Chris Howland CAS

We added a social meet up in Milan with our friends at Soundfish and it looks like we will be adding an abbreviated Boom Presentation and Panel Discussion as well. More info as the event develops but the rSVP link is already live so reserve your spot now. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/k-tek-e-soundfish-ti-invitano-a-un-evento-sociale-ed-educativo-tickets-612500715127

In May 2023, K-Tek and the LA Sound Mixers are bringing Ken Strain and his BoomRight Masterclass to Berlin and Rome. An RSVP links and full event details will be posted very soon. In the meantime, this is the intro of the original Boom Operators Masterclass taught by Ken Strain here in Los Angeles in 2017. Ken’s presentation would eventually evolve to become the BoomRight Masterclass and, with the help of Brenda Klemme and Tino Liberatore of K-Tek, it would play in New York, Munich, London, Chicago, Atlanta and many other cities around the world. We are looking forward to bringing this seminar along with a panel discussion on production sound to Berlin and Rome in May 2023. You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwm29UdKLA Here is a link to the official photo album of that event. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155550678488006.1073741907.698583005&type=1&l=fda9d6e460

Jeff! You have done a great job setting a standard for other online forums to follow. Thank you for your wisdom and for maintaining this group over the years.

You might want to check out the MozeGear line of products like the 'Pip' or the 'Mini Papi.' http://www.mozegear.com Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm so glad I bought the 664 already. I feel like it was a great deal for what it can do, even with the price increase. I don't think it made sense for the 664 to be cheaper than the 744t. I'm surprised Sound Devices released the 664 with such a cheap price point. It should have been higher all along.

I have a few friends on Facebook that know the Production Mixer Paul Sandweiss. The short explanation is, everything sounded great in the house and on the truck here in LA. The problem has been traced back to network headquarters in NY which is where where the broadcasted originated. Most people listening in 5.1 Dolby had no problems but people listening in stereo were hearing there normal stereo mix AND the 5.1 stems at the same time. This is what caused the phasing sound on everyone who was speaking. It also caused the center channel to be a bit buried.

It's good to have a joke or a quick anecdote handy in order to break the ice. I had to put a lav on Janice Dickinson a few months back which was interesting. Me: Hey Janice! I'm Chris the Sound Mixer. Is it cool if I put a put a mic on you? (I show her the Lav) Janice: (Confused look) I'M NOT WEARING A BRA. Me: Good to know but, I won't let that hamper my efforts! Janice: I'm just wearing pasties, See?! (Lifts her shirt) Me: (Trying not to look shocked) Impressive! I think we can find a spot to hide this mic! Janice: Cool then, Just get in there cowboy! While I was installing the mic she was on her cell phone telling her Boyfriend "There's a cute guy here with his hands up my shirt!" Ugh, the things we do for a buck! )

Merry Christmas everyone! Let's hope 2010 turns out to be a great year for all of us! Cheers

Facebook.com/LASoundMixer Twitter.com/LASoundMixer I use Facebook ALOT more than Twitter. It started out as a way to keep in touch with my family, who all lives out of state, and to keep in touch with all those cool people I meet on set. You get to know people pretty well after you spend a few 60-72 hour weeks with them and I like to see a sentence or 2 from them to see what they are up to. Calling every person on the phone is just not a good use time (for me or them). Me: "Hey! How are you?" Them: "I'm great what are you up to?" Me: "Not much. What about you?" Them: "Not much here either!" Me: "Cool!" Them "Cool!" (Crickets) With Facebook, you can skip this annoying scenario and get right to the core of the conversation, see pics and not lose any of the nuance. Last week I casually updated my status on facebook saying that I was shooting on the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica. Just from that posting I got set visits from 6 people I consider to be good friends and colleagues. 2 sound people, 2 actors and 2 producers! The most common I heard that morning was, "I saw your Facebook post and..." Facebook doesn't take over your life or give you something else to look after. (That's what Mafia Wars is for!!) It gives you a way to experience and express humor and life with your friends and colleagues. Cheers, Chris

I remember going to tapings of both Leno here in LA and the Conan Show when he was still in new york and one common thing I noticed was that, in both situations, the level of the lavs over the house speakers was EXTREMELY LOW! The volume was so low that you had to be very quiet in the audience if you wanted to hear the talent at all. They also had many small speakers mounted over the audience rather than fewer large speakers. I'm sure that made a difference and reduced the chance of feedback.

I usually state "That's a Cut" on the slate mic as well as 2 beeps at the end. The Boom Op, and the crew at video village usually like to hear it. It's part of the cadence. I got used to hearing it on my internship which was a 60 day shoot so I adopted it. I must say that 1k is still an annoying freq to hear over and over. I like to try and use a lower freq like 440Hz.

I love sound guy talk!

I find it interesting that Christian Bale, A BRIT, went through his entire rant in his manufactured American accent.

You guys are GREAT!!! Thanks for the responses (including the direct email responses) This is why I love this board. Cheers!!!

