BUILD SCHEDULE
So it is time for the shop build. Hopefully you have done all of the prep work to make the build go smoothly. Hopefully you have more answers than questions. Hopefully you are ready. A show build time depends on the budget and size of the show. A typical Broadway show builds in three weeks, although sometimes you can get four. Some shows are smaller and have a smaller budget and may only give you two weeks to build. Some large shows, like Spiderman, build for months. These are rare. Whatever the length of your build, the one thing you can be sure of is that it will not be enough time. Somehow the powers that be can judge a show and they can somehow schedule the build just short of what you really need, which ends up causing you to push and get it done just in time.
Production Manager or Technical Director
Every show on Broadway has either a production manager or a technical director. These positions are basically the same and only differ in title. The technical director is usually referred to as the tech. This is the person who was hired to take care of all of the technical aspects of getting a show prepped, built, loaded-in, and open. Basically everyone answers to the tech. He is the master of the budget and the schedule. He hires most of the crew. He will coordinate truck deliveries and crew numbers. He will have the final say on big decisions. A Broadway tech is very different from the technical director in college or at a regional theatre. The tech is really the boss of everything and is not involved in the actual construction or physical installation of the show. He is in charge of the calendar and the meetings for the production. He is similar to the production manager at the college level, except has the added responsibility of being the technical expert as well.
The tech does not work on the production on a daily basis after the show opens. He is rarely seen after the opening night, but he is still the go-to person for technical questions. If the show needs to have a big and expensive workcall to fix something, it will need to be approved by the tech. If an expensive item needs to be purchased for the show, it must be approved by the tech. Even though he may not be in the building, the tech is still in charge of the production.
The tech is the person who hires some of the running crew for the show. The tech usually hires the sound mixer, but the tech does not really get to make the decision about who the mixer will be. All mixers are picked by the sound designer, but the sound designer does not have the authority to officially hire or fire a mixer. Instead the sound designer tells the production that he has picked a mixer and the tech will contact the mixer to work out a deal. Unfortunately, the mixer then has to negotiate a rate with the tech. I say unfortunately only because it would be nice if there were a set rate for a mixer on Broadway and it wasn’t a negotiation. On the rare occasion when a mixer needs to be fired, it is a decision that must be made with the approval of the sound designer.
The first task for the build is to hire a crew. Typically it takes at least four people to build a show. There are times when the mixer is in complete control of who will work on the build, but that is not terribly common. More than likely the designer will want certain people on the build. The house electrician might also want certain people on the build. After they have staffed the build, the mixer is free to fill the open spots with anyone he likes. Over time you will build shows with people and you will build friendships as well as common ground. Nothing is better than building a show with a crew that you have built shows with repeatedly. They understand the way you like to do things and the strange idiosyncrasies you might have. There are certain people you will just enjoy working with, no matter what. Picking a good build crew can make even the most arduous shop time more relaxing.
There are people who have made a career out of building shows. They bounce from one build to another and are top-notch professionals and you will get high quality work from them. These people will also cost and will want the going rate. Shop work is typically paid as a day rate and the top-notch people will want the prevalent day rate. As a mixer you will want to know what the budget is for the build. Usually this budget does not include the pay for the A1, A2, and assistant. You will want to know how many people you can hire and how much they will be getting paid. Sometimes you will be given a rate that is low and you may need to find a way to convert that rate into an overall budget and readjust the day rate.
For example, you may be told that the budget is four people for 10 days at $100 per day. Let’s assume the going day rate is $200 per day. Obviously your budget is really low if you want to staff your build with qualified people. In this case it may be necessary to talk to the tech about the budget. If there is no more money to offer, then you may need to suggest that you bring in fewer people at a higher rate. As long as you stay under the budget this is usually not a problem. So in this case your budget is $4000, which will break down to be 20 slots you can fill.
If you look at the flow of the time in the shop you will know that the first day in the shop is slow and there isn’t much to do. The first day consists of setting up the build zone and checking the shop order with the designer’s order and printing. It is usually not worth bringing lots of people in for the first day. If you bring no one in, then you will have the A1, A2, and assistant, which is probably enough. The last day in the shop is dedicated to packing everything up and putting it on a truck for delivery. This is another day that may not require a full build crew. It is also a day that does not require a highly specialized crew. It is easy work that cheaper labor can typically do. If you take this into consideration, then you can staff your build with three people for eight days at the higher rate and finish the build with two people.
Once you have figured out what you can afford and what spots have not been filled by others, it is time to start making calls. If you have been doing this for a while you will have no problem filling the call. You will have more numbers and names than you will know what to do with. But if you are new to this, you will need to search people out. Take your time and find experienced Broadway show people. Try to find people with experience with the theatre you are going to. The more your crew knows, the more they can keep you from making big mistakes.
