One thing leads to another

It’s funny the way things happen. If you put yourself out there and follow your intuition, events occur one after the other and before you know it they connect and something big has happened.

A couple of months ago I went up to Kittery to record a few Rockport Sundays episodes with Tom Rush and Sarah Blacker as a guest. I hadn’t heard of her but without exception, Tom’s guests are talented and compelling artists. Getting ready to record the episodes is always a combination of needing to stay focused on the tech part of the set up, lights, cameras and audio, as well as meeting the guests for the first time and spending a little quality time with Tom. Sarah and her husband Aaron Katz arrived with their pianist Phil Selesnick. Aaron had cut his hand pretty badly while taking out the recycling the day before and was bandaged up, I worried a little about him being able to bang the drum but he said he was OK. During the talk before we started to record, it came out that Sarah and Aaron lived in Salem, MA and so did I. I think we said we should get together some time. The session went very well while I had my usual worries about exposure, focus and framing. Frank was recording the audio so I didn’t have to worry about that end of it. When it was over we all packed up our things and went home. It was a good day.

I have a video series called RESONANCE that I have been doing for six years or so but I hadn’t done a new one for a while because I was busy with Rockport Sundays and COVID had slowed production, but I thought that Sarah would be a good subject for a RESONANCE video. She writes and sings great songs, is a Berkeley graduate, and in addition is a music therapist. Plus she lives in Salem. I asked her if she’d like to record one, she said yes and we set a date. When I went to Sarah and Aaron’s home to record the video everything went smoothly. I had given Sarah a list of topics we could talk about and I think she thought they were interesting. What I do is record the artist responding to the topics and after that they sing three songs. In the editing I combine the talk and the singing. It never fails that the songs relate to the topics and it’s easy to edit them in a way that the songs respond to the talk, making a story out of the combination. Something that was interesting to me was how the production had changed since recording my previous RESONANCE video four years ago. A lot is due to the fact the Aaron and Sarah were very warm and welcoming creating an atmosphere that was conducive to creating a good product, and I had more confidence in the tech end of things because I had been producing Rockport Sundays for four years. In addition I had new cameras that produce a very nice image. The addition of promist filters to the lenses adds a very nice touch. I feel now that I do a better job with my lighting so all in all the recording went smoothly and the editing did as well. Here is a link to that video.

https://marksteeleproductions.com/sarah-blacker

Sarah and Aaron are part of a band named Sarah Blacker and the Light and they were scheduled to perform at the Me and Thee coffee house in Marblehead, MA. The Me and Thee is a classic venue and has been home to folk and blues artists for 55 years. I thought it would be fun for Ruthie and I to go see Sarah Blacker and the Light so I got some tickets. When I told Sarah that we were going, she asked me if I could bring a video camera to document the evening, of course I said I would. Now when I bring one camera I might as well bring two, that way I have a wide shot and a medium shot and the video looks much better. Ruthie has seen me do these productions for many years and prompted me to bring a third camera to set up another angle. Well, if I’m going to bring three I might as well set up an “over the shoulder” shot on Aaron the drummer. And, I had just purchased a new Osmo 3 camera and could set that up as a wide shot from behind the band looking out at the audience. Now it was five cameras. The soundman for the Me and Thee was able to give me a recording that had each of his microphones split on independent channels so that would be great. But a mix in a smallish hall like the Me and Thee is mixed for the best sound for the audience and that takes the live sound from the stage into consideration. The drums are loud so they are not that well represented in the mix and the electric guitar is loud as well. In addition, the nice clean sound of the mics does not give the feel of the room. There is always a little echo in the room giving it a live sound. So I brought 2 mics and a 2 channel audio recorder to record the room noise. Those two mics were placed in the back corners of the hall. There was only one glitch and that was the tripod that was in the back corner of the hall got bumped and the framing of the shot was tilted down. 

On to the post production. The editing went well, the cameras were exposed and white balanced correctly and only needed small adjustments to make them match. The new Osmo 3 looked amazingly good. The corner shot that got bumped was useable because I shot in 4K and could expand the shot to reframe it. Ultimately I wish I was able to get more headroom in the shot but it was OK. Once the video was edited I brought the audio into Logic for the mix, we ended up with 15 channels. I got the levels set and everything normalized and invited Sarah and Aaron over so we could mix it together. Mixing the audio is a creative process with room for different opinions and there are many factors that are a matter of taste rather than right or wrong. Working with Aaron and Sarah was a rich collaborative process that I don’t remember ever experiencing before. I thought that the mix sounded good at one point but Aaron was concerned about the sound of the drums. The mix from the board had one mic on the drums and the ambient mics in the back of the hall didn’t pick up the percussive sound of the drums that well. We tried mixing in the audio from the camera that was closest to the drums but it wasn’t right. As it turns out, a friend of Sarah and Aaron’s recorded audio of the show as well. He had set up two mics on the edge of the stage. When we got those tracks and added them to the mix it all came together. It was a pleasure to work with Aaron and Sarah on the mix. The sound is the most important part of the whole thing. I don’t usually work with other people in my edit room anymore but this was special. 

After the mix was done I added titles and credits to the video and we were done. Sarah and Aaron were very happy and I was too. I cut the video into individual songs that Sarah has been posting on different places. It is rewarding to see the videos and read the comments.

Here is a link to the whole show. Please enjoy it and let us know what you think.

https://marksteeleproductions.com/sarah-blacker-and-the-light