Audio Technology - Issue 20

Finding my thing with Madonna Some time ago on a Saturday morning I'm up a ladder, painting my kitchen, the mobile rings and I fumble down from the roof to find my self in one of the most surreal weekends of my life. "O'Neil? Steveo here, what are you up to?" This Steveo fellow was the managing director of Apocalypse Post, which at the time was by far the biggest and best video post production house in the southern hemisphere.

For all kinds of reasons, not the least being that I was broke, I was hanging around this video post house picking up the odd couple of bucks helping out wherever I could. A mate had got me in there to help him and because I was pretty hard up at the time I just kept on reinventing reasons to stay. I did whatever they needed and probably quite a few things they didn't.

Anyway this fellow Steveo is not the kind of guy who would ring me on a Saturday and he was definitely not be the kind of guy to give a toss about what I was doing on a Saturday I told him I was painting my kitchen roof. "What colour?" he says. I reply, "Steveo, what do you really want?"

He says Madonna is coming in this morning and they really need my help, his guys are in a flap and he needs me bad, "get in here now". I ask him what he wants me to do and he says these immortal words: "babe just come in and do your thing". Hmmm, 'do my thing'. This sounds like trouble.

I have worked with lots and lots of really famous people and the common dominator is that it is always a last minute up-in-the-air type deal - you never really get the kind of reward you would expect by working the top-end of the shelf I ask Steveo if Madonna is actually coming in herself, he says "yes". I ask who's paying and he calls me a prick. I ask him how long he wants me for and he says, "pack a sleeping bag".

Now the Madonna deal was a tangled one. It was conducted in secret and pretty much nobody knows that it even happened - well, until now - but I figure we're all friends so the secret can stay between us.

Madonna was scheduled to play two nights in a row at the Sydney Showground - that much everybody knows. She was also scheduled to broadcast the second concert live via satellite to a Saturday Night Live special cable pay-for-view in the USA. At the Showground Madonna had a whole stack of cameras and two Sony 48-track digital machines - one hired in from Melbourne and one from Apocalypse itself, and that's how we got involved and that's where it all got complicated. Steveo figured if he was hiring Madonna his 48-track then he should at least get a couple of freebie gold tickets to the show. And while he's scamming the freebies he tells Madonna's production team leader that he has a 40 million dollar video facility at their disposal 24/7 in case the little lady wants to do a video clip or whatever while she is in town.

As I said, Madonna was doing two shows and she was sending the second one up via satellite for pay-for-view. Problem was, the weather. It was drizzling on the first night and it looked like it was going to rain big time on the second night which would wash out the show. And no show meant no pay-for-view, which meant no extra big profit on the Australian tour.
 
Madonna and her people had millions riding on the satellite show and they made a very big call - they decided to cancel the second Sydney show and not risk the washout. They also decided to 'fake' the live broadcast by using the vision recorded at the test show (the first night) and the rehearsal as well as some footage from Hong Kong from earlier in the week. All they had to do was hook up 17 Betacams into an editing bay, punch all the shots together in one seamless feed, rush it out to the Showground and send it up the satellite link as if it had actually taken place in real time on the Saturday night "live from Sydney by direct satellite". Oh yeah, and they had to make it all work flawlessly on the Saturday morning so they could keep their little swindle a secret and collect their millions.
 
I jump in my car and make my way to Apocalypse and I keep hearing those words "just come in and do your thing". What 'thing'?, I wonder. What can I do? This is serious video stuff and I'm an audio guy. Hell, it was Madonna, I figured I would just see what happens.
 
As I get in I see the staff chief engineer. He's a good man but he has spent the early part of the morning doing the impossible. He has managed to rig up this octopus of machines and got them all on the same switcher - he actually made the 'theoretically possible' a reality "Shit", I say, "this may actually work". The chief engineer doesn't hear a word, I don't think he even sees me... I don't think he sees anyone... He's taken stress up to a previously unknown level - he is completely frazzled. Steveo sees me and pulls me into his office.
 
