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Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Clear-Com Keeps The Crew In Consistent Communication On "America's Test Kitchen"
ProSoundWeb: Rental production company Talamas supplies a Free Speak II digital wireless system with full-duplex capability for show that's been broadcast by public television stations for more than 20 years.
As someone who has used many headsets over the years, some are definitely superior to others. That is just not a market where all of the products are relatively similar and there are marginal differences, some are so far superior. I judge headsets on a few things and the first one is comfort. There have been days that I have been on headset for over twelve hours and if that thing is uncomfortable than I am unhappy, and you can see people with uncomfortable headsets getting more irritable by the hour. The other is how well it picks up voices on it when they are speaking quietly. It is fine to speak at a relatively normal volume in an enclosed booth but when you are backstage or in an open-air booth, you need to speak rather quietly. I like to see that the theatre industry and the television industry are working with the same, or similar technology. This will be especially helpful for people that cross between both.
Communications are so important for any production to run smoothly and are often taken for granted. I was privileged throughout high school to have a wired party line clear-com system in both of our theaters. This meant that we didn’t have to worry about how the stage manager would have to communicate with people backstage or board ops. I am on crew for A Doll's House right now and this is the first time I have gotten to use wireless belt packs. This makes life so much easier because I am no longer tethered by a cable. On doll’s house, we are using the same freespeak 2 system that is described in this article. While I have a pretty good understanding of how a party-line system works I would love to learn more about how to program more sophisticated digital systems like the freespeak 2 system. I spent some time reading the manual a couple days ago, but I am looking forward to having a time at CMU where I can be responsible for programming headsets.
I really enjoy Clear-Coms and I have used them as a stage manager and tech crew person for the past few years and they are extremely valuable. I appreciate the ability to choose who I talk to through the different channels so I can communicate the most efficiently, and if something goes wrong I do not have to worry about stressing out people who don’t need to know about the situation. I am interested in doing more research about the functionality of clear communication and ways to improve their systems. Such as, when I was calling a show we would often pick up the local radio station, and so I’d hear various genres of music as I was trying to call cues and run a show. While it was entertaining and made my crew and I laugh, I feel like there is a better system to make sure that those things don't happen in small scale theaters.
I know nothing about different com systems so this was interesting. I know a lot of people that have worked with clear coms and I have heard mostly positive feedback. In the past I have worked with a lot of com systems that do not effectively work. I was working on a show one time as a stage manager and about 15 min into calling the show I lost all communication with my team and it was awful. It was one of the most difficult situations I have ever been in and probably the most stressful moment ever. All because of a com system that did not properly work. Communication between teams in live entertainment is so incredibly important and it is companies like these that are making use of technology that makes it easier and much clearer. I would love to work on a show using clear coms and get my hands on them.
This article was fascinating! It was so cool to see that communication technology that we use in live entertainment is making an impact and affecting other fields as well. It makes a lot of sense that a clear com type system would be very successful in the television and film industry. The ability to quickly communicate between different groups across the production studio without yelling sounds incredibly useful. Also using Clear Coms’s ability to have different channels could be useful if the director needs to talk to the producers and 1st assistant director about something without bothering the production assistants or script supervisor then that would be able to happen with putting people on different channels. I personally have very little experience with Clear com systems but I do know that when I have used them they are for the most part very reliable. I have very much enjoyed using them when I have had the opportunity to.
5 comments:
As someone who has used many headsets over the years, some are definitely superior to others. That is just not a market where all of the products are relatively similar and there are marginal differences, some are so far superior. I judge headsets on a few things and the first one is comfort. There have been days that I have been on headset for over twelve hours and if that thing is uncomfortable than I am unhappy, and you can see people with uncomfortable headsets getting more irritable by the hour. The other is how well it picks up voices on it when they are speaking quietly. It is fine to speak at a relatively normal volume in an enclosed booth but when you are backstage or in an open-air booth, you need to speak rather quietly. I like to see that the theatre industry and the television industry are working with the same, or similar technology. This will be especially helpful for people that cross between both.
Communications are so important for any production to run smoothly and are often taken for granted. I was privileged throughout high school to have a wired party line clear-com system in both of our theaters. This meant that we didn’t have to worry about how the stage manager would have to communicate with people backstage or board ops. I am on crew for A Doll's House right now and this is the first time I have gotten to use wireless belt packs. This makes life so much easier because I am no longer tethered by a cable. On doll’s house, we are using the same freespeak 2 system that is described in this article.
While I have a pretty good understanding of how a party-line system works I would love to learn more about how to program more sophisticated digital systems like the freespeak 2 system. I spent some time reading the manual a couple days ago, but I am looking forward to having a time at CMU where I can be responsible for programming headsets.
I really enjoy Clear-Coms and I have used them as a stage manager and tech crew person for the past few years and they are extremely valuable. I appreciate the ability to choose who I talk to through the different channels so I can communicate the most efficiently, and if something goes wrong I do not have to worry about stressing out people who don’t need to know about the situation. I am interested in doing more research about the functionality of clear communication and ways to improve their systems. Such as, when I was calling a show we would often pick up the local radio station, and so I’d hear various genres of music as I was trying to call cues and run a show. While it was entertaining and made my crew and I laugh, I feel like there is a better system to make sure that those things don't happen in small scale theaters.
I know nothing about different com systems so this was interesting. I know a lot of people that have worked with clear coms and I have heard mostly positive feedback. In the past I have worked with a lot of com systems that do not effectively work. I was working on a show one time as a stage manager and about 15 min into calling the show I lost all communication with my team and it was awful. It was one of the most difficult situations I have ever been in and probably the most stressful moment ever. All because of a com system that did not properly work. Communication between teams in live entertainment is so incredibly important and it is companies like these that are making use of technology that makes it easier and much clearer. I would love to work on a show using clear coms and get my hands on them.
This article was fascinating! It was so cool to see that communication technology that we use in live entertainment is making an impact and affecting other fields as well. It makes a lot of sense that a clear com type system would be very successful in the television and film industry. The ability to quickly communicate between different groups across the production studio without yelling sounds incredibly useful. Also using Clear Coms’s ability to have different channels could be useful if the director needs to talk to the producers and 1st assistant director about something without bothering the production assistants or script supervisor then that would be able to happen with putting people on different channels. I personally have very little experience with Clear com systems but I do know that when I have used them they are for the most part very reliable. I have very much enjoyed using them when I have had the opportunity to.
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