I'm sitting here watching the Bill Mahar show and my curiosity is getting the best of me. I'm noticing the lav mics on Bill and the 3 person panel and the lav mics have, what appear to be, two individual mic elements on each person. They look like they could be trams but each person has 2 identical looking mics attached to the same tie clip on their clothes. Is this a redundant back up mic or are they doing some kind of noise canceling function Like the COS-11x? Would this require each person to wear 2 different transmitters or are they, somehow, wired to a single transmitter? Oh yea, and while we're on the subject of lavs.... I noticed on American Idol, Ryan Seacrest would have 2 identical lav mics, one on each lapel of his jacket. Does anyone know of a special reason for this other than getting even coverage if he turns his head? I would love to get some insight into these questions. Many Thanks, Chris Howland

My first Pole was a K-tek 202CCR. It worked really well for the first couple of years I had it but the joints got stiff eventually. I bought a back up pole which is the 18 foot internally cabled Loon Boom with the wing attachment and I'm amazed at how nicely the joints are even after two shoots in the Desert with sand blowing all over. The K-tek lasted about 6 hours before I started to feel the grind of the sand in the joints. The Loon was smooth the whole time. KTEK has the best customer service but the Loon is the Pole I reach for first. They are worth checking out.

Hands-On Fisher Boom Training 2 For 695 Members April 25, 2008 9am to Noon J.L. Fisher 1000 Isabel Burbank, CA 91506 RSVP Required Email edu@695.com

The Director was also the creator of the original story and the screenplay. He was also listed as a producer on the film so I don't think he was meant to be a lap dog. We will never know for sure. What I do know is that when it was became obvious that he didn't the technical chops or the vision to direct, He didn't put a fight with Vinnie at all. Like all of us, He tried to learn from him. He had a great personality and he is a good screenwriter but having him direct was like trying to get Kobe to hit a home run in baseball. Chris

Thanks for putting this up Jeff. I just wrapped a non-union feature where the turnarounds were 9 hours or so. After 3 days of that, most of us in the crew started to make a little noise that this was unacceptable to which production replied, "Well we are shooting for a 10 hour turn around for the crew but were coming in a little late." I ended up being the make shift shop steward and I told them that a 12 hour turnaround is what most of the crew is expecting. They were going off some kind of studio documentation that said PA's only get a 9 hour turnaround so they thought they were doing us a favor. Once we got that straightened out, they gave us the 12 hour turnaround but it took some doing. I hope the importance of this issue stays fresh on everyone's mind and we can all look out for each other. I would also love to see some union protection for members working on lower budget projects much the same way SAG does with there low budget agreements. It's interesting to see production, on these lower budget shoots, running around and stressing about OT and turnaround times for the actors but they don't have that concern for the crew. If SAG can rep their actors on lower budget stuff then I hope IATSE would consider the same. Chris Howland Chris

I know... your right. The sound editor and and I did it that way for our personal jollies. He said he could handle the workflow and he was interested to hear, on a first hand basis, what it sounds like compared to some of his other projects so I accommodated him. The interesting thing was my memory usage went from 1.5GB per day to between 5 and 6GB per day. FUN! It's ice to know that I can accommodate that if a producer ever ask for it. It's a marquee , if not substantive, addition. Chris Howland

I just wrapped a low budget horror film on the Red Camera. I got to spend a few minutes in post and I got to watch them cut a scene together. I recorded double system but I did record a single track of audio to the camera using a Sennheiser g2 as a camera hop. It worked really well and the sound was definitely good enough for cutting. I opted to record the sound roll at 192k sampling rate and a 48 bit resolution depth. I figure if they have 4000 lines of resolution then they should have the best audio possible as well. They were running Version 14 firmware and version 15 came out during the shoot. Chris Howland

Hey, You have a Tascam HD-P2. I love that recorder. I still use mine all the time. Have you ever used it in desert conditions? The first time I took it out to the desert after about 4 hours I would hit record and nothing would happen. I would hit it again even harder and still nothing. I would have to hit the button really hard like 3 times to get it to start rolling. I didn't even notice there was a problem until I looked down to hit pause after a take only to realize it had never rolled. The fun part is, we were shooting a close up of Martin Landau doing a monologue. I, VERY DISCREETLY told the director (Alain Zaloum), "Ummm, Father Alain. I have a confession to make." He laughed and gave me a little mock blessing and said, "No worries my child. Try not to screw this one up" I also let scripty know but No one else was the wiser. It was a 16mm shoot so there was camera track either. Once I got the recorder back to civilization it was fine and I've even taken it back to the desert on other shoots and it's fine. I was just curious if you had the same kind of problem. Cheers, Chris Howland 310-713-9210 Mobile LASoundMixer@mac.com AIM: thenewmuse08 http://www.myspace.com/LASoundMixer http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1983811/

