Pro Techniques from Bruce C. Marshall

By Randy Alberts

ProControl w/Durrough meters at AT&T Digital Media in Los Angeles.

Gazing into a computer monitor until sunrise after having just recorded the longest show in Academy Awards history is about as good as it gets for Bruce C. Marshall. Kidding aside, the helpful chief digital audio engineer at AT&T Digital Media Center pulled off a not-so-minor miracle by first recording then editing, sweetening, remixing, and delivering the international broadcast version of the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony. The show was uplinked to four satellites and broadcast to 82 countries — all within less than 10 hours after the last acceptance speech — using Pro Tools, ProControl, and his trusty Mbox.

"I used our 24-channel MIX³ system, three 888|24 I/Os and a 32-fader ProControl for the primary record," Marshall recalls. "I also needed a quick, no-hassle redundant record for the show, which I did with my new Mbox, an Apple Titanium laptop and a 30GB FireWire drive. Due to the obvious implications, both of these systems needed to operate flawlessly all week in preparation, during the entire four-and-a-half hour show itself, and then long into the night for the Awards' international version."

How does one prepare for and boil down a 4 and 1/2-hour live stereo telecast to a 90-minute, no-commercial show for the rest of the world to watch before the Best Actress even orders breakfast the next morning? Below, Marshall explains each element and step he encountered in preparing the audio portion of this year's gala Oscar® telecast for a global re-telecast, managing to suggest three useful tips for other Pro Tools users along the way.

And It Goes Like This…

"First and certainly foremost was getting the show's audio from the new Kodak Theater to our room a few miles south," Marshall points out. "This was accomplished using three Pacific Bell fiber loops, each with its own breakdown of signals. The first loop carried the ISO audience or house microphones summed at the truck and combined with the sweeteners on one channel, while the second channel contained the domestic Western Hemisphere program. Most importantly for our purposes was the second loop, which carried the clean announcer feed from Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland's tracks in mono on channel 1, and on channel 2 were John Williams and the live orchestra. For me on the Pro Tools side, these two feeds and four audio channels were all I needed to accomplish my audio hanky-panky."

After three days of setup, some additional wiring, establishing a house timecode feed, and a getting a late afternoon line check from Pac Bell, Marshall and team were ready to record. Rolling five minutes prior to the show's start, he was able to integrate his two-channel, timecode-less Mbox/laptop solution for backup by free-rolling record from the start of the show using the same 48 kHz sample rate and 16-bit depth as the Pro Tools session and recording just the clean audience and ISO live orchestra feeds.

Setting up his Pro Tools session for the edited master he was expecting to have come his way, online editor Brian Waingrow edited to one primary 90-minute record and two 45-minute backups, each with the same audio across all tracks. With Channels 1 and 2 being mono mixed and 3 and 4 designated the redundant "just-in-case" tracks, he didn't have to wait for the entire show to be "pulled up" before getting busy in Pro Tools. Marshall's first step was to create a template for his sweetening session, allowing him to import his original tracks, record the newly edited tracks from D-Beta in sync with the "to be aired" timeline, and record voiceover tracks when the talent ultimately arrived late Monday morning for the last-minute session. All of Marshall's original record tracks plus Donald Sutherland's voiceover tracks were imported to this template before he did layback onto the printmaster D-Beta with the sweetened tracks.

"Since I use MachineControl," says Marshall, "I was able to control the entire setup very easily from my main unit without really having to leave my seat. I was ready to get to work as soon as the first tape arrived: I simply loaded the tape, forwarded to the first edit with transport set to 'Transport Pro Tools,' marked my ins and outs, and then recorded the first edit into my two-channel work tracks. I continued to record all of the additional edits according to the producer's notes that came with the first tape and included close to 30-second pads on either side of each edit for safety — almost like having an OMF file."

Pro Technique 1 —
Maintaining a digital signal path
When doing sessions that have very tight time constraints and dire circumstances should one not finish on time, Marshall suggests maintaining a digital signal path throughout the production, similar to the one described above.

"Make certain there is absolutely no compression or equalization between you and your editor unless it has been predetermined to be necessary and only if you have the same equipment that is calibrated and matched to the same settings," he cautions. "Otherwise, you will never be able to punch-in seamlessly on your printmaster."

Pro Technique 2 —
Visually setting punch-in levels
Marshall offers up this tip for eyeballing and setting the level match of any audio punch-in. He prefers Durrough meters for the real thing, but suggests that plug-ins like Digidesign's SurroundScope multi-channel metering plug-in can work just as well. He says to place a set of peak-hold meters in line with the outputs of the master record machine, a Sony DVW A500 in this case, and another pair set in line with Pro Tools' stereo output.

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Click image to enlarge

"On a set of four vertical meters, I like to set the inside pair to reflect the output of the printmaster and the outside two meters to be my Pro Tools outs," explains Marshall. "I accomplished this split with the meter output on my Martinsound MultiMAX surround monitor controller, but this could be done with a plug-in such as SurroundScope, using the digitized, sweetened tracks. Of course, if you don't happen to have SurroundScope or a set of meters around, you can always use the metering on the record machine itself to visually set up the match and switch between PB/EE and PB on the deck if it is within eyesight or reach."

Pro Technique 3 —
Taking helpful markers during long sessions
When working in a session with a very long timeline that also happens to share tracks imported from another session that were recorded with house code-based (military hours) timecode, Marshall says it's helpful to take markers at key times along the record tracks.

"These might include commercial breaks, orchestral cues, or good, clean applause sections you might be able to use later on as 'bridges' over edits," Marhsall concludes before leaping back into another edit session. "You can imagine trying to find a section in your original record that is at, oh, let's say 16:23:35:02 when your printmaster edit starts at 1:00:00:00. Yuck!"

Marshall further explained the step-by-step workings of capturing, sweetening, remixing, and delivering the international broadcast version of the 2002 Academy Awards all within the Pro Tools environment. Rolling two record decks with 45-minute loads and a third primary air record deck with a 90-minute load, he says it's best to not have to wait for a complete edit before getting started with audio edits when working with linear-based video editors.

"For this Academy Awards show it was essential that I not wait to get started with my edits," Marshall continues. "This might not have been necessary if we had been working in AVID land to begin with, where OMF would have been preferable and more flexible, of course."

Finished by 6:30 AM the next morning with help from L.A-based production engineer Rick Greyerbiehl and "Pro Tools goddess" Katrina Bitner, Marshall had but a single voiceover session with Donald Sutherland left to do to button up the show and deliver everything by 9 AM to make their ever-pending satellite call. After editing 17 Awards acceptance segments down to a single montage with voiceover and turning the original 4 and 1/2 hour show into a 90-minute version in one intense overnight session, he then had only 45 minutes left to sync record Mr. Sutherland's voiceover. Of course, within that time he also had to edit and sweeten whatever was necessary, layback that insert, and check the tape and run everything to the playback facility by airtime.

Donald Sutherland and Bruce C. Marshall

"Not like there were 82 countries waiting or anything," laughs the unflappable Marshall. "I had anticipated the worst and had already created a session template that contained all the tracks I would need from the previous night's session. I imported it into Pro Tools along with one that contained my voice over tracks and routing. Using this template, I was able to get our talent into our v.o. booth, record him with music and FX playback, and then edit multiple takes and layback without ever skipping a beat! Our studio does not contain any conventional audio consoles. Every signal is routed via Pro Tools, ProControl, and our Z Systems digital router, plus all analog routing is handled with our third 888|24 I/O, including even talkback and slate microphones. This has proven to be a serious lifesaver for us."