’s figured out how to think ahead and solve problems. It stands to reason that given the time a three-page-day affords, the recording will be even better. With the technology now available in editorial, a good production track adds more value to the production, be it a theatrical feature or television, than ever before.