Lunch break with A2s – PST #016

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this insightful discussion from Practical Show Tech, a diverse panel explores the roles, challenges, and evolving practices of Audio Technicians, particularly A2s, in various show environments such as theater, broadcast, corporate events, and opera. The conversation delves into the impact of COVID-19 on safety protocols and the increasing reliance on IP and digital solutions for audio management. The panel also addresses the importance of thorough documentation for operational success and emphasizes collaboration and adaptability in handling technical and interpersonal dynamics. Finally, the importance of mentorship and the inclusion of women in the audio field are highlighted as key components for future growth.

Highlights

A2s are pivotal in events, providing initial contact and problem resolution. 🌟
During COVID, hygiene and distancing protocols have reshaped audio technical practices. 🧴
Digital tools and thorough documentation have become indispensable. 📑
Fostering a team-oriented environment enhances production efficiency. 🤗
Welcoming diverse talents into audio tech broadens the industry's capabilities. 🎧

Key Takeaways

The A2 role is crucial in all production settings, often serving as the frontline for solving technical issues. 🎤
COVID-19 has changed how A2s and production staff interact with talent, emphasizing hygiene and safety. 🦠
Good documentation and organization are essential for seamless operation and crisis management. 📄
Collaboration and mutual respect in work environments enable successful productions. 🤝
Mentorship and recruiting are vital to ensure the next generation is prepared and diverse, including more women in audio tech. 🌟

Overview

In the evolving world of live and broadcast productions, the role of an A2 is both challenging and rewarding. These audio technicians are integral in ensuring smooth operations by managing setups, solving technical issues, and maintaining optimal conditions for performers and speakers. A2s often act as the first point of contact for talent and are crucial in troubleshooting unforeseen problems, which requires not only technical aptitude but also effective communication skills.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted how A2s conduct their roles. Safety has become paramount, requiring adaptations such as using boom mics or more personal audio devices to minimize contact. The shift also encompasses ensuring equipment sanitation and perhaps altering typical practices to prioritize health guidelines.

Furthermore, the industry is witnessing rapid integration of IP and digital solutions, which demands that audio technicians continuously update their skills to handle new technologies. This digital shift requires robust documentation practices to facilitate smooth transitions should an A2 need to step away unexpectedly. Emphasis on mentorship and diversity, particularly encouraging more women into the field, is seen as crucial to fostering an inclusive environment and enriching the sector's talent pool.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Overview of A2 Role The chapter discusses the importance of connecting differently with audiences and co-workers. It emphasizes the role of the A2, which might not be thoroughly understood by many. A2s are often the first point of contact with talent, highlighting their crucial role in communications.
01:30 - 03:30: Impact of COVID-19 on A2 Role The chapter discusses the crucial role of the A2 position during the COVID-19 pandemic. It outlines how A2 staff are often the first point of contact for executive producers and the first to notice and address any issues that arise. Their role in maintaining the smooth operation and ensuring the success of A1 tasks is emphasized, highlighting the increased pressure and responsibilities faced during the pandemic.
03:30 - 06:30: Adapting Audio Equipment and Practices Post-COVID The chapter discusses the evolving role of A2, or audio technicians, in the production environment post-COVID. It highlights how A2 professionals, despite sometimes being underappreciated, play a crucial role in communication and interaction, often engaging with more individuals than A1 or even producers in some cases. This shift points to new opportunities for A2s as they adapt to changes brought about by the pandemic.
06:30 - 11:50: Challenges and Adaptations in Different Sectors The speaker discusses the importance of understanding and adapting to the nuances of different clients and talents in various sectors. They plan to break down the discussion by market segments, starting with the theater industry.
11:50 - 16:30: Paperwork and Documentation in Audio Production The chapter discusses the influence of theater on the audio production industry, both in corporate and broadcast sectors. The historical context is established by recognizing theater as one of the original platforms for performance.
16:30 - 19:30: Recruitment and Gender Diversity in Audio Industry The chapter 'Recruitment and Gender Diversity in Audio Industry' explores the impact of COVID-19 on talent interaction within the audio industry. It starts with a discussion led by Jenny, who contemplates the changes brought about by the pandemic. The conversation delves into how the industry informs work practices and impressions reflecting on the adjustments being made in response to the ongoing global situation. Although these are early observations, the chapter hints at significant shifts in recruitment strategies and the importance of maintaining gender diversity within the industry's evolving landscape.
19:30 - 24:30: Importance of Teamwork and Knowledge Sharing This chapter highlights the significance of teamwork and knowledge sharing. The narrator draws parallels between their work and professions like nursing and waitressing, emphasizing the importance of building quick and close relationships with people. The discussion also touches on the idea of gut feelings and the realistic expectations of how long it might take to adjust to situations.
24:30 - 31:30: Emerging Technologies in Audio Production The chapter discusses the uncertainties and changes in the relationship with talent in the realm of audio production due to emerging technologies. It highlights the unpredictability of these changes and the time it might take to adapt to new dynamics. The conversation touches upon the unfamiliar terrain that professionals in this field find themselves navigating, emphasizing a cautious approach to evolving interactions with talent.
31:30 - 44:30: Essential Tools for A2s The chapter delves into the reliance on close, hands-on interactions in certain professions, highlighting the challenges posed by restrictions such as social distancing. It underscores the difficulty of performing some jobs without the ability to be physically present and comfortably close to others, emphasizing the significant impact these limitations have on how work is performed.
44:30 - 53:00: The Role of A2s in Live Productions The chapter discusses the pragmatic and less glamorous aspects of working as an A2 in live productions. The role involves handling equipment and personal items that become sweaty or dirty during shows, necessitating constant cleaning. The narrator, who works in both theater and opera, emphasizes the importance of maintaining hygiene, particularly washing hands frequently, especially before entering performers' rooms. This routine underscores the behind-the-scenes work and attention to detail required in live production environments.
53:00 - 64:30: Best Practices for Success in A2 Role This chapter discusses the best practices for succeeding in an A2 role, focusing on the importance of hygiene and health safety in a professional setting. The speaker emphasizes the sensitivity to health concerns, such as sniffles, and the possibility of adapting to each individual's comfort level, especially when interacting in person. The narrative suggests that adaptability and consideration for others' health and comfort may not change significantly until actual physical meetings occur, reinforcing the need for attention to personal hygiene and mutual respect based on individual comfort levels.
64:30 - 65:30: Conclusion and Closing Remarks In the conclusion and closing remarks of the chapter, the focus is on the evolving preferences and sensitivities within the context of media production, particularly regarding audio equipment. The discussion highlights a trend where newscasters are opting for boom microphones over traditional lavalier microphones for interviews. This change is attributed to heightened sensitivities and possibly the evolving roles and preferences of performers and media personalities, who may now prefer different types of microphones (like handheld or stick microphones) based on their roles or personal comfort.

Lunch break with A2s – PST #016 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 so uh yeah we're into lunch with the a2s now and uh you know a lot of this came out of the idea of how do we connect differently with with our audiences with our co-workers um and the role of the A2 is is really a um what maybe I don't misunderstood is not the right word but um uh in many times you guys are out there you're the first people that that are going to be talking to Talent you're
00:30 - 01:00 the first person that an executive producer might see that morning um you may be that that individual that um is really making the A1 frankly look good um and you're you're going to be the first people when there's a problem you're going to be the first people to recognize when there's a problem typically and then uh you're gonna be the first people that are expected to go fix the problem right so that's a that's that's a bit of a load of course the first person get
01:00 - 01:30 blamed of course well yeah well unless Pete's there in which case we all try to blame Pete but you know um it doesn't always work that way uh but it in some ways it's a thankless job and in many ways it is um a uh an opportunity right the A2 role is if you think about it you you folks talk to more people than the A1 even most of the producers
01:30 - 02:00 um because you're you're going to talk to every client you're to every um talent and you're going to learn the nuances you have to learn those you have to understand what people are comfortable with so um what I'm going to do we do have a lot of people so I'm going to try and break this down by um uh Market segment right so let's do this in in somewhat of alphabetical order and reversed differently than rehearsal I'm going to start with theater all right um
02:00 - 02:30 because I think there's that's right reys Jenny you're up all right so um what what I think uh let's let's kind of level set for a second the the industry whether that's um uh corporate or whether that's broadcast has been influenced by theater theater was one of the original right performance was the original um performance uh platform form
02:30 - 03:00 that we saw and um so from that aspect you you folks have your industry has uh informed how we work what we do the impression so I'm gonna start with something that's probably top of mine for for right now and that is how do you think covid is going to change how you interact with your talent uh Jenny I'll start with you on that one do you have any thoughts I know this is this is brand new to us all do you have any just
03:00 - 03:30 gut feelings oh wow I kind of feel I guess that it might take us a little bit longer to get back into things than we were really hoping because we are the ones that are closest to people I often say that what I do is a lot like nursing and a lot like waitressing because we get very close to people very quickly we have to be comfortable with people and we're handling um common things sometimes touching with the tape being in a very
03:30 - 04:00 close proximity very quickly and I have a feeling that it might take us a little longer to get back to that um that's really you know this is Uncharted Territory as we all know it is yeah how about you reys what's your feelings right now I think uh I don't know how much our relationship with the talent will uh will change immediately it's going to take a minute before they
04:00 - 04:30 let 2,000 people be in a room together uh again so I think that's that's what I'm kind of waiting to see um but I don't know how we how we do the job as we're accustomed to without getting in there like you said it's a very it's Hands-On and being able to be comfortable and close to people is uh key so we'll see when we get you're literally handson yes yes yes and then you know
04:30 - 05:00 the didn't think we'd get into like the the nitty-gritty of it you know we all know we've had to handle those sweaty pieces that come off of people at the end of a show you know we've had to deal with you know some of those less Savory things that we're constantly cleaning I mean in the Opera world because I also do work in theater and also do Opera I'm constantly washing my hands every time before I go into somebody's room I wash my hands thankfully there's a sinkr there I do what I need to in their room
