Wicked

by Simon Hayes AMPS CAS

Like so many US and UK filmmaking collaborations, it started with a Zoom meeting. I was speaking to Jon M. Chu, who was in Los Angeles whilst I was in our music room in London’s Pinewood Studios, where I was just finishing Disney’s Snow White.

After a quick introduction, Jon got straight down to business. He said, “My instinct tells me this has got to be live; we have two actresses who are absolutely incredible singers and are completely used to performing live as they are also recording artists in their own right, but, this film is going to be SO big. Everything about it is big, the sets, the scale, the choreography, the stunts, the number of cameras I intend to use. Do you think it’s possible to record live under those circumstances?”

I responded to Jon that those are exactly the kind of scenarios that me and my crew are used to working in and that I had no doubt we could deliver live singing. The secret is in the prep: the collaboration with other departments, the symbiotic filmmaking relationships we make during those months of preparation. The analytical breaking down of the script to discover exactly what unique challenges each song would have with regards to costumes, dancers’ footfalls, wire rigs, manufactured wind and shooting style, and the way each department would work together to capture all the vocals live.

I spoke about my experiences with the live process and musicals in general, both of us bonding over our passion for the genre. Jon is an incredibly easy guy to be around; warm, welcoming with his obvious enthusiasm for cinema and performance driving the conversation. “OK, final question, how many earwigs do you carry?” Jon asked. I answered: “Seventy-five but we have access to more if required.” A smile broke out over Jon’s face and he said, “I think you understand how big this is going to be!”

Rewind five years. I was on the set of Mary Poppins Returns and was introduced to Producer Marc Platt. I knew that Marc was responsible for the stage show of Wicked and how successful it was. There were rumours that he was considering a movie version. I said to Marc, “You know I love making musicals. If you make a movie of Wicked, I’d love to be considered.” Marc gave me a wry smile and said, “Watch this space.” Over the next few years, I’d work with Marc on multiple projects and on each film, we got to know each other better and a trust developed. It was Marc who asked Jon to meet me and was instrumental in me being considered for the biggest musical in movie history.

The next day, I was officially offered the project and with absolutely no hesitation I accepted. I knew I had a monumental task in front of me after Jon had explained the size of the sets and the special effects that would be involved in the filmmaking process. That same afternoon, I got into talks with Line Producer Joan Schneider who explained that Producer David Nicksay was exploring building a music recording studio from the ground up to service all pre-records on the film. Despite the fact that it was Jon Chu’s instinct that we would record the vocals live on the movie set, we still needed to pre-record the songs for a bunch of different reasons: choreography rehearsals where the actors would not be present for, second unit, and background element shoots, extreme wide shots so we could save the actors’ voices for the closer performances that their live vocals would be used for, and as a safety in case the unthinkable happened and an actor got a sore throat or a cold that affected their voice.

The sense behind wanting our own recording studio on the lot was that we were going to be based at the newly built Sky Studios Elstree, which is an hour from Central London. David Nicksay felt that Cynthia and Ariana’s schedules would be so compressed, it would be too time-consuming to have them making the journey across London, amongst their rehearsal time, costume fittings, and all the other pre-production responsibilities they had. He could ease the load by providing a recording facility on site so that they could do their pre-records without having to leave the world of Wicked.

I was one hundred percent onboard with this plan from the get-go. It just so happened that the Music Supervisor I was working with currently on Snow White, Maggie Rodford, was also going to be joining me on Wicked, so we started to formulate a plan. Maggie’s background is in the music industry, so she sourced contacts who could supply specs for the studio build at Elstree. I made a suggestion: My longtime 2nd Unit Sound Mixer Tom Barrow, who has been with me across many musical films, also comes from a studio engineering background in the music industry, so he was brought into liase between Maggie, the construction department that would build the studio to music industry specs, and Greg Wells, who would be the Music Producer. Maggie and Tom sourced the equipment that Greg likes to use, and Tom worked with the construction department. While building the studio, Tom was cabling it up. It was quite an incredible feat and after a couple of months, we had a world-class fully functioning music recording studio built to Greg Well’s exact specs which Cynthia, Ariana, and Jon M. Chu could visit whenever they wanted.

