How did you get started?

[Richard Thomas]

As a thought coming from the numerous threads about newbies/rates, how did everyone get started here and how did you get your first jobs? Were they paying good rates? How did you build up contacts/clients?

[Alexander Burstein]

This should be a good one if this hasn't been covered before!

I started training as a utility/boom op by Jim Dehr and Andy Rovins at a prop house next to LAX. They provided a few contacts of mixers like Glenn Berkovitz and Fred Shultz. After booming and utility'ing for a few months I took time off. A year later I got a call from a producer that I only worked with once for free as a mixer (my first time ever on a set in any format). I wasn't interested and he was paying 150/day for a mixer and 100/day for a boom op with my gear included. I owned a SD 552 and an AudioTechnica 4073 at the time. In reality I didn't think I could do the project well, but the producer kept pushing me to do it anyway for some reason. I'm glad he did. I met one of my two boom op's that I still work with today, and the production was one of my favorites. That was the turning point for me getting into production as a mixer.

There were 3-4 producers on that project and I got calls later on from their recommendations. I still get calls from them sometimes, and my client base started growing. Granted, I set a low pay scale to begin with but I didn't even want to work on that production originally. I've been slowly able to raise my rates in about 6-8 months or so, reaching a minimum of $200/day and up to $500/day. After being mentored a lot here on the forum I've changed my rate structure and am still changing the structure in which I do business. Learning every day. But if I could get back into working as a utility/boom op for other mixers I'd take it up in a heartbeat.

[Marc Wielage]

Many comments in the "Who I Am" thread elsewhere.

I'm one of the rare guys who came from post-production (and video post, at that) to sound. I've always loved sound recording, going back to when I had a toy reel-to-reel at the age of 9, and was tapping phones and doing all kinds of stuff by the time I was 12. I worked in radio when I was in my late teens, worked in local TV as a camera operator and floor director in Tampa for 5 years, and later worked as a VO engineer in LA for a couple of years in the late 1970s (working for my old pal, ace LA engineer Fred Jones). Video post paid a lot better, so I jumped over there for 20+ years. That industry crashed and burned about five years ago, so I made the transition to (mostly) full-time production sound. Having dealt with film & tape dailies every day for decades, I know very well what good dialogue should "theoretically" sound like. All I had to do was reverse engineer and figure out how to get there!

I always felt that sound was my first love, and I enjoy the problem-solving aspects of it. I'm still diving in the shallow end of the pool, but I enjoy the work and the challenges on set. I just reminded a friend of mine, a still photographer on our set the other day, that the biggest problems the sound department often has to solve are not entirely sound-related. To me, it's 1) power, 2) RF interference, and 3) timecode. The others would be location noise issues, plus dealing with the colorful personalities in other departments. I'm not sure which would be ranked highest.

[Alexander Burstein]

The "Who I Am" thread is as large as some books I've read! Good stuff.

[VASI]

2006 after my first certificate in "sound engineering" with short films.

[Tim M]

Can't wait to read Senators story. Sure he has alot of stories of when the whole industry went from silent films to talkies and how he was on the Warner Bros rise to power etc.

[Jeff Wexler]

Can't wait to read Senators story. Sure he has alot of stories of when the whole industry went from silent films to talkies and how he was on the Warner Bros rise to power etc.

He actually was one of the Warner's brothers until the family dis-owned him.

[Boomboom]

:D

[Devendra Cleary]

A couple weeks after graduating high school (1998), I was given the opportunity by Colorado Sound Mixer Dave Schaaf to be sound PA on a LA based indy movie shot in Denver. I was hooked. The amount I learned on that first day on set rivals the later years spent in film school. Later that same year, Dave Schaaf brought me on to boom a short with him called "Passing Berthoud". He had an overlap gig that weekend and had me cover him on the short, using his gear and a rented Fostex PD-2. This was my first experience mixing (well, recording and a little mixing a boom and a plant) and I was hooked. Just a little bit after that, someone working on the short hired me to do their short called "Mall Cops". They rented me a Nagra 4.2, 416 and a pole. Had a couple different boom ops help me out and I felt like I was getting the hang of it. After finishing Film School at CFS/UCD, The stars properly aligned for me to meet David Yaffe on R.A.M.P.S. This newsgroup was a daily obsession for me and I read and posted regularly. Due to web presence, I knew who David Yaffe was already and pitched myself as best as I could. Since I was just finishing up working Utility on a IA flipped movie called "The Laramie Project" with Bob Abbott, I was lucky enough to receive my 30 union days making me eligible to join 695. Flew out to meet David Yaffe and Kevin Hyde and they hired me on the spot to work with them on "Buffy". I flew Back to Denver a few days later and packed my bags for LA. Spent the next decade prodominately working boom/utility and really felt like the apprentice to many talented Sound Mixers: Jim Thornton, Phil Palmer, David Yaffe, Kim Ornitz, etc. I was mixing in between and during hiatuses and I knew mixing was where I was headed and why I moved here. I was just a matter of proper timing.

It's interesting to re-cap memories like this because it makes us realize how much of our careers are contingent upon a combination of persistence, work ethic and just accidental luck. It doesn't seem to be possible if just one of those elements is missing.