At first glance a sound system seems straightforward. It is just some mics and speakers. But on further investigation you realize it is incredibly complex. You may need a crossover rack. Your designer may require a distro rack or remoted pre-amps. Your designer may have power theories or multi-cabling ideas you have to abide by. Not only do you have to build a system that fits into the space available at the theatre, but at the same time a system that caters to the designer.
Since many musical theatre designers are mixers themselves, they are going to be opinionated about the system you build. They may not like the way you built your racks or the way you laid out your gear. They may request certain criteria for your build such as limiting you to only using certain size multi-cables. There is nothing better than working with a designer who used to be a mixer. They understand the rhythm and chaos of a show. For the most part, the higher up they get as a designer, the more they let go of the mixer, but no matter how far removed they get, they still have strong beliefs on how things should be done. You would be wise to learn what your designer likes and try to accommodate those ideas. In the end those designers are still mixers and many of them can mix circles around you. They are also still quite adept at troubleshooting.
I have fond memories of working on Wicked and I remember times when something would go wrong and the mixer, Douglas Graves, would start troubleshooting. Douglas is an excellent mixer with top-notch skills, but everyone gets stumped at some point looking for that one little button that wasn’t pressed. Tony Meola, the sound designer, would occasionally say from his tech table, “I know what is wrong. If you want my help just let me know.” It was just so interesting that he was sitting there with the answer and he was allowing his mixer the space he needed to fix the problem on his own. Occasionally Tony would be asked to help and inevitably he would walk over and hit one button and instantly fix the problem.
It is important to remember, though, that a sound system is not just the speakers and the mics. In fact, that is usually the easiest part of your system. The real complication comes when you get into the other bits and bobs. You have to deal with the inputs and outputs of the sound system, and the intercom, video, and paging. This alone could overwhelm you and become the most complicated part of the sound system, and if this part isn’t done correctly then all of your hard work on the actual sound system will go right down the drain. It is crucial to understand that the most important part of your system is the intercom.
I have said it before and I will say it again. I would rather my speakers sound tinny during tech and have my intercom working flawlessly. I would rather the speakers buzz. I would rather they were on fire. I would rather have an ear cold and have my speakers on fire. I would rather the console discharge 2 volts every time I touched it and have an ear cold and have buzzing speakers in flames and have a pencil stuck in my eye, if it meant that the intercom was perfect. The reason is very simple. I can always apologize for sound problems. I can always say, “The fire department is on its way and we will mix again once we can touch the console.” But no one wants to hear any excuse about intercom. If it doesn’t work, nothing can happen and you have made no friends. The lighting design team will be annoyed and the production manager will be right there to tell you how much money is being wasted because com doesn’t work and no departments can work.
The intercom system is evil. It’s voodoo. It’s a jilted lover with a long memory. Treat your com system with care and respect. Read the manuals for every item you are using in the intercom system. Test it daily. Test it several times a day. Inevitably the intercom system will be perfect every time you test it. It will work flawlessly and quietly until the first time someone needs it and then somehow the stars realign and the whole system starts buzzing and everyone gets annoyed. The best course of action is to always assume it is broken and then you will never be disappointed. It is possible to have trouble-free intercom experiences, but it requires forethought and knowledge of the equipment and dedication to the goal. And always have spares! Cables, packs and headset!
Once you have mastered your ins and outs and your intercom system, next up is the paging system. Broadway theatres are considered a “four-wall” theatre, which means when the theatre is rented it comes with no equipment. A Broadway theatre starts every production as an empty theatre that doesn’t even have a paging system. You have to bring everything you need, including a paging system. A paging system usually includes a 70v amp and 70v speakers. It also includes cable and paging mics for the paging system. A 70v speaker will need to be hung in every dressing room as well as in common places such as hallways and the Green Room. It is an Equity requirement to provide paging, which includes good mics and a program feed, for the cast. If you do not provide adequate paging, it could be reported to Actors’ Equity.
The video system is the next part of the sound system that has to be dealt with. To be clear, the video system we are talking about is show-critical, closed-circuit video to aid in the communication needed for a safe production. This is not video or projection that is part of the artistic side of the production. As a sidebar I would just mention that cue lights are also an integral part of show communications, but are not something sound deals with. Cue lights are handled by lighting and light shops. Typically there will be a black-and-white camera on the conductor. This camera will need to be distributed all over the place. It will need to be sent to the Green Room and the stage manager’s office as well as the calling station and to balcony rail monitors. If there are vocal signing stations backstage, the conductor shot will need to be sent to those locations as well. There is usually also a black-and-white infrared camera and a color camera shooting the stage from the house. These cameras are usually on the balcony rail. Infrared emitters will need to be placed over the stage to illuminate the stage for the blackout moments.