Prep

During prep, we started to have a lot of Zoom meetings with the music & sound department. When I mix a musical, I try to create a workflow that puts the music & sound departments together into one collaborative team. We all have the same overall goals and responsibilities; delivering the best soundtrack for the movie possible: Wicked was no exception. I was introduced to the Broadway Musical Director and Arranger Stephen Oremus, who would be joining us on the movie as Executive Music Producer and one of his team, Dominick Amendum, who would be the Music Supervisor. My longtime colleague Ben Holder, Music Associate, also joined us, as well as Supervising Music Editor Jack Dolman and Music Engineer Robin Baynton, who would be working alongside Tom Barrow and Greg Wells in the music studio. Jon Chu was present in most of the meetings to guide us and describe how he envisioned each number.

In those early meetings. we devised the music strategy for Wicked. Rather than look at an overall workflow for the entire film, we looked at each number and how best to deliver that song while considering each unique challenge it presented.

There was quite a lot of concern from everyone about footfall noise the choreography would have, as there were so many cast members dancing in many of the numbers.

As the meetings progressed, we arrived at a road map that would be our starting point throughout the movie. If the actors wanted to sing live, we would support them and implement that on all solo lines. We would also assess each chorus and try to capture them live too, but we were aware that often the choruses were occurring at the same time as big dance numbers, so we were prepared to use pre-records.

In solo vocals, there is emotion and character in the voice, which is golden, and should absolutely be preserved and delivered to the cinema audiences. The solos contain the original breathing patterns and vocal efforts of the actor which will match exactly what their character was doing physically as they sang. However, when the whole cast joined in the choruses, there would more likely be choreography footfall, and unlike our main cast members. there was no guarantee that hundreds of chorus members would be accomplished singers. We found out that often the choruses benefited from being sung live with some footfall and non-singers singing as it added to a sense of rawness and reality that is hard to achieve in pre-records. A great example of this is “No one mourns the Wicked” where all the villagers join in singing with the cast.

We developed a process for capturing those big live choruses with hundreds of background artists. After feedback from Music Associate Ben Holder, who ran the rehearsals, we would decide who were the best singers and they would be assigned the seventy-five earwigs. We would then surround the set with subwoofers so that anyone not wearing an earwig could stay in tempo with the music. The thumper track would be removed in sound post. We were able to get some wonderful huge vocal performances within the acoustics of the sets that added a reality that is incredibly difficult to reproduce with a loop group in post. We were getting hundreds of villagers singing for real with all the raw emotion and effort in their voices. The really big chorus’s like “No one mourns the Wicked” reminded me of a football chant: It was beautiful but also a bit frightening hearing that many people singing with such gusto and emotion. On that sequence, we were using thirty-six kilowatts of subwoofers playing the thumper rhythm. It was quite unprecedented!

Jon Chu was really supportive of another workflow, allowing us to do a sound FX pass of the environmental noise we had tried to minimise, so that if Jon, Andy Nelson, John Marquis, and Nancy Nugent Title decided in the final mix, they would like to hear more of that set ambience, they had an FX track to reintroduce to the clean live vocals. We achieved this with earwigs on the smaller numbers and added thumper tracks to the bigger set pieces to be able to deliver ‘sync choreography’ FX.

We would then surround the set with subwoofers so that anyone not wearing an earwig could stay in tempo with the music. The thumper track would be removed in sound post. We were able to get some wonderful huge vocal performances within the acoustics of the sets that added a reality that is incredibly difficult to reproduce with a loop group in post.

In case any of our actors did not want to sing a particular number live, or their vocal cords got tired during the working day, we would have a pre-record for them to lip sync to. As part of this insurance policy, I also suggested a workflow which I have been using for a number of years: recording the pre-recorded vocals with the same boom and lav mics we would be using on the set, along with the Music Producer’s choice of mics. Greg Wells used a combination of Telefunken and Neumann vocal mics for those sessions and joining him and the music studio staff was my Key 1st Assistant Sound (Boom Operator), Arthur Fenn, who would fit a DPA 4061 lavalier mic to the actor and also rig an overhead Schoeps CMC6/MK41 boom microphone in the same position he would later use when shooting close-ups. Having Arthur in those sessions rigging the lavaliers on the actors also had an incredibly important impact on trust and relationship building before shooting as he will be the person who rigs their lavs on the shoot.

