On Sunday March 2, stars across the film industry will gather at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles for the 97th Academy Awards. Production Sound Mixer Paul Sandweiss is once again the Audio Director for this year’s prestigious event, working alongside a team of highly respected and experienced directors, engineers, and mixers. In this craft interview, Paul discusses how the industry has changed since his first Academy Awards show in 1978, his approach to mixing audio for global audiences, his love for the industry, and more.
1. You’re mixing the 97th Academy Awards on a Calrec Apollo in NEP Denali’s Summit unit. Can you talk about the Calrec workflow? What do you find especially helpful when planning your approach?
The routing on this show is quite complicated with all the international feeds and the other stuff that comes through here such as the audience mics and dialogue, the podiums and RF mics, all the playback elements from audio and video playback sources. The orchestra and music performances are mixed in the music truck, but their mix feeds come through here to mix in with our broadcast.
The nice thing is when I come in, Hugh Healy who’s our Chief Technical Engineer, and has been for years, hits a button on the Calrec Apollo console and I have last year’s show in front of me. It means the management of all that is fairly straightforward. Everything is preset; I’m going to adjust things like panning, level, microphone gains, EQ, reverbs, and such, for example, but I’m already in a good spot, especially as far as the insane in and out patching. I’m starting where we left off last year, which is really nice.
When you’re working on a brand-new show you have to start from scratch and create everything, but for this show, it’s the same Calrec console, the same outboard gear, and the same team that we’ve had in place for many years. It’s even the same venue for so many years. Pablo Munguia is on Pro Tools and Hugh’s making sure we’re technically safe. In the music trailer, we have Music Mixer Biff Dawes and Orchestra Mixer Tommy Vicari. Patrick Baltzel is at front of house, and Mike Parker and Tom Pesa are on Monitors to keep the artists happy on stage. It’s a team who’ve done the show forever, and it’s great to work with and see everybody. It is an ultimate team effort. We do a few other shows through the year where we’re altogether, but this is a big fun effort for us.
2. What happens from the starting point on day one up to the main broadcast?
This show is probably the most organised of the shows that I’ve done over many years, and we have two days of technical ESU to get everything working. There are many audio assistants on the stage wiring up all the audience mics, putting in the RFs and antennas, and building the orchestra. Lots of PA speakers to be hung, and lots of onstage monitors for artists’ needs. By midday on day two we’ll make sure every microphone and feed between us, front of house, the monitors, and the music truck work, and that gets us to a rehearsal standpoint.
The nice thing about this show is we spend Wednesday and Thursday running all the acts, top to bottom with production to see if we have any issues. We use stand-ins, but we can fix any elements that arise. We look to see if acts have any traffic flow issues, things like that all get sorted out.
Friday is what we call our ‘music day’ when we rehearse all the performances with the orchestra and the artists. Then Saturday is typically when we bring in all the presenters and go through everything. We let them see their eyeline and what camera they’re reading to. We may need to put a number of wireless RF lav mics on many of the talent and find out what outfit they will be wearing so we can match the colour of the mics with their wardrobes. On Saturday night we do a run through, and on Sunday we do a full dress rehearsal with ABC network coordination, and then we are ready to go to air, after a bit of makeup and hair. It’s well organised and well oiled. There are times when things go awry, and you have to be prepared so we have backups to things that we hope we don’t have to use. Most people can’t hear the difference between good and great, but they can hear the difference between good and nothing, so we try and avoid missing any sounds as best we can.
3. How many Academy Awards have you worked on?
In 1978, I was a maintenance engineer, and I worked for a company called Wally Heider Recording. Wally’s trucks were known around the world to be the finest, you always used them for live events. Back then, I was doing what Hugh Healy does but in an analogue environment, so no Pro Tools and we barely had RF mics. I worked my way to being a mixer and in 1991 or 1992 they asked me if I would mix the show. I was still in my early thirties mixing mostly award or variety shows like the American Music Awards, Solid Gold, Star Search, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, Billboard Music Awards, MTV Awards, and Espy Awards. Working in analogue was very different back then, but the Oscars was a fun show and I enjoyed the people, the performers, and all the camaraderie. It was before the American Idols and all these other shows we did that everybody watched. It was a fun event to be a part of.
I worked on the show through the mid-nineties until they had a director change, and they brought someone else in. Then maybe 12 or 15 years ago they had another director change, and my dear old pal Don Mischer was producing and directing the awards and asked me to come back and I’ve been back ever since, and happy to still get that call every year.
4. In that last ten or twelve years how has the technology enabled you to adapt to all the different changes?
There’s some things that have made it easier and some that have made it more difficult. There’s a lot of stage contamination with noise generated from the screens and fans. That type of noise is hard, it’s not like a hum where you just go and notch it out, it’s kind of broadband. It makes it a little more difficult to get a good room tone and keep it consistent throughout. It’s also changed in terms of the number of inputs; we have a lot of wireless microphones now. We used to have one or two hardwired podiums, but now we have two RF podiums, a pop-up mic, and some additional backup to that. Almost everything is RF these days, so you really need somebody to be watching your spectrum to prevent anyone walking in here and turning something on that suddenly hits your frequency. You need to have a team that really watches over and protects you from bad things like that happening.