05:00 - 05:30 I come back out wash my hands because they are hyper sensitive to anyone that has a sniffle so that's something that i' I've been dealing with for some time so in that realm I don't know that it's going to change things a lot until we get actually into the room and you're with somebody and it's probably going to be a caseby case basis you know how comfortable each person is right yeah I think a lot of people
05:30 - 06:00 more sensitive it's interesting to see uh newscasters when they're interviewing now are resorting to Boom mics instead of laes on their talent really uh and I wonder if if some performers will want to go back to if they if their if their role or their position does will want to say no I don't want to live I just want to use the the lect mic or or can I use a s mic in instead you know that kind of stuff
06:00 - 06:30 right right well you know I mean obviously in theater what are you or or Opera what are you thinking Jenny as far as what do you think that changes yeah do you do you see any changes to Hardware you or Reese in terms of what people are using or more about how it's applied you know for the oper World it we were just really on the edge of moving to more uh RF mics we have a couple new audio Engineers for broadcast
06:30 - 07:00 and they're much more open to using those mics so I I don't know how that's going to change things for us yet because they were you know so judicious about where things were being placed anyway unlike you know maybe the Broadway world where it's just like everybody gets a mic you're on stage everybody gets one yeah everybody gets a mic and I don't changing that that Paradigm you know the the law Paradigm I think is that's
07:00 - 07:30 that's a real big that be a really big change for for Broadway you I I don't know that you're we're even going to really see that um yeah do you I think I think it's more probably about how we we're approaching it right whether that's the cleanliness of the product but yeah I don't see us going backwards um in terms of the technology we're applying but you know uh the the work the load you folks probably will be facing uh going up in the short term I
07:30 - 08:00 think I think everybody is gonna be more conscious going back about wiping things down and just being clean I know even in the in the few weeks before uh Broadway got shut down I know we were everybody you know props and costumes and sound everybody who deals with the stuff that people touch was be were be more careful and you know more alcohol more sanitizer more hand washing
08:00 - 08:30 all that now I got a question from Jimmy van B uh he's are you expecting to see more of a doctor's office mentality because people are used to that now uh expecting to see you wash your hands when you come in or use a uh you know like often when doctors will come into a room to talk to the patient they immediately put on either gloves or or wash their hands so I wonder if that's
08:30 - 09:00 going to carry over from our outside six months of covid uh training yeah maybe yeah I mean we're not knows honestly we're not the only ones that would be dealing with it because you've got the Wardrobe Department that they're in very close proximity as well as makeup artists that are in there for even a longer sessions than we are I mean we're usually pretty hit and R where get in get out you know least contact possible
09:00 - 09:30 but something that I would like to bring up good if I may uh about a year and a half two years ago I was on a a television shoot where we were having to mic up a bunch of different you know talent that were in their each in their holding rooms but one of the talent when they came in that day was visibly sick and it was flu season and we were running up against the problem the three a2s that were on the show we refused to mik her because
09:30 - 10:00 she was clearly sick in that moment and I think that's something across the board you know that we face every season that when somebody really shouldn't be at work they they could be infecting people and having management understand that and not push us into situations that could would put us possibly in danger yeah especially in a yeah in in a theatrical cast everybody's in you know there's 40 people sometimes in a few dressing rooms
10:00 - 10:30 uh you know the the flu just your your regular cold every year uh it's it's an issue and a bunch of people get sick in the over the winter and uh you know everybody tries to avoid it but I think it's the crud that goes through the cast yeah it's the CR yeah it's the crud that goes through the cast and it's it's hard to avoid on a good year you know let alone this new thing that everybody's very hyperconscious of so right so got a
10:30 - 11:00 note from Joe Foley uh he says for years he fought with producers in company management getting Pur L and other cleaning supplies I suppose now that will be not such a hard fight uh and secondly he says many La manufacturers say don't use alcohol on our product because it will discolor the body right I mean I tend to not use alcohol very often on my mics when I
11:00 - 11:30 clean them sometimes I quit if they're not colored but I do try to use other means I mean water is still the best solvent and if you can do find another solution that you can use that's not as harsh I I try to do that first but to the Purl point I'd say the first tour I was ever on where I when I learned about Purl was uh the dam Yankees tour with Jerry Lewis back in was the late 90s everybody kept getting sick and we had a really bad season of it and he was able
11:30 - 12:00 to facilitate that and we ended up with purel dispensers everywhere around the the set in the stage and that was the first time I experienced that that's a good point so let's let's do this let's bring in Sarah Dave and um Ryan now because I want to keep moving on this this topic because in the in the corporate space right in this uh corporate theater if you will sometimes
12:00 - 12:30 the meeting space um we've we we know that there's a sensitivity to obviously um illness from the standpoint of of leaders you know you're dealing with the top leaders maybe in the world that are coming in to speak maybe they're corporate CEOs chairmans where you know um normally you know the the percentage of of uh very sensitive people to illness was was a very minuscule amount
12:30 - 13:00 now essentially everybody comes in and is sensitive to this and let's let's establish maybe that uh for our for our discussion purposes up until there's a vaccine right so we know that hey this can be solved let's keep we'll we'll think about that window of time right and so when you're going into a corporate environment um number one everything is is typically very rushed
13:00 - 13:30 going in right and you know we're in Cobo or we're in you know another Convention Center um all of our friends in the carpentry Department have been spending the first three days set very similar to to theater except that you know everything's just compacted in terms of schedule so we have all these these normal challenges now what do you think um somebody feels when you walk up with a set of gloves
13:30 - 14:00 and mask on like Mack hat right now a month and a half ago two months ago before this happened um probably a different story discussion you know Sarah why don't we start with you how do you how do you see in this in this corporate space somebody reacting to you whether that's a chairman whether that's you know um people that aren't used to being on stage and don't have this same workflow my thought on that is that a lot of a
14:00 - 14:30 lot of corporate for me is is everybody's completely different and and it's a whole bunch of reading the room and that comes from the top down from the CEO down and then on to the executive producers and how they interact with us and I often take my cues from them their relationship with with the CEOs is is sort of how personal you can get or or how close you can get and if they um you know if the CEO is someone who's a germaphobe I've even had you know we've I've already G gone through this with medical conventions or or doctors or whatever and they want to see you p hand hand sanitized they want
14:30 - 15:00 to be they're very hands off or they'll they'll grab the mic from you and do it themselves they don't want you to touch them so I think I think a lot of that is personal you know some people are probably going to be less concerned just because their attitude is less a little more bravado about all of this but um but I think I think that's going to be a conversation that producers are probably gonna have have ahead of time that's going to be like the this is our new procedure right and and I would hope they would come to me and be like look we're gonna we're going to do gloves we're going to do masks we're gonna have hand sanitizer everywhere whatever the answer is um and I think that really
15:00 - 15:30 comes from the top down everything in corporate is so different every day you know what I mean every every CEO has their own attitude right Dave do you have any thoughts on um where where you think um you will work how you work and then you know to Sarah's points and what Jenny and REE have said so far I do I think in the corporate realm we're going to see uh shortterm at least return to handhelds and Le ter mes handhelds
15:30 - 16:00 really easy to wipe down won't cause it any problems wind screens on them can be replaced frequently I think we'll see a lot more perishable per production wind screens on and even on laves and head warns and I think we're going to see that LE turn mics where there are lobs and head warns I think it's going to be more time allowed to mic people so it can be done in a better system
16:00 - 16:30 less of the I have to mic an entire panel of 12 people and I have 10 minutes maybe less mic swaps too less you know we have more actual mics if they're gonna use them I think there could easily be a a moment of no this is your element I'm seeing that in the corporate realm uh intercom I've been aggressive about making sure that the same person gets the same headset for a while now and I think that's going to become just the R I've
16:30 - 17:00 always done that just because I think it's safer for the people and they feel better it's their headset for the week or whatever it is yep and then hopefully it's getting sanitized at some level I was very happy to see clearcom release a document on sterilization or maintenance of headsets oh yeah I agree and and so Ryan you're you're besides being incorporate you you overlap a little into um music and and we know musicians
17:00 - 17:30 so if we have if we have stage performances in theater we have Opera we have CEOs we have Corporate America then we have musicians right and that is kind of a a whole thing unto itself where do you where do you in crossing over in both these you can comment wherever you're comfortable how do you think you're going to approach this differently I think that uh what everyone said so far has been pretty
17:30 - 18:00 accurate I mean we're already so sensitive because we're getting so close to people especially in the corporate world you know I'm already washing my hands as much as I can using hand sanitizer I think we'll probably have those elements a little more visual for people backstage to see that we're doing those things um in regards to the uh musicians I think that this whole all of this is going to slowly come back to the way it was before this all started happening um but I think like Dave said
18:00 - 18:30 there'll be handhelds and La uh and Le turns that are going to be maybe more favored uh till we get back to that transition but um you know we're already so close and personal to people as a twos putting lavalier microphones on people that um we're I think most of us are already being sensitive to that getting people on uh I think more equipment might be necessary to keep people on their own devices throughout a a meeting or an
18:30 - 19:00 event uh so I think you know I think it's going to be need the cleanliness will need to be a little more transparent um even though I think most of us are doing a lot of that stuff already and uh there'll be more people keeping tabs on that I would guess from the food chain up sure now Mark and Gaff I'm going to bring you guys in here Mark and Gaff have uh a lot of experience you know uh Mark obviously uh with with
19:00 - 19:30 broadcast and the the talent right we got ifbs we've got microphones you obviously for years Talent has always had their their ifbs the same way that music has their IM and and things like that but what do you think is going to be happening you you work in studio you work in the field you do Sports what do you what do you think your new workflow is going to be once you're out in the field and and maybe also talk about how
19:30 - 20:00 you think personally you're going to you you know going to do stuff differently to protect yourself uh physically well for me personally when it comes to getting up next to some a talent a politician a sports figure um I'm G to try and include uh more of the visual reinforcement of you know washing my hands making sure that the gear is uh wiped