This would give Re-recording Mixer Andy Nelson the ability, if required, to blend from live vocals seamlessly into a pre-records if for any reason, it had been unachievable to deliver live vocals on the film set. Our mantra through the whole prep period was to make sure that Jon Chu, Cynthia, and Ariana had complete support and could make a decision at any point to sing live or not. We needed to be completely ready for issues beyond anyone’s control that would prevent live performances. What we didn’t know at that point was just how incredibly motivated all three filmmakers would be to capture every single performance live once we started filming! It quickly became evident on the very first day that Cynthia and Ariana were absolutely determined to sing live all day, every day. Despite the action sequences during the songs, the incredible vocal stamina required to do that was not just within their capabilities but they thrived on it.

This unwavering determination to sing live was so infectious, it gave all our other cast members the confidence to sing live as well. This was quickly becoming an absolute dream job for me and although we had the safety of the pre-records in our back pockets, every morning we would have the IEM’s out, ready to go, and capture those wonderful onset vocal performances!

When Jon Chu and Marc Platt let me know that Andy Nelson was the Re-recording Mixer on the project, I was overjoyed. Andy and I had formed a very close and special creative bond on Les Miserables. We spent many hours discussing the tracks I had delivered, his approach to his musical mixes, and everything in between. I have learned so much from Andy on what he requires and how I should deliver. Working as a team with Andy again, filled me with confidence. He made the trip out to London from LA to visit the set, and we also had regular catch-ups throughout shooting where I could bounce ideas off him and give him the latest developments. I absolutely knew that Andy would get the very best from my production tracks and his skill and dexterity with live vocals, knowing how to immersively work them into the score, along with the sound FX so that all the elements blended seamlessly as the musical DNA is unparalleled.

We decided that we would have a keyboard always available, routed to Pro Tools. If the actors needed to waver from the original musical tempo during their live solo either for emotional or performance reasons, or the camera move required them to, then Ben Holder could accompany them. We would be able to weave in and out of keyboard and locked Pro Tools music pre-records to their IEM’s during a take whenever required.

My crew on main unit would be the same 1st AS duo who have been with me for my entire career: Arthur Fenn and Robin Johnson. Arthur’s additional responsibilities alongside boom operating is liasing with the costume department regarding lavalier rigging and then during the shoot rigging cast radio mics. Robin’s additional responsibilities are everything technical from software through to hardware, including frequency coordination with other departments and our own department’s frequency plots. We were using more than fifty frequencies on Wicked every day in our department alone. Robin is also responsible for interfacing between Pro Tools, Live Keyboard, Lighting Desk, Video, and my production sound cart, as well as running the induction loops we prefer to use for earwigs.

Taz Fairbanks joined us again for 2nd AS duties which includes assisting all of us in our specific roles, rigging the Voice of God (VOG), the Music PA, and carpeting sets to reduce footfalls on a shot-by-shot basis. She always had Harry King, our 3rd AS, to assist her (the JBL PA speakers we use are a two-person lift). We had twenty-four of them at our disposal to ensure that however large our sets were, we had enough kilowatts of sound reenforcement to fill the space.

We rig our Music PA and our Voice of God systems as separate entities. The Music PA speakers will be positioned as close as possible to our actors to reduce tempo delay. When the cast is preparing for the camera, to roll it can be distracting and fatiguing to hear the 1st AD giving loud instructions to the crew over the VOG system.

Our Pro Tools On-Set Music Editor, Josh Winslade, was a new addition to our main unit team, having worked with us on our previous film Snow White, as a 2nd Unit and rehearsals Pro Tools Operator. We were impressed with Josh and when the position became available, I asked him to join us on Wicked. We also decided to use me and my team’s experiences on the last five musical films together to completely redesign our Pro Tools rig. This was an excellent step forward as each film had taught us more about the unique requirements of Pro Tools on musicals, and I wanted to build a rig specifically for the challenges of Wicked, and one that was future-proof.

