Izen Ears

I am terrible at gifts, especially when it's just for people just doing their jobs. I feel like it's a brazen bribe and it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I only get gifts for good friends so this is obviously just to curry favor. Kind of makes me sick. I mostly just thank the drivers, very sincerely. Do you all give gifts? At the start of a show or later? And what kind of gifts? Beer? Liquor? Gift cards? One of our captains is an ace, totally takes care of us, parks us close and always stings the trailer (no on-board genny!). Sometimes the good captain is busy and the other one just doesn't do anything for us, no power, terrible parking. I feel if he got a gift from me, it would be better. But he doesn't drink! Dan Izen

Oh man I love this! I'm curious how you were able to determine the value of those resistors? Is the 100 ohm for AAs? I use mostly rechargeables so I don't care about metering them, but sometimes we use lithiums or alkalines and it would be great to meter them under a load!

I was hired for a 6 month job, the first season of a show. I was invited to the tech scouts for the pilot, my name was even on the tech scout memo. Then a few days later we start the show. A few days into it, the UPM visited set. He came to me and just started yelling. Stuff about how he's never paid a sound person to go on a scout, and mainly that he's not paying me for tech scouts. I am proud of how calm I was and simply repeated that if he didn't want me there, he should not have invited me. After the scene was made, he left and I called my rep. By the end of the day I was told I was getting paid for those two days, the studio took one look at the tech scout memo and instructed the UPM to sign the check. That was in 2015, and I wonder what happened to him. And all the sound mixers who didn't get paid to his scouts. Strangely my job with him ended up being a very nice sounding show! Maybe he just believed that everything sound can be fixed in post, and the sound dept. is a relic department. I have a good memory of being on a tech scout in 2007. The scene was a walk and talk, and they were liking this walkway that went direct past a super loud machine room. There was a metal door and next to it was a vent that was just screaming. A typical loud machine room noise. As the DP and director were talking about seeing this or that, I mentioned to the UPM that if they chose this walkway, the scene would need to be looped. BOOM! He walked up and told everyone we were moving on - it was great! I did approach the location manager about it and he said something about the DP liking it. I wasn't able to find and confront the person who thought that would be a good walkway. One time on another job we scouted a hospital cafe that was sooooo loud! It was a 5- page freakin love scene, where one character says how much he's always loved the other one blah blah. I told the everyone it would only work if the cafe was closed and all its machines turned off. They laughed and said we'll be shooting at night after the cafe was closed - problem solved! Then on the day the call sheet order was changed around and lo and behold - that scene was not to be shot during business hours!!!!! I immediately want to several producers (yes, it was one of those) and told them this was not going to work, but they just smiled and nodded. The director acted like he was strapped to a chair, totally powerless. So, as a last resort I told the main actor. He freaked out and refused to do the scene. So they had to close the cafe early, and the hospital made the locations dept. do the dishes!! We shot the cheesy ass scene and then we stayed late and washed dishes with locations. The moral is, even if you are on the tech scout, forces will possibly work to undo any good work you may do.

Just finished season 4 - WOWZA! This is truly one of the greatest shows ever made!

Mini-speakers can only reproduce miniature sonic exopriapisticorgastic-loads, which our human ears find "tinny" or "anemic." Protopriapristicorgastic-loads are best heard on maxi-speakers like those our competitors sell. It's just science.

Those Pro Sound mounts were a blank vampire "plate" with a piece of tubing super glued on. If you can't find the blank vampire plates, maybe "re-purpose" some from other vampire mounts, and then glue on the tubing. Might be a bit of a search but not impossible to recreate!

There's no better reason for bad sound than "they didn't let me on the tech scout." You've just been given a free pass. Frustrating as all heck, knowing a few simple and quick steps could vastly improve your product, but at least it's not your fault.

Haha! A heated argument! That's rich. Those folks should not be allowed in public, they are dangerous. I would probably want to commit suicide it I accidentally killed a pedestrian. I can't even stand thinking about the bugs I used to kill as a small child.

YESSSSSS!! This podcast is just great. I'm working up from ep 1, I'm on ep 131. It's just glorious to hear other folks who are crazy about sound.