20:00 - 20:30 down and clean before I get it to them and then let them see me wipe it down when when when they're done with it and we get it off of them um I I agree it'll eventually probably go back to where uh we are today where things are a little less structured but I think that'll be post uh vaccination for sure um just where where we you know the TV
20:30 - 21:00 world is no different really than uh the theater world or the corporate world um you know we all deal with uh various uh personalities it's always best to try and various personalities on the production team and on the uh on the stage or uh on the other side of the camera um it's always best it's always been my approach to um make a personal connection with each and
21:00 - 21:30 every person I'm dealing with up close to and uh get a feel for what you know how they're going to react to my personality and the way I do things so uh once I've got that Baseline set I can modify whatever approach I have to make them feel more comfortable I think that's that's a big part of it is is your relation with these people that's a big part of our business as all of us know we've met
21:30 - 22:00 some great a2s that don't have that interpersonal thing and and you know it's hard to work and I think we got to be prepared for everybody to have their own element if they so requested because I don't know if I if I was on a show and realized my mic was being used for 10 other people I don't care how much you clean it I might not be too happy about that you know maybe body packs we use the same but you know elements everybody has their own just as in comms as Dave
22:00 - 22:30 said which I've been doing for Years anyway I think everybody should get their own headsets and keep it for the run of the show uh it's easier for us to track problems and it's also easier it's better for them uh and you know like like uh Mark said I think it's it's the people too we have to see how how they feel and be appro um I agree with that so why don't we do this we're we're getting some
22:30 - 23:00 notes about we got some questions about how how everybody kind of got started into the business and what brought them here because I think you know covid is is going to be here for a while so we'll leave that one on the docket and kind of push it off the side for a bit we're gonna we got a few more months to address that one um but uh we also got a note some from some folks on on bandwidth things so I'm going to ask our panelists we'll keep marking Gaff on screen if you don't mind other panelists if you wouldn't mind muting your cameras just to save on bandwidth apparently
23:00 - 23:30 we're using a lot of zooms bandwidth today um but can Gaff let's start with you on how did you how did you get into the role that you're in at this point right how you know and let me just do a little background you're welcome to fill in but you know you you do a lot of work doing broadcast specials especially things that revolve around music right changes a lot right so don't you why don't you just give us a little
23:30 - 24:00 background on kind of what you're doing now how you got there and maybe what you thought you would have been doing you know 30 years ago you know and has it changed or are you doing exactly what you planned so why don't you go ahead and give us a little background on that yeah well you know where I started was as a you know hanging around a bunch of great players and I wasn't one of them so I went to the technical end of it as a kid and started mixing bands and local clubs and ended up get get married and started working in studio and they
24:00 - 24:30 wanted to build a truck that was Sheffield so we built our first truck that put me out there doing live you know which is a great thing to be able to do live recording because you get to do the live thing in your room in your controlled environment and you learn how to be kind of uh transparent because you don't want when you're recording live you don't want them to know you're there really because they don't they're nervous enough they don't need to be more and as
24:30 - 25:00 I got through that then I got I switched over to unitel as a as an engineer on a TV truck because I realized you can't support a family on music you know you just don't especially you know at that point there was a couple big trucks around now there aren't because they don't want us taking up the space so I got into unitel did that and then looked at Freelancers and said wow they actually make like real money and not would you know I'm on salary at at 3:00 a.m. when it's a
25:00 - 25:30 blizzard I'm making 37 cents an hour and the guys who just got released are making 100 bucks an hour back that so and uh so I got into that and I knew how to do intercom because of being a truck guy so when intercom first started as Pete knows when intercom first started if you could make it work you were God you know you're like wow it actually works so that's a big part of what I do that's half of what I do is is conw work and Bolero r uh and I like patching you know which is
25:30 - 26:00 uh on shows now which we thought Fiverr was going to you know make it easier on us no we just have five times as many inputs now because we can get that many places uh so I I don't know that I'm where I thought I'd be I'm very happy I'm where I am and I'm very I feel very uh honored to work with folks like you and to you know to be in this business and be able to you know
26:00 - 26:30 have my family my grandkids and all that so it's h is is there anything you would say to uh new kids uh have a question from Ryan Rell I'm a middle school technical director one of the hardest things to do is Inspire kids to want to do the job of an A2 it's an incredibly important position and we run anywhere for 20 to 30 RF lives a few words of wisdom wisdom for the Next Generation to convince them that they really don't want to mix
26:30 - 27:00 a show they want to be the A2 oh well a good thing you're not as much in the hot seat when you're the A2 I mean once you get everybody miked up and then when it you know the hits the fan it's the A1 who's in the hot seat at that point which is one reason I never wanted to be A1 but uh but I think the big thing that I see with kids is the work ethic and listen to us old old guys that you know that's how I learn I
27:00 - 27:30 learn from other guys listening to them and telling me and asking questions and being respectful and I don't see a lot of that you know with the schools and all that around people come out and think they know what they know and there's a lot to learn out here if I don't learn something every day I've had a bad day so work hard and and realize that you know if you want to get in it you got to work hard it'll be a great thing you'll have great friends and and it
27:30 - 28:00 it's you know when you see a t when you pull a show off that looked to be impossible it feels really good yeah I I would agree there and and Mark I think let's let's why don't you take kind of the same questions which is what how did you start are you doing what you thought you would be doing what would your recommendations be to things to young people and and just kind of your general view on on the role that uh you're in now because you're a little
28:00 - 28:30 broader as well you've you're you're staying in you know having plants like WGN radio and TV and video you've you've you've tried to make sure that you have uh your your fingers in a lot of areas why don't you just kind of help us understand how you got there yeah it all started back uh when my parents decided it would be a good thing to get me a cassette recorder for a birthday present and since then it was anything with a
28:30 - 29:00 microphone was you know I was all over that uh that lasted all the way through uh High School where I went through a radio program there and then into college I discovered television and you know every at that point I started to realize that you know anything that had to do uh with uh capturing performance be it visual or oral uh I was is really interested in and how uh to use the
29:00 - 29:30 technology to make all of that work um and you know since then I've just been able to drill down uh pretty much at all levels and uh learn every bit of Technology I've come across so that's pretty much uh everything from theater to television I'm uh like Gaff uh I built a lot of TV trucks
29:30 - 30:00 probably probably between 20 and 25 different TV trucks uh over my career um those and and and those have uh an incredible amount of technology in them um from the early days of uh color analog through the uh transition to uh digital and then High defin and now ultra high definition and all of
30:00 - 30:30 uh the signal transport changes that have happened uh that have gone along with that it's all been of interest to me and I've always uh you know dove into the deep end of the pool early on to try and learn as much as I can um so from from an audio standpoint uh that's really where my love is uh to do that uh so when I'm not designing or building stuff uh I'm A1 in or A2 in uh
30:30 - 31:00 because I think that that's one of the more challenging jobs in any production uh but people don't really realize that but it is it's very intricate very detail oriented all those things are are things uh I like to to be involved with and to do and yeah Pete kudos to you on your paperwork uh lunch break that was I really enjoyed seeing that because uh I do a lot of those things as well uh but
31:00 - 31:30 Pete's website too we've all jumped on quite a few times to get answers pin outs and whatever sorry Mark no worries um as far as as far as telling Young Folks what uh what to do and what to look at and what to consider as they're trying to get into a career in any of these disciplines uh and if they're
31:30 - 32:00 especially interested in audio you know there's a lot of there's a lot of challenging um hurdles out there if you like a good challenge uh this is this is one of them uh because there's a lot of great uh new technology uh that a lot of the younger folks should be able to fold right into that most of us uh uh old truck dogs are theater people uh have had to learn via
32:00 - 32:30 a hard knock but uh as we transition into these newer transport standards uh and start to fold in more uh it based um uh Technologies for video for audio for intercom audio and intercom I kind of keep those all under one one one umbrella but uh you know a lot of kids have got a good solid foundation in it just because that
32:30 - 33:00 that's what they grew up with we grew up with baseball bats and basket balls and things like that nowadays yeah yeah nowadays uh you know it's pretty much uh right out of the gate kids are learning it te it Technologies and how to use them and how to get uh from point to point with that just so they can that's that's a good point uh let let's bring on the everybody else click your cameras
33:00 - 33:30 on here we're going to do a the it IP enablement right this is like the Hot Topic right everything so everything let's right so let's go around real quick I'm gonna start with Jenny and reys tell us just really quickly do you how do you see IP and it I'll use those kind of interchangeably in your jobs do you do you see that that's something that you're having to embrace differently I'm short of giving somebody the Wi-Fi code all right because that's
33:30 - 34:00 what everybody always wants to know as soon as they walk up hey what's the Wi-Fi code for the show right but besides that in your active day-to-day work what do you see in theater uh with that ree I'll go to you first on that one yeah I mean uh just in the last few years you know the the backbone of the system is pretty much become digital a lot of a lot of the shows become digital um and it's it's an optical loop it's audio over
34:00 - 34:30 Dante um or some other uh Network system and even if uh we don't set it up we need to be able to maintain it um uh the for listening uh to mics it's all a lot of shows using Wave tool now where a couple years ago it was an analog system um so it's yeah it's it's everything it's unavoidable um and it's great when it works and then when it doesn't need
34:30 - 35:00 to be able to fix it so yeah Jenny your thought on it IP data whatever it is I sometimes it terrifies me quite honestly because I don't know much about it I was just talking with a friend a couple weeks ago she had some students down from Ithaca College and they know about stuff and I was like well come here and teach us because so many you know I feel like I'm behind on it because so much of what I do I'm hands on with the talent I'm not dealing with that as often I am aware of it
35:00 - 35:30 enough to be aware for some flow but otherwise we're behind well and and and I think as you pointed out there's different at different points in your role you know um what do I need to know do I need to do I need to know everything or do I need to be conversational right and that's kind of how it feels right now on a lot of this stuff is I need to be a to conversation with it so I understand how it's going to impact me but maybe I'm