It was time to start technical recces, and the Heads of Department (HOD’s) made our way to a vast farm about twenty-five miles outside London where our exterior sets were being constructed. I cannot put into words just how awe-inspiring and massive these sets were. I’ve been working on movie sets for thirty-plus years and have never seen anything on this scale before. They were beautiful but absolutely huge. There was a whole village. Shiz University included a boating river and fountains. It was clear that we were going to have to be extremely progressive with our RF acquisition. It wasn’t just a case of moving the sound cart closer when you are attached to Pro Tools, a keyboard and distributing PA and VOG feeds. We decided that we would off-board our RF receivers in each location so we could set up a sound & music base camp out of two trucks on the edge of the set and simply move the RF receiver cart closer to the action when required rather than disrupt the entire sound & music rigs which would have cost us valuable time. Our receivers and antennas could be rigged high up overlooking the huge sets and we had one hundred metres of AES cable drums so that the vans could park alongside each other outside the set. Van 1 was Production Sound, van 2 was Pro Tools, and live keyboards with huge 50-inch monitors so every nuance of the performance could be seen to provide absolutely seamless frame-accurate cueing for Pro Tools and keyboard. The one hundred metres of AES cable meant our antennas and receivers could follow the cameras and cast around the huge, expansive backlot sets.

I contacted the brilliant Gaffer, David Smith, and asked about his plans for generator placement. I have worked with David many times in my career, and he supports production sound and will always provide helpful solutions to difficult circumstances. The issue on the Wicked location build was that due to the size of the set, David would need multiple generators supplying power to a different area of the set. All the generators would need to be running to provide the whole set with light. David said, “I’m going to have a gennie in each corner of each set. How far do they need to be away for you not to hear them and whatever distance that is, we will run cables and cable bridges if necessary.” I asked that each genie to be one hundred yards from the edge of the set and that is what David and his fantastic electrical crew delivered! Amazing, we were surrounded by genies, but we could not hear them.

Next, we started thinking about the earwig requirements. It was me and Arthur Fenn’s opinion that because Ariana and Cynthia were used to wearing cabled, full-range in-ear monitors (IEM’s) on stage, the bandwidth and quality of a hidden earwig would not be sufficient enough for them. Earwig systems are adequate when they are simply being fed an electronic keyboard as the frequencies they are required to reproduce are mainly within the midrange. Having listened to Greg Wells’ music mixes for the backing tracks, they were extremely deep in the bass and complex musically. I also figured that like an IEM mix on stage, Cynthia and Ariana would want to hear their own voices in their IEM’s and would require individual mixes. I contacted Pablo Helman, the VFX Supervisor, who instantly made me feel at ease. Pablo is an extremely collaborative filmmaker who completely understood why our actors would need full-range IEM’s. It helped enormously that Pablo is also a musician who plays in a band in his downtime. A plan was made to get Cynthia and Ari custom-made, skin-tone matched full-range IEM’s that could be used as one-ear mono or two-ear stereo units, and Arthur would work closely with hair and makeup to hide cables and be sensitive to Pablo’s paint out by making the IEM’s as low profile as possible.

We still decided to get all these cast members earwigs too, so they had a choice and if they decided to, sing live with a keyboard backing. We could offer them their earwig instead to help Pablo. Both IEM’s and earwigs would be custom moulded to each actor’s ear canal for three reasons: A custom fit device is more comfortable to wear all day, it is also easier to hide as it sits a little deeper in the ear canal, and third, it is less likely to fall out on a dance number.

We have been working with Deke Frickey at Puretone IEM’s since Les Miserables and he has become used to working with myself and Arthur, liasing with production in prep to schedule Deke and his audiologist the task of taking ear impressions and skin-tone photographs of each actor to enable personal IEM’s and earwigs to be manufactured. We have this process down to a fine art nowadays and I can’t thank Deke and Puretone enough for their unwavering professionalism and support.

Sky Studios Elstree was a hub of activity despite the fact we were still months away from shooting. The recording studio was finished, and Tom Barrow and Robin Baynton were assisting Music Producer Greg Wells, who was starting to pre-record Cynthia and Ari in between their rehearsal time. Arthur Fenn was rigging their mics, and Josh Winslade, our On-Set Pro Tools Operator, started to work alongside the choreography department, providing music playback on the big group dance routine rehearsals with a 10kw JBL PA system to really create an immersive atmosphere in the rehearsal space. Often it sounded like a rave was going on in there! This time was incredibly helpful for Josh to give him a couple of months to get very familiar with the songs, the routines, and potential cue points. He would also be part of each presentation of the routines to Jon Chu and his longtime Choreographer Chris. Josh would have a pretty good idea of how Jon was planning to shoot sequences, which, informed him of potential requirements on each number for Pro Tools

