Much longer ago than I need to say, I went to a conference through wonderful British comedian Evelyn Waugh in Providence, Rhode Island. The guy went up to the level and placed on a lectern, in front of which was a top microphone on the floor with a cable that ran from its base to the side curtains.
Waugh had not begun to speak faster than the microphone began to do very slowly. Unsettlingly, centimeter to centimeter, left the level of the left. Waugh, of course, saw that he didn’t know. It didn’t occur to him to frown outdoors at the level where someone was probably pulling the rope for reasons no one will ever know. He was a guy with a voluntary sense of ridicule. (Legend has it that on his first day of paintings for a giant London newspaper, the newspaper’s owner arrived and asked the young man his name. “Waugh, ” he answered. The owner thought he was making a rude noise and sent him back.)
Then, fearlessly, Waugh began to hit the microphone, lifting the lectern and moving with him. He continued to preach, though as he approached the curtain, his eyes seemed a little housed. It seems that the audiovisual deserves not to be left to the fans. In fact, the Smithsonian devotes a full branch of its Office of Physical Plant to audiovisual services.
“In and out of the mall,” says Acting Principal Karen Lawrence, “we serve virtually the entire institution. When a consumer calls and says they have a five-day convention and they’ll want projectors or video playback, or The Art Department functionality says they ask an artist to act, we provide sound reinforcement for that. We also do duplicate audio and video if asked.”
Deputy Chief Willy Prost adds: “Think of us as other people at times instead of exhibiting to others.”
When The Smithsonian Associates performs through the Emerson String Quartet or the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, the paintings are simple. The audiovisual branch (A-V) provides an advertiser microphone and an audio loop microphone for assisted listening.
“They don’t need amplification,” Prost says. I applaud in silence, recalling the times I heard recitals ruined by the unforeseen explosion of sophisticated sounds.
A-V has the device to cover maximum desires, and the home workplace of the National Museum of American History is beautifully crammed with boxes and folders. Sometimes a Smithsonian sponsor will ask, for example, the newest knowledge projector, a wonder of the $12,000 generation. Who’s going to pay for it? Not A-V. Even if the sponsor only wants it once a year, the sponsor and long-term users will have to percentage the cost.
“People think there’s a lot of cash in the castle basement,” Lawrence says with a smile, “but in fact we have to pay our own way. Therefore, the sponsor comes to AV with their wishes and is charged for services Everything is planned well in advance: “This is not a firefighting operation, even if from time to time a visitor does not know himself at the same time that he prepares for an occasion, and then we all fight.”
I ask for horror stories. “We don’t have any,” Lawrence says, even though Prost says, “we’re looking for them.” You think of those things in the same way that racing drivers “don’t forget Turn 3 but don’t forget to go back to the end,” he adds.
Most of the time, bad memories involve hasty calls for confusing material. Once, for Masters Night in the air and space, the sponsors asked A-V to rent a special computer. “We had about an hour to locate one, and then we couldn’t access the Internet at the designated location. Finally, we take him to a classroom and we succeed.”
What about the comments? We’ve all gone to occasions when a complicated sound device covers part of the level and the first thing we hear is a terrible howl and everybody thinks, shit, we can fly to the moon but not the microphone.
“What it is, ” Prost tells me. “I speak through a microphone and my voice comes out of the speaker, but I can’t hear myself, so I ask you to increase the sound. So they do it and I tell them, okay, I’m here, and I sing my song and it stops. But the amp and the speaker don’t know I stopped, so they keep picking up the microphone sign and sending it back to the amplifier. This can be avoided. You can reduce the volume. Instantly, the song stops, but you want a quick hand.”
Prost naturally started the business. “I, the fifth-grade geek boy who figured out how to run the projector. The film collapses and the nun runs in search of ‘Sister Calamity’, but I would solve the challenge first.” After Penn State, he worked for a video company in Washington, then was hired here in 1987 as an intermittent technician, evolving over the years.
Lawrence also liked audiovisual material in high school. At Morgan State, Maryland, she was assigned to the Media Center for a work study and, after graduating, held AV positions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other schools. He moved to the Smithsonian in ’89.
Team technicians cover a wide variety of skills, which will need to be tailored to their missions. One is a cameraman specializing in the shooting of surgeries. Some are musicians, some photographers. Most have outdoor jobs and paintings here “intermittently”.
And since everyone knows who has a computer at home, nothing is easy. Recording a 35mm film means getting the correct height/width ratio (Anthony Hopkins’ circular head, for example, does not seem to fit into an anamorphic lens).
Concerts also require special technical skills. A rock band can pass up to 115 decibels on Prost’s sonometer, which is the same noise point as a gun. But the sound of the guns lasts part of a second; music, on the other hand, can last 20 minutes.
“The pain threshold is 126 decibels,” he says, “but technicians can do what the organization leaves us.”
A-V other people tend to be invisible. They are the first to arrive and the last to leave, meaning they would possibly be there even before the sponsors, and much later to save the lost gloves.
“We checked and reconfirmed what a visitor wants,” Lawrence says. “Some would say they only want four microphones. Well, what are you going to connect them to? And if you have a singer, will you want monitors? We talk for those who don’t know what to ask.”
Before A-V can settle for programs from an outdoor group, you will first need to download the approval of the Smithsonian branch that sponsors them. As a charge recovery unit, A-V survives those events, where operating prices, administrative support, appliance repair and replacement, and staff prices are paid through the developer.
Sometimes the sponsor insists on doing things his own way, in which case A-V issues a warning. “We’ve been in this business so long that we know how the device thinks,” Prost says.
And they hate to see someone come up with a great amplifier more suitable for a football stadium. Recently, a gospel band sang in American History, Lawrence recalls, and “even here, in the basement, would vibrate Willy’s chair.” “The band’s amplifiers and drums were more powerful than the vocals,” Prost says. “Our challenge to make the song stronger than the band.”
Another thing to explain with the visitor is how the technicians will look. If it’s a VIP event, you may be invited to show up in a suit and tie. For a concert, do you have to wear shorts? Okay, but no cuts or gym shorts, and no naughty T-shirts. “The pro-informal taste is taste,” Lawrence laughs.
There is not much for outdoor care, which is done regularly through contractors. But you never know: when they’re called for an outdoor task at the mall, for example, at the Research Center in Silver Hill, Maryland, they conduct site studies and check power sources, plugs, so they have them smoothly and imaginable. a generator. Although A-V staff paints exclusively for the Smithsonian, their assignments can take them to restaurants and embassies, and to other outdoor locations in the mall. “Having equipment, traveling,” Lawrence says.
And your hours can last from five hours to 2 hours or more. “If you see a Cushman golf cart loaded with stuff running around the mall at 3 a.m.,” Lawrence tells me, “it’s us.”
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