You know what they say; “out of sight, out of mind”. It is always worth taking the time to catch up and reconnect with friends you’ve made on past jobs, be they a producer, director, cameraman or from any other department. I was reminded of this in January 2020 when a couple of weeks after an overdue catch up drink with an old cameraman friend (who now co-owns a production company) he gave me a call to discuss an upcoming shoot in Norway. Yes please I said, who doesn’t like to travel with work, and in January!
The job was to be a corporate video for a roof tiling company, showcasing the difference in weight between their old tiles and some brand new much lighter ones, by asking two teams to carry backpacks full of tiles in a 12km race across Norwegian mountain and snow covered wilderness. The course would take in an initial steep ascent of around 350m (we’d rise almost 850m by the end) before contributors attempted an icy rope climb, a river crossing, trekking to a waterfall and ascending down beside it to a lake. The lake was surrounded by woods which would need to be traversed in order to find a waiting boat to take us across the ice covered water, to a final brutal hill climb and the finish flags.
Almost immediately my mind was flooded with questions about the shoot and there wasn’t that much time to prepare. Which cameras are you intending to use? How many of them? How many contributors are there? And so on. In fact there were to be a range of cameras (Sony FS7’s for beauty shots, Sony HXR-N200’s as main shooting cameras, some DJI Osmo’s for when the terrain got tough and finally some contributor worn GoPro’s), some of which would require on board sound and also timecode to enable easy sync in the edit as it would be impossible to be tethered. I hired in two lightweight Sanken CS1e short shotgun mics with Rycote windcovers to be used with the handycams in order to provide better sound than the onboard mics and had 3.5mm to mXLR cables made to provide audio timecode from some Tentacle sync boxes in to the second audio input, as there was no other timecode input on these small cameras. The plan was to use a digislate to provide a visual timecode reference to the other cameras when they needed to be turned on halfway through the course at a designated pit stop. Logistics can be tricky, especially in that environment where there is no road access and on the day, the food box had arrived, but the digislate was nowhere to be seen. Luckily there is always a good old fashioned hand clap to provide some reference in these situations.
With no way to recce the course before arriving in Stavanger, I was relying on information coming back from production and also making sure I had with me enough spares and equipment to cover a few different scenarios, should things change on the day. I was primarily given one task – make sure the audio is clean and free from wind and rustle; not always an easy job when presenters and contributors want to wrap up warm inside their jackets. I asked if it would be possible to have the radio mics slightly on show. This would allow me to use a big fluffy windshield cover for the mics called a Windbubble made by BubbleBee. The answer, to my relief, came back yes. I was grateful as I knew that having the mics slightly exposed would not only result in less clothing rustle and thus fiddling with the contributors throughout the hike, but they would also sound much clearer and open than if they had to be hidden behind technical fabrics.
The next thing to consider was whether to have recording radio mic packs (either Audio Ltd A10’s or the Zaxcom TRX range). Having a sound recordist with each team and expecting to be in wide open spaces, I took the opinion that this wasn’t necessary and would add undue cost to the production. Instead we used 8 Wisycom transmitters for the two presenters and two teams of three. Before departing for Norway I looked into frequency regulations there and duly moved the 8 frequencies and 2 spare channels out of Ch38 ( this is not allowable spectrum/free space in Norway but legal to use in the UK with a license from Ofcom) to Ch39 & 40.
On the day of the race, I was pleased to find all radio mics working together nicely with no interference issues. I did occasionally lose reception of the contributors radio mics as, being paired with the team with the lighter tiles, they often raced ahead of me and over a crest. Although I’d tried to make my own bag as light as possible (KTS waterproof outer bag, KTS inner bag, a small Sound Devices 633 mixer, 2 x Wisycom MCR42 receivers, Lectrosonic SNA antennas, PSC Elite boom pole and small Sennheiser MKH8050 microphone in a Cinela Cosi windshield), it was still almost as weighty as the teams’ backpacks and certainly more cumbersome, so I actually relished the chance to shout at them to stop, in order to catch up with them and my breath.
Pictures in order left to right: My somewhat cumbersome electric handbag, Joe Worthy and myself on sound, a CS1-e top mic in a Rycote windjammer, my FreqFinder frequency plan, obligatory selfie at the finish line, some windbubbles protecting cos11 mics, my team as we stood above the waterfall, the entire team at the end of the day, the stunning scenery.
The river crossing wasn’t deep, and although potentially hazardous and slippery, we decided not to use Aquapacks to protect the transmitters from taking a dip, instead opting to carry a spare transmitter and a boom each as a precaution. In fact the greater danger came from the snow concealed gaps between rocks or through the tough shrubs we walked across. Occasionally someone would suddenly yelp and sink up to their thigh but luckily nobody was hurt, to the medics relief. This was a really tough trek that involved a great deal of teamwork both between the teams and between myself and the cameraman as we hauled ourselves and equipment through the course. It was definitely my most physical day ever at work. At the finish line we were greeted with a cup of strong coffee and slice of Sjokoladekake (chocolate cake). There may have also been a shot of whisky to warm up with by the fire as the light began to fade. What a great trip with old friendships strengthened and new ones made.
Studart Sound 