Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: NBCs "The Sound of Mucus"

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-18-2013, 01:18 AM:

There are spots where there were clues that they were indeed singing live (Carrie Underwood's voice gets jolted when she slips walking on the "mountain" set in the first scene singing the title song. She is also out of breath during the dance sequence up and down the stair on the main house set. BUT, then there are tell-tale signs that they WERE lipsyncing when they sang My Favorite Things in the bedroom and she is jumping like a jack rabbit up and down on the bed -- the best singer in the world can't keep a note steady with that kind of impact body movement going on -- it's just physically impossible to sustain a note without it being ruined by that action.

So my question, other than did you need a barf bag sitting thru this -- were they lipsyncing or not, or possibly lipsyncing for some songs and not others? Did they use body xmitter mics (where did they hide them) or did they just do really good boom work? There was one spot where it sounded to me like there was a boom following dialogue between the two actors and the operator wasn't quick enough to re-aim, but that was so fleeting that I wouldn't say for sure if it was a boom follow.

I would sure like to hear the sound designer give commentary or write an article to explain his techniques. Whatever they were, it result was damn good. Too bad the overall production was like Austrian water torture and with no redeeming value whatsoever other than its main claim to fame as being the first (awful) LIVE musical in 50 years, which I am sure will guarantee it will be another 50 years before anyone has the balls to try this again.

All that snarkiness aside, the singing was quite superb...it's just all the other crap.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 12-18-2013, 09:19 AM:

I would have DVR'd this program had I known Carrie Underwood would be jumping up and down on a bed...

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-18-2013, 09:53 AM:

Supposedly they are planning to do more musicals in the next few years, thanks to the ratings on this one.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-18-2013, 11:01 AM:

The problem with basing one's programming plans on the ratings of a one-off event is, unless they can tell how many viewers were still watching at the END of it, or who watched it but HATED it, ratings don't give the whole picture. Many who like the musical I am sure stuck it out till the end using that faulty rationale: "surely anything this awful has got to get better." Hells bells, even I watched it to the end...of course, mostly I was watching to see if I could spot microphones...and to see Carrie Underwood jumping up and down on a bed. Only that would have been a lot better if she weren't dressed like a girl just out of a nunnery hell bent on chastity.

Julie Andrews admitted she didn't watch it as she had another committment...she probably had to watch her plants grow or something.

"My god...it's full of bad actors."

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-18-2013, 11:49 AM:

I saw a website somewhere where a few of the actors who played the Von Trapp kids in the S-O-M movie weighed in on what they thought of the presentation. Some of them were fairly generous in their comments (especially regarding her singing) but I got the impression that they were just being nice.

Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 12-18-2013, 12:32 PM:

During a close up shot of Carrie Underwood, I think I saw a slender flesh colored cable running up the back of her neck. Maybe they hid the mics in the actors hair?I've worked with the tiny capsules glued to the actors faces for live productions, but have never gotten results like that. Its some of the best sound I've ever heard from that type of mic placement. I also noticed there was a lot of background noise on the set during the quieter dialogue scenes.

On a related note, I recently watched the Garth Brooks live from Vegas special and the audio from his headset microphone was horrendous.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 12-18-2013, 03:41 PM:

i thought the youngest actor that played Gretl had a truly hideous voice.

I happened to see Christian Borle the week after the broadcast and I told him I liked his performance as 'Max'

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-18-2013, 09:25 PM:

I too have done the flesh tape over wire on the face (don't know how an actor can stand that, but they do) and hidden in the hair on the forehead and I have been known to tape a capsule in a few ample bossoms. But even using the high-end, reeeeeally expensive Sennheisers, Shures, AudioTechnicas, etc., like you said, I have never gotten the kind of near-studio recording sound that this broadcast acheived (but you can't go by me -- I'll take a wire over wireless any day of the week). I didn't hear the usual cloathing crush when actors hugged or the flanging you can get when two get close and face each other --always the pitfal of hidden wireless, and yet there was lots of hugging and singing in each other's face. Anyway, in the end, I was very impressed with the sound design and nearly flawless final product.

It will be interesting to see if they try to "fix" the BRay of those slight live imperfections -- Underwood's shortness of breath during the dance sequence on the stairs. Sure, it was recorded live, but I bet they won't be able to resist the temptation to fiddle with it before it's frozen forever in time on disc.

And not for nuthin, but what a surprise to hear that incredible operatic voice coming out of Audra McDonald (Mother Abess) who I only knew from her television drama work, and then, whoa...out comes this awesome voice.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 12-23-2013, 04:42 PM:

I got to see the first hour of it before the OTA channel decided to go off for awhile.

Impressed with the effort, and they followed the stage play, until the signal froze.

I heard the "It's been 50 years since live TV" too. Bull. NBC did a live play in 1980 on the network called "The Oldest Living Graduate," starring Henry Fonda. I have it on U-Matic video.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-24-2013, 08:25 AM:

Still you have to look at this as a bit of a developmental. The closest thing we have anymore is live sports. The entire staff is accoustomed to doing it over and over for "tape." Live there is no safety net. While there is something sloppy about live, there is, nevertheless, the "no safety net" thrill of live. Do the studio camers even have the ability to follow focus? or do they block the scene to allow no-refocusing? Louis

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-24-2013, 12:36 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Supposedly they are planning to do more musicals in the next few years, thanks to the ratings on this one.

