Philip Perkins

I would advise against you constantly rejamming the camera to your code. The camera needs to print DIFFERENT TC for each shot/take, not the same TC--you will make a serious problem for post if you do this. Show the camera the PB TC on a slate, send it as LTC to an audio track if post wants it, but let the camera roll on its own record-run TC. You might want to check in w/ post about your method here. Philip Perkins

MS= mid-side. In XY one uses two microphones with their axis' crossed and their capsules as close to each other in space as possible. They are a "coincident pair". The two channels are recorded separately, as Left and Right. In MS the standard config is a cardioid capsule/mic mounted in front of or on top of a "figure 8" pattern capsule/mic with the lobes facing to the sides. These channels are recorded separately too, as "Mid" and "Side". For monitoring, and in post, these MS channels are run thru a matrix that basically puts the cardioid channel in the center of the stereo image, and adds two versions of the figure 8 pattern channels, one 180 degrees out of phase with the other. This produces a stereo image with some degree of control over the width of the image. (I should say that one has control over the width of the XY stereo image as well by using console pan pots.) As to why you use one technique or the other (or others you haven't mentioned), well, that's an argument that sound people will have until the end of time. Part of it is your personal preference for what the resulting stereo recording sounds like (ie you have to try them out) and part of it is what the post-audio dept. of your particular project wants to see/deal with. Check in with them before you dump a lot of one type of recording or the other on them. There are many many possible mic combos for each type--mostly it is down to how portable and rugged a set up you need and can afford. Have a conversation with your audio dealer about the possibilities, esp. if you need to work outdoors and will have to work out the wind protection for the mics. There is a lot of info on the web about MS, XY etc etc, do a little research and you'll get better answers than the above. Philip Perkins

In the work we do with my cart, we need to be able to do several locations in a day, interior, exterior, wherever and it may very well be that there will NOT be AC available, and possibly not time to fire up a little Honda and get it far enough away with enough cable to reach it to not be shooting myself in the foot. The camera people (esp film) can roll out and roll up, and we are expected to do the same. If the video assist guy can't get up in time for the magic hour scene the director and DP want then "oh well", but not getting the dialog is not an entertainable possibility. We can't be dependent on anyone else for power, at least for a few hours, depending on what gear we use. The UPS thing is no news to me-- I use a computer-based multitrack rig and know from bitter experience that a power kickout is no joke--it means a full reboot, but I need a system that will keep my full rig: mixer, computer, several RX, Comtek TX, monitor(s), interfaces, light etc up for quite awhile, all day and all night if needed. This is just what the work we do seems to demand. Philip Perkins

Richard, as much as this situation sucks for you please take my advice and do not "get into it" with the other mixer, or the producer except as I described above. I really have been through this many times, and can assure you from experience that going off on either of them will do you no good at all, and will contribute to you getting a reputation as a crank. Soldiering on is generally admired by crew people, and staying cool and professional will be remembered by the production people. Philip Perkins

Ok, say you do this. What reaction do you expect? Whether this other mixer was told about their prior commitment to you or not doesn't really matter at this point. The truth is that the producers felt that this other guy could do a better job on their film, and THEIR commitment is to the project (for better or worse), so when that guy made himself available they decided to do what was best for them. This is an ugly sort of situation that happens every day in the movies at every level--actors, DPs, all department heads etc.. It sucks, but this is the way it seems to work. I have been in EXACTLY the same situation as you several times, esp. when I was starting out--I was (often) the "backup" guy while they looked for someone with more credits. (And in one case, on what became a fairly well-known movie, the "more experienced guy" they replaced me with got a last minute better job and they came BACK to me 2 days before the start of the shoot and I ended up doing the whole movie.) What's the take-away here? 1: never count on film shoots happening for sure until they really start to roll (and sometimes not then--you learn to "read the signs" so to speak). 2: Producers like experience and credits, until you have a lot of them expect that you will be screwed with this way and be emotionally prepared for it. 3: Make it clear to producers that have you holding for a show that you are starting to turn down work and that you expect a commitment from them now (they may not honor the commitment but at least you hold the moral high ground). 4: If you don't want to deal with this situation then you probably won't do a lot of movies, because, as you've seen, it happens at all levels of the business. My free advice: forget about the other mixer, write a letter to the producer politely expressing your disappointment and the hope that you'll get to work for them on another project and then walk away. Philip Perkins

