Sound Supervisor Daniel S. McCoy CAS chose Bubblebee Industries’ Sidekick In-Ear IFB Monitors for the 2020 production of America’s Got Talent, which was approached differently this year in order to comply with IATSE Covid guidelines.

McCoy, the owner and operator of Los Angeles-based location and post-production audio company ToneMesa, Inc., was brought onto the show’s production team to handle audio remotes. He, in turn, introduced the directors, producers and show judges to Bubblebee Sidekicks, which were used for communication on and off set.

“With today’s productions requiring an element of ‘social distance’, getting comms sorted out is absolutely critical,” McCoy explains. “You can’t expect technicians to show up and place 10 wires on people because it is just not safe. What’s important is having comms equipment that talent are comfortable with. It also needs to have a high useability factor so people don’t need technicians to fit it because they can do it themselves.”

For America’s Got Talent 2020, judges and those auditioning couldn’t all be in the same place. However, it was important that judges saw performances live before deciding which contestants would go through to the next stage of the competition. Remote auditions took place in Las Vegas on the West Coast, with the production crew capturing all performances live to tape. The directors and producers, who were not on set, watched these via Zoom and once the number of contestants had reduced from 60 to 16, the judges were given the chance to see their performances live, again using Zoom.

At this stage, McCoy and Paul Whitman gave each judge a Sidekick, so that they could easily communicate with the director and production crew: “We showed them once, and for two days everything was flawless,” McCoy says. “We didn’t have a single issue or any discomfort. They could communicate in real time as they watched our playback, then they could interface directly with the talent in a face to face Zoom call.”

Bubblebee’s Sidekick features “the world’s first” micro driver solution where the driver fits invisibly in the ear canal, “eliminating the need for acoustic tubes outside the ear”.  This was helpful, especially for Howie Mandel whose lack of hair means that any wires can immediately be seen.

“We used a coiled cable and we mounted it to the costume,” McCoy says, who was assisted by A2 Billy McKarge. “We only had to interface with the judges once, at the beginning, and from then on they were able to pop the Sidekick monitors in and out of their ear on their own and reset it within seconds – like magic. Their comfort with the product and its useability was incredibly high, so we had Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Sofia Vergara all with Sidekicks in their ears and all able to talk to the control room like they were right there.”