As we approached the start of principal photography, I reached out to Jon Chu’s longtime sound post team, Supervising Sound Editors John Marquis and Nancy Nugent Title. The collaboration between production and post sound is something I have promoted since the early stages of my career and I wanted to make sure I was going to deliver exactly what Jon and Nancy required and check with them that my creative choices, workflow, and track designation worked for them. Nancy and I jumped onto a Zoom call where I described the workflow I had designed for Wicked, alongside screen sharing my workflow document. I made sure that anything that Nancy asked for was delivered and I adjusted my workflow to include anything she wanted. I described my use of Schoeps Super CMITS in high background noise situations on both interior and exteriors, explaining exactly how the processed track of the mic worked and set her mind at ease, letting her know I would always record the unprocessed “CMIT” track too, so she had a choice on each boom mic. I also explained that using two lavaliers on an actor was standard operating procedure for me on musicals to deal with either noisy costumes (two different mic positions) or extreme dynamic range (two different transmitter gain levels). Nancy was one hundred percent supportive of my suggested workflow. I also gave her a breakdown of my 32-track dailies delivery to Picture Editor Myron Kerstein and 1st Assistant Editor Lara Khachooni; I would designate seven of my Scorpio tracks to what I felt were the most important stems from Pro Tools, so that editorial had that information within the ISO tracks. They would have immediate access to those stems before Josh Winslade delivered the day’s Pro Tools sessions on a separate drive. This meant that Myron had a streamlined system and could start cutting the music immediately as the synced rushes were delivered.

These tracks were:
Music Left
Music Right
Vocal Only
Music Timecode
Click Track
Mono Music
Live Keyboard

All the above tracks were delivered at zero gain.
My musical workflow uses two mix tracks: Mix track one contains a mix of dialog and live vocals. Mix track two contains mono music, with gain adjusted to an appropriate level so that when mix one and mix two are played together in mono, the vocals and music work together. Most Picture Editors nowadays are working at an absolute minimum in stereo in Avid, but many, Myron included, are working in Dolby 5.1

If I presented a mono mix track containing live vocals and music, it would require picture editorial to go back into my ISO tracks and completely remix the vocal mics to have clean vocals to add to the 5.1 music in the Avid.

For dailies uploaded on internet platforms for Director, HOD’s, and studio executives, mix tracks one & two are mixed so that they inhabit both L&R speakers on laptops and iPads, which gives the dailies viewers a completely mono mix of live vocals and music playback (or live keyboard) with appropriate gain levels so everything can be heard. It is a system I designed for musicals and always works extremely well.

Silent Wind

I contacted our Special Effects Supervisor, Paul Corbould. He knew exactly what I wanted to talk about having collaborated with me in the past: Silent Wind. He invited to me to the huge workshop where his team was based on the studio lot. I met Paul at his office, and he asked me to follow him down to the manufacturing floor. When we walked in there were about ten of his team with a collection of different devices lined up for a show-and-tell. Paul explained to me that as soon as he knew it was a musical and I was mixing it, he suspected we would be recording live. He told me that for SFX, there were a number of very challenging sequences that required wind and for that reason, he had asked his team to build about five different-sized Silent Wind systems based on his designs. The basic premise of Silent Wind is to keep the motorised fans away from the set and pipe in the wind though ducts that could be aimed and operated by the SFX team. Paul had taken different strategies based on previous designs and built some systems which were bigger and placed the huge squirrel fans outside the studio walls, with large diameter ducts coming in through the elephant doors or cable holes in the studio wall. If the elephant doors were used, he was also having construction fabricate soundproofed “bungs” which sealed around the door and the ducts to recreate an acoustic seal. He also had his team build smaller units where the squirrel fans would actually be inside the studio walls but outside the sets themselves. These devices used smaller diameter ducts, but were extremely mobile and did not require much pre-planning or pre-rigging. The fans were placed in soundproofed ply boxes on castor wheels so they could be moved incredibly fast by his team and get to areas that needed Silent Wind when a last-minute request from Jon Chu or Alice Brooks, our fantastic DP, decided a shot would benefit from wind that had not been originally planned.

