pshap

I liked CinemaSound, joined as many did, but really enjoy jwsound more... When I first read that jwsound was going away, I was bummed... But now I see that jwsound is here to stay! Interesting how things work out.... Thank you Jeff for hosting a really great discussion group....

I will always opt for the full size digi slate, the Mini slate does not have the three brightness settings. I found that out the hard way when shooting outside on a sunny California day..... Man did that suck.... Mini slate failed terribly.... I do like the back light feature.....

Death is a respecter of no man..... I am saddened by the passing of friends and hearing about who is close to departing from our wonderful world. Let us celebrate life if at all possible while we can.... No disrespect CrewC, Your thread is appreciated.... I just lost my Sound mentor last month and I believe I posted it here on JWSOUND.... This thread would have been an appropriate place to post such information....

i recently captured audio with a 744t with 2 Sony pmw-ex3's. I set the sound devices unit at 23.976 and jammed the smart slate, then jammed both cameras.... Within 10 minutes the code in the cameras was way off. Slate still matched my sound devices unit but boy my cameraman was pissed at me. I had no explanation. I recommended that we just shoot the slate as much as possible throughout the night because his cameras were f'd up...... from what I read below even a sync box wont help this camera hold time code.... Question: Is 23.976 and 23.98 supposed to be the same? Sound Devices units are pretty heavy duty units regarding sound and I had to really scramble to figure out why these cameras were drifting..... I have spoken to a few people and they told me that post can resolve this issue easily...... it was pretty frustrating and I may have lost a client over it...... I saw the finished product a week later and it looked and sounded fine...... wonder if my cameraman didn't know that this camera wouldn't hold time code......

Absolutely a gremlin...... Interesting how it affected a hardwired boom mic instead of the RF Lectros... perhaps the Lectro electronics have some sort of shielding...

Amazingly enough I fit into the back seat of a Porsche convertible today with my 442 bag on my lap with the cameraman next to me shooting on his RED.... I had 2 wireless mics going, one on driver and and another on the passenger... They sounded fine. When I pulled up my boom however, I got a constant faint ticking sound that I could not figure out. It was not wind noise. It seemed to only happen when the car was running. I checked to see if my boom cable was touching anything on the car but it was clear of any contact with the vehicle. Needless to say I did not use the boom. Any ideas as to why the engine running would affect the boom mic? Boom mic is a Sennheiser 416.....

It is with great sadness that I post the passing of David Allen Weinstock on Feb 7th, 2010. David turned 49 on Feb 1st of 2010 and many of us in the TV / Film / Video community are simply shocked that he is no longer with us. A very long running general illness abruptly claimed David's life. He is survived by his mother and father, two sisters, nieces and nephews. His last production job was for "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien". David was a super gifted audio supervisor / mixer and taught me everything I know today about capturing professional audio. I own him my career as a sound mixer / recordist. David was well liked and respected by many of our peers in the audio community. His body of work encompassed many, many different television shows and films over a 20 year period. See here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1144302/ David will be greatly missed by me and many other friends / coworkers who loved him dearly... Please let me know if you knew him or worked with him..... Paul Shapiro - pshap@mac.com His funeral service is pending.... "Goodbye my dear friend, I will hopefully see you in the great beyond, sitting at a mixing console, orchestrating the sounds where dreams are produced, that enter our minds nightly down here on Earth" I love you buddy!!!!

So I supervised a reality pilot about two months ago using two very talented ENG mixers to help me... Fernando Muga and Tim Brown lll. Three crews in all, Los Angeles based, including me. Tim and Fernando did an excellent job of audio mixing and I highly recommend them if anyone is looking for mixers. I just got the word on Friday that the show did not get picked up because 20 other pilots were in the bidding as well for the upcoming season.... I was told that I can get a copy of the pilot if I wanted and that audio and video were captured perfectly. It seems that the theme of the show just did not fit the mix of what the client was looking for.... Dang.... Oh well. We freelancers never really know what or where we will end up capturing professional audio until we are completed with the project and driving home.... I have so many shows/interviews under my belt and still I feel a sadness about this one loss..... Onward and upwards..... Cheers to all my fellow soundies out there. Lets enjoy ever minute that we get to serve our craft.... -pshap

