Keeping an ear out at the Oscars

In a lot of ways, the people who put the Oscar telecast together are like one of those teams inevitably assembled for a movie about a bank heist or an international espionage caper. “Ocean’s Twelve,” say, meets “Sneakers.” In such a scenario, Ed Greene would be the older guy in the back, who doesn’t say all that much. Because he’s too busy assembling the very delicate and highly dangerous explosive device.

Greene is a production sound mixer, and he’s been at it for more than 30 years. When the producers of “ER” and then “Will & Grace” wanted to do live episodes, they called Greene. When CBS wanted to run the full-length drama “Fail Safe” live, it called Greene. For 30 years, he did the Grammys (this was the first year he did not, for reasons he does not want to go into); he’s done Super Bowl halftime shows, the opening and closing ceremonies of two Olympics, eight or 10 years worth of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and for the last 10 years, he’s done the Oscars.

“I don’t know why,” he says, “but when there’s something really dangerous to do, my name comes up.”

“Danger” is not the first word most people associate with the Oscars. But Greene is in charge of every sound heard from the stage and the audience. “It’s my feed that goes to air,” he says, trying to explain his job in a simple way, which is almost impossible. “Everything except the orchestra, Tom Vicari does that, but I put his feed on the air.”

From the dim and chilly audio booth in the production truck, Greene is surrounded by panels and consoles that would not look out of place on a spaceship.

Here, he keeps his eye on the health of the 150 microphones required to pick up everything from the host’s opening monologue to audience reaction, from the musical numbers to winners’ speeches. Small columns of lights rise and fall with the relative surround program strengths, digital numbers mark the various sound groups that must be brought on and off with military precision, and a small screen with what looks like a dancing green hairball tells Greene how much stereo he’s got in any given moment.

But Greene isn’t watching so much as he’s listening -- to the program on big speakers and the director calling the shots on a communication speaker and the audio crew on another.

“I’m looking at the show through a microphone,” he says. “And for me, it’s about the show, not the awards.”

Not all of the sound is live. The sound mixer is also in charge of putting on air the multiple prerecorded portions of the show -- everything from audio for the film clips to the actual announcing of the nominees’ names that presenters record beforehand. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to time it out with the film clips,” Greene explains. “There would be too much chance for error.”

Greene also feeds the list of show sponsors, called commercial billboards, that precedes the commercial breaks, and controls any special effects, such as reverb, that he thinks necessary to make the home audience feel as much a part of the show as the Kodak Theatre audience.

“We want people to feel like they are there, sitting in the 10th row,” he says.

Considering how many things could go wrong -- the show is broadcast live to about 150 countries -- “danger” does not seem quite so hyperbolic.

And every show does have its own particular “technical difficulties.” When Whoopi Goldberg changed her outfit nine times during her 1999 stint as host, for example, she had to be remiked every time.

“Oh, yes,” Greene says. “Every time. That was ... fun.”

Just as challenging is when any presenter makes a last-minute wardrobe change. Many people involved in the Oscars -- from the makeup department to the lighting supervisor -- have a vested interest in knowing beforehand what the presenters will be wearing, but none more than Greene. As the presenters arrive, his staffers report the details of the outfits with as much precision as the red-carpet fashionistas.

“Obviously, the men are easier to mike than the women,” he says. He offers, as an example, Catherine Zeta-Jones. When she presented in 2004, her mike had to be hidden on her strapless red frock, and in the first few seconds of her speech, a hissing required adjustment from the booth. Greene shrugs. “You don’t know how it’s going to sound exactly until they get out there.”

Occasionally, he says, a costume will be so metallic that it blocks the transmission. Which is another reason you often see women presenting from a lectern or a center-stage mike.

And, of course, there is inevitably equipment failure. Last year, Chris Rock did his opening monologue with a hand mike, which is his signature. But when he returned after a commercial, he was to be wearing a lavaliere -- a microphone attached to his jacket. But Greene realized that it wasn’t working, so as Rock walked out, a stage manager handed him a microphone.

“When you’re doing live television,” Greene says, “you always have a plan B. And sometimes you need a plan C.”

What happens if plan C fails? Greene laughs. “Then you cut to a commercial.”

An unnervingly youthful 71, Greene has been obsessed with sound since he was young -- when he was in college, he says, he did one of the first stereo radio broadcasts, by mixing two AM stations. “There were no stereo-quality receivers back then.”

He started in the music business and got into television when Frank Sinatra, for whom he had done studio work, asked Greene to do the sound on his 1973 special “Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra: Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back.”

Sinatra, Greene says, was great to work with. “He only asked one thing. That when he arrived, you be ready for him. And that’s one of the secrets of live television,” Greene adds. “Know what the plan and the concept is and apply your specialty to that.”

Greene begins meeting with other production staff for the Oscars before the winter holidays, hiring the crew of 15 to 20, most of whom have worked together for years. But the real work begins the weekend before the show, when the audio department starts laying cable in the Kodak. The production trailers go in the week before the airdate.

Then he’ll be there every day, all day, sitting in the audio booth in the production truck, working out all the kinks.

“People watch for the mistakes,” he says. “Especially on the Oscars. Because then it’s news.”

Greene’s job requires patience, quick thinking and, above all, a comfort level with small, enclosed spaces. On the day of the Oscars, he goes into the truck at 9 a.m. and, except for a lunch break, he doesn’t come out again until the show has wrapped.

He used to wear a tuxedo for the actual show, but gave that up years ago, he says. “Sitting in the truck dressed in a tux, I felt like a fool. If I’m out of the truck during the show,” he says, “there’s been a real problem. And not a fire,” he adds, with a laugh. “I’d stay in for that.”

In addition to controlling all the feeds from the various parts of the show, Greene also works a pedal on the floor that allows him to control the sound of the theater audience -- when a joke goes over, he gets the laugh, when something is touching, the swell of emotion.

“If it’s too strong, you hear too much of the room,” he says. “If it’s too low, it’s too little. I take my shoes off to work the pedal,” he adds, with a laugh. “It gives me a better sense of control.”

His job would be complicated enough if it were for one show, but technically, it’s for four -- the sound for domestic standard and high definition and international standard and high definition. For most of the roughly 150 countries broadcasting the Oscars, the English announcer is heard only at the beginning. Fifteen of the countries have transmission trucks on site. Some even have their own announcers, but all of them get their feeds from Greene.

“I’m not exactly sure what they do,” he says, deadpan. “But I know that if what I do is wrong, then the phone rings. And I really don’t want the phone to ring.”

And though some mistakes -- a dead mike, a film clip with no audio -- are instantly noticeable, Greene also is being monitored on an almost microscopic level. The AVS Forum, a group of, well, sound geeks, monitors the technical quality of the sound and picture and comment on it, in real time, via the Internet. If it’s good information, Greene says, he’ll make an adjustment.

So focused is he on all things audio, he often doesn’t know who won what or even what was actually said.

For the most part, he can’t quite explain how he does what he does. He’s been at it so long, it’s almost second nature, the ability to listen to many different things, the director and associate director and the stage managers, to hear the cues and check the microphones and figure out if there’s a problem and how to fix it. It’s a zone, a place out of time and mind, the alternate universe of the audio booth.

Not that this keeps him from doubting himself in the stomach-churning silence just before showtime.

“As they count down from 15,” he says, “you sit there and think, ‘This is crazy.’ You look at the script and it’s that thick and you think, ‘I can’t do this.’”

Then the music swells and such thoughts are lost completely, swallowed whole by the sound.