June 26, 2009 The Feet of the Duck: Our Superb Crew Editor’s Note: This is the Choir and Orchestra equivalent of a slow news day, so we thought we’d take time out for an article detailing the work of great support staff. You heard it said that when it looks like a duck is moving effortlessly across the water, below the surface the feet of the duck are paddling furiously to make it go. Our stage manager, organ technicians and sound and light engineers are key to our concert success on the road. Here is a little insight into what they do on tour. Production Managers: Bob Breitenbeker and Marshall Crawley are the production managers for the tour. They work in the Audiovisual Department and are responsible for the overall coordination of all of the technical aspects of a Choir and Orchestra concert. Bob is a veteran of many previous tours; this is Marshall’s first Choir tour, after taking over for Alex Richards who transferred to the Motion Picture Studio earlier this year. Bob Breitenbeker (l) and Marshall Crawley (Click to enlarge). The production manager’s role stretches back to the earliest days of tour planning. Bob accompanies the President of the Choir, Mac Christensen, and Administrative Manager, Barry Anderson, on the first tour advance when possible locations are scouted and the initial technical assessments are made. Once the venues are selected, Bob is the primary interface with the technical people at each venue to confirm the requirements in the contractual document called the “tour rider.” Once Bob is satisfied that the venue understands what the Choir and Orchestra require, Bob notifies Scott Barrick, General Manager, who finalizes the contracts with the venue. Then as the concert date nears, the details are again confirmed. Once onsite, Bob and Marshall coordinate with the venue staff, our volunteer stage crew, our sound and lighting engineers to make all the plans come to fruition. Russ Crabb is also a member of the production management staff. At home in Salt Lake, Russ is the producer for all choir events except the weekly broadcast. On tour, Russ sees to the myriad of details that have to be managed on the technical end and serves as a strong reliable resource for Bob Breitenbeker. Stage Crew: Alex Morris is the stage and properties manager for the Choir and Orchestra. Our tour, he leads a crew of five: Wallace Breinholt, Lyndon Cheshire, Gordon Anderson, Robert Roundy, and Dennis Guffey. At home in Salt Lake, we have nine all together. Alex Morris (r) heads the stage crew. He is seen here with Choir General Manager Scott Barrick. (Click to enlarge).   Alex and his stage crew. (Click to enlarge). We have three truck drivers on our crew: Merle Guffey, Larry Birch, and Robert Gibb. Their primary responsibility is to drive and since we drive quite a bit, we have to make sure they get their rest and hours off-duty. By law, they can only drive a certain number of hours within a certain amount of time. Like the Choir and Orchestra, our crew members are all volunteers and they have all been set apart for their callings by President Christensen. Our role as the stage group is to facilitate the logistics of the Choir and Orchestra. We’re responsible for transportation of all the equipment for the Choir and Orchestra and we transport quite at bit of the equipment for the Audiovisual Department. Half of semi trailers carry the equipment you would see on stage. The front-of-house controls are things that we bring with us. The other lighting and sound equipment is handled by a contractor that was arranged through the Audiovisual Department of the Church. That contractor follows us to most of the locations we go to. We brought all the equipment with us, although some venues have us use their equipment, because they already have it there. Normally, we arrive at the venue at about 8 a.m. the morning of the concert. We position the semis on the loading and get right to work on setting up the risers and getting all the instruments ready for the musicians. From the deck up, the main deck of the stage belongs to the venue. We bring everything from there up, except for the chairs. We set up the Orchestra and assist the venue people in putting chairs on the stage and the risers. Then we basically are responsible for the safety of the personnel on stage. We take great care in trying to facilitate the safe accommodation of people as they go on and off stage. We spend an hour or two tweaking the system, making sure everything is in place; safety straps on the risers, chairs are in straight lines, fasteners on stage are correctly assembled. Then the Orchestra is correctly assembled. I send the guys to the hotel to rest for a few hours so they can be ready for the strike after the performance. When we are in a union building, we are able to handle our equipment while it’s on stage, but when it comes off stage, then the union is required to move it to the dock then there’s another group who move it from the dock, take it to the truck and load it. Once the cases are loaded and sealed, then we direct them where to put them in the truck. We can direct, but we can’t normally handle the equipment in a situation like this. After everything is assembled and we are ready for the sound check, Alex’s assignment shifts from one of logistics to taking care of the conductor. Alex makes sure Mack does not have to worry about other distractions so he can focus on his music. During the concert he makes sure as stage manager that everything is going is sequence. He interfaces with AV to make sure they get the information from Mack Wilberg. He escorts Mack and Lloyd Newell on stage, and makes sure the show starts on time. The crew travels separately from the Choir, on vans with the other crews. We take turns driving. We like to be close to the venue, so we generally don’t stay in the same hotel with the performers. We generally finish striking the stage at 1:00 a.m. in the morning. Alex served as assistant to Jim Turner from 1999 until he retired. Alex works closely with all the choir leadership: President Mac, Barry, Scott, but most particularly to Mack Wilberg. Organ Crew: David Bagley and Jeff Hansen are the organ technicians from Heritage Organ who travel with us on tour. They have been on Choir tours since 2001, starting with the tour to the Southern States, then to the Northeast, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest tour in 2007 and now the Central States tour. We bring with us a Rogers 360 custom four manual digital organ with 28 channels. The Rogers factory lent us this organ for the tour, then after the tour it will be sold. It will go into the home of a gentleman from St. Louis. He is going to come to the St. Louis concert to see it. We’ll probably sign it and say it was used for the Choir and Orchestra tour of 2009. We set up the large truss at the back of the