Mic'ing a Room in Total Silence: Chris Breest on "Instructions For Leaving"

Chris Breest is an audio engineer with over 25 years in the industry, founder and CEO of Plymouth Rock Recording Co., Director of the BSAET Studio program at Lawrence Technological University, and Director of Repertoire Services at North Star Media. His latest project is a documentary about consciousness, meditation and the Monroe Institute - and it handed him one of the toughest production sound briefs of his career: capture a room full of people at their most vulnerable, without letting a single microphone remind them they're being filmed. Here's how he did it, in his own words.

Your background

Can you tell us a little about your background and what first attracted you to the world of sound?

At 14 I was gifted my first guitar and began teaching myself via guitar tablature. Shortly after that I acquired a Tascam Porta 02 Mini-studio and I was off and running! I continued to learn guitar and develop my recording skillset through my teenage years while beginning to dabble in songwriting. By the time I turned 18 I was playing and performing music in a couple of different groups and had focused my sights on finding my way into the music/recording space in my local community.

At 19 I was able to obtain an internship at a recording studio in my area that was made famous by legendary producer Ben Grosse. He had already moved his operation to The Mix Room in Burbank, CA by that time, but the studio was still up and running under different management. That was a big break for me - it exposed me to top-tier talent and gave me the confidence that I could "hang" in the same space as people I admired in the industry. Many of the relationships I built there I still maintain today, and I view that period as formative in my professional career.

What was your first real gig, and how did you get into the industry?

Since we're focused on production sound, I'll talk about my first real gig as it relates to that. I left college at around 21-22 to come back and work on an independent film being shot in Detroit in the early 2000s, because it seemed silly to stay in college and sacrifice getting actual hands-on experience. I worked as an A2 under a gentleman named Jimmy Romeo on a film called The Brewster Project, which had quite a few notable music artists acting in it. From there I had enough confidence to represent myself as a young, up-and-coming production sound mixer. I'd met a young director at a music show in Detroit, and she recruited me to be her PSM. As part of my agreement with her, I was able to obtain a Fostex FR-2 field recorder and an Audio-Technica 4073A shotgun mic. It was a very modest rig, but I found work for a number of years after that with this simple setup.

Working in Michigan

Detroit and Michigan have such a deep creative history - techno, Motown, a whole culture of their own. What's it like building a career as a sound engineer there, away from the LA/New York pull?

As someone born and raised in metro Detroit, I think initially I was a bit numb to the true impact the city's musicians have had on the world's music scene. It's absolutely mind-blowing to look at all the genre-defining music that's been created here. Detroit has always been a huge exporter of talent across a wide range of industries, and the creative spaces are no different.

The work you're proudest of

Across everything you've done - film, field audio, music, the studio - what's the coolest project you've ever worked on? Don't be modest.

Hmmm, that's a tough one. Over the past couple of years at the studio, we had the opportunity to work with the legendary producer Jack Douglas on a project with the Detroit Youth Choir, who became a household name during their stint on America's Got Talent. Jack is the kind of producer you know whether you realize it or not - from his work with Aerosmith to cutting strings on the iconic song "Imagine" by John Lennon, his work is engrained in the pantheon of music. Just being able to share the same air and hear his stories is definitely one of the coolest experiences of my career.

In the production sound space, working with the USA Men's Olympic Hockey Team for some content around the Winter Olympics was pretty special, and the year before, working on a yet-to-be-released film executive produced by Jon Lovitz was another highlight. I know I'm breaking the rules here, but it's hard to keep it narrowed down to just those. At the end of the day, I try to look at my work the way Enzo Ferrari looked at his: when asked what his favourite project was, he'd often reply "the next one." That mentality certainly resonates with me.

The Monroe Institute shoot

For people who haven't heard of it, what is the Monroe Institute, and how did a documentary on consciousness land on your plate?

The Monroe Institute is an educational and research organisation that's spent more than 50 years exploring consciousness through meditation, sound-based brainwave entrainment, and altered states of awareness. They're best known for developing Hemi-Sync® technology and the Gateway Experience, a program designed to help people explore expanded states of consciousness. More recently, the Institute received renewed public attention after declassified CIA documents discussing the Gateway Experience circulated online, introducing a much wider audience to Monroe's work.

