Los Angeles, CA (August 5, 2021)—Emmy Award-winning sound mixer Juan Cisneros, CAS, and the team at his company Sound695 Services used Lectrosonics wireless audio for Pam & Tommy, the Seth Rogen-produced Hulu miniseries about the relationship between actress Pamela Anderson and rocker Tommy Lee.
Sound695 Services recently acquired five DSQD receivers and two DPR-A plug-on transmitters for boom mics, as well as some new DBSM digital bodypack transmitters, which join a legacy arsenal of SMV, micro-compact SSM transmitters, and wideband SMWB transmitters. “Our five DSQDs are split between three on my main cart and two on a more portable system,” Cisneros says. “We have a sixth on order so the carts will both have 12 channels each.”
Pam & Tommy is shot all over the L.A. area, he says. “We might be in the [San Fernando] Valley for one scene, in Hollywood the next, and all the way down in San Pedro the next. The RF spectrum is very different from one location to another, so I love being able to scan from 470 MHz all the way up through all available blocks.”
Boom operator Gary Boatner adds, “When we work on shows, one thing we often hear from directors and producers is, ‘How come we’re getting sound but not picture?’ We like to keep it that way! The other day, we were at the Los Angeles Convention Center downtown, which is one of the trickiest parts of town for RF. With the DSQDs, we got 12 clear frequencies, just like that.”
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Recreating the tumultuous romance of Pam & Tommy often requires frenetic blocking on the actors’ part, which is where the DPR-A transmitters on Boatner’s booms come in.
“We shot a scene where the pair are going from their walk-in closet to their bedroom and getting into a heated argument along the way,” Boatner recalls. “They’re getting undressed, twisting and turning, going from a whisper to yelling at each other. I have boom 1 for ‘Pam’ [played by Lily James] and Scott has boom 2 for ‘Tommy’ [Sebastian Stan]. There were also five plant mics, but there’s no way we could have captured all their dialogue with cables attached to our booms. With the DPR-As, we had the freedom of movement to follow the talent. We could just pick up and go.”
