sarcanon

Both Ric Viers in his book "The Sound Effects Bible" and David Yewdall in "Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound" have several pages on the design of foley pits. You might want to look at those to get some pointers. There's also another book solely devoted to foley that I don't have ("The Foley Grail" by Vanessa Ament) that I would be willing to bet has some more useful info. Good luck!

Hi, Mike. If I understand what you're asking, you just need to rename the tracks. This is described on p. 28 of the 664 manual. but briefly: Hope that helps. Cheers.

Really? My iPad is on iOS 9.0.1 and MovieSlate 7.9 still appears to work correctly. What am I missing?

I think Matt Price from soundrolling.com was just in Dubai. Shoot him an email (matt@) and maybe he'll be able to tell you.

Nice video. But too bad they didn't think enough of the mixer to give a credit, despite finding room on the card for the title designer. Pretty ironic given the title and subject matter. *Sigh*

Well, I cannot speak for copyright law in other countries, but this is not the case in the U.S. Copyright cannot be transferred without a written instrument, full stop. Mere payment for services would have no effect on copyright ownership. Except, of course, in the case of an employer-employee relationship, where the work-for-hire provisions would come into play, and here. the copyright would vest in the employer from the moment of creation by operation of law. The employee would never have owned the copyright, and thus has nothing to transfer. Also, to be clear, 'mechanical copyright' is something else entirely. That is the right to make 'mechanical' reproductions of a copyrighted musical work, and is typically paid by record companies to music publishers for each copy sold of a recording that embodies a musical work, i.e., a song.

You're not reading them right. The Alaia model also includes Penny & Giles faders, See: http://sounddevices.com/products/mixers-with-integrated-recorders/688/cl-12

Normally, I would agree with what you say in many cases about contracts being unenforceable in the practical sense, if not the legal sense. However, if you make certain the contract has a clause that awards attorneys fees and all costs of collection to the prevailing party, then that's a whole other situation. As long as you have a clear case of non-payment, and if your creditor is financially solvent and not otherwise judgement-proof, an attorneys fees clause shifts most, if not all, of the costs of litigation to the other party, and getting a debt collection lawyer involved will be a piece of cake. And if the amount in question is low enough, you can hire a collection agency instead.

Clearly, the lawyers who drafted those contracts were amateurs. A properly drafted definition of the subject territory should include not only all other universes, but all other dimensions as well.

There are two very different scenarios here. The situation Jeff describes is an employer-employee relationship, and if the mixer is paid wages and is otherwise treated as an employee, then even in the absence of an express contract provision stating that the recordings are "works for hire", the employer has a pretty solid case for ownership, since the work will have been created "in the course of scope of employment" (language from the relevant section of the Copyright Act). The inclusion of the clause in the deal memo that Jeff mentions merely confirms this situation and pretty much renders it irrefutable. It's not necessary, but helpful to the employer. In this case, the copyright belongs to the employer from the moment of creation. Of course, given that the mixer's compensation is in the form of wages, there are all kinds of other legal and statutory remedies available to the mixer if the employer is slow to pay. Thus, the loss of the copyright as a lever for payment is not so much of a problem. Statutory damages for infringement are nice, but the procedures for prosecuting wage theft strike me as less troublesome. If, on the other hand, the mixer is an independent contractor and does not sign any paperwork confirming the work-for-hire arrangement, then the copyright belongs to the mixer. This is a fundamental tenet of copyright law. Authors of creative works own the copyright in the works they create. N.B. this is merely the copyright in the recording, not in the underlying performances. This means the mixer would be ill-advised to attempt to commercially exploit the recordings. Of course, this is not usually the mixer's goal. He/she only wants leverage to guarantee expeditious payment in full. Of course, most producers are idiots and assume they own the copyright for work created by their independent contractors. They suffer under this misapprehension at the peril. However, a reasonable and straight-dealing mixer who provides his/her own paperwork should address this situation by making it clear in their own deal memo that they are indeed the owners of the copyright and will only surrender that copyright upon full and complete payment of any monies due under the deal memo. No amount of whining or wishful thinking by a producer can change the operation of the Copyright Act, nor would striking the language from the deal memo. Not that it should be the mixer's job to educate the producer, but I prefer to deal with these issues head on. If the producer is insistent on removing the language, then this would be a clear signal to me that I can look forward to some gamesmanship when the bill comes due. No producer who intends to pay his bills can reasonably object to such a provision, since, provided he pays in full and on time, he gets what he bargained for, and everyone walks away happy.

