Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (February 14, 2019)—Production sound mixer Lawrence Chick made use of his collection of Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless products while on set for a 30-second spot for McDonald’s Malaysia that created such demand that the company ran out of chicken at its restaurants—twice.
The spot was intended to be a purely sound driven commercial with no dialogue or music. “Hearing the sound of people eating fried chicken was the ‘hook’,” says Chick. “It was an exciting challenge because they wanted me to capture the actual sound of people eating fried chicken and not a studio sound effect.”
Chick has traveled the world recording sound in England, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. His career portfolio includes projects such as UFA Cinema’s feature film Jungle Child and Michael Mann’s feature film Blackhat, and includes work on corporate projects for Amway, BP and Citibank, and commercials for ESPN, Toyota and Visa.
Chick, who had a boom operator and a sound assistant on his team, employed his SMQV UHF belt-pack transmitter, HMa UHF plug-on transmitter and ALP650 sharkfin antennas on the three-day shoot. “I used the SMQV on the talent and had my boom operator use a HMa wireless plug-on transmitter on his mic which enabled us to move quickly around multiple sets. With the Lectrosonics ALP650 sharkfin antennas, I was able to stay outside some of the smaller rooms they used to film.”
The primary release of the commercial in cinemas created an additional challenge for him. “The sound of someone eating is not as loud as talking. If the signal recorded low with a lot of noise in the background, post would need to turn it up, equally increasing the background noise. It would have been very noticeable in the movie theaters,” he says.
“Also, if post sonically cut out a lot of the background noise in the mix, the recordings could have ended up too thin and lost their punch. It was an honor to be brought in at the early stages where I could contribute my technical advice.”
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