The project came to me through Jason Schultz, a longtime collaborator who was really the driving force behind getting the documentary off the ground. When he asked me to join, it was an immediate yes. Initially I came on as a producer focused primarily on production sound and the overall audio strategy, but as the project evolved my role expanded into a much broader production position.

The one request I made from the beginning was that the core producing team experience the Gateway Program ourselves before we ever started filming. I've worked on documentaries for more than twenty years, and I've learned that the best films come from filmmakers who genuinely understand the world they're documenting. Documentaries are multi-year commitments, and I didn't want this to become a purely observational or transactional project.

Going through the program ourselves gave us a much deeper appreciation for what participants experience, the culture of the Institute, and the subtle dynamics that unfold throughout the week. It fundamentally shaped how we approached production - from where we placed cameras and microphones to how we interacted with participants - and ultimately helped us capture the experience in a way that felt authentic rather than intrusive.

The debrief room: ambisonic capture over lavs

The debrief room is the heart of the project, and you've chosen ambisonic capture and beamforming over lav'ing everyone up - to keep participants immersed. Walk us through that decision. What are you protecting by doing it that way?

The debrief room was always the space I was most concerned about getting right, because in many ways it's the emotional centre of the entire documentary. A typical Gateway Program includes 24 participants and two trainers. Throughout the week, participants experience a series of guided exercises using Hemi-Sync® and Monroe Sound Science, and after each exercise they gather in the debrief room to share what they experienced. When I went through the Gateway Program myself, those conversations were where some of the most profound moments happened. I knew from personal experience that if we disrupted that environment, we risked changing the very thing we were there to document.

The obvious solution would have been to wire everyone with lavalier microphones, but I felt that would fundamentally change the experience. Every morning we'd have to mic up 26 people, manage batteries and transmitters, troubleshoot issues, and continually remind participants that they were part of a film production. Beyond the logistical complexity, it would have introduced a level of self-awareness that ran counter to the immersive environment the Monroe Institute works so carefully to create. My priority was protecting that container above everything else.

Around that time, my friend Scotty at Soyuz Microphones had loaned us several microphones to evaluate, including the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic microphone. I started wondering if we could use ambisonic capture in a way it wasn't originally intended - not just as an immersive recording format, but as a way to unobtrusively document an entire room without placing microphones on every participant.

We scheduled a series of tests at the Monroe Institute and recorded several mock debrief sessions. Once we processed the recordings and began experimenting with beamforming, it became clear the concept worked remarkably well. We could isolate speakers with impressive clarity while preserving the natural ambience and interaction of the room. Just as importantly, we could remove nearly all of the production footprint from the debrief room itself - no boom operators moving through the space, no sound utilities adjusting transmitters, no need to interrupt participants once the session began.

That approach allowed the technology to disappear. Participants could stay fully engaged with the process instead of thinking about the documentary, and we were able to capture conversations that felt honest, vulnerable, and completely authentic. In the end, the decision wasn't really about choosing ambisonics over lavaliers - it was about using the right technology to protect the integrity of the experience while still delivering the level of audio quality the film deserved.

The signal chain

You've got Sound Devices rigs, Sanken and DPA lavs, Lectro and SD transmitters across multiple spaces. How does the whole signal chain come together for a shoot this ambitious?

This was by far the most ambitious production sound setup I've ever designed and led, and it required nearly every piece of gear I own. The biggest challenge was capturing multiple conversations happening simultaneously across several locations while maintaining centralised monitoring, redundancy, and reliable timecode sync.

For the debrief room, I deployed two Soyuz 013 Ambisonic microphones, recording eight channels into a Sound Devices 788T, taking advantage of its eight high-quality mic preamps. The 788T was timecode-locked to my primary recording system - a Sound Devices 888 equipped with an Astral ARX16 receiver and CL-16 control surface - ensuring perfect synchronisation across all recorders.

A third recorder, a Sound Devices 688, captured eight Sanken COS-11D plant mics deployed throughout the cafeteria and the "Fox Den" lounge, where important conversations frequently took place outside the primary filming areas. Each plant mic was paired with Lectrosonics wireless transmitters and receivers to provide reliable coverage over the large production footprint.