What are you planning to run off your UPS? Many of us have built power systems for our carts that are hybrid AC/battery setups that function as UPSs, in addition to allowing full DC operation w/o AC. I'd recommend going this way (PSC and Remote Audio products or something homebrew like Jeff W built) with AGM type batteries instead of a commercial UPS designed for temporary backup of computers in an office. I'm a kind of low-budg guy and found the PSC "Cart-Power" box to work very well for me, bang for buck-wise. Search the forum an find Jeff's homemade box--seems to work very well for him. Philip Perkins

I do much the same thing but feel like this gear and all the sub connections for individual RX are too exposed for my comfort level, esp re: exteriors (weather/dust) and being knocked around. I can see the Venue in this regard since it is all closed up in its box and only has a pair of antennas. We built our RX (individual channels as in this example) into an SKB rack case w/ its own batt, splitters etc, and it has worked very well in this fashion for several years now, and can sit on the floor (can't fall or be knocked over) and can either go with a remote antenna or the onboards as the situation demands. The Cat 5 thing is a great idea in any case--I doubt I'll ever go to the Mark Ulano/Aviom setup but even analog you can still get 4 channels up the Cat 5 with cheap baluns. Philip Perkins

This is a little off the topic of the RastOrder cart, which looks great, but why are you running such an exposed wireless rig? In a "heavy metal" environment (ie big lighting/grip set up) it seems like you'd want to get your RX antennae up in the air clear of all the stands, but I'd be wary of having my whole RX investment strapped to a board that high in the air. I guess you really didn't like the idea of RF splitters etc and remote antennas? I can see remoting the RX off the cart when the set is far away and/or too small for your cart to be in, but your rig seems like it could be easily damaged if left alone on the set? Weather protection? I'm sure you've thought this all out, I'd be curious to know your reasoning on it all. Philip Perkins

Do you have anything in writing re your equipment rental and their liability for it? A verbal agreement? Do you think it was stolen, lost by an actor, or lost by you or your assistant? Philip Perkins

The permit thing, at least in CA cities is about money and liability. They figure if you can do a shoot then you have money and they want some. They are also worried that a movie crew is what's called an "attractive nuisance": gathers a crowd of people who aren't watching their backs when standing in the street, causes a distraction for motorists who then rear end each other, irritates merchants whose store you might be in front of, causes traffic congestion etc. all of which might result in an accident and a lawsuit against the city for not enforcing its permit statutes. Basically, they want names and addresses they can go after if there is a problem. You can still do guerrilla filmmaking around here, but you have to be pretty stealthy about it. One of the big giveaways (vs a tourist w/ a fancy camera) is a pro sound person and their rig. I get asked more often now to just put a wireless on the actor, give the RX to the camera person, check the audio and then disappear..... Philip Perkins

No clue. I do have an M6 and I do like the sound, post some tweaks. Philip Perkins

I was involved in three console building projects in the past--it actually IS a bit like rocket surgery, esp. if you want pro level crosstalk and headroom specs, RFI and common mode reject, low noise, high headroom, 12 VDC operation, etc. etc. If Ron can bring this board to market for a decent price and convince mixers to try it, I think it might fill some of the void left by Cooper's shutting down and the the price of Sax mixers going into the stratosphere, esp for those folks who want a relatively compact, 12VDC powerable mixer with direct outs etc.. Give it a chance. Philip Perkins

Youth Wants To Know: how did you keep rolling after the gaffer's power ruse smoked you? Philip Perkins

I haven't noticed a diff in RF performance between 210s and 211s at all. The main deal w/ a 211 is that is much lighter, smaller and has the bitchen display. Philip Perkins

