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Lee Strosnider's Passing


reillysoundworks

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   To all who where touched by Lee,
 
 
          It is with great sadness, to announce the quiet passing of Lee Strosnider this past Friday, November 29th.
 
 
      Truly, the most honest man, I've ever meet in Hollywood.
 
 
 
 
                               Sleep Well, Lee.  You've Earned it.
 
 
 
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I remember years ago when I first got into this crazy business, I was arguing with a film department equipment guy at AFI that I didn't break his Nagra 4.2 and I was not going to pay to replace it.  Needless to say, he was not going to check out another 4.2 to me, and I had to solve this major problem before the shoot that evening.  It worked the day before!  I was starting to worry because I knew very little about gear at this point in my career and my options seemed low.  I couldn't take this machine to Coffey, because it was an AFI student film, and Coffey Sound & Audio Services rented to Big-Time paying jobs. Therefore, I took a chance and ran it up to Lee Strosnider's house.  Lee was always pretty patient about answering novice sound questions and this was a hunk of a big question:  why won't this Nagra work?!  Lee looked it over asked where I got it.  He put it into test mode and nothing happened.  He then quickly turned the machine over, removed all the D cells and went right to the fuse holders.  One of the fuses had blown the day before after shooting, and I didn't even know the Nagra had fuses!  He checked the other fuses, changed out the blown one and told me, "When you return it to AFI just smile and say thanks".  It was a very simple fix.  I wasn't chastised for it or blamed for it.  That's how gear behaves.  It was part of the process of dealing with audio equipment, and Lee showed this small example of "problem solving" that has stayed with me ever since.  He will surely be missed. 

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Great story! Early on in my career, I had the same FUSE problem...  I didn't know there were fuses hidden inside the contact pins! Lee had helped me out many times before and as you said, he was very patient with novice users. In my case, this time, it was Ron Cogswell, Sr. (at Ryder Sound) who told me about the fuses. Ron Cogswell was another one in the beginning of my career who was so gracious, helpful and patient, never too busy to give thorough complete answers to some of the ridiculous questions I asked. Sadly, they are both gone but live on in our fond memories.

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When I started in Hollywood in the late 70's Lee Strosnider was the place to go for young people and students needing help.

He always had some sort of solution to your predicament or problem. Many times we would get gear from him on Friday night, shoot all week end and return the gear on Monday morning for little or no charge. In the 80's when he moved his scene up to his house he was always around. You could call him virtually anytime day or night if you had an emergency and he would help. We got to be pretty good friends because I did a show in Indiana called "Hoosiers". He had a retirement property there and every time I saw him he talked about how he was going to be moving there; next year. I don't think he ever made it. I was really glad to see the articles written about him and his friend Austin by Jim Tanenbaum. They were unique and original characters. They will be missed and never replaced. Have a good journey to your next life. With deep respect and affection. David Brownlow

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