The five different systems were all variations of this theme that gave the SFX team the correct tool for any requirement, including those last-minute requests for wind that can so often have a negative effect on the production sound tracks. Paul and his team had thought of everything, and I realised just how fortunate I have been in the relationships I have built up over the years with our fantastic UK SFX Supervisors. They have completely embraced the Silent Wind workflow and have made incredible progress on every movie.

Principal Photography

Onto the shoot and one of the huge collaborations filling me with gratitude was with Costume Designer Paul Tazewell and his team. On a film of the scale of Wicked, we have to plan for flawless lavalier tracks at all times. Although I love the booms and have the ability and staff to run three booms at all times, there isn’t always going to be the ability to get the booms close enough on a 3-camera shoot. It is never my intention to try and negotiate with Directors on films this size for close boom coverage. If it happens, that’s great and we will be ready to deliver those tracks, but if the Director and DP’s strategy is to shoot sizes that do not complement the boom, then me and my team are absolutely ready with high-quality lav tracks. One of the very first lessons I learned when testing for Les Miserables was that when recording live singing, unlike dialog, it is not flattering to have any air or width around the vocals. Camera perspective is irrelevant, the vocals need to be closely mic’d otherwise, the shift in perspective creates an uncomfortable attention to the picture editing process for the audience. For this reason, I needed to have two lavaliers on Cynthia and Ariana at all times. This was for different reasons. Cynthia was wearing a witch’s hat in a lot of the scenes where she was singing live. By rigging the brim of her hat with a DPA 4061 lavalier which was about an inch above her eyebrows, we had an absolutely outstanding close lav position that sounded as good as a close boom. Not only was it in perfect proximity to her mouth but it also followed her, just like a boom, on her head turns. However, over the years, I have learned that although hat rigs are great, there is a risk that the actor will want to remove their hat at any point during a scene and it is my absolute redline not to try and negotiate or influence an actor’s instinctive performance in any way. I am there to support the cast. For this reason, I knew that we also needed a body mic on Cynthia as well, which we could immediately cross-fade to if and when her hat came off.

For Ariana, the reason we needed two lavs was slightly different. Her beautiful Glinda dresses were often low cut and frilly. We needed to go into a position that exposed the lav to the least amount of clothing rustle. That often meant placing the mic on the side of her dress. This sounded great if Ariana was looking directly forward, but the pickup pattern would fall off severely if she turned her head to the side her mic was not on. So, we put a mic on both sides of her dresses, in the mirror image of each other. This meant that Nancy, the Dialog Editor, could cut between the two mics depending on where Ariana was looking as she spoke or sung. It also had the added benefit of giving Nancy two choices on dialog or vocals where she could pick the lav with the least amount of clothing rustle. It was a win-win!

Whenever we needed to place the lavs in positions to avoid clothing rustle that caused unusable or poorer quality production sound but was now slightly visible to the cameras, a quick collaborative chat with Pablo Herman, VFX Supervisor, resulted in an immediate agreement that he would disguise the mic in VFX. I am not saying we put the mics in full view like Les Miserables (well, maybe a couple of times!), but we knew the mics were edgy visually and could be seen on some angles on close-ups. Pablo’s support resulted in our costume department having complete confidence that everyone had their backs and that working together as one big team would ensure that no lavs would be seen in the finished film. Jon Chu was completely supportive of this workflow. The first time he noticed Ariana’s lavs, I remember distinctly Jon said, “Hey, I can see Ari’s mics” to 1st Assistant Sound Arthur Fenn, who was usually right next to him on the set. Arthur replied, “We’re all good sir, Pablo is dealing with them.” To which Jon just said, “OK, great,” and never mentioned seeing lav mics again.

During the filmmaking process, every day was a magnificent insight into remarkable talent. From Jon’s incredible energy and his ability to make his cast feel supported by building an atmosphere of playfulness. He encouraged them to try different things as they performed. He was ready to hear their suggestions and to collaborate fully with his film crew. His DP Alice Brooks has been working with him for a long time and the respect and understanding they have for each other really helped create a unique atmosphere on the set where, as a cohesive filmmaking team, we were encouraged to explore many possibilities. When I made suggestions to Jon, he was always open to my requests, but at the same time, steered this monumental ship called Wicked, with a steady and experienced hand. It was as if this project was completely meant to be under his leadership; he created an openness and trust on the set that was inspiring.

