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Brian Milliken

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Posts posted by Brian Milliken

  3. Lectrosonics Transmitter Question

    in Equipment

    Posted

    Hi All

    Is there the option to have SMV's to power up when the Mic is plugged in, we are having to give costume Dept the Tx's and Mic's each night for the following morning, I have been used to Audio Ltd's which function that way, what I am trying to avoid is the fuss associated with pressing the 2 buttons deep within a period costume. I know there is the sleep function but 11ish hours would probably be a bridge too far.

    Regards

    Brian

  8. Ear Crash Investigation

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hi Everyone

    I thought it might be useful to start a topic on protecting our ears, if anyone has any tips on how to avoid unnecessary levels, thumps, bumps please share, do any of our members use limiters on the headphone output ?.

    Often depending on the script I come home with tired ears to say the least, and any help to protect our most precious ears would be of great value to everyone.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

  9. I finally made a mistake...

    in The Daily Journal

    Posted

    Hi Jeff

    I did this on a shoot in 2008, the way back to life was to load a new Hard drive into the Deva that had Deva software on it and press the  menu button on Power Up, to this day I have current software loaded onto all of my Deva Drives, luckily for me the next few slates were MOS which gave me the time to get the drives from the van and reboot. It was a big Phew when the Deva sprang into life.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

  12. "Public Enemy" on DVD

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I never saw "Public Enemy" at the Cinema, I was curious to hear how it sounded in the comfort of my own home, without the expectation that a visit to the Cinema brings, I was in disbelief at some of the dialogue, my main thoughts were what a waste of a Movie to have dozens of lines lost.....

    As posted before some very strange choices.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

  13. Boom operators - Cool photos

    in Images of Interest

    Posted

    This is Bradley Kendrick one of the best Boom Operators in the UK, we have been working together since 1997, the black & white photo was taken on an Edinburgh rooftop by Neil Davidson on the film "New Town Killers".

    The furry photo was taken by Graeme Hunter while shooting the TV series "Garrow's Law".

    Brian

    post-71-130815084036_thumb.jpg

    post-71-130815084041_thumb.jpg

  18. Low Profile Mic for Very Low Ceiling Submarine Sets

    in Equipment

    Posted

    Hi All

    I am about to start a shoot "The Deep" for the BBC here in the UK, a lot of it is set in Submarines/Submersibles all these sets have virtually no ceiling height so I am anticipating a lot of Radio Mic usage, however I am seeking advice on the best low profile Boom rig, I was thinking about the Schoeps CCM 4 in a Cinela Mount, if anyone has any experience of this rig or a rig that they would recommend I would be delighted to hear from you.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

    post-71-130815083056_thumb.jpg

  21. Schoeps MK41v

    in Equipment

    Posted

    Hi All

    Can anyone explain the difference between the MK41 and the MK41v, it refers to side address in the blurb, does anyone have any direct experience of having compared them.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

  23. A Mirroring Story

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Hi All

    Deva 5, Running 5.40, Panasonic DVD Rams.

    On Wednesday I was recording a Commercial for "STARBURST" sweets, on the banks of the beautiful Loch Fyne at a Dunderave Castle in Scotland. 5 Tracks, 24 Bit, 48K.

    Our day started at 05.00 to travel to location from Glasgow for a 07.00 Breakfast, 07.30 on set.

    The Script did not look too demanding, however as you know Commercials shoot at times lots of material, so halfway through the day at Segment 99 (approx 4gig) I was beginning to think about changing to my 2nd DVD Ram, I ejected the first then decided to get maybe another 5-10 segments onto it, once re-inserted the DVD Ram would not mount, I was getting the message "waiting for media", after several attempts and a few re-boots of the Deva 5 it became apparent that it was not going to play ball, all of this was going on while we were still shooting, and by now we were at segment 124.

    The first chance I had I asked Martin my Boom-Op to go to the van and get the LG External Firewire DVD Ram Burner, and at an appropriate moment I re-booted to the External LG DVD Ram Burner, It duly mounted and I formatted a new disk, Phew !! at this point I decided to Re-Burn all segments thus far just in case there was an issue with what had already been burned.

    On this occasion rushes were to be collected on wrap and driven to London for the first available bath at ILAB in Soho where, once digitised and synced, they were to be taken on the first available flight to New York to facilitate Editing to start Friday morning in New York.

    By now it is about 20.00 hrs and I have just finished burning DVD Ram 1, which I chose to Mirror from 1 to 99, obviously by now in an attempt to catch up my hand was forced to select Continuous Mirror, other wise we would have been waiting a very very long time after the anticipated wrap at 22.00, the other reason was that I required mains power for the LG Drive and we had to take power from the Sparks Generator for that, once the Sparks pulled the plug on wrap my burning days were over, by now though I was on DVD Ram 2 and was thankfully starting to catch up.

    Now because of all this London/New York thing I paid particular attention to the % mirror display making sure that all was completed and present, fearful of that phone call from post.

    By this time I am performing the role of a DATA TECHNICIAN and on occasions was missing mixing cues and missing information regarding said cues and Script versions, furthermore and more worrying I had 2 complete freezes, I was staring at the percentage bar, and glanced over to the Audio Level meters and Hey Ho they were Frozen, with Audio still coming through my headphones, my only Option was to switch off the Deva as I was out of sight of the Director and calling cut was not an option for me, this brought things to a halt and allowed me to Re-Boot.

    When the last set up was called which was MOS, DVD Ram 2 was Mirroring Segment 160 of 162, Phew !!!! Made it...., That's a Wrap.

    So.......

    The Phone Rings early Friday Morning, it is the Production Company in London, to say that a few of the Sound Files were missing, and could I eMail or send Slates 23 to 31, my Heart misses a beat and I tell them I will call back in 10 Minutes, I check my Deva for the files, all is well they are all present, but to my surprise it is everything from Segment 108 to 162, one third of the material totaling 2.1 GB, I then called the Lab in London and they confirmed they could not access Segment 108 Onwards on Disk 2

    So how to get 2.1GB to New York quickly, after a brief flutter with my Mac iDisk Public Folder it became apparent that the bandwidth Apple allocate to iDisk was way too slow, it was estimating 15 Hours for the 2.1 GB, I decided to contact a Sound Post House in Glasgow called Savalas and ask their advice

    http://www.savalas.co.uk/

    I spoke to Kahl Henderson and explained my predicament, he suggested we use their DigiDelivery Account,

    http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=100&navid=38&itemid=4782&action=news_details,

    I promptly mirrored the missing segments to a Firewire drive and headed down to Savalas, where Kahl duly split the Data into 4 Half Gig Chunks for convenience and eMailed the Editors in New York the details of how to access them vie DigiDelivery Client Software

    As another back up I also sent the files via " You Send It " which took a long time to upload (about 8 Hours), and presumably would have taken a similar time to download.

    I have just had an eMail from the editor in New York to say that they have successfully downloaded the missing files... Via DigiDelivery and that all was well....

    Another very big Phew..........

    I hope that none you do not have to go through any of this, but thought that an explanation of my experiences over the last 2 days might be of interest to some.

    Kindest Regards

    Brian

  25. Putting Lav mics On Suit

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I have had success with getting the Mic into the breast pocket if there is one, this involves cutting a hole in the lining with Costumes Permission and Supervision, a Sanken cos 11 in a Rubber RM 11 with double sided tape will keep the clothing noise down to a minimum.

    Regards

    Brian

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