Prognosis on Prague-Noises: Recording Scores in Czech Republic

March 31st, 2010 by

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN: Music budgets aren’t lookin’ up for non-blockbuster film projects these days, and that means film composers must be as economical as possible when scoring a film. But what is a composer to do if the director of a smaller budget project is looking for a large orchestral sound that simply cannot be achieved virtually?

Gary Chester

Gary Chester

You’ve heard of film and video game scores being tracked in Prague, but going that route requires contacts, experience and general know-how beyond the scope of many composers and music producers.

This is exactly the scenario recording engineer Gary Chester (A Bronx Tale, Dead Man Walking) had in mind when he created PragueRecording.com, which connects people/productions with everything they need to outsource orchestral scores to the Czech Republic, saving the film company thousands of dollars in costs.

How much can you save by recording scores in Prague? “I would say it’s 1/3rd the cost,” Chester attests.

In Prague, the score can be laid down as a non-union job, which means no royalties or other fettered costs need to be paid to the orchestral players. In addition, the recorded music can be used for an indefinite number of times, for an indefinite amount of time, and for any purpose the owner chooses — without exception. In film deals, the film company usually owns the music, but in the case of albums, which Chester has also recorded in Prague, this royalty free package is extremely advantageous.

The first score Chester recorded in Prague? Witness to the Mob (1998), with composer Stephen Endelman.

What film companies and film composers have loved about Chester is that he assumes full responsibility of the job overseas. He books the travel. He books the hotel. He books the hall.  It’s like an all-inclusive package, although he admits he occasionally cuts back on some of the work on booking travel and hotels as engineering the sessions is a gargantuan task in and of itself.

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Chester, a seasoned expert having worked on such films as Dead Man Walking, The Butterfly Effect, and most recently Last Chance Harvey, started out his career mastering albums for the United Artists label. He then moved into recording bands like The Belmonts in his own space called Mayfair, at United Artists. Gary started recording TV commercials at Mayfair and eventually broke away to his own business ventures: Counterpoint Studios and The Edison.  These recording studios are where Gary really pulled in a lot of work, engineering commercials at first, but eventually moving on to film scores.

CZECH TECH: LOGISTICS AND TECHNICAL ISSUES OF RECORDING IN PRAGUE
As we chatted in NYC studio The Den, located within Manhattan Center, Chester enlightened me on the various technical aspects of recording in Prague.  To start, European concert halls, for example, have acoustics that are far superior to typical large American recording rooms.

Alternative seating arrangements in concert venues offer another advantage over  studios. In a studio environment, Chester must seat the loudest instruments, such as the brass, in front to isolate the sound as much as possible.  A concert venue in Prague affords Gary the unique option of seating the players as one would a traditional symphony orchestral.

Sometimes Chester will manipulate the arrangement of the violin sections or choir to get a different sound as well. He finds that a more dramatic effect may be achieved if the 2nd violins are moved to stage left to create a stereo sound. Gary may also recommend to situate the choir in distinct sections, the traditional SATB arrangement, or mix up the voice parts to achieve a more blended sound.

In these situations, I wondered…does he use a click-track? “An orchestra sounds best, in my opinion, when there’s only a conductor, no prerecords, no click track, no headphones, because the orchestra actually hears the sound in the room,” Chester explained. “Dynamically, they hear themselves, and they follow something that is not so metric as a click track. But, that can only be done on very few projects.”

Most often, Chester is engineering a session that involves pre-recorded material such as a piano track, rhythm section, or MIDI material that has been bounced to an audio file. Composers almost always prepare this ahead of time, and have the timing of cues locked down before the live session. This means click track is a must.

Czech orchestras tune to A443 rather than A440 of American ensembles.  This raises an issue when pre-records are involved in the live session. According to Chester, classically trained musicians of Europe may be set in their ways and not tune down, so this pitch discrepancy is solved simply by sliding the pitch of the pre-records up in Pro Tools.

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MENTORING & CURRENT PROJECTS
Chester also enjoys advising up-and-coming film composers. He recently mentored an NYU film-scoring student, providing business coaching on contracting and technical issues to get his score recorded at NYC’s Clinton Studios.  Last summer, he engineered and lectured at the ASCAP-NYU Film Scoring Workshop in Memory of Buddy Baker.

Chester’s latest film project, Brooklyn’s Finest, was released earlier this month and features a score by Marcelo Zarvos. Gary has also recently returned from Prague recording the score of Discovery’s new show called, Life.  Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, Life’s premier episode aired on Sunday, March 21 and drew in  walloping 11.8 million viewers.

– Jeffrey DiLucca

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