Behind the scenes on Wicked, a key process of our entire team facilitated the ability to support not only the cast’s live performances but also camera moves and lighting cues. This was an extremely close and symbiotic relationship between Ben Holder, who played the keyboard during performances that were free of tempo and full of emotion, and Josh, who would seamlessly cue the Pro Tools music tracks to blend with Cynthia and Ari’s IEM’s from live keyboard to pre-recorded music.

Arthur, the 1st AS, was on the edge of frame on our live sound & music comms whispering positional cues to myself as I was mixing the live vocals. We worked as one to give the actors unwavering perfect musical accompaniment, but also to ensure the vocal mix was in perfect sync with the camera moves and cues of the filmmakers.

The Challenges

Each shooting day threw up more challenges. One of them was the Wizard’s head that needed to talk in real time with real visual head movement to our cast. We had been planning to trigger the Wizard’s head with a pre-recorded vocal and timecode but it became evident during the rehearsal that Jon wanted more fluidity and an ability to riff with the dialog. We put a DPA cheek mic on the SFX technician who was controlling the Wizard’s head and lips with a joystick ‘drone’ type controller, and put his voice though the same plug-ins and FX in Pro Tools that we had used to create the booming, bassey, and synthetic Wizard’s voice in pre-records. He could then speak in real time to the cast through 10kw of JBL speakers, his voice completely synthesised with Jon Chu’s approved “Wizard” voice.
During their duets, Cynthia and Ariana’s voices complemented each other, the harmonies were breathtaking. Whether we were in the studio or at the huge ‘backlot’ set outside of West London, their live singing was incredible. One of the technical innovations we were using for our boom microphones was the new Schoeps CMD42 digital preamp, which takes the performance into the digital domain in the mic itself. On ninety percent of the movie, we used booms with AES cables back to the mixer. When we would get the booms into close-up positions on the more intimate and emotional vocal performances, it delivered spectacular results. On some of the massive exterior builds, Alice and David Smith (Gaffer) were using multiple soft suns on cranes above the set which meant we used our Schoeps Super CMITS to provide a level of off-axis cancellation of unwanted background noise, but of course, we always provided both ‘processed’ and ‘unprocessed’ tracks to Nancy Nugent Title, the dialog editor. I am a great believer in delivering choices, not just for the Director, but for all of my colleagues in sound post, too.

One of my lasting memories of Wicked will be recording Cynthia Erivo’s performance of “Defying Gravity.” Throughout the shoot, there had been behind-the-scenes conversations between me, the music department, SFX, the grips, the stunt department, and the whole shooting crew which focussed on the fact that we were going to spend a week flying Cynthia on wires in extremely dynamic and athletic movements as she sang.

Everyone would say to me, “Surely we can’t do that live?”
“How would you capture it if she’s twenty-five feet up in the air flying from one end of the stage to the other?”
“You know, we need big wind in her cape.”
“It will be too athletically demanding for her to sing as she’s doing somersaults on wires,” etc., etc.

The problems and preconceived doubts and issues kept coming in my direction. All I could say was, “Guys, we have to be ready for anything. Don’t assume this will be a pre-record. I know it looks difficult, but we’ve got to be ready to support Cynthia and if she says she wants to sing live, I don’t want anything to restrict her.”

Carefully, we were a huge supportive film family ensuring that we were making everything as quiet as possible. From the stunt team and its incredibly complex wire rigs, to the grips and their camera cranes, which were tracked at speed moving in and pulling out, to the SFX department that rigged all of their various silent wind strategies.

Finally, the shoot day arrived. Cynthia had been rehearsing the athletic movements of flying with the stunt department and as she was rigged with her wires, she exuded confidence in the process. Jon Chu asked her if she’d like to sing live and Cynthia’s response was simply, “Of course!” There was an exchange of looks amongst all of us in the crew, as it instantly became clear we had done exactly the right thing rigging the Silent Wind and putting in the preparation work to facilitate live singing on an incredibly complex stunt sequence. SFX technicians brought the Silent Wind hoses onto the set and skillfully positioned them so that wherever Cynthia flew in the huge stage, she would have a jet of directional wind hitting her costume to open her cape.

