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"Shooting a micro-budget horror feature in a couple of months and looking to find a sound mixer with some gear. If you respond to this post without placing DAMN RIGHT in the subject line, I'll know you didn't even bother to read everything. Sorry to sound assholish but people respond without reading and then complain about what's being asked of them. Looking for a sound mixer/boom op with some gear that is compatible with the 5D and 7D by Canon as that's what we're shooting on. If you have lavs, better - that way we don't need the boom. This is a 10-day shoot on location. Lodging is provided. Meals provided. Gas reimbursement if you decide to drive. And the pay is $500 for the entire shoot which translates to $50/day. It's low but you'd be surprised we're even able to pay people if you knew what the budget was. If you're cool with everything listed here, submit your stuff and we'll talk.

Thanks"

Does he mean hardwiring with an 1/8 inch adapter from the mixer into the 5D and 7D? Because I was under the impression that there's no way to monitor that. Plus, being tethered to one of those isn't fun for sound or camera...

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I don't think you can even do that much with the 5d, so now you are talking about a $100 Radio Shack lav (because he didn't specify, and I'm not using Lectros for that "money" he is offering) and a Zoom recorder.

Actually, he probably would get better results just gluing the zoom TO the camera, and sticking a shotgun mic onto the Zoom. Anyone desparate (or inexperienced) enough to read "lodging provided" and think "hotel" (It won't be) or "meals provided" and think anything more than cold McDonalds (it might not even be that good)... Deserves what they get, and good audio won't be what they get.

Best of luck to this project... But their best bet would be to film some stick-figure storyboards OR a table reading (using the on-camera mic) and post that on Kickstarter looking for supporters of their storyline until they get a real budget.

If the writing is good, they shouldn't have any problem getting crowdfunding for a real budget and a result they would be proud of. If the writing is bad... Then someone in Hollywood will probably hire them anyway. (sigh)

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It's low but you'd be surprised we're even able to pay people if you knew what the budget was.

My question is always: "how about you wait until you raise more money, and then you can pay better people and make a better film, rather than settling for crap?"

The sense of entitlement of some of these people often leaves me stunned. Why exactly should I have any investment in a perfect stranger's vanity project?

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My question is always: "how about you wait until you raise more money, and then you can pay better people and make a better film, rather than settling for crap?"

The sense of entitlement of some of these people often leaves me stunned. Why exactly should I have any investment in a perfect stranger's vanity project?

Huge +1

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Exactly. You learn real fast what NOT to do.

And you don't learn what TO do. therefore you have gained no real experience. you can learn to walk on your hands before you walk on your feet, but that doesn't give you any experience walking on your feet when you go out in the real world and people look at you funny.

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And you don't learn what TO do. therefore you have gained no real experience. you can learn to walk on your hands before you walk on your feet, but that doesn't give you any experience walking on your feet when you go out in the real world and people look at you funny.

So you're saying you don't learn anything valuable on low budget/crap gigs?

Not even:

set politics

how to work well with other crew members

the limits of what your gear can do (assuming you're just starting out with prosumer gear)

what background noise to listen for and how to isolate/remove it

how to wire talent

how to deal with difficult talent

how not to cast shadows with your boom

how to realize you might get screwed on time or money

etc.

In your opinion, what is "real experience"?

Of course, my opinion is based from my experiences as I'm sure yours is too. With that said, I'm curious as to how you got your start? Care to share how you ended up where you are now? I always find it interesting how people got to where they are now.

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I'm going to take this one and bring a baseball to lob around the set.

Film Sound Engineer with own equipment needed for a low budget short shooting August 12th 13th 14th.

We need a basic package

2 lob's

Boom package

Recorder and mixer.

Also needed for post mix.

The budget is $200 per day.

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Some of those questions I would answer a straight up "no" and others I would answer "well, kind of... I guess"

In your opinion, what is "real experience"?

Real experience is working on a real set with real professionals

Of course, my opinion is based from my experiences as I'm sure yours is too. With that said, I'm curious as to how you got your start? Care to share how you ended up where you are now? I always find it interesting how people got to where they are now.

Here is the jist of it.

Started off playing music (I have played guitar for 12 years now)

Got into more FOH concert stuff rather than being on stage

Got into recording/mixing and music production

Got into post production for film and video on mostly low budget stuff

Got tired of people giving me crappy location sound so I started doing it myself.

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So you're saying you don't learn anything valuable on low budget/crap gigs?

set politics

how to work well with other crew members

the limits of what your gear can do (assuming you're just starting out with prosumer gear)

what background noise to listen for and how to isolate/remove it

how to wire talent

how to deal with difficult talent

how not to cast shadows with your boom

how to realize you might get screwed on time or money

Jeez Mike! Don't start getting all practical and realistic on us, will you?

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I could make more than $50 a day and get more practical experience by sitting on the street corner asking for spare change and learning to record street noises....

Practical experience in production audio? What street corner do you (expletive deleted) hang out at?

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So you're saying you don't learn anything valuable on low budget/crap gigs?

Not even:

set politics

how to work well with other crew members

the limits of what your gear can do (assuming you're just starting out with prosumer gear)

what background noise to listen for and how to isolate/remove it

how to wire talent

how to deal with difficult talent

how not to cast shadows with your boom

how to realize you might get screwed on time or money

etc.

In your opinion, what is "real experience"?

Of course, my opinion is based from my experiences as I'm sure yours is too. With that said, I'm curious as to how you got your start? Care to share how you ended up where you are now? I always find it interesting how people got to where they are now.

I think the point was that there is a far greater propensity for one to "learn" and possibly pass on bad habits working on these types of gigs -- not that there's nothing to learn... it's just difficult to discern what is valuable and what is not when the most experienced person on set has little to no experience himself/herself.

One of my first gigs was booming on a Julie Corman / Disney feature near West Yellowstone with kids and dogs and a bear... all EXT's, thunderstorms coming through each afternoon...it was total sink or swim, and I was in WAY over my head, but had a great teacher in the Sound Mixer for whom I was booming, and an experienced crew that was willing to show me some patience.

Each persons experience is unique, and I don't think a person starting out in this business should discount the CL gigs... especially if they're the only gigs available at the time -- that said, one really needs to take these gigs with the understanding that they may very well be "learning" many things incorrectly. From whom are we learning? If one can keep this in mind, it may help to filter through all the garbage and actually gleen something useful. As to the $... it's been discussed here and elsewhere ad-nauseum, so I'll just leave that one alone ; )

~tt

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