To stay flexible, I also kept a Sound Devices MixPre-6 ready as a rapid-deployment recorder whenever activity unexpectedly shifted into an area that didn't already have recording assets. Having that additional system available let us react immediately without sacrificing coverage.

Both the 688 and 788T fed scratch mixes back to the primary 888, letting me create multiple monitor and program feeds for Video Village. Producers could listen to whichever area of the production was most relevant at the moment, while our three story producers also carried dedicated monitoring feeds so they could keep following individual storylines while moving through the facility.

Each of the three Sony FX6 cameras was outfitted with a shotgun mic for recording in lieu of a boom op. Cameras A and B carried Schoeps CMIT mics connected to Sound Devices A20 transmitters, while Camera C used a Schoeps KMIT with a CMC1U amplifier feeding directly into the camera.

For certain situations, we deployed a combination of DPA 6060 and 4060 lavalier mics on both trainers and participants, paired with Sound Devices A20 Mini transmitters communicating through the Astral ARX16 receiver system on the 888.

One of the most valuable features of this workflow was the Sound Devices NexLink ecosystem, which let us remotely switch A20 transmitters between live transmission and internal recording - invaluable in a documentary environment where coverage priorities changed constantly and we needed to adapt instantly without interrupting production.

Overall, the system let us simultaneously capture multiple independent storylines across several locations, keep everything synchronised, provide customised monitoring to both Video Village and producers in the field, and stay agile enough to respond to the unpredictable nature of documentary filmmaking. It's the most technically demanding production sound workflow I've managed, and it reinforced the importance of preparation, redundancy, and adaptable system design.

Getting an intimate, unscripted room right

Capturing an intimate, emotional, unscripted room is a real challenge. What part are you most focused on getting right?

The aspect I was most focused on was protecting the container that the Monroe Institute carefully curates for participants in the Gateway Program. As both the head of the sound department and someone who's personally completed the Gateway Program, I understood firsthand how essential that sense of psychological safety and trust is. Every production decision was evaluated through the lens of preserving that environment.

From a sound perspective, that meant designing a workflow that was as unobtrusive as possible. In the debrief room, we deployed ambisonic microphone arrays so we could capture every conversation without requiring boom operators, lavalier mics, or sound utilities to be physically present. Those debriefs are much like group therapy sessions - deeply personal, emotionally vulnerable, and often transformative. Our goal was to document those moments without changing them. The less participants were reminded they were being filmed, the more authentic their interactions remained.

That philosophy extended beyond audio. We also took an unconventional approach to integrating the camera team into the container itself. We deliberately selected camera operators who worked with empathy, thoroughly prepared them for the emotional nature of the program, and emphasised that their role was not simply to observe but to respectfully coexist within the experience. Rather than maintaining the traditional separation between crew and participants, we encouraged the production team to share meals, spend time with participants outside of filming, and build genuine relationships. That trust fundamentally changed the dynamic in front of the camera.

Ultimately, our objective wasn't simply to capture emotional moments - it was to create conditions where those moments could unfold naturally, without the presence of the documentary team altering the experience itself. I believe protecting that authenticity was one of the most important contributions we made to the filmmaking process here.

The lav setup

For the trainers and key participants who are lav'd, concealment and noise control get really demanding in a room that quiet - the mic can't be seen or heard. You've got Sanken and DPA lavs in the rig and you're bringing in Bubblebee's Lav Concealers and Invisible Skin Tape for this one. How are you thinking about mounting and de-rustling in that environment, and what made you want to try those for this project?

Lav concealment was one of the more challenging aspects of this production because of how quiet the environment was. During many of the Gateway exercises, participants are sitting in complete silence, often for extended periods, so even the slightest clothing movement or mounting issue could become distracting. In a setting like that, the microphone not only has to disappear visually - it also has to disappear sonically.

For this project, I used the Sanken COS-11Ds exclusively as plant mics. We actually clipped them onto artificial plant arrangements strategically placed throughout the rooms, and the standard Sanken clips worked perfectly for that application.

