THE BEACONSFIELD

TROLLEY RALLY

On Sunday May 13, a fine sunny morning, 30 AMPS members and guests assembled in the National Film & Television School’s TV gage at Beaconsfield Studios. They had given up their Sunday morning ‘lie-in’ and urgent springtime garden work to gather and hear production mixers Sandy MacRae, Simon Bishop, Stuart Wilson and Patrick Heigham, expound on the whys and wherefores of the type of recording work they undertook, and the reasons for the various pieces of equipment displayed on their trolleys.

Council member, Peter Musgrave, a sound editor by craft, organised the meeting on behalf of the AMPS Council and acted as chairman. After welcoming all to the meeting, he introduced the four speakers.

It was pleasing to note that six Institute of Broadcast Sound (IBS) had accepted AMPS’ invitation to attend. However although the same invitation was extended to the British Kinematograph Sound & Television Society (BKSTS) and the Association of Post Production Studios (APPS), none of their members attended.

An added special facility for the meeting was the loan of the Film School’s video projector, set up to enable the speakers to show clips from productions they had worked on.

Sandy, who opened the proceedings described the equipment he used. He said that he’d been apprehensive about DAT but was now an enthusiastic convert. He showed a clip of well recorded dialogue from one of the many episodes of Poirot that he had been production mixer on.

Stuart and Sandy’s rigs had been set up on their trolleys before the meeting started and over-the-shoulder expert Patrick’s cases were on display on an adjacent table but there was no sign of Simon’s gear - it was still loaded in the truck that he had backed onto the soundstage.

Simon opened his talk with confessing that he was always late so had designed his rig for rapidity, claiming that it took him only 75 seconds to be ready to shoot. To prove the point he flung back the doors of the truck, pulled forward two runners a Ia wheelchair access, wheeled out his trolley with gear assembled, pulled it over to the front of the meeting, operated a few flaps and sliding shelves, clicked on some switches and called “Sound Running!”. His timing was spot on 75 seconds!

Stuart showed unedited excerpts from his present assignment using an 8-track recorder. The director on this job will not allow booms to be used so the exercise is almost 100% personal mics on radios. Further more, the director is anti rehearsals and a great deal of the dialogue and action is ‘off-the-cuff’ making 8-track essential. I must say it’s not the sort of job I’d like to handle but Stuart seems to thrive on the challenge.

Patrick whose type of work normally precludes the use of a trolley carries all his equipment neatly and economically packed in three medium-sized cases and an over-the-shoulder bag. One rigidised flight case contains microphones and suspensions, while a smaller rigidised case houses an immaculate kit of tools and test gear. The third case contains his mixer in a shoulder harness with radio mic receivers attached. He has to be ready to go as soon as the cameraman lifts the camera to his shoulder. The Carry-All he calls his “run bag” and contains spare batteries, the radio mics, spare tapes and a piece of white card for camera balance. It seems that the cameramen have come to rely on Sound to provide this white card service and Patrick told the meeting of one occasion, working for an American client when, in a dash up a hill on foot to grab a shot before light faded, the white card got left behind. Disaster was averted however by the lady PA saying "My panties are white”, and obligingly slipping down her trousers, bending over and presenting her backside to the camera!

Patrick showed excerpts from a documentary following various stars of the Grand Pnx circuits, around the world. For me, another challenge I’d rather do without.

At the conclusion of the talks, Peter opened the meeting for questions. Unfortunately I didn’t think of my question until I was driving the 101 miles home. When I was a production mixer, I liked to be as close to the set as possible. I wanted to be able to see all that was going on. Being on the set gave me clues to actors movements and when they spoke. I could see if there were noises made by the crew that could be eliminated; and keep close contact with the director and boom op. Also I felt that being involved on the set kept the director and crew aware that sound was being recorded. So my question to mixers with large rigs on trolleys is, how close to the set can you get?

It was an excellent meeting and I’m sure all who attended derived great benefit, especially from the open discussion with the speakers when they descended from the platform to stand by their trolleys.

The National Film & Television School is a great venue, so special thanks to Andrew Boulton and the School management for allowing our use of it. We hope that we will be welcomed back for future meetings.

At the close of the meeting, Andrew said to all assembled that they and other AMPS members were always welcome to visit the school and he would be extremely pleased if any would volunteer to come and talk to the students. He very much wanted the students to have plenty of contact with people working in the industry.

A turnout of 30 people on a sunny Sunday morning is not bad but the Council would like to see much more support of organised events. Those who didn’t attend missed another really good meeting.

BOB ALLEN

(For photos and more comment on the meeting, next page)