Arnold F. Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 I'm afraid I haven't been as fortunate as many here and, in production sound, I had to start from the bottom. I have worked on many micro-budget features solo and for very little money and the sound I captured was usually terrific (assuming time to set-up, decent directors/AD's etc.). Some of the best craft I have practiced has been on these projects. I almost fear working on larger budget pictures because, although the pay is better, I can't imagine a production that has no problems affording weeks on an ADR stage would care anything about production sound. Further, the AD's on the two biggest features I worked on were terrible, apparently thinking that production sound just "happens" without their needing to communicate with the sound department. I hear many people at all levels complain about low pay and long hours and imply that $500/day is too low for mixers at any level. They appear to work in a different business than I do. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel McIntosh Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 There were no direct replies to my post in this thread from a month ago. http://jwsound.net/SMF/index.php?topic=4203.msg30272#msg30272 I am still questioning why if there is more than one crew person in any represented Craft there should not be an additional person in the Sound department. This is not a gross exponential growth in the Department- it rarely ever expands beyond three persons, even if there are 14 Electricians, 10 Property persons, and 6 Camera Department persons. Those departments nearly always get the wo/manpower they need because they demand it. I stand by the fact that a one person Sound Crew is a match for a one person Camera, Electric, Wardrobe, etc., Crew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 In video anyhow, where often the camera is also the audio recorder, I encounter a lot of resistance to the idea of having a 2 person sound crew since the mixer doesn't have a recorder (although they should anyhow), and there may be a video engineer or DIT with a cart too. In video world, many DITs serve as the mixer in addition to their camera duties, and sometimes just have a boom op to help them do both. With smaller cameras, the DIT and the audio get all rolled into one (busy) position. There is still some notion that if there are a lot of talkers in the shot that there should be help in the sound dept. though, thank God. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnpaul215 Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 I've thoroughly enjoyed plenty of ENG doc/reality jobs including running through nasty and dangerous situations, but I won't do a narrative feature ENG style. Unfortunately there are people that will, and more power to them. The other stinker is when production wants a PA to be the boom op. Honestly that's a job i don't want to be a part of. Either of those cases mean you are doing the work of two or three people throughout the course of the day, and it's going to be for a terrible rate. At some point it is not even worth it for experience if the whole project is going to be a disaster. I see it as a major red flag when they put such little regard (or budget) to sound. Ironically a lot of these films today seem to spend the money they don't really have on a RED camera and nice lenses. bah! Like I said, I will do solo doc/reality work and enjoy it, but doing that style while you have 32 takes of the same scripted scene is insane. Your work is going to suffer somewhere if you are booming, mixing, recording, taking notes, changing batteries bla bla bla. I suppose it is a paycheck, but at some point I'm not sure how much worthwhile experience you are getting. That's something you have to consider personally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricL Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 Maybe there should be a lower level coalition/union. There really needs to be a sharing of information with our fellow low budget mixers and our low budget camera department and everyone else for that matter. There's too maybe books out there that basically tell you to make your movie off the backs of slave labor. (Make Your Own Damn Movie!, this one pisses me off the most, especially when he shoots a film with a 500,000 dollar budget and there are still people on the crew not getting paid). But there are so may suckers that are out there that will work for free they'll always find someone to do it for free and bring their multi-thousand dollar kit with them that isn't insured by either them or the production. And I love how the lure of IMDB credit seems to bring them in droves. 1. it's not hard to get a POS onto IMDB and 2. even then they don't even make it that far, of 5 Feature and 20 Shorts i've mixed only two have made it to IMDB and they're not even the ones I thought were any good. Guess i ranted, oh well. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted July 22, 2009 Report Share Posted July 22, 2009 " a lot of these films today seem to spend the money they don't really have on a RED camera " the triumph of style over substance. another long thread along this line a while back was terminated... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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