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Erob

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  • Location
    Virginia
  • About
    I work for a small production company that turns boring health education topics into interesting short films.
  • Interested in Sound for Picture
    Yes

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  1. Are you saying you want would just want to plug the Nexus directly into an iPad to record everything?
  2. Erob

    Sound carts

    I don't believe they are making the carts anymore. I've been trying to get my hands on one for a few years and saw a post somewhere about them stopping production. Last time I heard from them (I think back in 2020 or 2021) they said they were waiting for parts, but haven't been able to get a hold of them since then.
  3. I never got a chance to really listen to it, but I worked a tennis event this summer and DPA gave us a number of these to put through the paces. We had over 100 mic's deployed around the grounds and one court was wired specifically DPA. Probably not the best test for how they sound, but a good one for durability (once set they lived outside in the elements for about 3 weeks). I spoke with the A1 who had that court and he said he couldn't hear too much of a difference over the other courts (all 416's), but they were a little more prone to wind noise. Again, this situation isn't the best for sound quality, broadcast is much dirtier than what I think we are all used to. Their mentality is is it reliable and sound good enough? If so it'll work for them. That said, didn't hear any issues from them throughout the entire time, so check one for reliability.
  4. Should have clarified, just timecode boxes (lockits, whatever you want to call them). Does everyone always charge for bringing one along to throw on camera? Or do you include one in your base package than any additional is extra?
  5. Wouldn't that be something...I think we would all have "residence" in some random place then. Just want to reiterate I'm all for charging the prevailing rates and I'm going to do my best this year to hold the line and negotiate more. I appreciate what Robert said, if the rate is lower than normal (but in the same general ball park) maybe you can decrease your kit offerings....say they only get 1 lav and a boom or just a boom. Easy way to cut the rate and theoretically make your day easier. One question I wanted to ask the group as a whole, basic kit is obviously 2 lavs/boom/recorder, does everyone charge for TC? If you do, do you ever get push back for that?
  6. For what it's worth Robert and I had a nice phone call discussing all this further. I'm all for charging more and making more money, however one thing that I think often gets overlooked are some times in smaller markets there just isn't as much work...so you can either take the pay cut and work the gig or not work at all. You can hold the line as much as possible maybe meet in the middle but at the end of the day if this is how you make a living you have to decide. Now I'm not advocating for taking wild pay cuts, but if it's generally 80-90% of your rate then it's up to the individual to make the call themselves.
  7. This has been a fruitful discussion for me to read, I appreciate everyone willingness to mention what they have been quoting production recently. Every year over the past 3 years I've been raising my rates (admittedly I started a bit low 3 years ago) and this upcoming year is no different. This discussion has certainly helped me figure out where a good starting point should be for 2023. This past year I was charging $650/12 and $350/basic package. As Banjo said, I got very little push back which means I was certainly charging too little. That said as mentioned above it's a starting point and there were days I got more and days I got less depending on the shot. There were two instances I wish I had been more pushy and stood my ground, the first one I just don't think the producers understand how to budget appropriately. It was for a commercial for a decent size mid-atlantic bank, the production reached out to me and was up front about the rate they had for the mixer for the shoot, $800/day all in (I think they broke it up into $600/labor and $200/kit), I had nothing else going on at the time so I agreed to it. Now the real issue arose from the location of the production, two days in Delaware and two days in central Maryland, luckily I have family close to the Delaware locations so that wasn't an issue for me. But they asked me to work as a local on both portions of the shoot. Looking back I really should have pushed back on this, they were hours apart, even if you are local to one you aren't local to both. They should have provided housing and milage for the difference between the two....but hey you live and learn. I learned my lesson and got the mistake out of my system, next time I won't let it slide (especially for a lower rate). The real issue I had with this whole ordeal was when I found out the G&E team had been brought down from upstate NY and they drove their full 3/ton truck down plus rented a fisher dolly and other stuff....which to me shows that they had the money but didn't want to budget appropriately or just straight up took advantage of me. The second was for a well known reality show that was shooting in the town I live in, which is incredibly rare for small town America. Even though the show has been around for a while and certainly makes some decent money for the network and production company, they set their rates and never budge. I tried to get more for this one, I think they went up $50 in the end but pretty much said this is our rate, take it or leave it. I think it was 800 or 850 total for the shoot, which was pretty much just a sit down interview for days. It's close enough to my rate and the fact that I didn't have to drive anywhere made it worth it for me. I just have an issue with high profile shows constantly taking advantage of their crews, everyone on the crew complained about the low pay...which I guess is on all of us for agreeing to it, if they can't find crew at the rate they are at then they either don't make the show, hire non-professionals and watch it burn, or raise their rates....knowing them they would watch it burn. All that said, I have a question for the group, one which I got into an interested discussion with a friend who is a DP about: everyone has pretty much said take the term "half-day" out of your vocabulary, what about for travel days? People I've talked to said a half day for travel is fair as "production isn't getting anything out of you and it should be enough for you", my general thought is if you can get me home by noon then sure half day makes some sense (though I agree with what others have said, I can't book anything else that day so is it really fair). But if you they are looking out for production and book you a red-eye home because it was the cheapest flight, then you should be compensated for a full day. I'm curious how others deal with this and was generally surprised at my friends responses. I figured everyone would be on board to make more money and change what I believe is an industry wide trend. Edit: One thing I'm very happy to see is most of you all have mentioned XXX/10 not 12. Definitely going to be pushing for the 10 in the future.
  8. I'm assuming that's a beta test of the Deity SPD-1, since I can't find any info on it. How you liking it?
  9. Erob