5. What do you enjoy most about working on these really big prestigious events?
When you’re the sound engineer you can only mix what’s presented to you but it’s so nice when you get a great performance or a really lovely speech. This show still has that classy old school vibe to it, which I grew up with and I really like. It has elegant walks, beautiful sets and lighting design, beautiful wardrobes, and a great live orchestra. It’s just awesome having big, beautiful water cooler moments. You want people on Monday to say, ‘wow that was great’. It’s also a great cool, fun hang with so many old friends and colleagues.
6. How do the requirements of entertainment clients differ to other shows you’ve worked on?
The Academy Awards is very similar to other entertainment shows except that people know it’s a worldwide audience. Shows like the Country Music Awards, American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, or MTV Awards are a local audience. There are a lot of people, but when you start feeding out to the world it’s a bit different. You want everybody to have a great experience and to say nice kind things. There are times when things go wrong, like strange electrical occurrences that we hope to avoid, but we have backup and can get around it if that does happen.
7. When did you first start working with Calrec and how long have you been using their technology?
The Q2 was one of my favourite boards, it was a really wonderful sounding analogue board back in the day. I think it was installed in 1996 or 97 and I used it quite a few times. The shows have evolved since then. There are so many feeds that have to go downstream of me, so we have to make a mix minus of various things. Consoles can handle all that now with layers and the crazy number of inputs and outputs they have. It makes Hugh’s job easier.
I’m still managing a huge surface, and even on one layer it’s a lot to keep an eye on. We don’t want consoles to get any bigger! Back in the day, you’d have to go way down to the end of the console to adjust something and you couldn’t really hear what you were adjusting because you’d take yourself out of the pocket. Now, having layers is very helpful, it absolutely is.
8. What are some of the typical challenges you encounter, and which features on Calrec consoles are especially useful?
I think the layout of this particular Calrec Apollo console for me is wonderful. I like the feeling of it. On some consoles there are too many things going on that your hands bump into. On these live shows, it’s not like mixing a record where you put something up and then listen to it, you’re continually moving. Somebody comes out and you open that fader, you have to move your audience or grab an EVS, you’re moving a lot of things around. Years ago, I used to wear a tuxedo, and if I had a long-sleeved shirt, it would grab a fader cap and all of a sudden, the fader cap would pop off! So, I wear short-sleeved shirts when I mix so I don’t have that issue.
This particular Apollo is a really well-laid-out and well-thought-out board, and I can see a lot of information that I need to see. Mixing shows, you’re often looking ahead, you know a scene’s coming up where five artists are going to be on RF mics, and you want to see those and maybe preview them while you’re doing something else.
Sometimes you can do that in commercials and sometimes not, and as we start streaming more and there are no commercials, it’s even crazier. While a band is performing, another band is trying to soundcheck, but you can’t bother the audience with that, so you have to have more and more operators doing things quietly. Streaming is going to present a lot more challenges because of not having commercial breaks.
9. Your first Primetime Emmy award was in 1989 and your most recent was for coverage of the 2020 Academy Awards; what has been your personal standout moments in your long career?
There’s really too many to mention. Music shows are my specialty, and we’ve done Grammy tributes to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, and many others. I grew up working on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, I mixed that show for about 25 years, which was really cool because you’re raising money for kids and seeing stuff you don’t see anywhere else. That’s my favourite stuff, great music and if you’re raising money for something that’s awesome too.
10. Viewers are enjoying more immersive audio presentations and are viewing programmes on a wider range of devices. How have you adapted to these changes in your work and has OTT streaming had an influence on how you produce a mix?
It’s been a challenge going through the 5.1 mode and now through this new immersive trend. On a show like this, sure there can be audience and other sound behind you but personally I don’t want to see a guitarist in front of me and have that sound come from behind. I’m kind of old-fashioned, on a standard broadcast show I prefer a straight-ahead non-immersive mix. You can have a lot of fun with immersive and do cool things, but I think you have to make the sound match what you’re seeing. We rebuilt our Sound Design audio post-mix studios a few years ago and made them Dolby Atmos compatible, with 7.1.4 so we can do full immersive mixes. There’s some call for that and when there is I am very happy to have as much fun as possible. I also have a sweetening company, and we sweeten many shows. There is always a need for immersive audience enhancement.
These days, a lot of people are listening to stuff on their phones, computers, and tablets. When you consume something on a mobile device there’s no bottom and no top, there’s just mid-range, so you don’t get the full experience. I prefer to listen to a full-range speaker and get the analogue experience, where waveforms are converted back to sound in my ears from a full-range speaker. Whether it’s digital all the way through the process it starts out as an analogue source with air movement or vibration and that’s how it ends up with the consumer. For interim stuff, digital’s amazing because the quality stays consistent. It’s so much better than back in our day when we had tape machines with all kinds of high-frequency compensation that we had to do to make it sound better. The quality is way better now, but I like to consume it in a place where I’m looking at it and I’m hearing what I’m seeing. But it’s definitely a blast to mix immersive, when it is called for, and visually supported.