35:30 - 36:00 not managing it Dave I know sure you know we've we've talked many a times Dave chesman and I about these different topics you're you're G to be far more handson with the technology um uh than say what Jenny would would normally be on on a given show you know on a day what's your feeling here uh I think it is everything at this point we are living in a digital world world I spend a lot of my time
36:00 - 36:30 dealing with it dealing with intercom over IP it's anybody coming into the business needs to know at least the basics of networking it is yeah Dante is not going away it is the future it's not the only option there's lots of other good ones out there but it definitely is a big one and the more you know about that the better off you're going to
36:30 - 37:00 be right and so Ry and Sarah I know um uh the time you you you folks are spending behind the rack you know the whether that's your your wireless mics Wireless PLS um that's that's a two two two position job right you're you may be out at the moment miking somebody else right and capturing a mic or you may be in back reprogramming um what's uh what are your thoughts uh
37:00 - 37:30 Sarah I'll let you start with you know IP what are some tools you're using to try and them better understand um well I'm you know like Dave said and everybody said it's ubiquitous it's everywhere right so um I'm using my own Wi-Fi to to monitor RF I'm I'm you know troubleshooting Dante troubleshooting free speak or Helix net and all that stuff and um you know you you've got to have like uh you got to have a really good sense of of signal flow and just path right you got to make
37:30 - 38:00 sure your system is set up in a in a clean way so that when something goes wrong you know exactly where to go to fix it because you're you're constantly do you're constantly flipping like you said one one second you might be making talent and then there's an intercom problem in the back and you've got to switch that gear immediately and run backstage and and know where to go immediately so um it's it's really a big Balancing Act of of having kind of both sides of your brain going all the time you [Music]
38:00 - 38:30 know go ahead yeah no that's that's a good point uh what are you what are your thoughts there other than the same because obviously a lot of this is the same but you know your own personal workflow what do you how you organization you know uh being organized and knowing what your it structure is I mean pretty much everything we touch these days has an IP address and whether that's uh you know uh a static Network or a DHCP Network you got to have a
38:30 - 39:00 basic understanding of those networks and how you're going to utilize them so that when you do have those problems you know exactly which one you're dealing with and the the the obvious solutions for those things it's a you know it's it with a little bit of audio thrown in now it seems but um yeah it's definitely not going the other direction uh we're basically need to have an it uh backbone well you know there's not a lot of Av I know you guys are doing a class next
39:00 - 39:30 week or this week about networking that's going to be great because there's not a lot of Av specific networking classes where I know a lot of us are just kind of figuring it out on our own and um being consistent having organization those are pretty important things I just want I wanted to add in on that that you know the it part of it is just signal transport and distribution the end points are still going to be primarily what we have been used to all of these
39:30 - 40:00 years there's still going to be an XLR cable that connects to an endpoint that packe tizes that audio and then puts it on the network so we're still going to need to have a solid understanding of the older technology and how it gets implemented but add on that we've we've removed the uh traditional uh pair of copper that connects from point A to point B and replaced it with
40:00 - 40:30 a network to get from point A to point B so there's two disciplines there that that need to that that we're going to need to have uh in our tool boxes um moving forward in my actually it has been like that for quite a while now uh at least at at our level um but to get to get the the youth involved they're going to have to learn some of the old and learn some of the new um and bring
40:30 - 41:00 it all together and as as an A2 as we all know and has been pointed out one one second we're putting a mic on some on somebody and then all of a sudden your inom pops off your ear that hey I you know I just I just lost a a switch or I just lost a you know a chunk of intercom or whatever and then you've got to go and take care of that and you know that involves that's going to involve old discipline
41:00 - 41:30 and new discipline to be able to troubleshoot that because yeah the end the end points are going to remain the same so yeah that's my that's what I was thinking too is that the troubleshooting now becomes a little more convoluted because you do have analog on either end but then it goes and it was a lot easier in the past to to troubleshoot piece of copper goes from here to here even when fiber first came out but now it goes from here into a switch and becomes something that you know we're all learning about at this point and it
41:30 - 42:00 makes the troubleshooting uh you have to think about it differently than I have in the past which is one thing that all of us do a lot of too is troubleshooting problems whether we know what we're doing or not we have to make it work we got to look like we're trying to fix it even if we have no idea what caused it to break right and and and I'm I'm gonna take Pete's Q here that um uh tools right because this is troubleshooting that's a great great point that everybody's been making Pete why don't you take us through some of that you
42:00 - 42:30 know why don't we just go around the group here now obviously I showed a q box and and a sound bullet which is used for injecting and listening to audio and testing C but other items list three o list two other items that you are essential to you uh when you're on a job Mark well uh Pete I'd like to say I've got As Nice a spectrum analyzer as you but I do not but I do have a spectrum analyzer it's a little rup Explorer and
42:30 - 43:00 I like that because it fits nicely into my day bag and uh if I need to if I need anything more than the low resolution screen on that then I can plug it into my laptop and I've got a nice exactly a decent a decent Spectrum analyzer let's keep it simple and you get around the whole group yeah well I've been I've been been uh for the good of the bad but only the guy who brings a full full Pelican full of every tool no
43:00 - 43:30 man you know soldering IRS the whole thing that doesn't count as one thing well it kind of and a q box like you said you can't do your job without one and I always have a knife in my pocket which is also very you know useful exactly reath uh send send receive cable testers just so that at least you know the copper is working um C BNC XLR you mean like
43:30 - 44:00 this yeah like know what else what else would you ethernet tester yeah yeah absolutely yeah make sure all those pairs are working Beyond what's mentioned the ethernet cable certifier fibers scope it's everything to make sure the uh medium Works before you get to the it side fiber meter I forgot that that's one of the most important things now and
44:00 - 44:30 a light and a light just a square visual fault detector it's a great tool they're very inexpensive and you know nine times out of 10 uh if you're not dealing with dirt there's been a fault in the fiber and the vfl uh will show you that it's broke right here at the back of the connector time to replace time to replace this strand of fiber yeah hey don't oh I can't
44:30 - 45:00 see how come every show Pete makes me look at the fiber first and then he does that you know I think he's got it out for me put that right eyeball make sure you see it exactly that's right ran Ryan what are your two favorite things that nobody's ever mentioned yet uh I'm a big fan of the LA bullet for uh using to put a weight on a microphone to drop it through people's clothes to make makes it a little faster um it's it it works really well and uh
45:00 - 45:30 it kind of gets you through the process it gets out of people's personal space faster uh top stick is great for uh uh yeah if you're got doing a lavalier on something you can keep their their shirt or something against their chest uh magnets got a lav lav magnet here yep different kinds of magnets in other words a whole kit of ways to put your head your yeah you don't have a lot of time to make the decision on how you're going to mic somebody so having all the
45:30 - 46:00 tools you need right at your hands is pretty handy the the LA bullet is nice that's probably why I get such a an ugly face from people I'm miking when I use this to drop the mic through their shirt you know I don't know it's a little bulky exactly oh we can't take him out in public Sarah probably uh the simple simplest thing that I use every single time is a is a P Touch labeler I'm a obessive about labeling and especially in
46:00 - 46:30 corporate when there's the show's changing every day or you're doing five or six different shows and you got 25 40 different presenters I print out everybody's name and I put it on a piece of eape and I might I I label those mics incessantly so that I know that the right one goes on the right person it's it's it can be just so fastpaced you have to do it and it looks good to the client right everything's all organized and labeled if they're all scribbled with with a Sharpie on a piece of tape
46:30 - 47:00 just some they don't say anything about it it does the job but it's not quite nearly as good Janie right there's not much left I guess um a Sharpie and a Leatherman you know mentioned the Sharpie really yeah the Sharpie is the big and also scissors I mean y our kits are all very deep a good flashlight good flashlight they have a good flashlight scissors are are my favorite I stopped carrying my Leatherman years years ago and just now
47:00 - 47:30 carrying electrician sciss scissors which I guess I don't have on the table here strangely enough but uh I find I was cutting things more than uh than uh than then pling KN plunging a knife into the the the Cable Bundle uh uh Tweakers TW twery a little a small univers mic kind [Music]
47:30 - 48:00 of adapter has torqus and and all the different kinds of things because sure enough you'll have to get inside some piece of equipment and you'll need one of those strange Chinese connectors um topstick another great thing for for stick mics on using lots of SK mol skin yes I mean I Broadway people tend to have a whole kit giant Kit of of hair
48:00 - 48:30 hair uh pins and and and we could do another whole hour on that stuff oh yeah easily easily and we probably will now shelter in place is giving us probably a programming time Mark you add something I you know another thing nobody mentioned was uh a Widow Maker my my belt pack has a Widowmaker in which for people don't understand the that term it's uh an AC adapter that goes from three pin to two pin or ground LIF people oh yeah
48:30 - 49:00 I don't recommend using that except for the very last uh uh effort to try and eliminate a buzz because unfortunately even though we've talked a lot about um the the different transports fiber it whatnot there's still the majority in the Sports World at any rate the majority of uh the infrastructure in profession and Collegiate stadiums is All Copper so we're still dealing with a
49:00 - 49:30 lot of grounding issues uh that that can help alleviate but you do need to be careful if you're going to use something like that but I I always have one there and I also uh in that same vein I also carry a small voltmeter which is useful for all kinds of troubleshooting things right I had I had one of those $25 Radio Shack multimeters that I use to meter all of the BTR packs when they came in at the end of the day because 50% of
49:30 - 50:00 them had more than eight volts and if it has more than eight volts it's good for another another period so I would not even open up the six battery packs if it had more than eight so that's why we love Bolero 24 hours on one charge I have nothing to do now I I sit around and look at all the batteries and say run run run if only that was true on the screen I can okay this must be talking a lot he's getting down to 50% and it's only like five o'clock right so so I I I
50:00 - 50:30 would like before we leave tools uh I'll just do a quick review because I do remember we had some that uh individual asking about the middle school right and about you know I know we're gonna have universities and colleges watching this so what I heard were three big buckets of tools we have our traditional hand tools right and in that I'm going to include Sharpies Greenies scissors Leatherman right some
