PRODUCTION | GREYHOUND
overlapping each other as they hurried to pass on life-saving information. However, the technology wasn’t as sophisticated as that found in today’s vessels. This meant Wyman had to diagram a number of communications techniques to simultaneously record dialogue and allow the actors to hear any off-camera lines, no matter where they were on set. He explains: “First, we were dealing with 1940s gear that the props and set departments had sourced from all over the world. None of the internal parts worked and most were shells or had rotting components inside. So, the real challenge was getting these pieces to work without altering their appearance or outward function. It took a lot of planning and forethought to modify these pieces, because they’re irreplaceable. As you might have guessed, there aren’t many left in the world and Aaron wanted them on set.” Wyman broke down Hanks’ script, mapping out who had to talk to whom, as well as who else needed to hear those conversations to get the correct cues for their lines, or respond off-camera with repeated orders. He then drew a map of how this might be controlled to avoid chaos on set. “This allowed me to place a single 24-channel stage box on the gimbalised set to minimise cable management, as it was constantly moving. I started with the bitch boxes, of which there were three in our story (in the pilot house, the CIC and sonar room), although there were many more on the Kidd. The key here was that they worked as two-way communicators – not duplex, but squawk squeakers with a push-to-talk function. “I took inspiration from the sound design of a live concert and managed to
ABOVE David Wyman was responsible for coordinating the complex sound mixing
find some small personal stage monitors to go inside and act as speakers, with their own amp and EQ control. To make the talk function work, the best way to eliminate feedback was to avoid the production audio recording mics, and use discrete omni desktop mics directly on set, close to the units and only routed to speakers on other sets. All these mics went to the art department, with over 500ft of XLR cables, to be painted and hidden in plain sight.” The truest test of this system can be seen 11 minutes into Greyhound , when a conversation takes place between Krause in the pilot house and Lieutenant Cole (Stephen Graham) in the CIC. When you hear a voice through a speaker, that was a live actor off-screen, fed to a speaker on set, recorded by a boommic. All the actors gave their off-screen lines in real time. Another piece to this puzzle was the talker equipment, which is similar to the bell-shaped breastplate, mounted mouthpiece and tight-fitting headphones used by 1940s telephone operators. Due to the nature of their job, talkers were often running from interior to exterior parts of
I took inspiration from the sound design of a live concert and managed to find some small personal stage monitors to go inside and act as speakers, with their own amp and EQ control
22 DEF I N I T ION | JUNE 202 1
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