"What have you done Steveo?" I ask. He says, "We're f***ed, everything's f***ed". His panic is cut short as Madonna's people walk in. Steveo straightens up, puts on a smile and introduces me to the head of Madonna's technical team. "This is Rick O'Neil, he is our chief technical director, anything you want, he will make it happen". "Glad to have you aboard," says the American. "Sorry to ruin your weekend. I will give you 10 minutes with Steveo to get up to speed and we will have a technical meeting in 15 minutes with the little lady to plot our course."
 
As he leaves, so does my skin colour. Steveo shuts the door and offers me a seat. "Err, sorry about that," he says, "but our chief engineer has lost it and I have no idea what anybody's talking about. My guys are f***ed, it's all f***ed... Do you want a line?" "No thanks," I say, "it's not my thing."

So here I am hopelessly out of my depth pretending to be the technical director of a multimillion-dollar problem because Steveo wants me to do 'my thing'. "What is my thing?" I keep muttering to myself, as if repetition is some kind of substitute for revelation.
 
Madonna arrives with her entourage and all the technical crew move into the boardroom for a briefing. Madonna's head guy stands up and says to the little lady: "Everything is go. Cancel the show, make yourself comfortable and we will keep you advised in half hour bulletins." Madonna, without a smile or any sign of expression at all says, "I would like to direct the show myself, are we ready to do it?"
 
Damn! No one had said anything about Madonna calling the shots. This is an impending disaster. The head American guy looks at me and gives me a nod to indicate that it's my turn to speak. I feel like I am at an antique auction and I am trying to pull that poker face I don't use often enough. At this point I don't want to give any indication whatsoever... about anything whatsoever

The head guy takes my cue. "Yes Maddy, that will be fine," he says. 1 am absolutely stunned. I wonder which part of my face flinched and what I had just 'purchased' by mistake. In short, I wonder what the hell is going on. I got up in the morning to paint my kitchen, now I am promising Madonna 'everything will be fine' in a multi-million dollar switcheroo. As the meeting breaks up Steveo pats me on the back and says, "That's it babe, just keep doing your thing."
 
Ellio, the real chief engineer along with his tech crew have done the impossible - everything seems to work. There are people flying everywhere, I am left out in the halls with people asking me really obvious questions like, 'How do we open the car park?', 'Where is the coffee?', 'How do the phones work?'. I answer the questions and people race off. 'Is this really my thing', I wonder? 'What is my thing?'
 
Madonna has a seat in the editing room. I pop in and the head American says: "Rick, we have a problem... The damn air is too cold, the little lady is freezing. Can you fix it?"
 
I take a look at the thermostat and it already measures a little hotter then usual - 24 degrees. In a room full of millions of dollars worth of equipment, this is bad. These machines are designed to work at 19 degrees and because everything in the building is daisy-chained together, if something blows up, well, to quote Steveo, "We are all f***ed".
 
I find the air conditioning master control and override the panel in the editing room, turning the temperature back down, that is, making it colder. I am met in the hallway by a lady called 'Missy' (Madonna is so rich she has a personal assistant to chuck tantrums for her) and Missy is going off: "You must fix that air conditioning. You must fix it now. She is freezing!".

I put on my stern face and tell her that with all this equipment working at once, we must keep the room cool, not hot. She runs into the editing room and screams at the top of her voice, "this moron just made the room colder not hotter - get him fired right now". The room stops dead and everybody looks directly at me.
 
As I said earlier, I have worked with many really famous artists... Huge acts like Bob Dylan, U2 and Bryan Adams, and there is one golden rule when you have an impossible problem and a pop star is involved. The golden rule is: The man with all the gold makes all the rules'. In this case Madonna is the golden child and apparently she is cold and she wants heaters. I look at Madonna's security guards and the size of their guns. I look at the irate Missy who wants me fired. I then take my life into my hands, ignore Missy and apply the golden rule, addressing Madonna directly: "Um, excuse me," I say. "We have a problem with the air conditioning. It must stay at 19 degrees or the equipment will overheat and blow up. If anything blows up we lose the whole show - there are no parameters to juggle. I suggest someone gets you a jacket". Maddy looks up and without expression says, "I am fine here by the control desk, it's Missy that's cold. Someone get her a jacket!"

I see the smiles being held back by the whole crew. Missy the bitch walks out; the editors get back to work and Steveo pats me on the back and says, "Babe, just keep doing your thing".

