Jesse Flaitz

The reason I bought my Nomad 10 over a Maxx a few years back, was I wanted a foundation I could build on vs. one that I was already "Maxxed". These mixers/recorders seem to have reasonably large shelf lives (788 as a perfect example), so my advice is buy the gear that will help you where you want to be in 3-5 years, not necessarily what is necessary right now. That being said $3k is a pretty large difference, and could be used for other essentials. YMMV

I do feel a bit bad for this operator. Yes he was dancing and shaking "irresponsibly" from a real work point of view, but the steadicam arm should be able to take well more abuse than that. Insurance?!?

Right now retirement consists of maxing my IRA annually, monthly transfers to wealth growth mutual funds and a weak hope that our financial system doesn't implode over the next few decades. Still, when I think about it, and when recent experiential memory fades enough, I really enjoy working sound for film. I imagine the "get to work" idea will kick in more if/when the "need to work" mentality erodes approaching retirement. Til then I try not to think about it too much.

Wind noise will likely be the least of your worries. At slower speeds like 25mph, there won't be a lot of wind noise to worry about. Any overcovers/softie will deal with that fine. The biggest problem I find in car rigs is hiding the microphones, and that will be shot dependent. That and losing lines to motorcycle or truck drive-bys.

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Very cool!

My understanding is that, while the SRc is a wideband receiver (looking forward to getting mine) due to technical difficulties in producing an SM series transmitter that is both wideband, and capable of 250mw, it appears there is currently no production of wideband TX (aside from the L series). If that is the case, it seems a bit odd to have single block TX and wideband RX. It's not the worst thing, but could get a little confusing. Are the UMs getting a wideband update? Or has the LT transmitter replaced the UM? Personally, I'd much rather have 100mw power and wideband in the TX, but 250mw does seem to be one of the selling points of the SM.

2 camera shoot no sound person? One running to each for redundancy/rudimentary edit-ability between cameras? I don't see a purpose personally, seems unnecessary, if he's moving so much you think he'll go far off axis you should operate manually. Depends on length of interview obviously, but I did that a few weeks ago with Grand Master Flash. That dude would rock all over the place during the interview and even my MKH50 couldn't keep him on axis on a stand so I just held it. Not terrible over a 30 minute interview, I just got a chair with arm rests.

I do love the compact design, the amount of time it takes ACs to find the right position for common slating can be somewhat comical at times if the slate is full size. That being said, the one thing this device seems to be lacking is a lip on the back to hold and slate one handed. As is, it looks like it might be awkward to hold. And with the menus buttons seemingly in the open, is there much chance of someone accidentally changing settings? How strong is the ABS plastic molding? 100% of slates get dropped on concrete, will this hold up to a 3-4ft straight drop? Thanks!

That seems to be the MO. I guess it's a somewhat trivial part of post and assuming they are doing the M&E post distribution deal, I'd hope they would budget for just such situations.

I was doing some EPK work for The Get Down and we were interviewing the music supervisor for the show. I got to talking with the sound editor who was helping set up the background Pro Tools session. He mentioned having to re-cut the production track for an M&E for an unrelated movie due to the production recording having the radio playing during a driving scene. M&Es are something that is easy to forget about in production sound recording. How much time do you all spend thinking about that specific part of post audio? Do you bring up M&Es as a reason to record a scene a certain way? Say if there is a radio playing in a driving scene or a party scene or something, would the M&E factor in your decision to marry the radio/TV to a production track if other considerations (like dialogue over the scene) are not an issue? I've often been in favor of capturing that detail in production if the scene warrants it, but having to work around that in a post mix for international distribution is not something I've thought about too much. Most of the movies I work on are indies in the $1-2mil range where the post budget is really tight. Capturing the detail in production may save them time later, but alternatively it might add time if it needs to be edited out and covered by FX editing. Thoughts?

And the reason behind that difference is what I'm talking about. I guess I expected someone in the position of a producer to understand the reason behind the difference, but at least in this case (and in the case of some other producers I've had the displeasure of negotiating with) I was wrong. That implies an understanding of short term variance vs. long term results (as well as scale and some other factors). Both graphs can represent the same information portrayed in different ways. The viewers would need to know the difference.