I'm speculating here, but is it possible what we're seeing is the blimp that goes over the magazine, not the mag itself? If it were the magazine, I think you would see where the spindles for the supply reel and take-up reel attach to the side of the mag, like most other magazines.

The sad reality is that registering the patent is only half the battle. You then have to have the financial resources to exploit that patent, and more importantly, defend that patent. Imagine owning a patent on a technology or process that Google or Apple decide they invented, or something close to it. Realistically, you won't have a chance. That's why many patents registered by individuals and small entities end being sold off to patent trolls, who accumulate massive portfolios amassed solely for the purpose of being able to ruthlessly sue others, small and large alike. Our patent system is very badly broken and desperately needs reform.

Would love to listen, but the link in your post no workie.

If I'm understanding correctly, I would say record direct from the PC's audio out into a Tx, or, better, line in into your mixer. (Don't forget the output will be unbalanced stereo, so you'll need to account for that.) Record the room ambiance separately. I don't imagine it needs to be in sync, so you could just use your room tone track. Let post deal with mixing them. If you do record direct in to your mixer and you don't otherwise have a Comtek, you could use your wireless to feed an IFB signal from your mixer back to your actor and just make it look like he's jacked into the laptop.

Sweet ride.

Come to think of it, for a longer scene where the food would have been served, you could have put the mic and Tx in a bottle of Marmite. No danger of anyone ever reaching for that. At least on this side of the Atlantic.

Perhaps, were it not for the CCM8/CMC68. Just sayin' :-) Actually, I would love to try a MKH 30/40 combo one day, just 'cause I'm micurious.

Well, I wouldn't consider this a "gotcha", because the contractor presumably went ahead and performed his/her services and handed over the audio files without waiting for affirmation from production. You can't furnish services to someone and expect them to be subject to terms you unilaterally assumed would attach. You're absolutely correct, though, that without getting the other party's express assent to the terms, any paperwork you submitted to them would be pretty much worthless [*]. It might be relevant, but you'd have to go to court to make that argument, and at that point, you've already lost, practically speaking. [*] Unless you've worked for them before, and they've accepted your terms previously. Then you have what's known as "course of dealing", and the previously agreed-to terms would likely carry forward.

Could our misunderstood genius possibly be back with another installment of his insane freak show? Documentary on Second Coming of Christ/Superman/Harry Potter prophecy

Well done. Hopefully, the restaurant did not have french fries on the menu. I would have been sweating bullets if they did.

I would think a boundary mic would be a natural choice for this scenario. Perhaps, if you can convince them, you can rout out a space in the middle of the table so the mic can be recessed with a hole drilled so the cable can be run underneath. Will the table have a table cloth?

Thank you, pindrop.

The Waves S1 plug-in looks cool, but I'm wondering how much more you get for the $129 compared to Voxengo's free MSED plug-in. I'm just starting out with FX and ambiance stereo recording and M/S in particular, so I'm thinking I may not need all of S1's bells and whistles (e.g., EQ, shuffling, etc.) straight away. Have you looked at MSED and found it lacking in any significant way? Which of S1's features would I be wishing I had for the types of recording I mentioned (viz., FX and ambiance)? Many thanks.

Not saying you should handle it this way, but if it were me, if I hadn't disclosed that kind of potential fee in advance with client, I wouldn't feel right springing it on them after the fact. If I'd known (or should have known) that my gear was going into to a potentially risky environment (like the beach, desert, on a boat, etc), I would feel it was incumbent upon me to raise the prospect of extraordinary costs in advance with the producer. On the other hand, if they told me the location was a going to be a studio, and at the last minute, changed their minds and told me I was going to be shooting whales from a dinghy, that would be a different matter entirely.

http://fw.to/sojbmgI According to today's LA Times business section, sound departments throughout the industry are missing a trick by not having a "sound grip". (See caption to story above.)