    SD A20 Nexus

    I'm with Codyman on this one I think. How much more for an additional 8 channels after spending far more than any other company on a channel basis. I'm not saying I'm not willing to pay a higher price for new and improved technology and prices always have to stay the same. But from a receiver perspective, averaging around $2500 per duel receiver you're paying $1250 per channel of receive, here you are paying almost $2000 a channel (at least you get two bowtie antennas thrown in for the price and can cram 32 channels in 1RU). Thats a mighty large jump. If it came standard with 16 channels for that price, I'm sold. Or if there was a half size version that could do a max of 8 channels for half the price, I may be in. All that said, I think this looks like a hell of a unit and has a lot of awesome feature. If I was working on shows that needed this many channels I may be tempted. I love seeing all the manufacturers pushing the limits and innovating. Excited to see what else comes in the future.
  10. Erob

    SD A20 Nexus

    What SD has been teasing for a little bit. Super interesting and the ability to use that ribbon connector on the 8 series to go completely cableless is very appealing. Mentions 8-12-16 channels with plugins, so curious how much extra the plugins will be. Appear to be 8 channels to start then you can get the +4 and +8 to increase the capability. https://www.sounddevices.com/product/a20-nexus/ Edit: They also have a new Antenna to go along with it that looks very similar to a Betso Bowtie. I got excited for a second as this has Dante so thought that might give Dante capabilities to an 833, but when docked the ethernet is only used for control not Dante.....Oh and a price tag of $15,000.
  11. Got hired on a short film for next week, turns out it's a musical with no spoken lines. So my job will pretty much be playback, which I've never done before so looking for some advice. How do people go about with music playback? I've tried to do some research but haven't found very much on the topic. I've seen playback carts with PT running on a computer, hooked up to some speakers, which is doable for us, but curious the workflow. What I'm imagining is someway to make PT have a timecode stamped input (if that's possible?), then as we playback the songs they'll match the camera TC? Should I send a hop to the camera so it's also recording the track as reference? Am I way off base here? Any insight would be appreciated.
  12. Curious about the "Spectraband". Looks like a nice upgrade if you're on the A10 system already. https://www.sounddevices.com/product/a20-rx/
  13. I'm pretty sure the limitation here is the SL6 only supports 2 channels per slot, it's an SL6 issue not receiver problem.
  14. I'm very excited about this. Was debating going cantar mini for a cart build but the lack of Dante made me consider the 888. With this addition I think I'll go with the mini.
  15. I believe this is actually a misnomer, I’m 99.9% sure they are actually based in India. But I originally thought they were a Canadian company too, as well as some of my friends. So whatever they are doing to convince us they are Canadians if in fact they aren’t, is working.
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