Philip Perkins

Lotsa G2-3-4 stuff around used. Easy to sell if you need to.

Do it! Sounds great!

Luke Seerveld's "Meet The Gaffer" series has all been done with the Senn. AVX ME2 wirelesses. He's never very far away from his subject, I've haven't seen him use more than one of them at once, but he is shooting "in town" so to speak--lots of RF around. They sounded ok--he is pretty careful about what he does and knows the limits of the system. But they are still in the $700+ range new... The alt. I guess is looking for old Lectro 100-series or etc used. But none of this will stop someone who has decided you are a good mark--I've been held up while carrying nothing at all.... If you are considering working in a place where you think you might get robbed and can't afford police for your shoot then I'd vote for rethinking the filmmaking methods to be used. Once the guns come out all bets are off, and those guys have no idea what is or isn't fence-able gear and are going to be super adrenal and maybe high too. Don't do this.

Me too mon ami--that was a major reason I started in this work! (And what I miss most about it.)

I've had the opposite experience about "box rental" with PR companies, including on a very big show this year, so go figure. I just do what they tell me to do. It's important to get productions to properly credit you, or to credit you as you wanted to be credited, more like. Lately I've noticed that the title "sound designer" has become an acceptable and listed title on IMDB, whereas before it was a non-category that threw up flags, so these things evolve. I do think it is important to patrol IMDB etc and make sure you are properly credited on the shows you work--you can't count on the prod co to get it right, or even credit you at all, really.

On USA union production jobs the head of the sound dept. is referred to as the "Production Sound Mixer", whether they are actually "mixing" any audio or not. I often refer to myself as a "Location Sound Recordist" when on simple jobs with only one or two channels in record, but that is a personal choice. IMDB accepts both PSM and "recordist" titles without question, in my experience. My personal choice of title has to do with the complexity of the location sound recording on a given production I've done, including whether or not I had a crew to manage (vs one-man-band), and was I doing any mixing that might make it into the final version of the project (including live-mix jobs for streaming shows etc)..

It depends on what you want to record. Do you need 4 mic amps (vs 2)? The other input channels/tracks of the Nagra? Is the size of the Nagra vs the 744 ok with you? The cost of its accessories? If you like the Nagra sound and operations and have the $ then why not? No you won't get a lot of $ for your 744 anymore, it might be worth more to you to keep as a backup or for extra record channels (since it can take WC+TC from the Nagra).

416 is not my fave for anything. However, it absolutely saved my ass several times over the years, re: bad RF and moisture. That's reason enough to keep one around.

Yes, it used to be that the 2 mics you saw in pro VO studios all the time were a U87 and a 416--it was assumed that you had these in addition to anything else you might want to try. Speaking low directly into a 416 very close is the "sound" of a lot of famous male voice actors and VO artists. ("ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN.....IN A WORLD WHERE..." and so on.)

The choice of boom mic. esp. for interiors, is one of the most personal (and consequential) choices a PSM will make about their gear. That mic will really define your "sound". I encourage you to take the time to try out every mic that interests you in the sort of situations you encounter. Re: the 416: there is a reason why it has lasted so long in the kits of sound people the world over. It may not be your #1 choice, but it always seems to "just work" pretty well for anything, is very robust and very RF and moisture-immune. I like having one along on every job I do, even if it gets deployed only once in awhile.

The arts org I work for just bought a 14" as a new touring machine (audio and video playback mostly). It's a lot heavier than the old Air it replaces but it means that they can tour with good size video playback projects at high resolutions and not just be hoping each local venue can deal with their files. The built in HDMI port sealed the deal for the check-writers.

Don't hold back, it's bad for you! Spill it! For context, the operatic feature I worked on last summer used free-run TC generated by a master clock/recorder (SD), that jammed a set of small TC boxes (Moze) that were mounted on the cameras (Venice) along with a wireless RX that was receiving playback audio, feeding an audio channel of the camera. TC slates had playback TC transmitted to them from the playback project, that computer's ADAC locked to the same master clock. 2 hr plus movie, 5 week shoot, all was well.

Maybe in some context, but usually the editors prefer a guide track sent to the camera audio track from playback. Slate playback TC tells them where in the music the shot starts, the guide track is a syncing guide.

Yes they can.

Yes to all this. Soundplant works equally well on PC or Mac--I have it on several of both.