Warning: Long Post I posted this on facebook too, but I prefer this forum as a medium of discussion, so sorry if you're reading this multiple times. TLDR: A specific producer who I've long since stopped working for can not comprehend freelance probability theory and it's a problem. This is not exactly about rates, it's about understanding a foundational mathematical principle that is part of freelance. This post stems from a conversation I had last night. It is in no way representative of all or even most producers, but it's something that happened I think is worth talking about. I worked for a production company in New York for about 18 months totally maybe 30-40 days. Not a bad amount of work. The rates were on the low end of acceptable, but the jobs reflected that so for the most part I was not feeling that I was getting ripped off on rates. With one exception: additional equipment rentals. This producer seemed unable to tell the difference between the cost of renting two lavs and four. It was constant fight back and forth and eventually led to me no longer working with them due to the rigidity of their budget. I don't hate the producer, he's trying to run his business model and I'm trying to run mine. I just won't work with him. We have several mutual friends and I see him around once in a while. Last night we ran into each other and started talking business. Rates aside (he had a hard time understanding how I could give up prestigious client such as themselves over $100), after I told him I had averaged around 2.4 days of work/week over the past two years, he made a comment about me not wanting to work every day. Here is where I started to get worried about how producers can think that went past the general miserly mindset of the "bottom line". When I say that I worked 2.4 days/week on average, that means some times I worked 0 days/week and sometimes I worked 7 days/week. It has nothing to do with my actual desire to work (and by desire to work, I'm of course talking about my desire to work on jobs that pay proper rates. Working every day at $300/day sucks compare to working 3 days/week at $700/day) . I'd work almost every day if the jobs aligned that way, and sometimes they do for short periods (but assuming I'd work every day because I'm working lower rate jobs and there are more jobs at lower rates is just false, and the math I'm talking about is the reason it's false). In freelance my ability to work is predicated on companies calling when I'm actually available to work and here is where math comes into play. Specifically probability theory. While the cause of a company to call me on a certain day isn't strictly random, it's close enough to be applicable to the theory when referencing my motive to work every day vs. my realistic ability to do so. This problem is most often referenced as the "Birthday problem" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem). I tried to explain to the producer how it is mathematically very improbable that as a freelancer, with this type of work, that I would be able to work more than half the days in a month, regardless of my desire to do so. And this is part of the necessity for me to charge higher rates than a full time employee might have. Blank stare... Followed by a reiteration of his original fallacious argument. Basically, I think a big part of our fight with producers stems from them having a fundamental misunderstanding of how the world functions. And I don't know what to do about that.

Warning: Long post! I would like some advice from fellow sound peoples about a situation that presented itself on an indie feature I was mixing recently. It was definitely low budget (around $1.2m), but enough to where the people above and below the line had worked on their share of movies. It was no ones first movie, not even close (though it was a first time director). It was a four week shoot, and we were shooting around Yonkers for two weeks most of which were overnights. What that means for non New Yorkers, is that production does not have to pay for travel time due to locations being "in the zone" (I can elaborate if necessary). Working overnights in Yonkers means the courtesy vans were commuting rush hour both ways making most peoples commutes to and from set up to two hours each way (example: 7pm call, 6:30 breakfast, crew pickup vans leaves at 5pm). This movie turned out to be more ambitious than production had planned for, not to mention plagued with equipment problems from day one. All of that, plus the numerous trick shots, practical fx shots, gags etc. made for a consistent 1-2 hours of OT almost every day. 14 hour days, plus 3-4 hours of commuting (compounded by the fact the courtesy vans couldn't leave until full so sometimes a dept. would wrap and have to wait 30 minutes to leave set) leaving many people with only 6-7 hours at home to try and get rest. Best case you'd get another hour or two if call was pushed. On the third to last day, there were more problems culminating in a 5am stunt that went bad and ended another incomplete day (everyone was fine, but it was a big enough issue to end the day as we'd been shooting since 4pm the day before). On the second to last day we broke for lunch having just finished what we owed from the day before leaving a whole day to shoot after lunch. Everyone on the crew was justifiably extremely pissed off after weeks of nonsense and at the start of that day the grips had approached me about pushing production to finish this day at 12 hours no matter what, as we knew the last day was going to be insane (and it was, 18 hours on the clock) and everyone needed a full "12", realistically 9-10 at best, hour turn around. After lunch I approached the producers and told them we needed to be done at 7am. They were very nice people, there was no shadiness in the way they had handled the movie, just budget and planning issues, but they were concerned by that. I told them people needed the turn arounds to operate safely on what everyone knew was going to be a super long day, and cited the issue on the previous day as an example. They said they were surprised as no one had approached them about the turn arounds, and wished I had talked to them before talking to the other crew. They said they would talk about it. They came to see me about 20 minutes later and said they'd talked to the director and there would be a hard out at 7am. How would other people have approached this situation? I've worked on several movies before with ridiculous hours, but this is the first one where I finally had enough and did something about it. I realize that everyone works insane hours on movies, and as sound dept., I often have even less hours than most people on set, but so what? Long days are going to happen, of course, but I will not be the victim of poor planning and execution. I need this to be a sustainable career, and I just don't see how 16+ hours door to door is a sustainable situation. I don't want to force production into hard outs, it's really really not fun, but what else can I do? If movies are going to abuse hours so regularly then I won't work on them. However; I really want to work on movies, it's why I started in this business... I guess I'll just keep fighting ridiculous hours until the movies stop calling (maybe they won't?).

