jasony

Please only apply if you have 10+ years' experience, own more than $40,000 in gear (which we won't insure), and don't mind not making enough to pay your mortgage, health insurance, auto loan, or grocery bills. Hey, we're an INDIE FILM! Don't you dig us?

Hi Brent, Since I quoted you, I thought it was fair to say that my response was more to the overall philosophy that I saw inherent in your quote. Upon re-reading the rest of your post, I realized that you might mistake my response as being specifically to you. It wasn't it was directed more to people who say that we should just keep spending and spending with no limits. You seem to agree with this. Apologies and hope it's okay that I used the quote to illustrate my point.

"Jasony -- First of all, we are already bankrupt as a nation -- and it ain't because of universal healthcare." With respect, this is the kind of reply I typically get. When a person goes through personal bankruptcy, the first step is to STOP SPENDING MONEY. On everything that doesn't immediately relate to subsistence (think minimum housing and food). Again, with respect, your solution above is akin to saying "as long as I'm bankrupt, I might as well charge up a few more credit cards!" I agree that the ongoing wars are and have been expensive and need to be addressed, but the proper solution to that is not "well, we've already spent ourselves silly on a war, so let's do it again on something else!". If, as you say (and I agree) that we are out of money as a country (which was different from my meaning of "bankrupt" in my post below, but that can pass for now), then how can the rational argument be to spend more money- stupendously more? Let's please look a few years down the road to the logical end of these arguments and figure out some rational, long-term, sustainable solution to this whole mess. And by "mess", I mean current spendcrazy fiscal policy of printing multiple trillions of dollars to throw at whatever large-scale issue du jour is popular (war, healthcare, bailouts, etc). Can't we all agree that the money will, MUST run out at some point?

All this discussion reminds me of a comment I read somewhere online that seems to sum up so much of the healthcare debate lately: (paraphrased) "Even if it causes us to go bankrupt as a country, it is our moral responsibility to be sure every singe American citizen has health coverage" To which I always reply "and then what"? What happens when we ARE bankrupt, the producers can no longer produce, and the entire system falls apart because the country is bankrupt? Is a short term moral victory worth such a long term cost? I've never received a cogent response. Geeze, it sucks being an adult. Oh to be a teenager and be able to ignore all this junk.

The Sherlock Holmes of the audio world. I love it. Is there any time that the smokestack or suspect equipment is not in operation (like Thanksgiving or Christmas?). I'm thinking you might get readings then to use as a reference/control for later. Doing this in the most scientifically acceptable way will help when you eventually go to the zoning board with your data. At that point, if they reject it, I'm thinking you might volunteer to sit outside each of their houses with a speaker and the recording of what your clients have to put up with.

I'd like to think that if I got paid 20 million dollars for a movie, I would quietly try to 'share the wealth' a little bit with the cast. Maybe it's just because I see things from the other side of the talent/crew line, but wouldn't it be cool at the end of a production if you were in a position to give each of the 40 or so people on set every day ten or twenty grand? It'd be a drop in the bucket as far as your salary is concerned, but it would go a long way to showing your appreciation for the hard work of the people who allow you to charge so much. And, selfishly, it would probably pay long term dividends since your generous reputation would tend to encourage the very best work from these folks in the future. Anyone know of big stars that do this?

I just did something similar this past summer. Reduced rate and points. I really liked the producer and director, so I don't much care if it works out or not- it was one of those "friend deals" we all do from time to time, but if it works I'll let you know. A friend of mine produced a children's album under the same arrangement. The album sold really well and he continues to get a decent check every quarter. Forever. Not bad.

"your bad day can't make my day bad unless I let you." Good advice.

After my experience working with many, many University of Texas film school students (and grads), I have been sorely tempted to march into the film department and tell them off for stealing their student's tuition while not preparing them for real production work. The quality of student (with regard to sound knowledge) coming out of UT is appalling. I even thought of offering to teach a sound class at UT for free (I'm an accredited teacher), but decided it was up to the market to correct UT's blind spots. This really got me riled on a recent shoot when the UT graduate didn't display even the most perfunctory knowledge of production sound (typical "just point the mic at it from 10 feet away and hope for the best" approach we've all seen). If I were in charge of UT I would be ashamed.