50:30 - 51:00 way to carry that on yourself right uh whether that's a backpack whether that's a fanny pack whether that's you know whatever um uh tool pouch having it prepared with you right being there ready to go right and then the second bucket is little more audio focus tools those would be like pin one lifts um the ground lift that Mark judiciously suggested um that um a an ISO box right if you're in living in you know you need to dry a two
51:00 - 51:30 wire up or you just need to get a BTR to quit buzzing right because as soon as you plug a BTR into an RTS Buzz is guaranteed it comes with everything right um it's not extra it's free right it's free and and it you know and those are turnarounds right those are just you know little those little bits right and then we have at the upper end of the spectrum our our more um uh Precision or
51:30 - 52:00 specific tools uh RF Explorer an RF analyzer of some sort perhaps um it's going to be land Checkers I would I'd almost move like a c five Checker into the same category as that number two slot that you really should have the same way you'd have you know a qbx kind of became that qbox used to be at the top of the list right okay you're going to pick up your qbx and then you're going to have that with all your adapters Q box became an essential tool right and now we have H whether it's DB
52:00 - 52:30 Box 2 where you can listen to AES um all these kind of things so those upper end and and those obviously you know you can go up to tens of thousands of dollars for analyzers or you can you know get into fiber Scopes but the fundamental of do I have a fiber cleaner that's something I'm thinking about for myself right now is like well what are some things I need to add to my kit that yeah I don't need to do diagnostic yeah but I probably should be prepared to clean that end off right well that's
52:30 - 53:00 where I think just to to to jump in the fiber meter because you can get them now for a meter and a light for 50 bucks 56 bucks you don't need to certify fiber you want to know that at the source it's neg eight and at the thousand feet out it's neg five I mean neg 10 so you say okay I got good light it's getting there it'll save you so much time because just because you can see like on a piece of fiber doesn't mean it works yeah that's that's that's 100% true Pete Pete has a
53:00 - 53:30 great little fiber scope there it's it's got a bit of a price tag on it but it lets you see 500 let you see yeah yeah it's it's good but you can also get a fiber you can get a fiber microscope that will let you look at it for under $100 and you'll be able tip this probe comes with something that stick in to equipment and see inside the equipment
53:30 - 54:00 and it has tips and ends for every different kind of fiber connection you might ever run up and it normally it used to cause a this is a jdsu uh something number but JDS I think yeah yeah and okay and if you look around on eBay it's around 5600 bucks with all all kinds of great adapters and it's really I'm pretty sure your family member is selling that on eBay the way you've been plugging this it is Absolut is jdsu exactly I'm
54:00 - 54:30 telling you we use Fiber on every single uh uh session we're doing um all right my point is if you're standing out at the 50 yard line you know you know 20 minutes before the kickoff goes and your hydro box goes down you want you want to be able to look at the fiber and make sure it's clean even though usually once you make a fiber and it's it's it's t and you're getting light through it it's going to be good but you still want to
54:30 - 55:00 have something on your belt and that peach box is fantastic but you can get a little you can get a little microscope that will hang onto your belt and sure it'll work good well in in the worst case you can always i' couple fiber guys as long as you have cotton jeans on pull it out do one little swipe in your cotton Jean and plug it back in and I've had it work many times ab ab absolutely it's not recommended but if you've got the right tools to do it but if you've got nothing else if you don't one that's
55:00 - 55:30 right you you might you move the dirt off the tip and you're up and running so it might not still be even yeah even if you don't have a little microscope which is ideal uh if you clean it you're probably gonna fix the problem because more often than not you you clean it just a simple little pop with this the clicker tool and you cleaned it at least you're better than not doing it right right so so I think we got through
55:30 - 56:00 the tools there um the um uh you know I wanted to touch just briefly uh we're we're doing okay on time I we got a lot of info to get through and I appreciate if everybody's still good let's keep moving I paperwork right every single um uh part of our industry has a little different way of doing things um uh because it's just kind of lined on my screen I'm going to start with you Ree and Jenny can you talk to us um you have probably um the most formal other than
56:00 - 56:30 broadcast the most formal workflow um because you have a designer you're working with and you know you kind of have a a hierarchy that's a little different can you guys uh share with us kind of what your your paperwork um flow is on that ree go ahead and take that because you you're you've been doing a little more of that recently yeah um the between the designer and the
56:30 - 57:00 associate designer um we get there's a lot of paperwork there's a huge amount of paperwork generated for the system flow um how how it all gets put together what it looks like where it goes um uh IP schedules now are incredibly important um so when you have uh that network with hundreds of static IPS you know what everything is um but drawings it's all it's all very laid out there
57:00 - 57:30 there are FileMaker databases to manage cable labels um bundles where everything goes uh it is very specific um for for myself uh I'll take all of that uh and implement it and then when I'm going to label transmitters label microphones uh receivers sort of my World backstage uh I'll do my own thing
57:30 - 58:00 as well on top of that to sort of lay it out um the way I want whether that's uh my own FileMaker database or pouch labels or whatever the right the right format is the right material um for the specific application but it is incredibly uh specific um everything it's tape on tape on tape um to uh to get it all there and and it needs to last I mean we on on a
58:00 - 58:30 open-ended Broadway musical we're putting the show in to run forever that's that's the idea so uh you know it's it's not it's not just today or this week or this month but you know hopefully those labels will still be there in uh you know years cats now and forever Show's still going yeah exactly um right yeah yeah your shows have a lot more legs don't they than than a uh you know typical sporting event that might load in in the morning and then you know
58:30 - 59:00 be on the air and then out that night um that's that's an excellent point Jenny yeah I was gonna say because I've been in the Opera World more recently than the Broadway World what I've been doing is I don't deal with a designer in the same way like oftentimes I'm just given uh information like we'll be mking these three or these six performers for this show but because the Metropolitan Opera Works in a rep situation we could
59:00 - 59:30 be doing up to 25 different shows in a season and that show might come back the next season it may not come back for five more seasons so each one of the every time I need to mic someone for a particular performance I'm documenting all of that I do what I call Face pages and I'll do you know information about the show at the top what season it is who's playing that character the character's name a picture of the person
59:30 - 60:00 who will be playing said character because oftentimes within the Run of a show I might end up with three different performers three different singers singing that same role within one season so I'll put that's all documentation that I get from our rehearsal department and I'll put that on to to that page so that when I come in I can look at it and go oh on March 31st we're going to have so so playing this this role uh then I'll also take pictures of we'll
60:00 - 60:30 document where is the mic placed on the person is it back here underneath a wig is it in natural hair is it maybe in a lapel all that's documented and then I have books and books like on a Shelf full of shows and that information so that when we get into the next season we can go through with our list of shows that we know have been biked in the past and pull out that those documents and put them into our current seasons book but
60:30 - 61:00 um there's there's just a lot of you know it's it's a lot of the same but you just have to stay on top of your documentation because you don't want the next person like if I'm not the A2 that even if have somebody else filling in for me they need to have that information yeah the the the track sheet is a very important thing um being able to to give somebody a piece of paper that has the cues uh who you're looking for um right like ideally you know
61:00 - 61:30 character names actor names actors uh get replaced with a new actor um so the character is important um but I've I've definitely handed a track sheet to somebody and they've run the show cold uh sometimes that's just the situation pardon you include photos of the actors on your track sheets uh yeah I've I I do the same the face the face page so that somebody has a
61:30 - 62:00 reference this is this person this is who they play you know and so you're not guessing yeah I did did a RF coordination job on a show that had 190 lav mics on it and uh the A2 area was the size of a small ballroom and they had tables laid out with everybody's mics laid out in areas with names on it but they also had a a 4x5 photo of the
62:00 - 62:30 person and when the people came to get miked up they had to have a piece of paper with their name and what they were GNA be have put on them because it wasn't it was a musical show they didn't have a lot of rehearsal so they just had to know it and get it done yeah Rees and I go no go ahead I saying Ree and I also work together on number of the NBC live performances so that was like a crossover between the Broadway world and the television world
62:30 - 63:00 where we were doing more Broadway style miking for television and we were we did we have face pages but we definitely do did do in the bottom of the tins we put people's names their photographs we had like all their information in the tins and on the the transmitters yeah just because we had so many to deal with it had to be consistent it had to be consistent and the the performers care that they get the right thing that they they want to look good they want to
63:00 - 63:30 sound good so uh you know we all we all work together and make sure the right people get the right stuff uh consistently but yeah there's not always time on sometimes on a Broadway show there's tons of time and you learn everybody's name before you ever meet them and sometimes it's uh go go go make all that paperwork or just your A1 hand it to you or do you does it evolve during rehearsals a lot of a lot of that paperwork a lot of the information we'll get from stage management um or wardrobe
63:30 - 64:00 sometimes because they've they usually have a little bit more of a head start on who they are um who who the cast is because they've been doing fittings and stuff for a while longer than we've been thinking about Mike's um so we'll get that information from from them or the again the the designer the associate designer s will the stage manager seek you out with that information or do you have to go find no we have to go glean that information yeah what what would what
64:00 - 64:30 would can the A1 do to make the a2s job easier and this is the question for everybody I in this regard I feel like we're usually generating that information and sharing it with the A1 because I always feel like they're dealing with they have their own fires to put out they're do with learning to mix the show well not necessarily in regards to the paper but in general what can the A1 do to help you out you always wish your favorite A1 I'm not naming any
64:30 - 65:00 would do to help you out I don't know I think I think there are certain there are certain conversations with management uh creatives that are better had by uh by the A1 um yeah and then there are a lot of there are a lot of conversations that I'm happy just to have on my own and keep it off their radar they like Jenny said got uh a whole host of other things to be thinking about um so as much as I
65:00 - 65:30 can just kind of set my world up get stuff done um in on Broadway eventually I go you know the A2 often will go out and learn to mix the show so the A1 is gonna end up backstage running the track the A2 sets up often so uh they'll they'll learn it all at some point but yeah I think sometimes too we need them to be an advocate for us that sometimes we're sent in to put a mic on somebody and we might
