Sound anxiety?

Hey guys and gals. I've been lurking around jwsound for awhile now. Really enjoying the topics and info shared here.

Just curious, do others have anxiety over the "worst case scenarios" when it comes to sound or am I the only one? I find myself worrying about getting into a job when I need to bury a lav and no matter how hard I try I can never get it right. I've been doing sound for 13+ years now. I've had lots of successes with hiding lavs, but every now and then I get overly anxious about upcoming shoots when I know I'll be hiding mics. My mind immediately recalls the situations where I was unsuccessful in hiding/burying a mic.

I use Sanken and Tram lavs, depending on the fabric, situation, etc... and have developed and/or stumbled upon my own bag of tricks about what works (moleskin, top stick, rycote stickies/overcovers, different tapes). Anytime I find time with other sound mixers, I pick their brains about burying mics, always looking for new techniques. Not sure what else I can be doing other than practicing wiring up myself and my wife when I'm home, trying out different scenarios before they happen on set. Any other suggestions?

I also have recurring dreams that I'm on a job and I'm always 2 or 3 steps behind everybody on set and I can never get caught up. Everyone is constantly "waiting on sound". While that situation rarely happens, why does my brain feel the need to subconsciously dwell upon it?

I sound like a basket case! Maybe I need a shrink... :-)

Anxiety dreams are very common.

When I waited tables in Texas for a couple of years, I had anxiety dreams all the time. But I was not a good waiter, so clearly justified. It was usually that the restaurant was closed, but the hostess kept seating tables. All I could bring people was soda, but they wouldn't leave.

As a mixer, I dream about arriving to set when they are close to shooting, and I realize that none of my gear is connected and the cables are strewn about and the mics aren't there.

Thankfully, I consider myself a far better mixer than I was a waiter, so the dream is a rare occurrence.

Robert

Hey guys and gals. I've been lurking around jwsound for awhile now. Really enjoying the topics and info shared here.

Just curious, do others have anxiety over the "worst case scenarios" when it comes to sound or am I the only one? I find myself worrying about getting into a job when I need to bury a lav and no matter how hard I try I can never get it right. I've been doing sound for 13+ years now. I've had lots of successes with hiding lavs, but every now and then I get overly anxious about upcoming shoots when I know I'll be hiding mics. My mind immediately recalls the situations where I was unsuccessful in hiding/burying a mic.

I use Sanken and Tram lavs, depending on the fabric, situation, etc... and have developed and/or stumbled upon my own bag of tricks about what works (moleskin, top stick, rycote stickies/overcovers, different tapes). Anytime I find time with other sound mixers, I pick their brains about burying mics, always looking for new techniques. Not sure what else I can be doing other than practicing wiring up myself and my wife when I'm home, trying out different scenarios before they happen on set. Any other suggestions?

I also have recurring dreams that I'm on a job and I'm always 2 or 3 steps behind everybody on set and I can never get caught up. Everyone is constantly "waiting on sound". While that situation rarely happens, why does my brain feel the need to subconsciously dwell upon it?

I sound like a basket case! Maybe I need a shrink... :-)

I think you're over thinking the whole process. After 13 of experience years it should come naturally. Then again....dreams, overly anxious, anxiety about being unsucessful.......................................you know the shrink thing might not be a bad idea.

Eric

This happens to me too. Each time you start a new job in general.. your working with different people, who have different expectations. Experience allows you to just 'do your job' to the best of your abilities. They hired you!!

Also.. keep this in mind. Many people on the set, also are doubting their abilities too. I've shown up on sets, a bit anxious, and within a few hours later.. learn that I'm probably the most experienced there.

And, I've had a few times where the director/producer has just laid into me because of he thought I messed up... And maybe I did, maybe I didn't.. But next time, I prepare myself, learn, and move onward. Even want seams to be a bad experience, can turn positive for the future.

Hang out with other mixers on set, here, or social gatherings, and you'll find they are ALOT like you, with the same stories about some A-hole director thinking the Lav mics are the end-all fix to ALL things sound.. I got news for them.. Lav mics are BACK UPS!! I tell directors all the time that lavs fix some problems, and cause even more.

So, don't sweat it.

-Richard

It s totally normal to be anxious before a new project. I never sleep well the night before. I always dream that things f$&@!-up big time. It pretty much always end up going really well during that day but i guess it s that fear of messing up that makes u better, makes u practice and makes u bring backup of backups. Having failed in the past due to inexperience still haunts me to this day but i ll for sure won t be making same mistake twice..

Sublime your fear in your dreams and show up on set like the prepared and confident professional that u are and u know it s gonna be fine.

