Production sound mixer Chris Howland, a seasoned veteran of films, TV series, and second-unit shoots, regularly utilizes a range of Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless gear, including SMV and SMQV compact belt packs and SMWB wideband pack transmitters.
Most recently, he manned the audio cart on shoots for the space epic “Ad Astra,” Jordan Peele’s horror film “Us,” and Dennis Villeneuve’s upcoming remake of “Dune.” “On any given production, once they settle into a certain way of doing things, they don’t like to change it,” says Howland. “So, when I’m hopping from show to show doing pickup work, my gear has to help me fit into their workflow with no delays or disruptions.”
He also employs HMa plug-on units that attach directly to microphones for boom work, with reception handled by a trio of UCR411a receivers plus a Venue system hosting VRT receiver modules. The gear’s long-range performance proved particularly beneficial in a scene in “Destination Wedding,” a romantic comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder.
“The wedding of the title was set in a vineyard in Paso Robles, California,” Howland explains. “It’s beautiful there, so they wanted a lot of wide shots to establish a sense of place, which means you can’t use a boom for dialogue. We had only nine days to shoot the whole thing, so our goal was to let Keanu and Winona concentrate on their performance and not distract them. There was this one long walk-and-talk shot with Keanu and Winona on a pathway in the vineyard and the camera on a hilltop.
“Because we had to ride up this hill on a Gator ATV shared with two other departments, we didn’t have room for a boosted antenna rig; we were just running on whips. They’re walking towards us and they start as two specks maybe 150 yards away. I’d wired them both with the SMQV, which I chose because the output power can go up to a quarter-watt. Via the UCR411a, all the dialogue was captured without a single dropout.”
On a shoot for an upcoming Universal feature about a girl who befriends a unicorn, the SMWB wideband transmitter’s functionality as an SD card recorder helped overcome challenges with a pivotal sequence. “The shot was in RF-heavy Griffith Park in Los Angeles,” recalls Howland. “It was a tight schedule and we only got one take. Our heroine is a child actor riding her unicorn as the bad guy pursues her on horseback. They’re yelling at each other the whole time so I’m riding faders.
“For the dialog shots, the talent were on mechanical horses mounted on a motorized trailer. There was no room for me on the trailer, so I was in a van in front, and for some reason they had to slow down and we unknowingly kept going and drove out of range. We also hit branches that messed with our antennas on top of the van. My tech Kelsey had the idea to double up with SMWBs in recorder mode on the actors. I was able to pull the audio files and deliver them to post, and everyone was happy.”