Great story, Andre! Although I'm getting green just reading it.

"Mastering Documentary in high end mastering facility in central Hollywood. " Translation: I have decided to spend the money on a facility that will not negotiate their rates, so I am asking you to negotiate yours instead. Tell your mortgage company that you'll pay them in those neato "movie credits"

"That doesn't sound like them... what did they tell you at Trew(sales) and/or Remote Audio (manufacturer) when you contacted them about the problem, which apparently wasn't there when you tested them out before going out on the gig where they were needed, but failed " I didn't bother to call them since they were both out of warranty. Do you think I should? I'm pretty literal when it comes to warranty stuff, and these were plainly out. They didn't fail right away, but after about a week of use. I started getting cut-out on the right channel and traced it to the cable, so I switched to the other cable... only to have the same issue with it after a few days. I did have spares, but I had to go XLR to XLR and avoid the TA3 port altogether. All in all a very frustrating experience, but I haven't talked to Trew about it simply because I don't want to look like I'm trying to replace an old cable. Shouldn't have bought them so far ahead of the gig. Jason

I had two of those TA3 to dual XLR cables made by Trew to work with my 302. They BOTH failed. In the middle of a 2 week shoot. I was very frustrated that they both let me down. Both were, of course, off of warranty. I had purchased them long before and stuck them on the shelf, so they weren't failing due to use, but due to simple bad design or poor workmanship, but since they were out of warranty I am out the $80 they cost. Stupid and useless. I've always been impressed with Trew's stuff, but in this case I can't recommend them. Ick.

A few weeks ago I pulled a 17 hour day, got 90 minutes of sleep (due to horrible insomnia) and then worked a 15 hour day. Slept like the dead for 12 hours after that one.

How'd you feel starting the third gig? Any hallucinations or other weirdness?

"I think he was frightened because you knew the questions that should be asked and he didn't have a clue. That makes you dangerous to him. He doesn't know enough to know that he doesn't know enough." Indeed. I HATE these kinds. Some of the best jobs I've had in my (admittedly limited career) have been with directors/producers who said up front "I don't know your job... will you teach me?" and then went on to actually listen to what I said and work it into their knowledge base. They didn't understand everything, but they tried.

HEAR HEAR! Thanks for this.

Just because I thought it would be interesting to the folks here, scientist have created an acoustic black hole using a Bose Einstein condensate. http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/06/10/1544246/First-Acoustic-Black-Hole-Created?from=rss I love being a nerd. Now I wonder how long it'll take until Sound Devices figures out a way to use it as a noise reducer.

I've got three of these (the Home Depot "Husky" brand) and they're great. I hang one off my bag and one on each side of my belt. They fold in when not in use and all it takes is a quick flip to make them stand out. They're a good temporary hang for cables when you're moving around. Well worth it.

I usually get up and politely request to see the manager, then tell the manager that the film is too loud and ask if it can be turned down slightly (even inviting them into the theater to hear what I mean). I've gotten some funny looks, but I'll take a funny look from a stranger over permanent hearing loss. If they don't turn it down, I've been known to leave in the middle of the film and demand my money back (again, from the manager). When he or she has balked in the past I've told them that I do sound for movies, so, yes, in fact, I DO know what I'm talking about. I've noticed that the local theater managers have been "educated" somewhat and the films are at a much more reasonable level (Star Trek was fine last weekend). I sound like an old fogey so it's surprising to them that I'm only 39 and still request them to turn it down. Sometimes it really is excessive.

I wish he'd spend a day or two holding a boom and dealing with the "talent" while keeping his mouth shut, or worrying about not getting that 14 hour day overtime so he could pay his mortgage. You know, what the "little people" worry about.