We had the DPA 4061 in the brim of her hat and we also had 1st AS Arthur Fenn on a Schoeps Super CMIT wireless boom with a digital Zaxcom 743 transmitter that could send both processed and unprocessed AES signals back to the sound cart. The boom pole was covered in a blue sleeve, and we were using a Cinela Piano zeppelin to protect the mic from the wind which was also covered in a custom-made Bubblebee high-wind cover in chroma key blue fur. Making the boom pole and mic completely blue and putting it on a radio link gave Arthur the ability to follow Cynthia in close-up at all times and capture at least seventy percent of her live singing on the boom. The DPA in her hat also had wind protection and sounded absolutely superb. Again, we were able to deliver choices to sound post. Cynthia’s ability to sing perfectly again and again as she looped the loop and did somersaults was nothing short of extraordinary. Although she was pitch perfect in every take, there was also a truth and reality in her delivery and breathing patterns although subtle, sounded like she was singing as she flew rather than stood still recording in a vocal booth. This was so successful that it just made the sequence sound so visceral and exiting. There was an element in her vocal that just brought the scene to life!

Thank you to my team, without you, it would be impossible: You’re the very best. –Simon Hayes AMPS CAS

There were too many moments on Wicked that were unique, but the one element threaded through our experience was the respect for capturing live production sound on the movie set despite the fact we were shooting on one of the biggest, most extravagant and immersive movies ever made.

Jon M. Chu, Marc Platt, and their incredible cast were completely supportive of the premise that original performance, whether that be dialog or sung vocals, were to be lovingly nurtured and preserved. No matter what the challenges were for the sound & music team, we were treated as creative collaborators, part of this huge team who were brought together to make something truly special.

The set was such a happy place to work. There were times when we had all the background dancers in, and as the end of the day approached, Jon would quietly say to Arthur, “let’s hit some tunes on wrap.” When Jack Ravenscroft, our 1st AD, said, “That’s a wrap,” we would have some drum and bass lined up on Pro Tools and the set would erupt into something similar to a huge Ibiza-style outdoor rave with all the professional dancers instantly freestyling their best moves, and Ari, Cynthia, and Jon Chu vogueing in the middle, all having a crazy party, supported by a sound system that was louder than many clubs with the subwoofers banging the bass. On more than one occasion, I had production staff saying, “We’ve got to turn the music off, this set needs turning around with a swing gang overnight and we’ve got to get the cast and crew out of here.”

No one wanted to go home!

No matter how much I try and articulate the filmmaking relationship, nothing can express the magic and fluidity of this “dance” we do on set each day when all factors are in a beautiful rhythm. This is filmmaking in its most raw and fragile state. One poorly timed element and the dance loses lock step. This is the “dance” that myself, Arthur, Robin, Ben, and Josh performed again and again with integrity and flare. Blink and we’re behind, be too cautious, and we’ve lost the magic. That dance is what gets me up in the morning, that dance is why I work in this crazy business!

Main Unit
Arthur Fenn, Key 1st AS
Robin Johnson, 1st AS
Josh Winslade, Pro Tools Music Editor
Taz Fairbanks,
2nd AS/Sound Coordinator
Harry King, 3rd AS
Emily Compton, 3rd AS

2nd Unit
Tom Barrow, Sound Mixer
Alan Hill, Additional Sound Mixer
Ben Jeffes, 1st AS
Ash Sinani, Pro Tools Music Editor
Billy Hayes, 2nd AS
Jamie Scott, 3rd AS

Splinter Unit
Simon Norman, Sound Mixer
Billy Hayes, 1st AS
Jake Hickey, 2nd AS
Zak Ferguson, 3rd AS
Jake Elliot, Pro Tools Music Editor
Dan Leigh, Pro Tools Music Playback

Music
Stephen Oremus,
Executive Music Producer
Dom Amendum, Music Producer
Greg Wells, Music Producer
Jack Dolman, Supervising Music Editor
Maggie Rodford, Music Supervisor
Ben Holder, Music Associate
Robin Baynton, Music Engineer

Sound Post
Andy Nelson, Re-recording Mixer
John Marquis, Re-recording Mixer and Supervising Sound Editor, and Supervising Sound Editor Nancy
Nugent Title

The names above are all one team in complete and utter collaboration. Music & sound together on a journey of support, sensitivity, creativity, and exploration. All completely in tune and playing together like an orchestra.