That's a good reason not to watch network tee vee! What they air had better be at least as well done as a Broadway Musical but this one fell far short in the 5 min. that I could bear...

quote: Louis Bornwasser
The closest thing we have anymore is live sports.

I guess you never noticed the afternoon soaps are still all done live...

And yes, studio cameras do follow focus... Usually the camera operator does it but the new breed of Arriflex Digital cameras are turning tee vee into more like full blown cinematography.

Arri Camera's Used For Tee Vee Coverage

This basic camera body is 2X the cost of the typical Ikegami or Sony studio camera so they are slower to be adopted. They have also been used for major football game coverage.

Mark

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-24-2013, 04:08 PM:

Louis, I have a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't have had any ethical qualms about using taped segments to cover really difficult transitions where timing becomes too difficult from one scene to another (costume changes, makeup changes, etc) or a musical number that simply can't be done live and sound halfway decent (the bed jumping number) and they just insert a pre-recorded segment where needed. They do that in soaps all the time -- sometimes as much as half is tape and a few scenes go out live.

So there is LIVE, then there's "live." I worked on a HBO special that was hailed as "filmed before a LIVE audience;" yes, yes it was, but all that riotous, guffawing laughter you heard never came from that audience -- it was all overdubbed. So much for Tee Vee integrity.

BTW, Happy Holiday's to everyone....and happy birthday to me tomorrow.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 12-24-2013, 08:03 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I guess you never noticed the afternoon soaps are still all done live...

I'm not sure what in God's name gave you that idea, unless you're making a joke. There isn't a single live afternoon drama, It's all done to tape with between a one to three week lead time.

Any television cameraperson worth their salt can follow focus, it's pretty much the cost of admission to the craft. Some Stedicam operators who do complicated moves have a focus puller along side them, either using a focus whip, or, more popularly, an RF unit that talks to a focus servo assembly mounted on the lens.

Here are the cameramen that worked on The Sound of Music Live! . I don't know all of them, but some of these guys I have known and worked with for years, among them Claus Stuhlweissenberg, Rob Bolton, Jay Kulic, Mark Whitman, Jeff Latonero. These guys are the Original Pros From Dover in East Coast television.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-24-2013, 08:15 PM:

So Mark, can you wean some of the sound secrets out of them -- were all the principals all body mic-ed (and were were they hiding them) and was there any lipsyncing at all, specifically in the bedroom scene with "Lonely Goater" song.

See if anyone is willing to give up any trade secrets.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 12-25-2013, 04:40 AM:

From what I understand, everything was wig mics with Sennheiser body packs, which is the way Broadway goes. One of the issues I noticed was some multipath distortion. The show came from Grumman Studios stage #3 out on Long Island, a huge space that is a repurposed aviation hanger. Even though they used diversity antenna receivers, it’s tough to keep solid RX coverage in a space that big with large set pieces and moving performers. Additionally, there was an issue with audio due to the amount of mics open at once. Even though these are very good systems, if you have eight or nine mics open at the same time, as some scenes required, you’re going to get some noise, hiss or extraneous audio. Beth Miller, who directed, has gone on record that the requirements for audio in general were probably underestimated, particularly the orchestra mix. I haven’t heard anything about lip syncing.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-26-2013, 02:22 PM:

I watched the first 35 minutes of this last night. (We have it saved on the TiVo at my wife's direction.)

I've seen a ton of raves for the singing, but I thought the singing was awful in spots. If you compare Julie Andrews' rendition of the title song in the movie with the Carrie Underwood version, there's just no comparison at all. It's like a professional vs. amateur hour. Granted, Andrews' is a studio version vs Underwood's live version, but even things like taking a breath or a pause in the wrong spot just stuck out like a sore thumb to me. The performance was rough, not smooth and fluid like it should have been.

The acting, I thought, was some of the worst I've ever seen.

The guy playing the Captain looked like he was about 25, definitely not old enough to have been a naval captain AND had time to father seven kids, one of which is "16 going on 17." His performance was just stiff and tentative.

The Mother Abbess had an incredible voice, but she was way too young, too. Don't the people making these kinds of shows do any research AT ALL? Nobody that young ever attains the rank of Mother Abbess at an abbey. It is the older, most experienced sisters who attain that rank. And, in the story the Mother Abbess is supposed to be a wise, older character anyway, not a 30-something chick.

I thought the choral singing at the beginning was borderline ear-splitting, but I think that was more due to the live performance vs. studio than the singing itself.

Anyway...I did hear Carrie's little vocal flub near the beginning, but didn't see any microphone evidence. I was kind of wondering how they pulled off the seamless transitions between scenes...it went from the chapel, to the mountains, to the abbey, to the Mother Abbess's office. How was that done if it was truly "live?" Or was it recorded live and edited down?