65:30 - 66:00 get pushed back that you know we've all gotten that in various ways and sometimes you got to run it up the food chain like okay can you come talk to them because you really need to you know yeah whether it's when you need a yeah yeah it's like don't make me get dad you know you need to get like somebody else in there to stop his car exactly right but sometimes or unrealistic time schedules they have to jump in for us and say look my guys
66:00 - 66:30 cannot do this in the schedule that you people want to do this because we don't we don't know some of that a lot of times and you know that's the big help and and your A1 won't know it until you tell them right right yeah yeah so um I heard a few things here that interest me one is Jenny uh talked about her books right which kind of is is very much an analog process and parly because that individual needs to you know if if
66:30 - 67:00 someone's coming to fill in or you're trading positions they need to physically have that in front of them right um so um one of the questions I had about that is do you see any transitions to electronic meaning you know um sharing on on like a a locked platform because let's let's be honest here a lot of this information is what makes us valuable to our customers I mean that's that's how we manage what we do right um the there isn't Magic in
67:00 - 67:30 paperwork but there's an enormous amount of magic in paperwork right and um how do you do you find that collaboration and then I'll ask everybody else how do you how do you normally get your paperwork and you know uh from your your different folks so I'll I'll start since I pointed that to you Jenny why don't you start with that with your book and electronics and we'll go from there uh it it is my hope and dream to get it all digitized it's because of just where
67:30 - 68:00 we started 10 years ago and it was just easy to just continue putting the paper in the book um and we did have some of the information got lost early on on an old computer but it is something that I hope to do to get that all digitized and those are conversations that have started happening within the media Department um I can't wait for that book to come out I'm sure great Amazon besteller you know you know uh but like Gaff talk to me about your
68:00 - 68:30 because your Patch book is going to be a lot different yeah in some ways than and then everybody else's you know when you've got you know a a Super Bowl halftime show or you have a you know I don't know make it up 40 acts that are performing in an hour and a half time period oh it's it it paperwork is is incredibly important because without it you have to also think like like re Reese and J Jenny were talking in my case not that you'll hand it off but if
68:30 - 69:00 something happens to you you got to have paperwork there especially when there's a patch you know when there's 300 inputs and it has to change for you know some things change for each act so labeling is incredibly important on Splitters and knowing and sometimes you can look at your paper and realize wait wait wait wait that's not going to work and so you change it but it's really really you can't stress more at paperwork and labeling is that Google Docs or is that
69:00 - 69:30 you know Excel spreadsheets that are updated how do you what I've built all my I get my paperwork from the A1 usually about who wants what you know because I might have five mixers that need to SP needs parts of the split right so and then I developed my own sheets that list everybody and what they get and all that it changes so much if I had to go digitally change it every time do you use Google Sheets we do sometimes for the main list but not for everybody
69:30 - 70:00 can edit it and watch it and it gets it's dynamically edited right yeah yeah with for the main patch sheets but a lot of what you have to do as as people who patch know is sometimes the way you have to get things places like on honors at at at Kenny C because they have a great infrastructure the mixers don't need to know how I get things to them they don't want to know they want to know it lands on their right handle right correct you tell me what fader you want it on and
70:00 - 70:30 I'll get it there but how it gets there it's they don't need to know I need to know so I keep all that you know very structured gotcha and I know from doing comms that I'm always asked for one or more of the stage managers to have a direct line to the a2s because they're the ones who are going to be stuck with a performer who doesn't have a mic or need mic fixed or something like that they don't care about the A1 they care about the A2 the person that's GNA help them and in the
70:30 - 71:00 trench with them now do you anybody else I have a question do you guys use iate when you're running a show do you have like your rundowns with your annotations and it carry an iPad with you skip yeah know yeah yeah I I I like a piece of paper in my back pocket so he he'll do them and then he prints them for for a yeah and then I also do spreadsheets and I can like doing an award show the Tony
71:00 - 71:30 I can take that information on a spreadsheet and have chunks of like I know who's performing in the first performance and over that tracks through to the fourth performance and can just kind of end up running this the whole show off of a spreadsheet in the end the spreadsheet I have to be too because I got to patch differentl you know different inputs for different bands have to go different plac need to know where I can do that when we're in commercial or whatever but
71:30 - 72:00 and I've learned that I lose my paperwork so now I carry a clipboard and I put it on clipboard it's harder to lose a clipboard we're at least gonna have your name anybody else Ryan Mark Dave I I like to uh I personally like to create the mic assign list for the corporate stuff that I do I'm typically the one who's going to know when say a headset changes to a lavalier way faster than the A1 might know uh I keep in direct contact with the ASM usually I create like a what I call a mic channel on uh
72:00 - 72:30 comms that that they can speak directly to me about any changes when talents there to get miked but I like to keep track of the mics I base labels I make labels like Sarah does that print on all my packs for all of my events so I don't have to find the paperwork I lose paperwork when it's printed out so I have all that stuff digitally and uh I make labels from it as well this is pretty helpful drop box is great not only with all your I'm a big fan of drop
72:30 - 73:00 box having your name on all your paper so when you leave and your picture stage we still lose it of course it's in yellow but it really should your hair exactly but but I have often found a a detailed sheet laying next to my desk and no name on it I have no idea who it belongs to I find drop pre-production is very useful and then I like Google Sheets for the day of run of show but I find for
73:00 - 73:30 pre-production it uh being able to track versions is a little bit helpful do you ever have problems in Google Sheets with people updating things that are wrong or or overwrite things that you're doing bill soer saids be careful with that because it could mess the whole sheet up I haven't had that issue personally but typically uh I'm working with a group and we've all agreed to a method or assist them right right and there's
73:30 - 74:00 definitely one person who is the primary decider be the A1 it could be the A2 on a corporate show we use Google Sheets to organize this webinar between Kelly and I and Mack and and and Bruce Kramer and uh my son Harlen who does the website and we we're always changing things and sliding lines around and changing the schedule and change descriptions and when it's all in there it's marked it's ready to go and harling can just post it
74:00 - 74:30 to the website you know and go yeah as long as p is not overwriting my information we're pretty good that I was able to fix that with little control Z don't worry about that exactly exactly now Sarah I got a question for you on this um when when it comes to um the paperwork do you define expectations with the A1 or with the other system uh uh if you have a system engineer with you how do you determine who's responsible for what what are your
74:30 - 75:00 expectations do you even talk about it there is no right or wrong answer I'm just curious yeah I think a lot of that depends on how the pre-production kind of came about if the A1 was also sort of the audio PM or the designer or whatever they're they're they're leading the the charge on that and and as an a2i just come in and and and kind of take the ball and run with it and and then it also depends on the relationship too like if it's somebody that I've worked with a lot and I trust and I can I can throw things out and say hey this is a better way to do this can we can we rethink this you know Pat sheet can I
75:00 - 75:30 move some stuff around on you or whatever um you know it it's it's a personal thing um but a lot of times at least in my experience it's been the Audi op PM or the A1 who kind of leads the charge and then then I have to kind of adapt and and every a one I work with is different has a different flow has a different work you know uh environment some people like paper some people like Google Sheets and so I sort of find out that I just use them all I just end up changing every week on what whatever it is you know and it's just a it's a matter of being flexible yeah that's a good point now Mark um uh you and I have
75:30 - 76:00 a couple friends in common that I was used to getting sheets that were dt12 blanks right and so then you'd show up in the morning and the DT would get filled out as soon as we parked and powered right and um do you do you find I mean I sometimes that's still usable um frankly um what are some of the mechanisms you're seeing right now uh well in in the local sports world and even in even at the national scene uh a
76:00 - 76:30 lot of it goes back to what Sarah was just saying uh depends on your relationship with the A1 um you know a lot of you know a lot of times you know you walk into a job and you've never met the a1on he's never met you she's never met you whatever the case may be and you got to figure out uh how to how to get that all put together and who's going to be in charge of what
76:30 - 77:00 and uh the A1 is will will say I've I've got this much I need to get accomplished I need these microphones uh I need these ifbs I need these intercoms um and uh let's let's figure this out if it's a venue that neither of us have ever been in then you know there's a little more running and pecking if it's something I'm familiar with or he's familiar with he or she's familiar with then we'll take you know
77:00 - 77:30 that person will take the lead uh and fill out those uh those sheets and get and then start the job run the wires and get it hooked up and get it going so uh the paperwork and who's in charge of it it at the at the local level and sometimes at the national level um if you've got local knowledge you're going to be more valuable than the guy that's coming in that has never been there
77:30 - 78:00 before so uh the the paperwor can get handed off uh at that point once we just you know once it's decided you know who's going to make the most expeditious and uh correct decision to get the get the job up and on the air yeah so it sounds like there in that scenario your A1 saying hey these are these are my booth inputs that I'm going to need these are my You Know Field inputs things like that and then a lot of times you'll connect the dots then of of how
78:00 - 78:30 that is going to get from point A to point B or if you're the one mixing same thing with the A2 that you're you're working with right so um lot of lot of different mechanisms here um this one's kind of a big gearshift from everything but I'm gonna I'm gonna pull these two together one is recruiting the Next Generation and trying to find um uh and in the process of doing that capturing um
78:30 - 79:00 especially the the females in audio right so we have both recruitment because a lot of this is um it seems to skip a generation right so everybody's working and then you know it's like oh I don't see a lot of new people coming in right and now all of a sudden I seem to see an interest in that maybe that's because you know my son's in University now and he's studying AUD technology so it's a little fresher in my mind but
79:00 - 79:30 just in general you you see those cycles and and what do you see your job your role in trying to a promote um our industry and and the job that you do because obviously everybody on this screen is making a living not at this very moment but before and after all this is over this this this industry has treated us very well yes and we've all found um a lot of satisfaction and and the ability to make a living which I'm very thankful that