Come on guys, you're better than this. Here we have an enterprising young person who has spent a lot of time and money pursuing a career in audio. He went to school, got good grades, learned a lot about current equipment, and is trying to open up opportunities for himself by making contact with some of the local sound professionals.. and you guys stomp on him? I have to admit, I thought you guys were above this kind of behavior. YES, his letter probably wasn't the best way to approach a sound pro. YES, it had some typos and grammatical errors, and YES, there are better ways to do this that just spamming the professionals around town, but honestly now, weren't we all at this point in our careers some time? Or now that you've all made it, have you forgotten what it's like to start out? Give the kid a break! He's young and hungry and looking for experience. What goes around comes around in this biz, and keeping somebody new locked out because he didn't approach you exactly right the first time seems pretty harsh. If I were my mother I'd say you should be ashamed of yourselves. What happened to helping out another audio person? In this case, maybe "helping out" could be limited to kindly telling him what was wrong with his approach instead of locking yourselves in the clubhouse and snickering at the new guy. I'll go back to lurking around here. Flame away at me if you must, but I imagine I'm not the only one here who thinks your attitude was a bit unwarranted. Respectfully, Jason

Thanks for the cheat sheet, Rob. Great idea.

Sounds like the writer really cares how things turn out, and is trying to use previous experience to avoid a problem that he/she noticed on another gig. I'd be delighted that they had the courage to "step out of the dept" and bring this up. Usually nobody cares enough about sound to say anything. Of course, if it goes on and this person keeps micromanaging that's one thing, but it just sounds like they want to help and there was no offense intended. If you answer harshly that'll keep them from maybe bringing up something that you wish they had mentioned.

To a large degree, the democratization that is going on in the film world is similar to what happened in the music world a decade or two ago. I remember having to buy $100,000 worth of equipment in order to come up to what was then "industry spec" and produce a record that could stand with the accepted professional standard. But then along came the computer. Now, with less than $5000 (sometimes MUCH less), you can produce something in your home studio that rivals almost anything out there being churned out by the professional studios. RIVALS- not surpasses (more on this in a moment). So where are all of the CD's produced by amateurs? Just look around- they're everywhere, and the system has figured out a way to distribute them so that everyone can make some degree of money at every level of production (free MP3 websites, Jonathan Coulton-style self promotion, etc). HOWEVER, the music world is still dominated by the professional musicians being recorded by the professional studios (on, usually, most of the same equipment that the "amateurs" use). The barriers to music production have dropped so much that the distinguishing things- knowledge, education, and professional experience- have become MORE important to getting your stuff heard. So in some way, the proliferation of cheap audio recording technology has actually increased the market for the professionals, although there were many, many big studios that went extinct when the sea change occurred. However, it's interesting to note that even though it became easy to produce a fully-professional CD at home, the listening audience almost universally decided that it's no longer about higher quality (we all pretty much stopped at 16/44.1), and the vast majority of music listeners have voted with their feet and decided that the convenience of MP3's outweigh the quality difference of a CD. So now we're seeing the same thing happening in the film business. It used to be that you needed to spend millions to get something on film that stood up to the industry standard of what was acceptable. You couldn't even own a camera yourself! Nowadays, you really can spend $50-100K to get in the same ballpark. Not, admittedly, up to the very best standards of modern film making, but close. So the exact same thing is playing out in the film world that happened in the recording industry. How long before the CCD becomes as good as film... and then surpasses it? How long before we can shoot and edit a film entirely on a laptop (wait a minute...) The point is, history and technology clearly show us that the methods of producing almost anything tend to democratize, and that eventually the tools of creation (whether the ability to print on a piece of paper, record a song, or make a movie), eventually reach the masses. At that point everybody becomes a creator, because creation and self-expression are the most natural of human impulses. But in any of these sea-changes, the adaptable ones with the knowledge, education, and professionalism tend to stay in demand, while the ones who cannot adapt go the way of those recording studios I mentioned. The old adage is true: it's not the tools, is the carpenter. In all of this, though, there is the probability that our audience (filmgoers) will make the same decision about movies and film that they made about music and decide that they really don't care for that extra 10% of production value. I believe the popularity of YouTube has show us that we're going in this direction. The quality of the picture or sound is becoming less and less important (except in a few summer-blockbusters). What is more and more important is what's accessible, easy to view, and free.