Sound specialist Joey Paul on how Lectrosonics survived an “absolute torture chamber” on Tenants of Carver Hill shoot

Joey Paul has done a little bit of everything. His work spans location sound, post, and music composition for productions across the feature film, web series, advertising, documentary and game spheres.

Movie highlights include The Last Rampage starring Robert Patrick, Adolescence, and Deserted. In the commercial realm, he has worked for clients such as Amazon, DirecTV, Tabasco, Shari’s Berries, and the Thunderful World game showcase hosted by Mark Hamill.

For his latest project, the supernatural thriller Tenants of Carver Hill, where an overnight stay becomes an eternal nightmare as a couple's presence sparks a supernatural force that refuses to release them, Paul relied on time-tested Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid wireless, namely SMV and SMQV transmitters paired with legacy SRb stereo receivers, the predecessor to the slot-mountable SRc series.

“I make my living mostly via branded content, corporate gigs and commercials geared for social media,” says Paul. “When it comes to narrative work, feature films can be pretty taxing. So, I save that energy for passion projects and things I think are going to be really awesome. I’ve used Lectrosonics throughout it all, for the past 10 years.”

Tenants of Carver Hill is certainly one such passion project and posed challenges for both indoor and outdoor scenes. “The main location was a 300-year-old farmhouse in Pennsylvania Dutch country,” he explains. “We got to record a lot of door creaks, old iron latches, the china in cabinets on the ground floor rattling when someone was running around on the third, things like that. Of course, we’re a skeleton crew who also needed to capture clear dialogue without all those wonderful noises, which is where lavs on Lectro were indispensable.

“For the exterior shots it was even more important,” he continues. “In this part of Pennsylvania, it was landscaping season! Mowers, leaf blowers, and truck engines all day. This made it crucial to use my SMVs and SMQVs with lav mics, which were DPA 4060. Shotguns on booms weren’t going to work for isolated dialogue tracks. My setup had no interference and no problems, day in and day out.”

Such reliability is why Paul is loyal to equipment that early adopters might call “legacy,” even though Lectrosonics still manufactures and supports his tools of choice. “I have been using the same literal units, not just the same models, for over 10 years now,” he says. “I suppose the saying ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ applies. They’ve been through an absolute torture chamber during that time.”

That torture chamber has included his transmitters getting literally soaked and coming back swinging. For one job shot in springtime in California’s Death Valley region, an actor “sweat right through his waistband and into the transmitter. I took the batteries out, opened it up, and let it sit in the sun for about 10 minutes. It powered back on and worked fine.”

A similar potential nightmare involved a swimming pool: “The director just kept ordering resets,” he recalls. “Unexpectedly, he decides to have the actors pushed in the pool and calls action. They were wearing my transmitters, I hadn’t prepared them for submersion, and I swear I was going ‘Nooo!’ in slow motion as they all went in the water. Again, the sun-drying worked great, and I’m still using both units.”

Paul also credits the pairing of SM-series transmitters and his SRb receivers with better-than-expected range, in part owing to the SM’s ability to transmit at 250 milliwatts in extreme situations: “For anything involving cars, even with just the whip antenna and no shark fins, I am blown away by how well the SRBs have held on when I’m in a follow car. It’s best not to bump them up [to 250mW] unless you have to, but I have on a number of occasions, and it saved the day.”

Paul looks forward to expanding his own range into more outdoor work, all with his Lectrosonics at his side. “I’d like to do reality TV,” he reflects “Especially anything out in the wilderness involving camping, with me being part of a Survivor-like crew. I love documentary work, and I love following wild animals, so anything that incorporates that. I can be confident knowing that whatever comes along in any environment, my Lectrosonics will stand up to it.”