Hahaahaa! Hilarious!

Also - many actors mumble and are nearly incoherent even when heard clearly!

Damn right!

This is excellent reasoning, and when you spell it all out there like that it makes total sense. Thanks!

Ah! I thank you for the elaboration and details. I think that answers my question. I guess the only safeguard would be... pounding some tall lightning rods next to the gennies! I mean, lightning delays cost so much and are so damn inconvenient. I'm super bummed we have to go back there and finish those scene. Lightning.

Oh yes I agree that's the stated purpose - to avoid frying gear and people - but my question is how often does that happen? I did ask the genny op and he had never heard of a genny being struck. Neither had the few other juicers. It was a camera op who had the FL story. We just lost four hours and wrapped early because of this haha! I just want to understand. I appreciate your postings! Dan

I thought the regular dirt earth is basically neutral? And further, how would a genny be unbalanced? It's a wheel spinning spools of wire around magnets, so wouldn't positive and negative be equally generated? I am a total dummy and I'm trying to learn this kind of stuff as the questions come up, not the best way... Where's Blankenship when you need him?!!

I am just curious about this and I don't care if I sound dumb - what is the danger? Have gennies actually been hit and exploded, killing people? Why would a generator "draw" lightning at all? Doesn't the lightning seek to release its voltage differential to the closest neutral AKA the earth? Or is a genny neutral? I did hear a verified account of a genny that was hit during a storm in FL. They didn't stop shooting for the storm and then the lights went out. No one died but I'd guess the genny was a goner. But in that case, lightning was striking all over the area, including many hits NOT on the genny. I'm confused.

Thank you so much! I think we’re gonna print a few. I appreciate your work, thank you for sharing.

Cool! What a wonderful and selfless endeavor - inspiring! We need this because of how we are expected to know “how to get the sound to work” on these “daily special” cameras. At one point I’d even learned the actual menu sequences for timecode on one camera, because they kept accidentally resetting it. That would be the final leg of this - to walk is through the menus. They’re usually VERY stupid. THREE separate menus to set the rate, jam, and see the display. Sometimes four. I could talk to some 1st ACs and see about filling in that info on whatever camera is on the next job in August. Pin assignments are cool when I want to make a one-way timecode cable.

In my controversial opinion, you should not have to teach anyone to listen. They should not be interested in sound if they don’t know how to listen. If they are interested in sound (not working in sound, but just sound), they are already fine listeners that just need that skill honed. I have attempted to work with people who are “really into doing sound!” but clearly had no listening skills. It is baffling every time. How to tolerate ignorant nihilists, ego maniacs, and well-meaning (but full of venom) divas, and still get what you want. In my opinion this is the hardest part of the job. Be prepared to be the only one who understands what you’re doing. If you understand this, you can explain things as you’re asking for them and have a higher success rate. And sometimes make friends. Anyone who does favors for the sound dept. is almost always doing a favor for a friend, not for a sound recording. Working the gear and having an understanding of how it works is yes, important, but not essential. That’s the simple straightforward stuff. If the person listens and is smart, it’s easy to teach that stuff in a short time. Some of my best trainees had never touched a Lectro but after a few months became highly sought-after soundies. Conversely I’ve had folks who knew all the gear but once on set, just froze and had no idea how to handle themselves. Those people did not work out for me.

COOL. SUPER COOL. Can you expand on this part? Especially how you found the cap value. I am interested in this whole short process.

I hope they continue to service them. Any opinions on what is now the best alternate?

That is total BS. Every single company should be contactable by its consumers, even manufacturers whose only on-paper customers are distributors. I wish you the best of luck.

Wow! This is nuts. Never heard of graphene but dang!

The background does sound nice, but the voice sounds bad, compressed and super lossy. If he weren’t yelling over the drone my guess is it wouldn’t work at all. We’d hear incomprehensible voice-like sounds. That said, I LOVE the idea of flying mics around. In fact I’ve always wanted to do that. Flying slowly over a crowd pointing straight down has gotta be awesome. Hearing an explosion from the sky, never heard that. I was hoping for “quiet drone” tech…