Hey Philip, I am interested... Paul Shapiro 818-430-8895

Hey guys , Client has forced me to capture audio to his CANON VIXIA HV30 consumer brand cameras. I have the right channel from my harness cables connected to the supplied XLR to mini 1/8 audio input cable on each camera. I have noticed that when listening to my returns A and B (while recording) I can hear sounds originating from the headphones that are stabbed into the headphone jack on my harness cable at the camera end (this is for the camera operator to listen with). It's like they are a microphone! I thought that maybe it was because the headphones that were being use by the camera operators were powered, but I swapped them out and it still is happening.... Cameraman was wiping sweat from his ears and I noticed this noise.... I listened to playback and cannot tell if the noise was captured on tape. Another problem is that when the camera is in playback mode the headphone jack will not work... so all I can do is listen through the cameras speaker. Weak!!! Any ideas besides ditching the consumer cameras?....

I answered an ad regarding "audio for low budget feature" and in my attempt to find out about the project was invited to meet with a man named Herb Lindsy at his office in Burbank on Magnolia blvd... This was after a telephone call from him inviting me to come and discuss the project. Herb and I sat down and we started talking about his project. While talking I gave him one of my Audio business cards. He had mentioned it was a low budget feature and that he was offering $100 "flat flee" for a 12 hour rate. 18 days of shooting. Herb did not seem to know much about sound or production for that matter and kept mentioning the need for a back up disc of the audio. I asked him who the DP was and he mentioned somebody I had never heard of before. I asked him what type of camera they would be shooting on and he did not know. I asked him if we would be in a studio or on location and he said possibly but that nothing had been locked in as of yet....I asked him how many people would be in front of camera talking and he mentioned that there may be up to 8 people in a scene all talking at once.... I mentioned that I was not willing to spend my money helping him make his project at such a low audio day rate. Upon sensing that this guy was out of his mind, I became curious and asked him what films he had completed in the past to see if I would recognize any of them. That is when he lost it. In a split second he became hostile and stood up from his seat and said "WE ARE INTERVIEWING YOU, YOU ARE NOT INTERVIEWING US. At that point, I stood up, grabbed my audio card back from him and said "Thank you but no thank you. Good luck to you and left his depressing office space.... Mind you, It was just me and him talking... Now I knew going into this that this time spent was going to be interesting..... Interesting it was. The guy was a serious kook... He actually thought I should be grateful capturing audio for 8 dollars an hour.... Anybody know of him?

happy birthday jeff -pshap

This happened a few months back and hopefully others can learn from what happened here. On a remote location in the Hills of California, our production did not have a full time caterer to handle the craft services / meals portion of our shooting day. Production assistants were utilized to set up the tables and chairs for meals and the caterer simply dropped off the pans of food to be distributed.. Sterno cans were used to heat the food and when breaks were called, crew members would get their food, sit and eat. One day after breakfast, the production assistants were wrapping up the eating area and the hot, used sterno cans were placed into a cardboard box and packed away into the back of a production trailer that was being used as the makeup artists studio. A nice production vehicle it was!!! 10 minutes after clean up, our make up artist was inside the front of the trailer when she smelt something burning and saw smoke... she looked towards the back of the trailer and saw flames... she screamed "fire" and jumped outside the front door.... The back slider of the trailer was opened and the contents quickly yanked outside.....A cardboard box had ignited into flames and two 6 foot plastic tables started to catch on fire. The interior fiberglass wall of the trailer started to melt as well and cracked due to the heat produced by the flames. A powder type of extinguisher was used and black smoke / suit / powder were everywhere... Luckily no one was hurt. I heard that the damage to the trailer was estimated at $16,000 to repair and an insurance claim was filed. I understand production is expensive and cutting costs is important. In this case, our Production got hit hard for not having a full time caterer / person on set. The insurance rates for this production company just went up, up, up.... This disaster got pinned on a Production Assistant who did not know that you should not store hot, caustic sterno cans with other flammable materials...... Lesson learned and shared.... The owner of the trailer was pretty upset too...