11. How do you think TV viewers’ audio expectations have changed over the last few years?
Unfortunately, I think consumers demand more now and in my opinion, it’s kind of not helped the business. On a lot of shows, some of the acts are not really live and a lot is prerecorded. I’m not a fan of that. I prefer to have live performances and if someone hits a note that’s a little jazzy so be it. That’s what separates one artist from another. When I listen to old standards and the artists I grew up with, I can tell immediately in two bars who it is. When I listen to a lot of current music it almost sounds like there’s one producer/engineer making everybody sound the same.
It feels a bit like AI is taking over. I’m not a fan of that progression but it seems to be what people want, they want to hear something perfect and they don’t want to hear an imperfection. Perfection to me is a moment in time for a single person, I am happy with trying to achieve ‘great’ for many. A lot of that involves artists accentuating their mix using some type of playback elements instead of everything being live. I prefer to watch somebody and to hear what they’re doing and not what’s being played from a device somewhere off stage.
12. What was it about broadcast audio that attracted you and what keeps you interested and challenged? What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to someone coming into the industry?
I started when a lot of it was radio. I go back to days when we would do King Biscuit Flower Hour, we would go to the Rainbow, the Roxy, the Whisky, the Troubadour and the Starwood in Los Angeles. We would bring our record truck in, hook up to the stage and they would go live. It would be a radio show and that’s how people consumed it. Then we started working on shows in concert like Midnight Special, Star Search and Solid Gold and I saw the integration of pictures with sound. Also, the industry was unionised. In the audio business when I was young you worked for a minimum wage because everybody wanted to do it but once you got in the union you could actually be paid and be compensated if you did a fifteen-hour day, which a lot of times you would. I found that television was more unionised and there was a way to actually make a living doing it not just as a hobby. That’s why I went into broadcast, and it’s been wonderful. I think I’ve had a great life and made a good living doing what I do. I don’t have any regrets about that.
I would say the most important thing you can tell anybody getting into this business is you have to be a good a hang. It’s really all about your personality because anybody doing this is going to have to be good at it, that’s just a given. Especially when it’s live there’s nowhere to hide stuff. But if you’re a lot of fun to hang out with on a 12- or 15-hour day when you’re in a truck with five people you’re going to have a good experience. Be a team player and don’t be crazy with your ego. Be fun and bring something to the table that makes people want to have dinner with you when you’re on the road.
Also, if you’re sending me a resume don’t just say you can run Pro Tools and do Nuendo and this and that. Tell me what you do for fun. Do you play golf or ride horses, build a low rider? It doesn’t matter what it is, it just makes it more interesting, and you will have more job opportunities because you might meet someone who aligns with that.
We always say that we make the most of our money in overtime because we have some really long 60, 70 or 80-hour weeks. They’re rewarding but you have to find a spouse or significant other who’s willing to deal with that because you may think you’re leaving here at 5pm today and all of a sudden, an artist’s coming in late. If you want to have a family, it’s really important to have someone who’s willing to deal with that. There’s always a schedule and the producer’s trying to adhere to that from a cost standpoint, but you can’t guarantee it’s going to happen, and the schedules are long to begin with.
13. What have been the biggest changes to the way programmes are mixed during your career and how do you see it evolving in the next five years?
I do potentially see AI having a significant role in some of the things we do. I can be sitting here doing EQ on a kickdrum for 20-30 seconds and then the snare drum for 20-30 seconds. You have 64 or more inputs you have to EQ, level, pan, add effects reverbs and delays to get individual sounds before even combining them and finding space for every instrument in your mix. If you think how long it takes humans to do that, I have a feeling a really intelligent AI device could do it way faster than us with a little practice and a good prompter.
In the old days somebody would say, I want my mix to be warm, I want it to be dark, or bright. People used to use descriptive terms. Now, there’s a plug-in for everything and instead of somebody learning how to EQ a kickdrum they put a kickdrum plugin in and that’s the sound. It works and it does a great job, but it seems like a little bit of the human element is going away.
I went online recently and found the 1977 Academy Award broadcast, which was the year before I started, and the sound quality was amazing. When I hear an old Sinatra recording, or Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald, they sound pretty good. It’s not the quality we have now but it’s pretty good stuff and the microphones that were built back in those days are still the best out there. When you go in the studio that’s what we’re using now. Technology has come a long way but there’s still a lot of cool things that were done back in the day. Now people are trying to go back and get analogue tape and having been a guy who used to align those machines, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. But it seems to be the rage these days. For thousands of years, we’ve run on a linear path from generation to generation. Digital is more exponential and we’re on this curve that keeps going faster and faster. It’s a little scary; I hope the young people figure it out because it seems like they’re going to have some robotic competition to deal with.