-D

[TheBlimp]

Since I haven't been in the business for too long, I'll keep it really short: 4-5 years ago, I got a call from a befriended camera man who asked me if I could jump in on an interview, as in: "Can you hold a mic and keep it still?". He knew I had post audio background and said it wouldn't be too complicated. I said sure and only then heard we would drive 800 kms to interview the Federal Minister of Economics. Haha. I downloaded manuals and requested to have all equipment in my hotel room (incl. the then quite expensive HDcam), to check stuff out, make sure, etc... All went well next day, and somewhat later I got asked for a short movie. Then word must have spread somehow. I'm no pro, but where I live, it seems like among the blind, the one-eyed is king. Haha.

[Whit Norris]

Well since I never really did a "Who am I".... I had a tinkering background with sound and electronics when I was young.. sound in the high school productions, moving on to campus radio in college... Doing all of the production work and working on the air spinning LPs. A commercial production company recruited me to work as a intern. I fell in love and became very passionate with the film biz. Since I had somewhat of sound background I was taught to use a Nagra 3 and to work and record on the 3/4 inch decks as well as the portable 1 inch video recorders. I maintained the film and tape library... They had to give me a job... I was the only one who knew where anything was.... Ha ha. I ran the machine rooms with 1 inch editing machines and 2 inch dubs for the tv stations. Then moved on to NY for a film restoration project where I learned flat beds, sound readers, syncing, splicing and all that that goes with the film hands on repairing and prepping for transfer to 1 inch which was the standard in 86 and 87. During all of this time I was giving the location sound jobs because no one else wanted to do sound at the production company. I did dabble in foley, and ADR and some post sound production. Then ended out mixing low budget action films very much in the Roger Coreman style of film making except with a company called AIP and David Prior directing. Very low budget... Then I started working my way up the chain working with a mixer or two but still mixing low budget films. I started putting my package together in the late 80's and and have not looked back. I have done docs, industrials, short films, commercials, and now mainly in the last 6 or 7 years features and tv.

Hope this post came across in the flavor that it was meant. Just a little history on myself for those who do not know me on this group.

25 years later and still loving and have a passion for what I do!

Cheers,

Whit

[Marc Wielage]

Ah, I miss the old Nagra III. I seemed to get elected to be the sound guy on all the college film projects I worked on at FSU and USF, so that was another case where I was sort of forced into learning sound, by default. And this was no crystal sync, hardware 60Hz to camera, the whole deal. Doh, I still have bad memories of a shoot where the sync cable went bad and we got an intermittent connection to the Nagra. And I also remember the ultra-slow rewind. But it was such a beautiful machine -- great knobs, solid design.

[Nick Campbell]

Extremely new here.

After recording my own and other's music in a home studio for a bit under a decade I decided last year to get a portable recorder as I wanted to make audio essays. Did some fun interviews and ended up getting in touch last winter with a sometimes-local filmmaker team. They make some really good-looking stuff on a non-budget and we have a lot of mutual friends. I have been running boom on their movie for the last few weeks and really enjoying it. It keeps me on my toes and I am trying to learn as much as I can. Started upgrading my equipment and finally have a decent rig after chasing used deals. Looking for other filmmakers in the area that really care about their side of things and would like to eventually make a doc.

[nika paniashvili]

I always had strong interest in books. :People even told me I wrote some nice philosophic essays. The post soviet Georgia that I grew u;p in lacked translations. there where some, but they where done with no skill and taste whatsoever. So I grew up reading in Russian... which is nice, since I learned Russian just like my native language. But I wished all this books existed in Georgian, so that those who didn't remember Mother Russia would still get to the knowledge. I started learning interpretation and became a sound mixer.end.

[justindfox]

Me being extremely new to this industry (4 years with school work, only a year in the actual profession), I found that starting all on your own is extremely hard. When I first started all I had was a h4n, crappy (and heavy) boom pole, and an NTG-2, I did what my parents say is "the dumb thing to do" and moved out to Los Angeles not knowing anyone at all expecting to find work. I worked a 3 day shoot on a short and boomed for a great mixer, Victor Bouzi. After that I boomed for him several times on shorts, pick ups for features, and commercials. He then started to send me some really basic mixing gigs, occasionally letting me borrow wireless lavs and comteks. I then got offered a feature in FL, knowing I had no gear I figured I could just get a front of the money and buy all the gear needed (really really dumb move on my part). As the my flight date was nearing I was getting more, and more nervous that I wasn't going to be able to do this gig at all. I then remembered that I had a fellow friend/sound mixer in the area that had all of his own gear, James Nolan. I talked with him right before, hired him on with the deal to use his gear, and to switch out every other shoot day mixing and booming. I thought at first it was going to be terrible, but now that I look back at it, it was one of the best times of my life (Different story for a different time haha). After that I went back to Cali, and then worked some more gigs, saved up and bought some more gear. I still have a really basic package and I'm looking to expand (HS-P82, two g3's, mkh50, & a carbon fiber boom). I just recently moved to New Orleans to try and work on bigger projects. So with that being said, are there any mixers that would just like to meet in the New Orleans, LA area? Or maybe in the Nashville/Knoxville, TN (where I'm from) area?