Today I get to capture audio during an interview of "Witchiepoo". Anyone remember her? I am so excited that I had to share that with everybody here..... hahahahahahaha..... I can't wait..... takes me back to when I was 8 or 9 years old - pshap

I have seen and read Scott's post regarding the 10% offer on many different sites. I walked away feeling that Scott is feeling the crunch in business as others are feeling it in our business... I have referred many Audio jobs to mixers and received many Audio jobs from mixers and never have we made it so impersonal as to request a 10% finders fee either way. Now lunches have been bought, small gifts have been exchanged but this has been between friends whom have worked together and enjoy each others company.... I find the 10% fee offer a bit offensive but that is just me..... Scott is a smart person with many years of experience. I just think that his offer portrays a hunger for work, something which we all have..... - pshap

I own a Zoom H4 and have been using it a lot recently. I am happy with it.... I like the H4N.....

Maybe a bit slanted off of this subject but Goliath had 4 brothers.... David, when facing Goliath, was prepared for them as well...... He picked up 5 rocks on the way to battle that day but only had to use one..... 4 rocks still left to use in this battle......

Hey Guys, On a shoot yesterday, when our scheduled lunch time hit "Grace" was called to do one more shot before breaking. At the end of the day, as typically happens with small budget shoots, chaos started to happen and communication fell apart. Just before the scheduled wrap time, the line producer came over to me and asked me what time I needed to be out and what calling "Grace" meant. She wanted to make sure that she did not have to pay any overtime..... Comments? pshap (You all rock... hard... Audio Rules on set....)

I visited the web site and listened to the "Wandering Soul" recording.... It was pretty dark sounding... If I heard that recording while in the jungle, at night, under fire or the conditions of war, I would have become pretty spooked.... Thanks for the post - pshap

I have been informed by Jim that this two day position has been filled..... Thank you Eric for posting the opportunity here at The Discussion Group. I would enjoy seeing more of this....pshap (First post of 2009 - Yehaw!!!)

Due to the freak snow storm, I am stuck in Las Vegas. Have been here working for 6 days (which were scheduled) and tried to drive back to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I had turn back to stay over another night to see if interstate 15 will open.... Production did put me up in a room and will do so again tonight if necessary but what about per diem. Should I be receiving it for the additional days while stuck out here on location? pshap

In regards to Richard's post below. While capturing audio down on the Santa Monica Boardwalk last year ENG style, I personally witnessed one of our talented cameramen take a terrible fall while rollerblading and shooting..... We all gasped when it happened, came running to his rescue, then finished the shot that we were trying to get. We all gathered to watch the footage from a different POV camera shot and realized that accidents can happen to the best of us. The camera was wasted, knees and elbows were bloodied and worst of all, the camerman's ego was blemished big time.....

The unit looks great, but must agree with others here that the less weight out there at the end of the boom pole the better when booming.... I prefer an internally cabled boom pole. I have boomed with an externally cabled boom pole many times when employed using someone else's gear and it's just an added hassle. Hopefully your repaired unit(s) will sound fine.... - pshap

Out on location yes, on set, no. Drunk guys wanting to grab my boom mic and then getting pissed when I tell not to touch my gear.... I told the producer I would walk if she could not protect me and the camera guy from these kooks..... Another time I was outside on Hollywood and La Brea wrapping gear/cases into our support vehicle after shooting a Dr.Pepper Commercial with Jennifer Love Hewitt, some crack addict starts yelling at me from across the street. I was frantically throwing gear into the truck ignoring this guy and that only made him angrier....He comes on over and starts telling me that he promotes.. and he is fixated on this word... Promote, promote, I promote..... Luckily I had just finished wrapping when he reached my side of the truck. He gets his face up into my window and starts foaming at the mouth...... I drove away just in the nick of time with him just tripping wildly..... Security nowhere to be found..... Could have become deadly..... Hollywood at night sucks without a secure area to offload and upload.....

I was fortunate to work with the muppet gang back in June of 2008. It seems "The Mouse" spreads the love around and uses many different production companies when they do Muppet movies and specials. While working with them, I saw first hand how these talented puppeteers operated together and how they were mic'd. The headband technique is absolutely an amazing way to capture their audio and worked really, really well. Wardrobe actually made the special headbands and many were available to use. From this experience, whenever I have to mic up talent that is wearing a wig I use a Countryman B6 and run the wire up the back of the neck and place the head of the mic just underneath the wig at the top of their forehead. I tape the wire down on the back of their neck and haven't had any problems yet. Same principal just no headband..... Working for the mouse, I had a great experience on this shoot except for the B*tchy line producer that got my times wrong and refused to pay me properly... I let it go.... She's probably working back at the hamburger stand now where she belongs.....