And if something still goes wrong, as hard as it is to apply, it has to be taken as learning opportunity.

Good luck! hiding lavs is a science

( running wire down in the back from over the shoulder usually really helps and using this "booger" gum that u buy in hardware store saved me several times ( it s a sealing thing for windows. It s transparent super sticky gum. U buy it buy the roll ))

Hey Rodney, you can do all the deep breathing, yoga, drinking, drugging, screwing and sleeping pills you may want, but you will still have those anxiety dreams from time to time. Just like flying dreams but not as much fun. We all have them from day 1 to day last. Sweet dreams.

CrewC

I often wake up in the middle of the night disgusted with myself for having the same sort of work-anxiety dreams I had 35 years ago. It happens to everyone. You can't do much about it--the human brain just keeps on trying to solve the old problems over and over, a sort of lightweight PTSD. I have learned one thing--pay attention to what we call "the stomach". If you are bugged about an upcoming job there may be a detail that your conscious mind overlooked (or didn't want to deal with) but your subconscious mind--and your experience-- are trying to tell you to think about. I often have break-throughs where I'll have a sudden realization about how to prep for a job or solve a problem that I hadn't realized was bearing down on me, and after that I sleep better. (But not always.)

phil p

I still have dreams that I am on-air in a radio studio and have run out of records to play, or I am in the production studio with a mountainous pile of scripts to record before I go home for the night - and I haven't been in radio for close to 30 years so go figure!

I was watching a special on Avatar once and Jon Landau, the producer, answered a question about

whether he gets nervous about a project or not and he said this.

"The day you stop getting nervous, is the day you stop caring"

So i'm sure we all get anxiety because we just care about our work!

I used to have dreams about work related to programming... where I'd wake up and realize that I just solved a technical problem I've been having in a dream or discover an error - like an actual real world error - sort of a subliminal "compiler" of sorts. Those dreams were not pleasant, no matter how useful, because it would feel like I had no break away from the job.

Oddly enough I haven't had a sound related nightmare. It seems my monitoring chain is more accurate than what gets recorded though, because 9 times out of 10, when I go back to listen to what I've recorded, it sounds better than what I recall.

I often dream that my faders are locked into place and no matter what I do I cant move them.

Sadly when I think of it.... when I dream about work it is always troubleshooting a problem. When I wake up it often takes me a minute or two to say calm the fuc* down its only a dream.

I've never had an anxiety dream about work or sound directly, my anxiety dream is that I have a lot of stuff to pack (Can be kit, can be personal stuff) Not enough cases to pack it in, and not enough time. This doesn't just happen before foreign trips, but is worse when there's a big one coming up.

It seems my monitoring chain is more accurate than what gets recorded though, because 9 times out of 10, when I go back to listen to what I've recorded, it sounds better than what I recall.

Same here (fortunately!). Also tend to agree that when you stop getting nervous is when you stop caring, of course as long as getting nervous does not paralyse you and does not interfere with making decisions.

I am only getting into my 5th year doing this and I almost always have doubts on the quality of the sound being recorded from lav mics. To put things into perspective (and to calm you down), I would advise you to drop by during postproduction stages, either picture editing or sound editing/mixing, and hear for yourself that the intelligibility is much better than you thought, that the clothing rustle is not getting in the way of dialogue after all, that a bit of corrective EQ can enhance a buried lav,etc.

Wow, glad to know I'm not alone in my anxiety. Thanks to everyone who posted. This is a great forum. I worked on a commercial a couple of days ago, and although I haven't done many commercials, I enjoy working on them if they are organized and the producers and DP are easy to deal with. I had not worked with any one on the crew (except for one the grips) and so I was not exactly sure what to expect and therefore my stomach started churning. Am I going to have to bury mics? Do I have enough transmitter pouches/ace bandages if I need to completely hide the transmitter? Etc... But, as it turns it out most of the time, the shoot went well (from a sound perspective - although the headphone monitor on the Red camera was more or less useless). I used the boom to record the dialog and had wireless on the talent for cueing/reference for the producer's IFB. They never had to wait on sound, except for the planes and boats going by. That's almost always the story. I get nervous prior, the shoot goes well, afterwards I think "why was I nervous about THAT?!"

Good luck! hiding lavs is a science

( running wire down in the back from over the shoulder usually really helps and using this "booger" gum that u buy in hardware store saved me several times ( it s a sealing thing for windows. It s transparent super sticky gum. U buy it buy the roll ))

Ha, I refer to hiding lavs as a black art!