stage which supports the 28 speakers up there. They hang 35 to 40 feet above the Choir in an arena venue. There are four gigantic sub-woofers on the floor below the Choir. Our amplifiers are there as well. We bring that and set it up at each venue. Set up time takes about three hours. The set-up for each performance is carefully orchestrated and we all have to take our turns because there are only so many motors. Everything has to be lifted into place. We begin this work about 7 a.m. each morning of a concert. We bring only one console with us. We took two for the Southern states tour since we didn’t know what to expect on our first tour. We have an extra “cage” or board with all the replacement parts we use if the need arises. In Cincinnati we changed the tuning of the organ from A440 to A443—the first time we’ve ever done that in 17 years of the business. We can change every note of every stop on the organ. We can adjust the tuning to however we need it. In St. Louis we were at A441. After the concerts, we tear down and are back in our hotel by about 1:30 this evening. Then we pack up and drive to our next venue. Sound Crew: Three employees of the Church Audiovisual Department provide sound engineering for the Choir and Orchestra on tour: Trent Walker, who handles “front-of-house” which is the mix of sound the audience hears; Curt Garner who handles the monitors or the mix that the organists, Orchestra and Choir hear; and Chris Martin who helps with everything. The sound consoles travel with us and are the same make that we use in the Conference Center and Tabernacle. There are two console we take on tour: one for the “front of house” and the one which is set up next to the stage, beside the Choir and Orchestra. There are amp racks and all of the microphones which are on the stage. When we walk in none of this is here. We set it all up: a total of 74 microphones on the stage and over 50 speakers surrounding the stage. Every stringed instrument has a microphone on it. Every other instrument sections, have microphones. This way we can highlight solo sections when necessary and to make the sound rich. Set up takes about four hours. Trent Walker (Click to enlarge). Trent Walker mixes the audio for the audience. He’s been doing this for six years. He mixes the audio for the Music and the Spoken Word broadcast every Sunday morning as well as working on the mix for our recordings. This is his third Choir tour and he says, “I love it. It’s great opportunity and a super job. I am very bless to do what I can do.” Curt Garner (Click to enlarge). Curt Garner works with an enormous sound console. It holds dozens and dozens of mixtures of sounds. Each group has its own mix. He can take the men’s mike and put it in the women’s monitor and the women’s mike and put it in the men’s monitors so sections can hear each other. He does the same with the Orchestra, so they can hear the Choir and the other instruments can hear each other as well. From time to time, he makes changes during concerts for instance when the pennywhistle is soloing, he can boost his mike. Most of the mixes he has ready before a concert starts. Chris Martin (Click to enlarge). Chris Martin helps with the sound as well as the sound assistant tech. He helps to hang the speakers by organizing them on the floor and then local union guys haul them up. They hook it all up on the ground, then push a button and the union guys fly up in the air. During concerts, he assists Trent in the house mix. After the concert the sound guys take microphones down, put away the monitor speakers over the Choir on the trusses. They bring it all down, unhook it and put it away. It’s about a 4 ½ hour set up process - from beginning til it’s all in the air. Afterwards, when the Choir is done at 9:45, they sound guys can have everything down and loaded on the semi by 11:30. Chris has been doing this for 20 years and this is his third tour. Lighting: Lorin Morse is our lighting engineer. We have a couple of guys who are contracted and help us, but as far as traveling with the Choir to do just lighting, it’s just him. We’ve worked this plot out for several years to where it’s ‘quick and dirty’ and it works. We bring the lights with us. There are several pieces in each truss of lights. They unbuckle, the lights slide up out of the way and they stack and travel easily. Each has wheels on as well. Lorin Morse (Click to enlarge). Every light has a place, but each has to be focused one at a time. He goes through and stands where we want the light, the guy up on the truss angles the light the way he wants it. He can look at the light with the glow at about 35%, and with sunglasses on he can see the exact center of the light and to see if it is pointed straight. He points up/down, left/ right and then he moves on to the next one. The stage is divided into 48 sections, which requires him to step into each section and point and direct each light until he’s done. He runs the light board for the show which is significantly smaller than the sound board. There are changes for every song. Sometimes we add and change colors and we have special lighting for the soloists when they’re on. Lorin shutters down the special lights to light specifics so they don’t get in the players eyes. You don’t want the light to extend too far in any direction and perhaps end up shining in the eyes of a performer, making it difficult for them to see their music. Lorin has been involved with lighting in one form or another since 1986. Like the sound engineers, he also works for the Church Audiovisual Department. And many, many others… Where service to the performers is concerned, let’s not forget the Men’s and Women’s Wardrobe Committees; representatives from Church Travel, who are always there when we need directions; Church Security sees to our safety, Seating Managers spend a great deal of time organizing and seating; bus captains who keep us up-to-date on ever changing situations while en-route to the next location. Then there is the Medical Committee, the Missionary Committee, the public relations people who make sure each city knows we are coming. We have traveling film crews; there are two: one documenting the tour, the other on hand for filming footage for future broadcasts. We have the librarians, whose temporary job is to manage the ‘Lost and Found’ department; we have our invaluable historian documenting the details. There are product sales specialists who remain at each venue long after performers have returned to hotels to rest for the night. As performers, we put in lots of time, effort and preparation, but in the end we show up, sing and play, and look and sound wonderful due to the support and help of an army of qualified and dedicated individuals. To each and every one of them we say: Thank you! From the bottom of our hearts, thanks you. By Bonita Cross, 1st Alto