Hey Philip, BTW, I'm a big fan of yours. Nice pics of you booming and mixing on a ladder. I'm not sure I have the Brass Cajones to drag a bag up there but that definitely says alot about what you are willing to go through in the never-ending quest for good sound coverage. I also noticed an unused scissor lift in one of the pics. I would have been on that thing in a heartbeat if they would have let me. Good job though. In the mixers defense, He kind of used up his chips early on in the shoot and got yelled at by Vinnie on set in front of everyone, TWICE. Oh yea, and it should be mentioned that it was Vinnie that wanted this particular mixer on the shoot in the first place. I agreed with what the mixer was fighting for and I did my best to back him up but the crew was turned off by his approach and had trouble relating to him. So after day 6 of 18, I was the guy whom the crew would still listen to. From that point on, it was my job to be the face of the Sound Dept (Which I'm fine with) and the conduit of information to and from the mixer. Which is normal for most of us. This is how Mark Ulano and Tom Hartig worked during my internship on Big Momma's House 2 and I thought it was how every sound crew worked until I got to this project. He wanted to come on set and communicate himself but he didn't have the people skills for it and in the process, he made me feel more like an expendable tool for sound coverage rather than a person with a brain. My motivation, at that point, had to be the quality of the coverage itself and to foresee and discreetly preempt any problems that would come up. The last thing I wanted was to have Vinnie distracted by a sound issue. To use Scott Harbers analogy, I wanted to avoid having that "very bright beacon" of light pointed at us! In the end, Vinnie and production were thankful for our efforts and it all ended well. (Hugs for everyone) Chris

Hey Scott, I couldn't agree with you more. I discovered that I had fun trying to figure out his M.O. in certain situations. During those single 400 foot mag takes (Which, thankfully, was usually a tighter single shot) it was entertaining for me to watch him go off script just to try a provoke certain reactions out of the actors that were on camera. One instance was during a scene with Vinnie and Sage Stallone. Vincent line to Sage was something like... "I don't want to take this job, I want to drop out of the business." Vincent wanted Sage's reaction to be one of shock and confusion as if to say "What are you talking about? I can't believe my ears! Are you crazy?" So, when we were shooting Sage's 80mm close up single, Vince (who was off camera) would read down to that part of the scene and after 3 or 4 times he still felt like they weren't there yet with the performance. So, with the camera still rolling, Vinnie said we should start over from the top and Sage should just "stop acting" and answer this question... There is silence and Vincent asks in a very quick east coast kinda way...... "SO, how's your boyfriend doing? How do you like taking it up the A@@!?!?!?" Sage absolutely reels and and is shocked. He immediately reaction was to say something like "What the hell are you talking about?! Are you Crazy!" It was exactly what Vince was looking for. Vincent kept the scene going and lead Sage back on script where he was doing the same dialogue with this entirely new energy. Everyone in the room felt it and I though it was brilliant. I got so wrapped up in it that I forgot the fact that we were 10 minutes into the take and my arms starting to feel like jello. Afterward Vince asked me if I was OK and he apologized for the long take which made me feel a little better. He has a background as a musician so he has a special connection to us microphone wielding people. Cheers, Chris

Posted by: Chrisboom {What was the budget on this film ? } This film, according to the mixer, was working with a $500,000 budget and from the looks of the shoot I'd say he was about right. It was a non-union indie film by a production company called Blue Cactus Pictures. {However if I could play devils advocate for a second..... I think some actors, and in your case a guy who is a control freak, making these comments to you and banging his fist on a table when you asked to get wild lines.- Your doing your job !!!!! He has no reason to question you ( at least in the way he did ) , . If the budget was small he should of be thanking everybody for there help. Sometimes I have learned when you get you paycheck on thursday's it sometimes ain't worth it !.} Occasionally, he had some very animated reactions to things but I didn't take it personally. To me it was same kind of reaction I have when Tiger Woods misses the long putt by just a few inches or when Kobe misses the 3 pointer at the buzzer. You get the idea. Some people just wear it all on there sleeve like that and, whether it's wrong or right, it's part of what makes them unique. I just had to be patient in the midst of that. There is a big difference between being part of the crazy and just existing next to the crazy. Alot of me being on set is existing next to the crazy and always being ready to exude calm or help relieve the tension with a quick joke. { - PS I worked with the sound mixer you did the film with about 13yrs ago...that probablly didn't help the situation either.} I did 2 movies with this Mixer and I was really thankful for the opportunities he gave me. I always had his back while we were in the trenches and I never made him look bad but he was a very big test to my patients and diplomacy skills. I'm sure he does really well on big budget feature when your only shooting 2 pages a day but it was hard to adapt his style of mixing to the faster paced indie shoots where we would have 3 company moves in a day and we had to shoot 8 or 9 pages a day. Moving his 3 large carts around with what was essentially a 2 man crew was a logistical challenge. In the end, his sound was very sweet when the conditions were right but it took alot of work to get it there. Thanks, Chris