New Mexico-based production sound mixer Darryl L. Frank, who has earned five Primetime Emmy nominations and four CAS Awards in working with movies and television shows such as Breaking Bad, utilizes Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless gear on projects that include chasing actors on horseback in the western series 1883 as well as the sci-fi drama Finch staring Tom Hanks.
Frank’s rig includes Venue2 receivers, wideband SMWB transmitters and their dual-battery SMDWB siblings, SMV and SMQV high-output transmitters, and up to 30 R1-series IFB receivers depending on production needs. All frequencies are coordinated using Wireless Designer software.
On 1883, Frank served as second unit mixer along with Richard Bullock Jr. as first unit mixer. The first thing Frank’s cart had to stand up to was the environment. “We were outside most of the time, so working on this show was all about embracing the weather,” he notes. “Rain, heat, dust, 50-mile-per-hour winds, you name it. We shot a couple of days in Montana where I don’t think the winds ever dipped below 40 miles per hour. This made holding up booms impossible, and so increased the number of wireless channels we needed. There and in New Mexico, there were a lot of middle-of-nowhere places. At no time did I have an issue with any of the wireless.”
That durability continued as the show’s protagonists forged westward through rivers and streams. “That was a possible horror story that turned into a success story,” he explains. “On 1883 I showed up on a day’s notice because the previous mixer had quit abruptly. On my second day, they’re crossing a river on horseback and at the deepest point, the water is touching the saddles. I asked for whatever waterproof packs I presumed the production had rented, and their response was simply, ‘We have insurance. Let’s go for it.’ I put my packs in plastic baggies, we did the scene, and the actors came out just soaked. No gear failed and everything sounded great.
“Now, if something truly gets submerged it may indeed fail, but here’s the thing about Lectrosonics. They’re super quick about repairs. Sure, it may cost a couple hundred bucks to repair, but a lot of other companies would simply tell you to buy a whole new unit.”
Further, the horses that are a staple of the western tend to ignore wireless range limitations. “The thing with any western is that you’re told the horse is going to run from point A to point B,” he says. “When you start rolling, of course that goes completely out the window. Plus, just about everything but the sound department is on wheels — process trailers, ATVs with cameras mounted on them, and so on. Meanwhile I’m standing at my cart. They would go until I couldn’t see them, but I could still hear them.”
Frank credits two factors for making sure the dialogue did not “ride off into the sunset,” including high output power of up to 100 milliwatts on the wideband transmitters and 250 from the SMV and SMQV units as well as ALP620 shark-fin antennas. “I use the 620s passively as my go-to range extenders,” he says. “I’ve never needed to run powered antennas, which I think sometimes causes problems in addition to solving them.”
Finch also had outdoor filming, but the biggest challenge for was setting up comms for the movie’s star. “I knew right away we were going to need something special for Tom Hanks,” explains Frank. “He had heat and air conditioning built into his costume, so I knew he wouldn’t want to keep taking off his helmet if someone needed to talk to him. Plus, sometimes the conversation between, say, him and the director needed to be private without everyone on the IFB feed hearing it. I wound up using an IFBlue R1c for a separate channel just for Tom’s helmet. If anyone needed to talk to him, they could just transmit on that channel.”
One of the funnier moments of hs “getting it” involved the iconic pizza-throwing scene in Breaking Bad, captured with a boom mic outfitted with an HMa plug on transmitter. “[Director] Vince Gilligan really respected the idea of capturing sound design in-camera,” he recalls. “Car engines, guns cocking, you name it — there was almost no Foley on that show. So, when Walter White threw the pizza on the roof of his house, my job was to capture the flop when it landed. We had a truckload of pizzas for as many takes as we needed, and out comes Bryan Cranston and nails it on the first take. The sound was exactly what post needed, and the crew ate very well that day.”
