Crew West Inc.

ENG Crews in Arizona & Los Alamos, NM

While covering wildfires in the west and south sections of Arizona, ENG crews battle thick smoke and an extreme lack of sleep. I found it amazing that the firefighters could work so hard with less sleep then we had. Our ENG crews working for NBC, ABC, and CBS would get up at 1:00am so they could be on site by 2:00am and live at 4:00am. Yeah, 4:00am Arizona time for a 7:00am morning show hit EST. The Wallow Fire was in the northeast part of Arizona and the Monument was in the south. The Las Conchas Fire is the fire we are currently working near Los Alamos, NM.

The press is allowed in the evacuated town of Los Alamos with a proper press ID. That’s a little tricky with my sat truck operator (from Peak Uplink) who didn’t have an NBC Network ID. We had to talk his way in or no Today Show live hit. After some scrutiny the officer relented as most police were very accommodating to the press. Also very accommodating were the residents and shop owners. One restaurant turned out hundreds of meals to the firefighters. They had a welcome sign to firefighters and the press to come in and get free food. My audio tech, Matt Radlauer, and I went in to get something and ended up helping load a hundred or more meals into trucks for the fire crews. The restaurant folks looked tired after that, so we didn’t bother them and headed to a pizza joint by our hotel.

As the summer continues, Crew West ENG crews prepare for the MLB All Star game that will be held in downtown Phoenix July of 2011. We look forward to a busy July providing services for all of the major networks including ESPN, MLB, and Fox.

-Jim Farrell, President

Audio Technician in Arizona

Being an audio technician, the most vital trait or characteristic to have is knowing your field mixer bag inside and out. Field audio techinicians are thrown into different situations every day from breaking news of the Tucson shooting to news of the day for ESPN. So, knowing your mixer bag is imperative while out in the field as things spring up or audio gremlins appear. After a year of true work, I completely disassembled my bag and made the most of the space within the bag, but stocked it with the gear I figured out I needed the most in the field. A great way to look at what audio technicians need in their mixer bag is to go through past call sheets or invoices and recall the shoot. Remember what situation you entered into with that shoot and what challenges were present. If you start string together common challenges and/or difficulties from past shoot and one piece of equipment fixed those problems, its a good bet to have that item within your bag. Finally, no matter how hectic a shoot can be, do not let your bag get out of order. A free moment always presents itself and take that moment to put your mixer bag back in order. There is no excuse to give your producer or camera as to why you cant find something within your mixer bag. Its your bag, take ownership and make it yours.

- Crew West Audio Tech Doug Klausen

Upgrading from the Sound Devices 442

The industry standard for so many audio technicians has been the Sound Devices 442 field mixer. The compact and high quality field mixer set its mark with fine tuning gain adjustment, variable limiting structure, and direct outputs. However, as time has gone on, more needs have been needed out in the field. Audio technicians are asked to do more and have more options so Sound Devices created the 552 field mixer. Not only does the Sound Devices 552 field mixer come with an extra input, but its comes lighter than the 442, a built in 2 track recorder with time-code input capability, high performance 2-stage inputs, and voice confirmed setup menu. Crew West will soon be trading in its old PSC mixer for this wonderful upgrade to stay ahead in the world of audio technicians and field mixers.