Location Engineer meets Live Engineer

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with the local-but-lekker group "Mi Casa", spending the day following them around and doing interviews with them until they performed at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the evening.

This was one of those occasions where the on-set recording interlinked with live sound but not in a way where I was fully engaged with either side but it was just interesting because this was something very unique:

Prior to the concert we were driving around town, to different locations that seemed suitable for the shots. filming the 3 local stars and chatting to them about music, life and how they managed to land a gig performing at America's Presidential Auguration for Barack Obama.

The guys were so cool though, time was flying and soon we were already heading towards Kirstenbosch.

After being stuck in traffic, as the event coincided with the annual Cape Argus/Cape Town Cycle Race, we arrived and met with the live sound engineers who were busy setting up for the concert.

We got some quick interview's with the group's band members who perform on tours with them, some having been with the band since their very first days..

After that my job was to record the concert and keep an eye on the level that I was getting from the live engineers. The funny bit was that I was sitting next to the Monitor Engineer and felt like I was part of the live sound crew. So I experienced almost the entire concert over headphones, listening to the levels (in retrospect a bit redundant) and capturing the vibe on stage/in the crowd and overall in the whole park.

So although I didn't contribute to the Band's live experience I was still part of the emotion and felt like an essential part of the concert.