The conductor monitors on the balcony rail will also need to go through a blackout generator. The blackout generator is controlled by lighting and allows lighting to build a cue that blacks-out the stage as well as blacking-out the monitors on the rail. If you do not use a blackout generator, then if a video monitor loses signal it will still emit light from a black screen. The blackout generator eliminates this light leak. Lighting will typically send a circuit to sound that they control so they can build this blackout into their cues. This box can live in your video rack between the send to the balcony rail and the feed from the conductor camera.
It is also possible to have several other specialty cameras for the production. These cameras will be dictated by the needs of the stage manager and the fly rail and the automation operator. It is not uncommon to have seven or eight cameras on a show. Most of these specialty shots will not need to go anywhere but to the calling desk, which is where the stage manager will call the show, the fly rail, and the automation desk. Sometimes these specialty shots will need to be remote control cameras that can move and zoom and focus. In this case you will need to figure out who needs to control the cameras and run the controller to that location. There are also times when multiple conductor cameras are needed.
In the case of Spring Awakening on Broadway the conductor and musical supervisor, Kim Grigsby, had to move between two playing positions. When she moved, a different camera needed to be used so she was always looking into the camera. To accomplish this we had to run both cameras to the stage manager’s calling desk and pass it through an A/B video switcher that then sent the signal down to the video distribution rack. When Kim moved, the stage manager would switch to the appropriate camera. The result was a very smooth transition and everyone in the show could always see the conductor looking into the camera.
The next system you will need to consider is your RF system, which includes your wireless microphones, in ear monitors and wireless com, and walkie talkies. There are times when you will even need to deal with wifi networks interfering with your wireless mics. Zaxcom is a brand of wireless popular with some television broadcasts and can have a negative side-effect. Zaxcom will squash certain wifi signals completely. I saw a tech come to an immediate grinding halt one day when I turned on a Zaxcom unit and shut down the Internet for the entire theatre.
With your RF system you will want to check your system for intermodulation problems. Intermodulation is the hobgoblin of wireless mics. Intermod creates specific sounds. The first sound is usually called “birdies.” It sounds like a fluttering. The next is partial transmissions from other frequencies. The next is full-on static. So what causes intermod and how do you avoid it? There are several types of intermod. One type is when you overpower your antennas. This causes frequencies to be overly boosted and leads to static on your frequencies. The other type is when two or three transmitters are close to each other and those frequencies combine to create a frequency that is similar to a frequency currently in use in your system. This usually causes “birdies” or partial transmissions from other frequencies being heard on the wrong frequency.
To understand intermod you can think of dropping a rock in water. When the rock hits the water, rings emanate from the rock. Those rings are like frequencies. If you drop two rocks in water at the same time and close together, the rings from each rock collide with each other and create a new set of rings. That is like an intermodulated frequency. The closer the rocks are to each other the stronger the second set of waves created, which is the same with wireless frequencies. The same holds true for three rocks or three frequencies colliding.
It is favorable and necessary and possible to have an RF system with little or no intermod problems. If your system is so large that there is no way to exclude all of the intermod issues, then it is possible to manage the potential intermod problems. Intermodulation can easily be figured out using simple math. What we care about is inter-mod created with two or three transmitters. We also care about the severity of the intermod, which is described with the word “order.” Two-transmitter third order is an intermodulated frequency of the highest power for two transmitters. If you think of the rock example, when the waves emanate from the rock there are several rings. The first is the most powerful and as such would be like the third order. The second ring is weaker and would be like the fifth order. We don’t care about the orders past the fifth because they are usually too weak to interfere with our system. We also do not care about even orders such as second and fourth, because the math of even orders creates frequencies that cannot be in our system.
An example of the math is as follows:
Frequency 1 (F1) = 525.000
Frequency 2 (F2) = 530.000
Frequency 3 (F3) = 520.000
Frequency 4 (F4) = 535.000
2(F1) − F2 = 2 Transmitter 3rd Order Intermod
1050.0 − 530.000 = 520.000
This shows us that these two frequencies can create a third intermodulated or phantom frequency of 520.000. If F1 and F2 are close to each other and frequency 520.000 is being listened to, then you will probably hear some form of static.