79:30 - 80:00 I'm doing something I have a passion for and um I uh I can feed my family and I can I can have some some nice things in life um from working hard so I know that's really broad but Recruitment and then specifically to your point um I did have some more um uh female representation unfortunately Jess was not feeling well today and she couldn't join us so just so you know I'm working on that because I think that's a very important component of this if for any
80:00 - 80:30 reason that our people were working with um our end clients whether that's talent on TV or whether that's um Broadway Talent OR opera or um in corporate pres uh presentation we're we're seeing more and more female representation and and a and a female CEO doesn't didn't didn't come up through Broadway isn't used to how Broadway and television production works right and so as a as a designer in A1
80:30 - 81:00 myself I try to be sensitive to to those kind of of of things because those can be unique situations um uh since Jenny and Sarah I'll start with the gender component and then move that to recruitment as well right can you guys weigh in on that for me do you want to take it Sarah anybody want what is this like the third rail did I just create a third because that's not what I mean to do here um no I think I mean I think it's an important conversation to have I think we need to
81:00 - 81:30 talk about it I think as long as gender exists in the world it will affect our industry and it's something that that is is something that we all deal with and have to have to think about you know um I I try really hard to not make it an issue I don't think that it's important you know I don't I don't think that I don't want people to know me as a woman first I want people to know me as an audio engineer first and as Sarah first um and so that's sort of how I go into the go into everything that I do um obviously I've I've encountered situations where where people see me as
81:30 - 82:00 a woman first and um you just sort of have to navigate that and um and know that there are plenty of people who don't see me that way and they're and and those are the people that I try to Foster I try to be around those people I try to to find those peers who see me as an equal and then um and I do the same for other women that I see other women that I I I admire that are working hard I I sort of recruit them same thing as as much as I recruit anyone you know what I mean um you have to just you just
82:00 - 82:30 have to know that it's there and then then we can all kind of move past it and start dealing with each other as audio Engineers you know and so I think I think the the men that I've worked with that are um the people that I like to work with aren't people who are are ignoring it or saying it's not there but there like the they're The Men Who say you know what it's an issue and I'm going to think about how I do things and I'm going to make sure that I uh you know reach out to people people as equally as I can interdependent you know independent of of gender and I think it's it's important to at least talk
82:30 - 83:00 about it you [Music] know yeah know I think like in the beginning I was gonna be a lighting designer somewhere along the way after moving to New York I wandered into audio and working in one of the shops back in promix back in the day and I was like okay I could do this this little change gears but we'll do this and when I first started getting A2 gigs I would it was always prefaced with
83:00 - 83:30 they need a woman and there was always a little bit of like I understand however at the same time I was always fighting to make sure that not all gigs I was getting was because they needed a woman are you hiring me because I'm capable of doing the job or was it because of my gender and that was something that you know I had to kind of weigh for a while
83:30 - 84:00 like do I want to keep doing this and do I fight this or do I just go I'll take the gig you know and just run with it unfortunately the the the gender issue where I need a woman comes from uh possibly from panelists or guests on the show are and fully aware and that that I think is a sensitivity that we we are obvious but yes the for any2 is how
84:00 - 84:30 organized you are that's you're the organizer of what is really going on almost more than right the director right but like I was saying this was in the beginning you know right baby A2 like still figuring out the gig yeah yeah yeah yeah I feel like it's so far beyond that at this time but that in the beginning but I have you know been been in situations
84:30 - 85:00 where there were other um you know going back to the the personality to the organization and different things but I have had women in other departments kind of look at me and go like wow how can I do what what it is that you do how can I do and I'm like yeah but I've got like years of Knowledge from working in a shop I've got like I didn't like walk in and start doing this exactly so it's it's like you I think you're referencing
85:00 - 85:30 earlier I it was Mark saying the old technology with the new technology it's not something that you just kind of like show up and put mics on people it you know we worked hard for a very long time to I guess make it look easy or tried yeah and and you know having work go ahead go ahead sir so sorry and I think to that end to I mean like I think some early on in my career there were people who saw that I had a talent for audio and those people saw that through my gender they didn't say oh I just need
85:30 - 86:00 a woman here I mean and I I've also had shows I had I did Billy Elliott for uh for the national tour and they had small you know young children they needed a woman there are times when when that was an important component but early on there were I had I had people who were well established in the industry as advocates who saw that my talent for audio was there and then they offered me the opportunity you know regardless of of gender which was exactly and I think that's the point here is that that um by by improving
86:00 - 86:30 what we do how are how we do it's irrelevant right on on a on this bigger scale so I don't mean to take us into those deeper because those are those are things that I am far less qualified to to even dig into but I I my whole point to say number one um I I see people because of what they're capable of doing doing right I want the best performers around me and everything else is irrelevant right I need people that have
86:30 - 87:00 that proper attitude to interface because the A2 you you're out there out front you were gonna set the tone for the show right because I guarantee you if if you're making it difficult for for that person backstage I'm getting that phone call from the producer if I'm the person out front going what is up with your A2 all right we need to it's like oh seriously I don't want to have this discussion right um you know so I want people around me that're qualified
87:00 - 87:30 that's the end of discussion right doesn't everything else irrelevant right so the recruitment is about exposing people though that haven't thought about the audio industry right that hey this is a viable job um and this is um these are the skills that you're going to need to be really good and want to be the best that's and I think that's the other part of it saying I want to be the best at what I do period Right End of
87:30 - 88:00 Discussion if you if you don't if then if that if audio isn't your career where you want to do that go find something where you can make that statement emphatically I want to be the best that I can be whatever that is right so I didn't mean to make anybody uncomfortable with this other than to say I want the best people and that's what I believe I have the screen right now so well Jenny's comment about Jenny I didn't start doing this I started to
88:00 - 88:30 wanted to be this or something else that's really sort of the start to the answer to how do I become an A2 you don't just walk into it the next day because it is an extremely trusted job and you have to one have an experience two you have to have people you work with a lot to recommend you you can never advertise for this job you have to have people that recommended you want you to work with them and and three you got to put in your 10,000 hours
88:30 - 89:00 so and Jenny you had something to say um oh I I was saying kind of part of that was that coming into the business I didn't realize that this was a gig you know but I have had younger women coming out you know whether they were in high school or college and come to me and say I want to be an A2 I'm like how do you even know what an A2 is you know right but I think technology has driven some of that I I think so too
89:00 - 89:30 um and uh you know uh I will take us away from this topic now and uh you know Pete what's our Q&A looking like there you know we've been well I will say that that the Q&A has been a huge success for making comments uh and there's there's more question I mean we've had questions in here and we certainly couldn't cover any them but in in one way or another we've covered all the subjects um uh and I
89:30 - 90:00 think we're just gonna have to uh uh let the a lot of the questions speak for themselves uh because you can read through them and see them these questions will be uh online with the video of the of the event um besides this com comments and their answers to questions that have come up here uh there have been comments on how
90:00 - 90:30 they use Google Sheets and how they do their their thing and what kind of tools they have in their bag and that kind of stuff so uh unfortunately this forum doesn't lend it well to some of these really detailed questions on you know uh you know like John Center said people like Tom Morris peterin Matt car Stewart taught me well I retired from Broadway three years ago I'm willing to share my knowledge like we're doing now and experiences they did
90:30 - 91:00 with me sometime others want to listen and sometimes they don't all Kent a who happen to be women owe a great debt to women such as Cindy Hawkins mayor McGregor McGregor and Stephanie veter who blazed the trail trail as an A2 and I Valerie spradling and exactly E McDonald yeah and and I find I find in the industry uh and I'm saying this from the
91:00 - 91:30 heart I find women to be much more organized and much better at managing a show than me certainly and I I see this in directors the women directors I work with are a pleasure compared to a lot of the men directors who are just a totally different person but uh I don't there's no real answer for how to get in this A2 business other than you know follow follow somebody around like a puppy dog
91:30 - 92:00 that that's the thing you got to be willing to listen to people that's how I learn most of mine ask the right questions don't ask stupid questions and listen don't just stare at somebody and not pay attention and then do the same stupid over again and learn and learn and and to your to to extend your point a little further be willing to share without being prompted a little bit of knowledge that you've picked up along the way when you see somebody maybe not doing something
92:00 - 92:30 exactly the way you would but they've never really been instructed right or helped you can you can give them a hand by say hey maybe you can consider trying this approach next time and I know I know Pete you're a big proponent of this knowledge I started that I started my website to keep track of how I did things so I could remember right and and I think we got to remember to listen to the younger kids too and they have a good idea that we might go sure I've
92:30 - 93:00 been doing it this way for 30 years yeah your way is better well no my way is just my way there's a song about that I think I don't know yeah yeah yeah um so I I think we can we can certainly um what was that iPad app Jenny you mentioned for keeping track of things noting things um I annotate I annotate an annotate yes you can uh load like a PDF
93:00 - 93:30 of a script into it and then you can mark it up and kind of go Page by Page through it it's something that skips and when the page in the script changes yeah when there a script changes you gotta go back in so it's not like your your notes don't don't stay with that page necessarily you know I'm usually the and I've only dabbled in it a little bit skip is usually the keeper of the ey annotated script he distributes it to us
93:30 - 94:00 and it's not a multi-user thing it's just one one iPad one person okay yeah because he does it and then after it's done he does what they call flattening and then he sends it out to everybody else that way we can't manipulate the or he can set it with the uh text where we can go in and manipulate it uh Joe f says he's oh Joe yeah well what can I say he says seems many of my female friends in the audio field want
94:00 - 94:30 to be the A1 as they don't want to necessarily get stuck in the assistant position I think you really have to turn that around the A1 who's the assistant yeah I don't really think of our I don't really think of a2s as assistants I think that we're in charge of the stage end the a1's in charge of the the front of house end uh and I think together you're working together to put together a complete show but I don't feel below the A1 all agre with you yeah I agree