I wander off muttering, "What is he talking about? What is my thing?"
 
For about eight miraculous hours not much goes wrong. I sneak out and get some food and on my return all hell has broken loose. At the showground Keith Cohen (a big time American mixing guy) is mixing the show using the backing tapes and the rehearsal show to make a stereo master. One of the songs recorded from the test night is not correct. Madonna doesn't like her visual performance and she has edited in the vision from the Hong Kong show. Keith has tried to use the Hong Kong audio mix but it doesn't match up sonically to the mix he's doing of the Sydney show. Stick with me here: Sydney show, Sydney mix, then the complete Hong Kong show is cut in for one song, then back to the Sydney show. The vision editing is flawless - Madonna has pretty much the same show every night - but the audio is obviously wrong - different crowd noise, different ambience, different mix etc. Madonna doesn't like Keith's audio fix-up - she can hear the changeover. But Madonna wants to keep the song with the Hong Kong visuals. The song is Vogue. It is a big number, it can't be dropped. I get put on the phone with Keith. He says, "What the hell are we going to do?".
 
At last I get asked a question that I really know the answer to: "Get me the stereo mixes. I'll match the shows up and edit them back in." Keith says, "That's impossible. You're in a video post house." I tell him I was the head mastering engineer at my last job. He says, "Ah, then it will be no problem for you - matchups are your thing." For a few seconds I'm thinking, "Yeah, matchups, mastering, now that's my 'thing'". Then I figure Steveo doesn't even know what mastering is, and nobody could have predicted the current situation. This was not why is was hired. 'My thing, what is my thing?'

It takes about 20 minutes to match the Hong Kong show to the Sydney show, and after being on this roller-coaster for 18 hours Maddy walks in, sits on my lounge, hears the fix-up, and without expression says, "Fine, thanks for your help". They stripe the d2 video master and race out to the Showground for the satellite link. Apparently it goes great and nobody ever knows we did the ol' switcheroo... "Not Live from Sydney". There is a video around if you're interested in the sound of the actual job. You won't see my name on it. In fact you won't even see Apocalypse credited because nobody ever owned up to the scam. It's just the live show direct from Sydney', or so it seems.

Two days late Steveo is back on the phone: "We're f***ed. It's all f***ed. They're checking the invoices". To which I replied, "What's wrong with that?" He confesses to over-charging Madonna 'a bit', just about $120,000 too much. They want to see everybody who put an invoice in and they want to see me now.
 
I get to Apocalypse and I meet with Madonna's accounts people. They ask about my invoice: "Why is there 18 hours here? What did you do?"
 
I'm a bit nonplussed for a minute. I worked damned hard that weekend and I really needed the money and I figured what with the mastering fix-up, I actually was a critical link in making the show fly.
 
"What's the problem? Isn't Madonna rich?" I ask without expression. The accountant replies in the affirmative, but the little lady pays him half a million a year and he saves her around $40,000 per day. He says he checks every single invoice for absolutely everything. You would be surprised what people try to do to shaft her. He asks why Madonna should be paying me directly when I am on staff as chief technical director at Apocalypse?
 
I figure Steveo has made his own bed but I'm no turncoat so I explain to the accountant, "I'm not sure who told you I was chief technical director but in fact that is not the case. I work freelance for my own company Turtlerock and Steveo asked me to come in and 'do my thing', and that's exactly what I did. Furthermore, I did it for 18 hours and I am getting more than a little pissed off that the richest lady in show business - who I know has made over three million dollars from a cheap three card trick that she wants kept a secret - doesn't what to pay me."
 
"Well fine," says the accountant. "If we're paying you for doing 'your thing' then you best tell me Rick, just what is your thing?"
 
Slowly and without hesitation I say, "My thing is, I work really hard to make things look easy."

The accountant looks up, smiles and signs the cheque. I walk out and flash the cheque at Steveo. He says: "Babe, you're incredible. Just keep doing your thing... Now, can you help me get my invoice through?"
 
Rick O'Neil runs Turtlerock Mastering in Camperdown and would probably prefer it if nobody tells Madonna he let the cat out of the bag - her guys still have guns.

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