An example of 3 Transmitter 3rd Order math is:
F1 + F2–F3 = 3 Transmitter 3rd Order
525.0 + 530.000−520.000 = 535.000
This shows how these three frequencies can create an intermodulated frequency that could be heard on frequency 535.000.
The math involved to find intermodulated frequencies is very simple, but the amount of frequencies is staggering. If you have a system of 26 frequencies, there are almost 80,000 math calculations for the intermod of that system. To test for intermod you need a computer program such as a program I wrote called RF Guru or a program called IAS (Intermodulation Analysis System Software). If you have a system with potential intermod problems you can still manage the problems to make sure frequencies are not onstage at the same time that can cause the problems. If you do not check your system for intermod and you never have any problems then you are just getting lucky. It is imperative to know your RF system and make sure it is solid. Most of the time the shops will do this work for you, but it is important for you to understand it and have some ability to test it yourself, because you just cannot predict everything you are going to encounter when you get into the theatre.
I was a sub mixer for Legally Blonde and I subbed for a great Broadway mixer, Bob Biasetti. I also subbed for Bob on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I had a problem one night while mixing Legally Blonde where the lead’s mic let off a huge bit of static. I immediately thought it was intermod. I had the shop send an RF tech to the workcall the next morning to test the system and I told him I was worried it was intermod. He said it didn’t seem possible. He had done the math and the show had been open for almost a year, so he didn’t think it could happen. But I had done the math as well and I had found a potential conflict. I explained that I thought it was intermod because I was using the lead’s backup mic, which we rarely use, and we were in a scene where the entire cast was clumped dead center and the lead ran right in the middle of the clump to sing and then loud static. He still didn’t buy it. So I powered up the entire RF system and brought it out front. I soloed the backup mic and moved the packs I thought were the problem near all the other packs and, sure enough, we heard the same huge static sound. It was an intermod problem that had been there since day one, but we never heard it because we had never listened to that mic at that moment. And it was something that could be predicted using math. We switched that pack to a different frequency and the problem was solved.
Once you have made it through these systems you can move on to cabling and bundling, which we get into in the next chapter.
If there is one aspect of the build process that has to be addressed and taken very seriously, it is payroll. As the A1 you are the point person people are going to look to when it comes to payroll questions. You will be required to fill out timesheets and give them to someone, which is usually either the head electrician or the production manager. You will also be responsible to get tax forms filled out for all the people on your build crew. You will also need to know the deadlines for getting this paperwork filed. If done properly you will have no problems and people will work with you again. If not done correctly it can really hurt people.
It is important to understand who works on a build crew. The people who build shows are all independent contractors, which means they are usually working on a 1099. A 1099 is a tax form that shows the amount made by a person from a company with no taxes withheld. At tax time you file your 1099s and you have to pay the taxes on the money from those 1099s. As independent contractors, these people do not have the most consistent income stream. They are hired for a specific amount of time to build a show. If they can continue to get on a show build then they are fine, but there are times when the build work dries up. This business is really hard on people. You are constantly chasing work and the common term in the business for going from one short-term job to another is “bounce.” The result is a constant need to network and a good ability to save a cushion of money when you have work so you don’t go broke when there is no work.
When you build a show, you are more than likely going to be hiring friends. The people on the build rarely know or meet the production manager or producer or anyone else involved with the show. Their only connection to the show is the A1 and they are dependent on the A1 for all communications with the show. If you make a mistake in your payroll and someone doesn’t get paid correctly or on time, you could seriously jeopardize your friend’s livelihood. This is of utmost importance to me. When I start a build I find out what my budget is for crew and I figure out how many people I can hire. I then call the people I use regularly to fill the build. On day one I get the tax forms out of the way and I do payroll for the entire build and turn it in. I have learned over time that different companies have different policies on processing checks. There are times when I have to turn the paperwork in during week 1 of the build and it gets processed in week 2 and checks are mailed in week 3. If I wait until the second or third week then people will not get paid for weeks after the build is over.
It is not uncommon for things to slip through the cracks. It is also not uncommon for a production company to be slow to pay. There are times when I will get calls weeks after a build asking where the check is and I have to call the person in charge to find out. It is the responsibility of the A1 to stay on top of this to make sure people get paid. I had one build that went horribly wrong with payroll, but fortunately not because of me. The build had been done for several weeks and we were deep into tech and I had a friend who was on the build call me in a panic. He had not received his check and he could not pay his rent, he was bouncing checks and he was very angry with me. After he finished chewing me out, I called the general manager and found out his check had been mailed to an alternate address he had put on his tax forms. Turns out his check was waiting for him in a P.O box that he was in the process of closing. But I learned from this that it is my responsibility to make sure the mailing address is correct for everyone who works for me.