BWilson

What's the doco about vagarob? And goodluck : )

I think texting may even been a cost saving measure. Rather than make an initial call, it's cheaper and easier to text. Then, wait for a reply, usually a phone call in my case to find out more information about the job, get the producer/director's details so I can speak to them. Then they send an email with the relevant details of the shoot. Total cost - a few dollars to book a crew. The booking agency I am with uses texts as a standard form of communication realizing the cost issues, and most people have phones on silent. As long as facebook doesn't become the norm, I only check my facebook page once every few months. I had better go check it, maybe I've lost alot of work...

I currently use the sennhiesser hd25ii, and have not had a problem with them. The nice thing about these are the replacement parts. I've worked in temps between -5 Celcius to 45+ Celcius. Prior to this, I used the sony 7509, which had a muddier sound, but are bigger and a little more comfortable in colder conditions, but got hot to wear in the warmer conditions.

Hi Jan There are two facets to the industry here, Film and Television. Film is strongly unionized since most productions are partly funded by federal and state governments and therefore have to go by guidelines negotiated by the union. These are normally based on a 10 hour day, first two hours overtime charged at time and a half, and every hour after that charged at double time. If there is less than a 10 hours turn around than you get paid double time until you do receive a 10 hour break. In the television world, the only productions that are unionized or have union input are the ones that are run by overseas companies. It is up to the individual to negotiate rates and penalties. We do have occupation health and safety guidelines, but these are often turned a blind eye at. We are caught in the trap. Complain or question it, Don't get future work. I'm tired of being treated this way, and don't mind sticking my neck out for everyone else. I am not a robot, I'm a trained professional and wish to be treated as such. Work us to a hairs breadth of not functioning properly, and guess what, that's when mistakes happen, quality is compromised and worse, our health and safety of others comes into question. Cheers Bronson (post no. 2!)

Hi everyone, This is my first post, so bear with me... I'm a location sound recordist/mixer who has been working as a freelancer in Canberra(the capital of Australia) for 11 years. The situation here in the television world seems to be evolving into a situation where 8 hours was the norm and quoted rate, to 10 hours being the normal expected billable day. But the expectation is that more and more production companies have the view that if we book you for a day, than we own you for that entire day, and we will do what we want. And than say we do not have provisions to pay you overtime even though we scheduled it. I understand that production costs money, and it is cheaper to schedule a 6 day shoot into 4 days if you are not paying a price for the extended hours worked. But that is the problem I see, the overtime rate is there to protect us from working excessive overtimes if the price of that overtime becomes prohibitive to the production cost. Some days need to be longer than the standard day for various reasons, but I'm also of the opinion that if I'm looked after with at least a 10 hour turn around, or some days being 8 hours or less, than I will negotiate some form of rate for the overtime worked. But all this said, it doesn't change the fact that working excessive hours has a detrimental effect on peoples performance, personal lives, and health. We work to live, not live to work. And I am sure that most of us value our profession as more than just a job, but what is the point if we need time to "recover" after a job, cannot schedule family dinners(etc) and are running risks of safety not only to ourselves but to others. I recently took a doco trip to South Africa, Egypt, United Kingdom, France, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Korea in 21 days, totaling 277 hours with travel. We shot 127 pieces to camera. At one stage the presenter asked the director(also owner of the production company) if he could have some time to get a post card for his wife, as this is what he does when he is away from her. The reply was "Do you think we are on a Holiday, No!" This all being said, I value what I do, and wish to be valued by the people who employ me just the same.