Alex Riordan, star Kelsey Grammar (in suspenders) and the crew of Boss
Chicago, IL, (November 8, 2012)—Alex Riordan, production sound mixer and president, Riordan Sound Services, turned to Sound Devices for his audio needs during the second season of Boss.
An American political drama show, Boss, a STARZ original TV series, stars Kelsey Grammer as Tom Kane, the mayor of Chicago. The first season premiered in October 2011, with the second season debuting in August.
For his work on Boss, Riordan built a new sound cart featuring Sound Devices gear. “I used a 788T as my main recorder and had the CL-8 connected to it,” he says. “I would move the 788T and CL-8 off the cart and into a bag for some of our more mobile locations.
“After a while, production was moving so quickly that after a month into the show, I bought a second 788T and incorporated it into a dedicated bag rig, with all the wireless gear. This way, it was ready to go at all times. It got to the point where I actually had that bag rig live on the bottom shelf of my mixer cart, so all I had to do was reach down, throw a battery in it, turn it on, grab my CompactFlash card out of the cart 788T, throw it in the bag 788T, set up my folders, jam my time code and check scene and track names, and I was off.”
Riordan also employed a Sound Devices 442 field mixer and 744T portable four-track audio recorder on the set, for times when he didn’t need as many tracks. Just before production started, Riordan also purchased a Sound Devices CL-WIFI and an iPod Touch that he put on the cart for displaying meters and track names.
Riordan and his crew also use his large inventory of Sound Devices gear for various film projects, television shows and commercials produced in the Chicago area and beyond. Riordan has mixed the Chicago portion for season 3 of Shameless and mixed some additional unit sound on the new TV show, Mob Doctor.
Sound Devices
www.sounddevices.com