For our wearable mics, I relied on DPA 6060s and 4060s paired with Bubblebee Industries' Lav Concealers, Invisible Skin Tape, and mounting accessories. I typically aim to mount the microphone near the sternum whenever possible, because it's a naturally protected area that tends to minimise clothing contact while still producing a very natural vocal sound.

I'd been seeing more and more production sound mixers using Bubblebee products, so after doing my own research I decided this project was the perfect opportunity to put them through their paces. They exceeded my expectations. The Lav Concealers made the DPAs quick to mount, the fabric guards and clothing clips did an excellent job reducing clothing noise, and the Invisible Skin Tape held securely while remaining comfortable for participants who were wearing the microphones for long periods.

One aspect I particularly appreciated was how durable the concealers were. Even after repeated use, they were easy to clean and kept performing without breaking down, which is a real advantage on a documentary running several weeks. I've also always made a "decoupler loop" on my lav wires myself in the past, but I'm often worried about that loop getting pulled tight into a knot. Bubblebee's Cable Saver is the first product I've come across that accomplishes the same thing without the potential knotting issue - and it worked perfectly.

We also didn't have a dedicated hair and makeup department, so the mounting system needed to be simple enough that participants could occasionally help with placement themselves. For female participants, I was able to quickly demonstrate how to attach the concealer to the centre gore of a bra, letting them comfortably position the microphone themselves while maintaining privacy. That streamlined the process considerably and helped everyone stay comfortable.

At the end of the day, the mounting system did exactly what I needed it to do - it let me stop thinking about the lavs and focus on the storytelling. In a documentary where authenticity depends on people forgetting the production is even there, that's exactly what you want from a concealment system.

First time using Bubblebee accessories

This is your first time using our accessories - anything you're curious to see whether they solve, or a problem you've been fighting with your current kit?

For most of my career, my concealment kit has been a collection of solutions I've built myself over the years - different mounts, tapes, fabrics, and little tricks you accumulate from job to job. So this was my first opportunity to work with a purpose-built concealment system from a company like Bubblebee.

One of the biggest challenges I've always fought is mounting directly to skin, especially over long shooting days. Heat, perspiration, and movement can all compromise a lav mount, and once that happens, you're chasing clothing noise or repositioning microphones when you'd rather be focused on the story.

I was curious to see whether the Bubblebee system would actually simplify that process, and it absolutely did. The Invisible Skin Tape held up remarkably well, even in situations where I expected moisture to become an issue, and the Lav Concealers made for fast, repeatable mounts that were easy to maintain throughout production.

Probably the biggest compliment I can give is that I stopped thinking about the mounting system after the first few days. It just worked, which let me focus on the participants and everything else happening on set instead of constantly troubleshooting lavs. In fact, before production even wrapped, I'd already ordered more supplies, because I knew they were going to become part of my standard kit.

To close

When this wraps, what will make you call it a success from a sound standpoint?

From a sound standpoint, success isn't about whether we recorded clean dialogue - although that's obviously important. It's about whether the audience forgets they're watching a documentary and instead feels like they're sitting in the room alongside the participants.

One of the biggest challenges throughout this project has been creating a production environment that naturally coexists with the Gateway Program rather than disrupting it. We wanted participants to remain fully immersed in their experience while still capturing the subtle conversations, emotional moments, and sonic details that define the program.

Ultimately, Gateway is about an internal experience. You're trying to document something happening in someone's consciousness, which is a unique challenge because you can't point a camera or microphone directly at it. Our job is to capture everything around those moments - the atmosphere, the conversations, the silence, the emotional nuance - in a way that lets the audience connect with what the participants are experiencing.

If someone watches the film and comes away feeling like they genuinely understand what it was like to be there, then I think we've succeeded. This is Instructions For Leaving.

Follow the film and Chris's work

Instructions For Leaving: instructionsforleaving.com · Instagram · Facebook

Chris Breest / Plymouth Rock Recording Co.: prockproductions.com · Instagram · Facebook · @prpbreest

Products used on this shoot

• The Lav Concealer for DPA Microphones (used with DPA 4060 and 6060)
• The Invisible Skin Tape
• The Cable Saver