Re SD files: we try to burn only the folder with the "real" files, not FS and Trash, but w/ the DVDRAM burn-as-we-go we can't avoid those folders. Re: multiple disks for a for a short job or per day--we're sorry if this is a hassle for you guys, but we do this because A: I like backing the files up ASAP, B: when I work with prod. co.'s from out of town (ie LA) whose MO I don't know well I'm never sure that they won't suddenly want to do a film break and we want to be ready and C: burning a whole day's worth of files at wrap on a laptop burner just takes too long--we are holding production up. On a recent dialog heavy job where we were rolling almost all the time in a bag situation with no simo-DVD, we burned disks at every new spot or setup (swapping CFs)--letting the disks burn as we continued to work. Esp. at wrap on the last day of a big commercial there is such a scramble over paperwork etc that we really need to not be tied down burning DVDs for a long period of time. I had been pretty sure that my written reports were what the telecine operator used for a syncing roadmap. So you guys never pull off the PDF reports? We don't carry a printer, so with Metacorder sometimes that is the only report with the Metacorder disks ( I can't write fast enough for that many tracks!) So.....question: on some bigger jobs we sell the production a pocket type FW drive that we give them at the end of the job with all the prod sound on it. Is it at all possible for you guys in telecine to sync/copy from such a drive (given the proper folder organization)? Philip Perkins

When I followed your link I got a strange sort of truncated looking page. Does this mean my browser etc is too old? (Mac, both Firefox and Safari.) Philip Perkins

My speech to producers about gear, especially wireless, and water is : fresh-water bath: they pay the repair and rental replacement cost; salt-water (or sewer water etc) bath--they just bought that gear. No exceptions. I used to work with a guy who experienced the "delayed-corrosion" syndrome in some gear that had gotten salt-and other nasty-water dunked and then professionally cleaned up. The gear was never reliable again and was eventually scrapped. Philip Perkins

Roll on, Jeff, congrats to you. I'll bet your dad is pretty cranked up about this too. Philip Perkins

This is a company I work for once a year, MAYBE. To satisfy the company owner (the recipient of lots of bad lawyerly advice) the harried producers, faced with not having a sound man for a difficult and over-scheduled shoot (and they were pretty sure that no other local soundie with comparable experience would have gone for the insurance deal anyhow--AND there was the small matter of NOT BEING ABLE to comply even if I'd wanted to--this all went down over a weekend) they had the camera rental company subrent my package from me so it would be on their insurance. Now, in truth, they didn't have the right sort of policy either, but they could send over some official-looking forms and that got us going--no one who cared realized that actually no one (camera/sound/lighting/props) had the insurance they had asked for. We did the day, the bills were paid. Maybe I won't hear from them again. Meanwhile, it's been a busy year, and NO other company I've worked for (SF, LA, NY, Chicago, Europe, UK etc) has asked for this kind of thing at all. And that's GOOD. Philip Perkins

The concern is well founded--he does manage every detail of any importance regarding products and services they offer. It seemed like Bill Gates worked on his "succession" plan for a long time, but I wonder who Apple would send in to pitch....? ("Nothing grows in the shade of great trees." --supposedly the young Constantin Brancusi's reply to Auguste Rodin when Rodin invited him to join his studio....) Philip Perkins

I use yousendit all the time on Mac (10.4.11) and WXP sp2--so far it's been great. Maybe it has to do with YSI's servers in your area? Philip Perkins

I was wondering what TX most folks were using with their SRs. Since the SR is less selective than the 411a, are you finding that you want to be using the more powerful TX rather than the "half-power" LMa? Or is there a real diff after all? Philip Perkins

Roger that. Philip Perkins

Interesting. What media does your HDP2 record onto? Philip Perkins

My HDP2 records to a CF card. Does yours really have a hard disk? I upload audio--VO, sfx, production sound, mixes etc all the time, and "yousendit" works very well for me. I had used iDisc for some time but finally gave up on it--too many aborted transfers. yousendit seems pretty bulletproof, Mac or PC. Uploads for audio is a very common request in my world nowadays. Philip Perkins