Sound Design

Sound Effects:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fup6Tj1IycNPd-hSvNlhwjpSlFmaEtZk?usp=drive_link

Frozen Jr. was my first time using forehead mics in a show. For two of the main actors, normal ear mics would not work. Instead, we borrowed two forehead mics for those actors. I quickly researched how to use them properly and figured out how to integrate them with those characters' hair styles. I then used trial and error to determine an appropriate gain level for the mics.

A further challenge was the late addition of two handheld mics backstage. After the first few days of tech week, the director requested this so that offstage actors could sing background parts in the wings. This addition caused some feedback from the backstage monitors. After discovering the cause of the issue, I changed the mix to the monitors and reduced their levels to emininate the feedback.

Newscast Audio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PFKV0WagFQV8YRdQLLunatKk6KubLd3P/view?usp=drive_link

The plug-and-play setup simplicity of Jr. shows, like with this production of Seussical Jr., gives me opportunity to focus on the more technical aspects of mixing mics, especially in the area of EQing. The various levels of training and vocal maturity with the elementary school students give me the chance to EQ and mix a wide range of voices. Through these shows, I have also developed several strategies for working with and micing the young actors, many of whom have never been in a show before and have no experience with mics.

A monumental challenge designing for Willy Wonka Jr. was that I was not going to be there for the last two shows of the run. This meant that I was no longer just designing for myself to run the show, but for another person as well. My replacement and I were in constant communication, simultaneously making sure that what I was planning would work for both of us, and confirming that they understood every part of the design. I trained them in every troubleshooting aspect I could think of so that if something went wrong, they could recognize it and be able to fix it.

Matilda Jr. taught me the importance of planning, taking good notes, and designing such that another person could pick up the script and run the show, because I got hit by a massive metaphorical bus. Midway through our run, the morning after our first performance, I got sick and tested positive for COVID. We had another show that night and our final two shows the day after, and I would not be able to run any of them. Between the notes in my script, the cue sheet I'd made, and a quick phone call with me, another person was able to run the shows with the audience none the wiser.

A Christmas Carol was the first show the drama program was able to do inside the theater after COVID. There were inherent challenges to this, of course — figuring out how mics would work with masks on and how to use the theater's new mic system — but these were not the most difficult challenges. The greatest challenge lay in the double casting, wherein each character was played by a different person in Cast A and most actors played multiple characters in Cast B. To account for this, I created a patching chart as well as a mic plot to show which channels each mic would have to be patched to for the Cast B performances. After that, it was relatively simple to re-patch the mics into the correct channels each night, depending on which cast was performing.

Almost, Maine was a difficult production in many ways. Because it was outside, we had to construct and dismantle our stage set-up for every rehearsal and show, including the lighting and sound equipment. This obstacle had a hidden benefit for me, however, because it allowed me to see and understand how a stage is put together. An additional obstacle for sound was that the show was double cast, with many actors in both casts but playing different roles, often multiple roles each night. For example: an actor in Cast A might be playing a character in Scene 2 and a character in Scene 5, but the Cast B actor playing the same character in Scene 2 might play a character in Scene 4 and a character in Scene 7 but not the character in Scene 5. This problem compounded when actors switched casts several times. We were never sure of who would be playing each character each night until the actors came to be mic'd. To overcome this, I made a fill-in-the-blank mic plot. When actors came to the mic table, they would tell me all the characters they would be playing that night. I would then give them a mic and write that mic's number next to all the characters that actor would be playing that night. There was a new mic plot each night.

Shakespeare in the Spring was a variety show of scenes from Shakespeare's works, and an outside production. Because it was during COVID, we were not allowed to put mic packs on the actors.  Instead, we set up several boom mics in front of the stage area and in the set. But the weather was not on our side. Wind became a problem on the last day of tech when the mics could only pick up its sound instead of the actors. We had only one standard wind screen, so we decided to make our own. We used fabric and classroom stapler to make sleeves with which to cover the mics, thereby protecting them from the wind. When the sleeves got blown off, we secured them to the mic stands with electrical tape. They weren't perfect, but they were a vast improvement over nothing and allowed the mics to pick up the sound of the actors over the sound of the wind.

Elf Jr. was the first musical for which I designed sound. Performance tracks were used for music, which meant figuring out how to simultaneously balance music and vocal levels. Additionally, during the run of this show, many of our ancient mic packs broke, resulting in a battlefield crash course in troubleshooting as I tried to figure out what was wrong with them and what I could do to fix the issue. When it turned out that most of the mics would not be revived, the probem became how to reallocate the mic packs to those who needed them most. After the characters who needed working mics had them, I had to, on the spot, figure out how to re-patch mics to allow the scenes I had previously programmed to still work. All of this happened less than an hour before the show was supposed to start.

The Crucible was the first theatrical show I ran sound for. We ran the show using Qlab, making it my first encounter with the program and the first time I interacted with any of the equipment up in the booth. I had to figure out how to work with the system on the fly as we started rehearsals. A senior at the time has put the cues into Qlab but left me to puzzle out how to run them on my own. I came up with a form of notation for my script and figured out how to put Qlab into show mode when I got curious about what that particular button meant. All this aside, the greatest challenge of the show was was following along during run-throughs as many of the actors jumped around in the script, often back and forth between pages. I learned the importance of knowing the script backwards and forwards, deeper even than just the words on the page. I learned to view the scenes as a whole and recognize when the story had progressed to where it needed to be, allowing me to determine when what was said was close enough to the cue line.