The old triangle strikes again. Buzzfeed videos are very obviously cheap and fast to make. Good? No. The production value of their content is beyond terrible, but I guess that isn't the priority.

I'm starting a movie in a week that is shooting on the Alexa Mini. I'm going to be using my ERXs for TC sync/ scratch audio. Does anyone have experience with the TC clock on the Mini? There are a lot of Movi shots they are trying to do and wanted to know if they needed the sync box. I told them yes for now, but if the TC clock is the same as the Alexa, then it shouldn't be much of an issue.

Hello from NYC! I'm just trying to clarify the need for acceptance by individual or institution and what that means. Most sound mixers are independent individuals, so finding one of us to be that "individual" will probably be very difficult as that's a lot of responsibility for one person. That being said, there are several sound "institutions" who might be interested in sponsoring you. I'd contact any of the sound rental houses in NYC (Pro-Sound, Gotham Sound) or any one of the dozens of post production sound houses. There are many advantages to living here for a short time, and also a few disadvantages as well. Advantages: - No need for a car. This is kind of a big deal for short term living as much of the US has mostly terrible public transportation systems making a car necessary almost everywhere, except NYC. That will save you a lot on expenses by not needing one. - Plenty of sound work, and plenty of excellent sound mixers to work and learn from. Disadvantages: - Yes it's expensive. But, if you are frugal and don't mind having a few roommates/tiny apartment, a good time can be had for around $1800-2000USD/month. - Getting out of the city can be tough. Trains and buses go all over the neighboring areas, but once you get off the bus/train, getting around can be a bit difficult. I love NYC, feel free to contact me if you have questions.

EBay is a fine place to pick up gear, though you can generally get a better deal here or elsewhere due to side-stepping eBay fees. That being said, eBay does have a lot of safe guards and the cost of a 302 should be covered if something goes south.

Here: http://www.containerstore.com/shop/office/cordControl?productId=10035727&N=74534

​It's easy to make presets in Izotope Ozone 5/6 to make music sound better (louder) by running a rough mix through it and selling it as a "mastered mix". It doesn't compare to a properly mastered record, but for $50, it's good enough for Joe song writer. Sound department has a lot of presence on set that will be hard to automate. I was just working a commercial last week where the 1st and 2nd AC were local 600 yet neither knew the TC options to jam an Alexa with an SB-T...

Last month I worked a week on a doc that put us up in an AirBNB. It was actually a lot of fun since the crew was great, and the apartment was in good condition. It introduced a different dynamic to the gig since everyone was forced to interact post work vs. going to hotel rooms. I could also see it backfiring pretty hard...

​Haha, I had to find my older posts to figure out what my user name was, I'm not sure how/why it changed, but mine went from "jesseflaitz" to "Jesse Flaitz". All good now though.

These little guys are great for plants mics/general holding things to other things.

I use the free version, but this topic has been discussed before and the general consensus is it's not worth it for the paid version either.

The jobs are usually much better than CL, but I've found it mostly useless for work. To be fair, most of the work posted is reality and I don't work reality so it's a bit unfair to judge it based on work I don't do...

For narrative, VR I'm sure would be very challenging, but I can imagine a new Planet Earth series being shot for VR and in that type of situation sound design would play a hugely important role. I'm curious as to what software would be used for an application like that.