NFL Players Week on Wheel of Fortune
PRG provides high production values without the drama.
The Challenge: Put the audience into the show — quietly.
The Solution: Bringing TV shows to remote locations around the country is all in a days work for PRG. For more than 10 years, the company has provided sound design, equipment and crew for Sony Pictures Television’s Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! whenever the programs go on the road.
For the 2006 edition of Wheel’s NFL Players Week, taped in Ft Lauderdale’s convention center, the degree of difficulty went up a notch when the producers decided to seat 280 members of the Wheel Watchers Club on risers on the stage.
To react appropriately on camera, the Wheel Watchers needed to hear the hosts and contestants, but onstage sound levels had to remain low to maintain the clarity of the broadcast audio and avoid feedback from the hosts’ and contestants’ lavaliere microphones. Equipment also had to look good on camera and not interfere with the audience or the production. PRG mounted 31 Apogee SSM speakers on the underside of the risers, using linesman nylon-covered wire ties to hold them firmly in place. These speakers projected a low level of sound to the upper levels, while speakers mounted on the back of a vanity wall kept front row Wheel Watchers discretely in the game.
Everything worked exactly as planned, reports PRGs sound designer and live PA mixer Bill Daly. “The onstage solution was invisible to the home viewers, sounded crystal clear — and the people in the stands didn’t even know it was there.”