NEW YORK-It used to be that one page of screenplay equaled one minute of screen time. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, creators and showrunners of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which streams on Amazon Prime, leave that rule of thumb in the dust.
Amy and Dan write episodes that are 70-some pages, sometimes 100 pages long. Imagine all those words crammed into a 50-minute show, says Ron Bochar, Mrs. Maisel's re-recording mixer. Bochar is co-owner of Manhattan audio post house c5, which handles all of the show's ADR, Foley, editing and mixing work.
A FINE ART
Happily, he and Mathew Price, CAS, the show's production sound mixer, have their routine down to a fine art. Mat records great material both from a lavalier and a boom. I can't work with one without the other; they both need to gel together, says Bochar. My dialogue editor, Sara [Stern], will do a lot of tweaky stuff knowing I'm going to need to hear all those consonants. It's smartly done and it makes my life a lot better. We end up with lovely live performances, and a very wonderful live track that Mat's recorded for me.
Dialogue may be the God track, as Bochar calls it, but there's a lot going on in the background, too. When they hired me to do the pilot, Amy said she didn't want it to ever sound like a standard TV show. There weren't going to be a lot of quiet moments, but if anybody did take a pause, she wanted to make sure that it was filled. As long as we can still hear what she wants us to hear, she wants everything else to be busy and lively.
This is definitely the most challenging show I've ever mixed, says Price, whose resume includes every episode of The Sopranos. It's not just that the camera is constantly on the move, requiring carefully choreographed boom work; some episodes also involve a lot of talking characters. For some scenes, Price has had to bring in a second mixer to handle the extra tracks and radio mics, boosting his department to six people.
In the show, set in the 1950s and '60s, Mrs. Maisel is an archetypal Upper West Side Manhattan housewife who discovers a talent for standup comedy. As she progresses from the seedy clubs of Greenwich Village to larger venues, such as Harlem's Apollo Theater, Bochar world-ized the soundtrack to put listeners into those respective spaces.
Between picking a sound for the mic that she's speaking into, picking a reverb for the room, or sometimes multiple verbs, the whole point is to make Maisel feel as real as we can, says Bochar. We're trying to be precise to the reality that we're seeing. There is no final dub, he adds: The mix begins at the first edit, a workflow followed by everyone on the sound team, which includes Foley mixer George A. Lara and ADR mixers David Boulton and Mike Fowler.
A lot of the Apollo stuff sounded the way it did based on a lot of the [loop] group, says Bochar. We were able to position the group at various places within the Apollo, creatively, to give it depth and space. Your mind says, oh, this is big. I think spaces have a real psychological component when you're viewing, even if it's subtle and you don't realize it, says Price, who consequently likes to use both boom and lav mics wherever feasible. I like to open it up as much as I can. It also gives Ron and Sara choices.
A DEFINING EPISODELike the background sound effects, the group walla track can be dense. There were the elderly groups taking their kids to the Apollo, which means you have two levels of group that have to work together, says Bochar. That episode [3.08: A Jewish Girl Walks into the Apollo ] became the definition of what Mrs. Maisel is all about, he says. It had performance, smart social commentary, smart relationship issues, a lot of stuff that had to be balanced within the context of a normal Mrs. Maisel.
Sherman-Palladino is very detail-oriented, orchestrating some scenes for maximum effect. During a spotting session, Amy will say, The laughs are all happening in the right places, but they're wrong. This one should just be women reacting; here, maybe it's just a couple of girls in the background; the men would get this.'
In response to her notes, Bochar says, A lot of times we just recall a group and do another half a day of material. Amazon has been wonderful for allowing us to do that. Price switched out his venerable Audio Ltd 2000 radio mics for a 12-channel Zaxcom RX12 system after season 2. He mixes to a Zaxcom Deva 16 with a Mix 12 control surface.
The show's prop department went to New York's Gotham Sound to incorporate new Shure TL lavs into the various vintage mics that Maisel uses at the different venues. They became my primary source for all the standup, says Price. I ended up buying a Shure TL48 [TwinPlex]; I use that on Rachel almost exclusively to match the modified standup mics. I like the way they sound-nice and open and warm-sounding.
Further raising the degree of difficulty for Price and his team, the showrunners have insisted on live bands, especially in season 3. On the Miami After Dark episode, the jazz quartet was live, says Price. And Amy didn't want to see any mics.
While Price handled the extensive dialogue tracks, a second mixer recorded the music. We took a bidirectional capsule and put it behind the drums, away from the camera. Then there was a plant mic above, a Schoeps capsule. We put a mic on the piano lid for the bass, and another mic under the piano for the piano. And we put a lavalier mic on the trumpeter's sleeve, says Price. The show is one of his career highlights, he says.
The whole cast is amazing. One reason it sounds so good is that we don't have a whisperer or mumbler among them. And it's such a family. It's a happy set. Everyone's having fu
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
01/12/2025
Many industries have seen big-ticket hardware turn into software. Switchers, though, demand a combination of real-time performance and sheer bandwidth that has ...
01/12/2025
GENEVA Shanghai will host the next quadrennial Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27), Oct. 11-Nov. 12, 2027. This...
01/12/2025
NEW YORK Just in time for Giving Tuesday tomorrow (Dec. 2), the Broadcasters Foundation of America is seeking out donations to help television and radio industr...
01/12/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Net Insight CEO Crister Fritzson has informed the company's board that he will retire from the video transport and media cloud technology ...
01/12/2025
01 Dec 2025
Kyivstar and Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation Select Go...
01/12/2025
The prequel to the global hit Sky Original mob crime saga, Gomorrah' is a s...
01/12/2025
Featuring Florence Welch, Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Flea, designer Bella Freud...
01/12/2025
Back to All News
A Down to Earth, All Too Relatable Hero: Cashero' Teaser ...
01/12/2025
In the rush to deliver content to every screen, many broadcasters overlook one of the most crucial steps in the workflow: format and frame rate conversion. Get ...
01/12/2025
Fox Corporation Chief Financial Officer Steve Tomsic to Participate in Upcoming ...
01/12/2025
Arvato Systems' Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) Receives BSI C5 Certification (T...
01/12/2025
Summary This short video gives you an summary of the changes in under two minutes.
--...
01/12/2025
As the festive season approaches, RT Supporting the Arts is proud to showcase a...
01/12/2025
Researchers worldwide rely on open-source technologies as the foundation of their work. To equip the community with the latest advancements in digital and physi...
01/12/2025
Festive specials of Christmas in Kilmainham presented by Marty Whelan, High Road Low Road, Callan Kicks the Year and Keys to My Life
Ring in the New Year with ...
01/12/2025
Architect and television presenter Hugh Wallace, best known to RT audiences as a long-serving judge on Home of the Year, has died at the age of 68.
In a state...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
NEW YORK-It used to be that one page of screenplay equaled one minute of screen time. Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, creators and showrunners of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which streams on Amazon Prime, leave that rule of thumb in the dust.
