Tod Maitland on Matching Camera to Music (e.g. Music Videos)

Tod Maitland is a production sound mixer who has been nominated four times for an Academy Award, most recently for The Joker, and who won a BAFTA for JFK. He did a webinar for Shure today that focussed on recording sound for Stephen Spielberg's new adaptation of West Side Story (December, 2021) and ensuring a good match between camera and sound. Lots of good info on playback vs live recording, placement of lavalieres, lip sync, etc. The webinar will be on Shure's website in about a week. Streaming quality was very good.

Screen captures:

Making sure each actor has a lavaliere that works well with the Sennheiser 416 boom mike in the right hand photo, top right

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Planning the 63 day shoot with Peter Schneider of Gotham Sound. Maitland and Schneider both teach in the film programme at NYU.

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The sound rig for West Side Story

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Shure has now made this available on its website.

Shure Webinar: Production Sound Mixing with Tod Maitland

https://www.shure.com/en-US/videos/even ... d-maitland?

This is gonna make my poor little "I can barely figure out my Mix Pre-3" head explode.

This is gonna make my poor little "I can barely figure out my Mix Pre-3" head explode.

Your MixPre is a long way from the two-track Nagra that Maitland says he started out with

The webinar reminded me of a video that Peter Schneider made with production sound mixer Danny Michael. From the 56 minute mark, Michael talks about the decision to record the music for 8 Mile (DP Rodrigo Prieto) live rather than to playback, and how it was done. The Marshall Mathers (Eminem)/Anthony Mackie rap battle scene is at 1:00:45. This video, which Schneider made with participation from his NYU film students, is also very good on the impact of digital on how narrative films are made. Earlier in the video, Michael talks about recording the sound for Glengarry Glen Ross (DP Juan Ruiz Anchía) and Mississippi Burning (DP Peter Biziou), and working with Louis Malle.

At Home with Danny Michael

Gotham Sound's YouTube channel also has a detailed video on the recording rig (first post, third photo) that Maitland used for West Side Story:

Explaining the West Side Story Production Sound Cart with Terence McCormack Maitland