I don't always run the cable over the shoulder and down the back, although I will in certain situations. However, I do tie a loose loop in the cable just below the capsule to keep down the microphonics. Are you using the "booger gum" just below the capsule to cut down on cable rustle or are you using it to attach the mic to the garment?

They never had to wait on sound, except for the planes and boats going by.

That's not waiting on sound - that's waiting on locations.

I've had lots of successes with hiding lavs, but every now and then I get overly anxious about upcoming shoots when I know I'll be hiding mics. My mind immediately recalls the situations where I was unsuccessful in hiding/burying a mic.

Every different situation is a nightmare. I was all prepared for a shoot the other day, and then was confronted with ice skaters. I was very surprised by how few clothes ice skaters wear. Luckily, we found some nooks and crannies and was able to lav them up with no problem -- and this was a very boom-unfriendly situation. One thing I've learned is to give myself lots and lots of options -- different lavs, different mounts, different tapes, different wraps... you never know what's gonna work, especially under pressure.

I think there are no easy solutions. What's that saying The Senator has? "Experience comes from bad judgement, and good judgement comes from experience?"

--Marc W.

One thing I've learned is to give myself lots and lots of options -- different lavs, different mounts, different tapes, different wraps... you never know what's gonna work, especially under pressure.

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a producer try to play down their productions.. 'You shouldn't need much".. No way, I want to bring everything and the kitchen sink too. I want to be prepared!!

-Richard

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a producer try to play down their productions.. 'You shouldn't need much".. No way, I want to bring everything and the kitchen sink too. I want to be prepared!!

-Richard

I've been burned on this one. An "easy" one person inside. When we got there, the building was locked and the interview was outside with a 10mph wind. No blimp with me. Never again.

Scott

I did my proficiencies with students the other day and a lot of them were nervous, having to operate the console in front of me. I told them that will never change. As long as your career is going up, you will be mixing for more and more important clients, and you will always be nervous about making a costly mistake in front of them. (In post, the clients are always literally watching over your shoulder.. sometimes many of them.) It gets better as you have more self confidence, and you know your clients better, but almost always before a big mix I cannot sleep.

''Inspiration comes from the fear of getting it done right, and on time" - Hans Zimmer, during his time composing the score for 'Inception'. This man has over 100 scores to his name, along with numerous accolades and still feels 'anxiety' on every project he works on.

It took 2+ years after I stopped recording on location to not wake up with anxiety dreams about getting wrong map directions, not finding that genius piece of kit in the truck, or getting the wrong call, or getting stuck behind a car chase on the freeway, or being on the only set at Universal that kept working on 9/11 when Al KAIDa was gonna attack the studios ( remember?) , or not getting on the 405 because OJ was cruising in the white Landrover ( it happened) etc etc. I taked to some high profile mixers on this board and they had pre shoot anxiety so bad most every day on large featured after 30 years of it they still could sometimes not get any sleep the night before.

sure a shrink could help.

sure if one did not give a ... one could read the paper all day and be happy and dont worry

but why is it that we in this profession are so wracked by the stress to perform that it damages our pshyce??

can any amount of $$ make up for that?

typically an IATSE member lives 2 years after retiring - is there a connection?

do the culturally approved methods of stress reduction help? ( Yoga? taiChi? deep breathing? drugs and alcohol? divorce? what happens on location...stays on location?)

i wonder, but you are not alone thats for sure

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear a producer try to play down their productions.. 'You shouldn't need much".. No way, I want to bring everything and the kitchen sink too. I want to be prepared!!

I've learned that with certain clients. This one promised, "never more than one person interviewed at a time." Second interview in, we had three people! But... I was prepared.

A lot of the anxiety gets sharply reduced, I think, just by being prepared for anything. Hell, I still bring along an RE50 just in case of utter disaster! But I always have trouble sleeping the night before a big shoot. Spielberg said for the first 20 years of his career, he threw up out of total fear the morning of the first shoot. If even he's nervous, I think we're safe.

--Marc W.

dont downplay the damage STRESS does to your health long term ! there is little data on this - talking to a doc friend - but just look at the divorce rate in the film bizz - 90%, national average only 50%

Ha, I refer to hiding lavs as a black art!

I don't always run the cable over the shoulder and down the back, although I will in certain situations. However, I do tie a loose loop in the cable just below the capsule to keep down the microphonics. Are you using the "booger gum" just below the capsule to cut down on cable rustle or are you using it to attach the mic to the garment?

It depends. I mostly use a rm11 to hold the sanken cos11 lav and then make it hold with the gum but i also sometime straight make it hold with the gum.. It s just a great allaround tool. Way faster than double sided tape. I use it to "stuck" any noisy moving zipper part, or jewelry etc.. Can t work without it now.