94:30 - 95:00 with you right 100% not on a well organized show it's a Cooperative effort oh definitely I even see that in ASM jobs uh uh uh when when um um a a show is going along that isn't really scripted like an honor show sort of thing you know and the as Asm on stage often ends up running the okay we've got this person waiting in the wings let's do it now you know that kind of stuff and the same way with audio you know you
95:00 - 95:30 have a running around putting mics on people and you have to let every know what's happening oh we're g change into this mic we're g to change this not not going with mic 13 but going mik 12 that kind of stuff because it works better maybe because it just works better well you know and to the point of the younger generation coming in I think we're seeing a flattening of of the the um the that command control that maybe we started out in the industry this
95:30 - 96:00 comes down from this person to this person to this person right and what we're seeing as a flattening of the whole decision-making process where people um which is really hard sometimes because you have to live in this world where you're a peer but you're also a subordinate at any given time right maybe that producer is talking you know because Gaff made that point about the schedules where well sometimes I look to the A1 to go to the producer and say hey
96:00 - 96:30 this this schedule's unrealistic right well I need to have a conversation over here with a producer but I Al also have to remember I work for them right same thing in the teamon and I think we're going to continue to see that flattening of this and and and we all need to work hard because on a on a large show you know we could have multiple a1s we could have multiple a2s have an RF coordinator a comms manager and and you know I really hate the A3 A2 A1 you know I'm
96:30 - 97:00 like I I understand why we have the terminology right but I prefer to say I'm in audio right maybe I'm the audio manager on a show maybe I'm the audio producer on some to some level but I'm in audio right does have the of being in order A1 first A2 next you know so that's just the order you get fired at that's just the blame hierarchy exactly blame hierarchy good the A1 gets blamed first right because he's one but you
97:00 - 97:30 know what I will I will say this it's very much like the ship goes the captain goes down with the ship right that A1 you would you do look to say hey this is my team all right and I'm gonna protect my team even even if my team does have some shortcomings I'm goingon to be the first to step up for them and go hey you know what yeah we missed it on that one we're gonna we're gonna step up we're going to take responsibility for it but I'm going to protect my team right and
97:30 - 98:00 it's audio it's audio right it's not you know it's Kelly erson and then the rest of my team no it's audio that's the way it is I wanted to emphasize what Jenny said about her book uh in that uh you've always got to be ready for uh uh somebody to have to take your job over on it's more important for the show to be a success than for you to be a success so uh 40 50 years ago a long
98:00 - 98:30 time I did a show in Saudi Arabia and uh it was a big industrial show and I was doing the I was the A1 and I had a lot of cues and I got arrested an hour before the show and they hauled me down to a police thing and luckily I had the phone number backstage called there and told the stage manager uh uh Bob Bob Bob now I can't remember his name uh I told him everything's in the book just follow
98:30 - 99:00 the book you'll do the show fine and they got through the show fine and I only had to stay in Saudi Arabia for three more days under arrest so oh I want to go so many directions with this but I'm I'm not going to I'm working so hard right my inner voice right now just wants to explode but I think to wrap this all up you bring up an interesting point and I want to bring this back to the very situation we're in right now which is
99:00 - 99:30 covid all right we started our discussion with it and I'm going to end with it and here's how I'd like to end with it where do you see something like this pointing to the need for Jenny's book right to now be shared the cross the um cross discipline within the audio department I'm not suggesting that I'm going to go over here to the LD next to me and go hey can I show you a couple things on my console just in case I'm not here tomorrow that's not what I'm suggesting I am suggesting that within
99:30 - 100:00 my team everybody needs to know because unfortunately when we come out of this there's a good chance that you know somebody will end up ill one day right and and you know they'll be gone for a week but how do they step in right or even if it's just a day right and so that trust um I'll uh I'm just gonna go around we're gonna do this super rapid fire I'm gonna start with just because order my screen I'm gonna go Reese I'm gonna go Jenny and I'm gonna go Mark Dave Gaff Sarah Ryan all right and just
100:00 - 100:30 you know in in in a one minute window say what what are you comfortable sharing so that you can make sure that your team is ready if you can't show up that day because you're not feeling well right what's a good best practice go ahead Reese everything I mean it's like you said it's the team it's the team uh all of my paperwork it's all like the the entire Department's uh paperwork pretty much is
100:30 - 101:00 on Dropbox I can go in I can find I mean there's a mixed script there's backstage tracks uh there's you know databases and spreadsheets with the whole system flow um it's all it's all got to be there because we're all we're all working together we're all in the service of the designer the show um the rest of the company uh I don't think there's any there's not really any room for like propri you know my my information it's our it's the show's this the shows info
101:00 - 101:30 and it's all got to happen yeah Jenny yeah the same everything's there it's all all labeled don't hide things you know because you know the pens are always here the tape is always there you just have to have the things where they need to be um sheesh yeah it's all in the books and then you have it's in the book exactly in the book you go and I want that ISBN number as soon as you get it because it'll be a top seller um Mark how about you yeah I couldn't agree more if uh you
101:30 - 102:00 know you just have to have everything uh well documented all the te's crossed all the ice crossed I would also say that everybody on your team on your crew needs to be able to do the other person's job at the at the drop of a hat so if the A1 goes down uh one of the a2s can sit can step
102:00 - 102:30 can step in and and pick up the show and the next A2 can take that A's job and you can go get a replacement for uh the open spot for somebody with a without a skill set that's you know might not be what I'm trying to say is everybody needs to be able to move up the ladder uh next man available to use an NFL term um you just need to you just need to have the the skill set in place to do it
102:30 - 103:00 so I I I prefer working on Crews like that I know it doesn't always happen but uh it's it's it's good to have redundancy in in in a team yeah good point so Dave thoughts yeah absolutely agreeing with everyone obvious clear labeling not just something that only works for the person doing it I've seen some stuff where it's oh that's number one okay
103:00 - 103:30 where's number one go make it something clear it is great when you're working on a project that has enough of a staff that you don't have to pull in an outside person and educate them where there's okay I can cover half of that person's role I can cover half of that person's role and then that person can go take over for the A1 right G uh yeah and I agree too with everybody there and the paperwork has to
103:30 - 104:00 be detailed like you do I like to do source and destination and what line it runs down that way you can you know where the stuff's going so anybody can pick it up and you know the more the the line I like to use the more you know the more you you can charge so it's good to know to be widely spread and coming from like Mark knows from Truck World you know no video I I used to align two cameras uh you know it's good to know you know broaden your horizons but we're
104:00 - 104:30 all in this to do a show and if one of us can't be there the show's not stopping that's true Sarah yeah absolutely um you know it's detail and and share everything um I'm not one of those people who thinks that uh you know my information you know I'm the only one who does it that that the best way it's this this business is about collaboration it really is and and on the best days my best days at work are the days where I feel like a huge part of a team and
104:30 - 105:00 where there's a trust between everyone that you you walk in the door with and um you know I'm I'm here because I've acquired years of knowledge and and all of those things but I still have lots to learn and uh and I want there to be an open dialogue with with everybody that I work with because it's only going to make us all better and and it's you know there's no reason to to not share any of that information I think everybody needs to be detailed and and ready to take everybody else's position you know keep the show going good point
105:00 - 105:30 Ryan yeah organization paperwork those things are super important for someone who might come in after you and having things laid out in an organized logical way is pretty important uh I'm not doing anything that's you know my intellectual property uh I'm just doing things that have I've brought from different people that I've worked with over the years uh put them into a format that I like but you know it's uh very logical and anyone could follow it by the way if anybody
105:30 - 106:00 gets called into cover for me the name of the book is Wireless Secrets just make sure you take the padlock key with you um Pete uh why don't you have the final word on this one because you know you are the king of Open Source you are the king of keeping all info uh and uh I think that's what all appreciate about you and you have a passion I I don't often work with a script doing uh RF
106:00 - 106:30 coordination and intercom I mean I sometimes have it but I can't think of the last time I ever really ever opened it um so recently I was on the last job I was on uh doing a Dell Show in Las Vegas uh Matt care was mixing in another room and and Henry Cohen was coordinating 600 wireless microphones and on the third day of rehearsal I had to leave the show because I got sick and uh I told Kelly here's the password to
106:30 - 107:00 my computer everything's in there that's all I had to pass on because basically it was all programmed up there he knew the equipment and the other people that assisted him to make it work were the people that had that put out all the Bell packs that put out all the wireless mics put out on the antennas so they knew where where they were and where they plugged in so it's it really is a team effort it's not just it's rare that that even an intercon person or an i A2 person works alone it's always a bunch
107:00 - 107:30 of people and that's what it's all about that's what Mak it fun yeah there you go we do have a good time you know we get laugh and goof a lot time I don't know well not with you Pete but with everybody else okay okay yeah so thank you everybody for being a part of this thanks for sharing your Insight um you know this is a topic that literally we could go hours on and um uh
107:30 - 108:00 Mac welcome back um you know uh it's too bad that your face mask does such bad things to your to your go but that's okay we know you're safe um and that's good and uh thanks again for being a part of this did you have a a little closing statement you wanted to make from uh your undisclosed location uh only that the the information from everybody was just fantastic uh it was really
108:00 - 108:30 um covered pretty much everything I could think of and and it was great I I will just say to Pete that that stage manager in Saudi was either Bob Homer or Richard her one Bob Homer Bob Homer I and it we told you no names no names guys got some great memories how many how many shows do you have the phone number of a phone backstage now we have cell phones right I don't know why I had
108:30 - 109:00 it but I had it and it was weird totally weird waiting for the rest of that story you know what it's just and we're gonna end on that because everything with Pete is a weird good so again everybody please stay safe out there I look forward to running into as many of you as possible when we get back in the field and um uh having a good time and uh enjoying uh what it is that is our business so everybody be safe
109:00 - 109:30 Absolut see you guys and now go give somebody a big hug my wife