Gary Faller Engineering: Installations

A funny thing happened on the way

to and from the "Purple Palace"

CineSymphony by Willy WahWah

Elmer Bernstein conducting the Florida West Coast Symphony at the Van Wezel Performing Artsl Hall. Elmer was honored on Jan. 25th,2003 at the Sarasota Film Festival's "CineSymphony !" Some of his best known film scores: The Great Escape; The Ten Commandments; The Magnificent Seven; To Kill a MockingBird; The Sons of Katie Elder; Kings of the Sun; Thoroughly Modern Millie; The Man with the Golden Arm; to name just a few.

It all started at the Frank Loyd Wright design the"Purple Palace"(as the locals call it for its exterior paint job). The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall by its true name. The production was handled by Bruno White Entertainment and co-produced by PBS station WEDU-TV Tampa,Florida. The day before the concert Gary Baldassari, Mike Morgan, and Gary Faller began flying the Decca Tree with 2 DPA 4041s large diaphragm on the outside of Decca Tree and a DPA 4016( wide cardiod) in the center of tree. While Mike Morgan and Gary Faller flew the Decca tree from the center of the front catwalk, Gary Baldassari supervised the positioning and focus from the stage. The center DPA 4016 was focussed on the rear center section of orchestra (trumpets/horns). Two 4041s were flown from the rear catwalk in front of the lighting booth. These 4041s were for left and right surround ambience. Come the day of the concert when the audio had stuck to tape, Gary Baldassari's focus/placement of Decca Tree was right on the mark ! Mike Morgan and Gary Faller then attended rehearsal.

Concert Day

8:00 am Television Mobile Resources parks and powers the WMFE chan 24 PBS video truck. Mike Morgan breaks out the class "A" Crainsong Spider 8 channel mixer. Gary Faller puts on the A1 hat and interfaces the Van Wezel and video truck via 24 channel audio snake (no DT12 was used because of reliability and sonic reasons). The outputs of the DPA HMA4000 preamps in the catwalks plugged directly into the 24 chan. audio snake and then directly into the Crainsong Spider ( now residing on a moving blanket on top of the trucks Mackie) bypassing the trucks I/O panel and patch bays.The Da88 is fed directly out of the Crainsong via AES as well as the DAT for 2 mix. All audio, PL, and wireless Host mics are now faxed. Mike Morgan puts on the video directors hat and scopes out the cameras inconjunction with the music scores. The last rehearsal and set preparations take place. The well needed 3rd man of the audio team Mike Badalamenti arrives in the nick of time, and places a DPA 4011 on a mic boom for the Elmer eng interview. The Elmer interview takes place in a sheet rock acoustical nightmare room off to stage right. The field eng interview ends and the crew prepares for the concert.

The concert begins, Gary Faller and Mike Badalamenti carefully adjust the center 4016 mic level so that it didn't smear the imaging of the 4041s in the 2 mix while wearing headphones with a Coleman Camper air conditioner running at maximun 6 inches from their ears. Meanwhile in the front of the truck Mike Morgan is directing cameras .The Florida West Coast Symphony with Elmer conducting is now giving a superb perfomance and goosebumps to the sold out audience and crew in the video truck. The concert winds up with a standing ovation and is ready for post.

Post production took place at Bruno Whites' Avid Suite, supervised by Gary Baldassari with Mike Morgan giving performance notes. The multitrack audio was interfaced with the Crainsong and connected into the Avid suite by Nils Warren. Gary Baldassari mixed the multitrack audio and encoded it with an SRS Labs CSE-07 Circle Surround. The 90 minute show aired via WEDU in west central Florida in April of 2003.

Elmer Bernstein passed on this year and he is surely in a better place. Elmer's music gift to us will endure for many more generations of music enthusiasts.

*** Willy WahWah is a freelance writer and is Barbara WahWah's wittle brudder. Willy is mostly known for his Remnant Wire Art formed and shaped with recycled gaffer tape from previous shows. Willy can be found every Sunday at the Bithlo Flea Market selling his art.