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gkim

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Man, I am blown away by this community and the advice. It's all tremendous. The nitty gritty details (checking reflections, transformer boxes) to the soft skills, such great advice. Thank you all. I will absolutely report back on my first celebrity gig. 

Just a side note: the hard skills advice are great for the technical "what-ifs". But often it's the mind games that undermine my confidence. Reading advice like: remember he's a colleague, or the basics, hi, i'm Gene the soundguy. May i put a mic on you, is so helpful. 

You guys are awesome. A million thanks. 

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If you know your gear, it's probably the set etiquette that you need to worry about on a straightforward A list talent interview.

+100 to not engaging the subject in conversation. You will more likely piss off the producer, before the talent. 

And, as has been noted, always have a back-up plan, and gear.

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  • 5 months later...
On July 5, 2015 at 1:02 AM, gkim said:

Man, I am blown away by this community and the advice. It's all tremendous. The nitty gritty details (checking reflections, transformer boxes) to the soft skills, such great advice. Thank you all. I will absolutely report back on my first celebrity gig. 

Just a side note: the hard skills advice are great for the technical "what-ifs". But often it's the mind games that undermine my confidence. Reading advice like: remember he's a colleague, or the basics, hi, i'm Gene the soundguy. May i put a mic on you, is so helpful. 

You guys are awesome. A million thanks. 

eh..it's December now, and I'm sure you've wrapped the interview. So how'd it go?

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After 50 years of production sound I still get nervous too - it's natural.

Once I'm doing the job and it's all working I feel in control and great!

Great advice from everyone else here.

You will be the sound expert on set so if you need time or to understand what

is happening do not be afraid to ask, or if there is a problem also.

Before the gig set your equipment up and practice on a friend or family member

and that will give you familiarity with the kit and give you results to listen to.

All the best

mike

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Students frequently complain that they fail because they were nervous. I point out that the nervousness never goes away, and it shouldn't. If you're not nervous, it's because you don't care. No matter how secure you are with your equipment, if your career is improving, you will be working on bigger and bigger projects with bigger names and bigger budgets. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and once things are rolling you will stop thinking about being nervous because you are too busy succeeding. 

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9 hours ago, Bondelev said:

Students frequently complain that they fail because they were nervous. I point out that the nervousness never goes away, and it shouldn't. If you're not nervous, it's because you don't care. No matter how secure you are with your equipment, if your career is improving, you will be working on bigger and bigger projects with bigger names and bigger budgets. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and once things are rolling you will stop thinking about being nervous because you are too busy succeeding. 

Absolutely right. Complacency usually precedes an embarrassing cock up even when you are doing a job easily within your experience. There is an army of unexpected events waiting to catch us out*. And for real, gut wrenching fear try working on live TV. It was sometimes needed for the provincial news crew I was on to have to do a live insert into the news programme. Every piece of equipment would be checked time and time again and the relief when we were given the 'clear' afterwards was tremendous.

*Claudius in Hamlet so rightly says: When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.

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Nick, considering your quiet calm and unflappable nature I'm really surprised at your "gut wrenching fear." When I started in television at the BBC everything was live. All the drama, big music shows, everything. As we had nothing to compare it to then, we just did it.

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Oddly enough, at least in the USA the bigger-time jobs DO have a sort of "live TV" aesthetic.  As Mr. Crew and AFMY might attest, when working on a high end job with a lot of money up and fussy, cranky, extremely ambitious and  somewhat paranoid creatives; the expectation is that you are always ready, everything always works and nothing you are doing ever slows them down at all ever.  They are not going to be doing another take for sound without a lot of recrimination and hate rays directed at you, and perhaps a visit from the producer to the sound cart...

 

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15 hours ago, Philip Perkins said:

Oddly enough, at least in the USA the bigger-time jobs DO have a sort of "live TV" aesthetic.  As Mr. Crew and AFMY might attest, when working on a high end job with a lot of money up and fussy, cranky, extremely ambitious and  somewhat paranoid creatives; the expectation is that you are always ready, everything always works and nothing you are doing ever slows them down at all ever.  They are not going to be doing another take for sound without a lot of recrimination and hate rays directed at you, and perhaps a visit from the producer to the sound cart...

 

Philip,

I have always maintained that just in case the Turns, Director or Camera get it right once we have to get it right every-time

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11 hours ago, atheisticmystic said:

Way to re-animate an obscure thread and have it immediately be quasi-high-jacked, Cameron.

(wink(ish))

Steven

Very true, I'm terrible for mining old threads, though he said he'd offer a report, right?

Well, maybe this thread will be searched by those feeling nervous about an upcoming shoot. (also, I think it's great for the newbs to see that the nervousness really never subsides totally).

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On July 2, 2015 at 3:39 PM, old school said:

"If you're 20 mins early, you are on time. If you roll up at call time, you're late. If you are 15 mins late, you're fired",  is the saying in L A.... 

I prefer to feel something compared to feeling nothing when I get a job. Chill on the outside, raring to go inside is how I do it. 

CrewC

I was told 30 minutes.

Maybe I'm older than you!

Cheers and congrats on the latest addition to your family!

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