Who's doing what?

[Guest Mick]

With so many different names attached to posts on this site, some of which I know and most of which I don't, I would love to hear what everyone's working on and a little about the job etc. I think it would be fun and informative for all of us to hear about what's working and what isn't, either anecdotally or otherwise. Anyone up for it?

[old school]

I'll bite. Day 2 of 3 on a ReMax comercial with a great company outa Chi town. Good crew all around, many fun people. The dayys are 10 n under and our work is 1 schoeps overhead with quiet sets, not a bad way to live the dream. Of course the next job will no doubt be a soundmans hell.

Old School

[jason porter]

I am currently wrapping up a lifestyle show up here in the Great White North.  The host is also the Executive Producer, this is never good.  if I am lucky...I get 3 tries to fix a noisy lav before I get the "evil eye" from her.  Of course, wardrobe is crunchy, long dangly earrings & necklaces and DRY HANDS!  The post people must wonder what that grinding noise is!

On the upside...the rest of the crew and senior producers/directors are fantastic, we have a great time on "set".  The best part is- the days have never been more than 6 hours long (for sound anyway...) and average around 3.5 !, and yes, they pay my full dayrate anyway!  That's the beauty of having a CEO as a TV host, she's on a very tight schedule

[Sergio Sanmiguel]

Just wrapped a shoot last week for the National Geographic Channel about the Challenger disaster... Working this weekend shooting three episodes for the Speed Channel's show "pinks".

[John Steigerwald]

I'm working on the fourth season (my 2nd full season) of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  A really great crew and a lot of fun to work on.  I particularly enjoy Demo day when we level the exisiting house.  There's something oddly satisfying about randomly poking around with a boom and grabbing glass crunching, beams snapping and walls imploding as it's run over with a bulldozer or pulled down by a team of horses.  Once we start construction of the new house though, keeping drywall dust, joint compound and paint off the gear while dodging some 200 odd HVAC, electrical, plumbing, A/V, framing, drywall, painting, roofing, flooring and tile contractors can prove to be a bit of a challenge.

[Ian Thomson]

About to start wk 3 Booming a locally produced Aussie feature.

great script, nice locations, decent accomodation, amazing crew, and simple set-ups with minimal dialog. Oh and the lead actor has an amazing voice, with the skills to use it.

sometimes fortune smiles upon you and it all falls into place

Ian

[Michael P Clark]

In between the final 2nd and 3rd segment of shooting our 10th season of "Good Eats" on Food Network, a completely Rx/Tx show, except for the occassional plant mic or boom on a C-stand. One man show, and wish for a boom op, but it's ALL steadicam and the operator and lighting won't "help a brother out".  But my Lav chops have improved 10 fold because of it. So it all works out somehow! Now, it's Politicals, Commercials, other cable shows, industrials and post production until we get rolling again in a few weeks!

I like this topic, I think it's good if we all know where we are coming from, and why we talk the way we do.

[Michael P Clark]

Sorry, forgot the techiniques!! Varicam, SDI out to a Panasonic 1200a deck, audio is multi-tracked, and scratch track Tx to Varicam. Silk shirts, crazy costumes, and crazy angles. Fun Fun!

[tim apter]

Working on a 26 ep drama, to be shot in lightning speed on relatively low budget on location here in Johannesburg, South Africa. We have completed 6 weeks of the scheduled 14 week shoot.

Low budget means I am adopting an almost cartbased-ENG style approach to the show, luckily with the help of an excellent boom op. this doesnt really make sense, but basically im running eng gear from a cart setup. Running exclusively Sanken mic's (with the exception of B6 lavs and two Oktava MK-012, Im not wealthy enough for Schoeps yet ), to SD mixers and mixing straight to tape as is (by and large except for very high budget shows) the South African norm. Wireless is all Lectro.

Generally speaking, I have no need for more than 3 channels on an average day, and usually we try and push to effectivly use just the boom where we can!

12 hour days, 6 day week. It seems I drew the short stick

[greg sextro]

haven't been heavy with production work lately.  though i did just mix a day for a weight loss commercial with whoopi goldberg.  35mm, one boom and one lav.  first time i tried out a sanken cos-11 w/ 401 lectro.  the "esses" surprised me a bit.  had to remind the directors and producers that i could hear them laughing in the background while she was still talking!

otherwise, just finished up audio post on an animated pilot for nickelodeon and am now mixing some other smaller projects.

[Philip Perkins]

Just wrapped a 3 week mix @ Skywalker for the Big Doc Feature I'd been sound cutting and designing and predubbing on and off all summer.  (If you like jets you'll like "SPEED and ANGELS".)  Some days back on location on some commercials (some doco, some heavy CG, some dramatic) then back to the studio for a string of Nat Geo HD channel specials and some indie PBS docs.  Rumors of an indie feature around here late this year, but just rumors and availability calls so far.

Philip Perkins CAS

[GrahamTimmer]

Just finished filling in booming the final 3 weeks on Stargate Atlantis for the lucky boom operator who went to Fiji for 2 months on a feature, mixed a 6 page freebee on the second weekend, am now filling in on boom on Battlestar Galactica for a buddy who went to Ireland for the long weekend, and then on to mix second units for the Traveller and Fantastic Four 2.  Then I've been invited to do a show which will be all green screen and sold as a podcast?

G

[Jeff Babb]

Just wrapped on a low budget HD teenage slasher-type movie two weeks ago.  Used a rented FP33, PD-4, (4) Senn G2s, MKH416, Schoeps CMC5.    Premixed 3 lavs via the FP33, ran the fourth lav and the boom directly to the recorder.  So many lavs, you ask?  Two cameras: very wide and very tight.

This coming Tuesday is the first day of 6 weeks shooting a drama about a despondent rock star.  I'll be using a Deva II, (3) Senn G2s, CS-3e, CS-1, and since were shooting on 35mm anamorphic I got a very long boom pole.  And my cart is a serving trolley from Sam's Club. (spent all my money on the other gear). 

[Phil Palmer]

I would love to hear what everyone's working on and a little about the job etc. I think it would be fun and informative for all of us to hear about what's working and what isn't, either anecdotally or otherwise. Anyone up for it?

I'll bite...

I'm working on a TV series called Jericho, for CBS/Paramount.  We've been at it since mid July...about 12 weeks now.  My wireless systems are getting quite a work out on this one, but we fight the good fight.  The show is shot in HD with Sony F900's but our workflow is a double system/film style production. 

PWP

[larry long]

I'm out in ABQ NM working on an ABC/family drama about a girl and a horse =) Wildfire.

Shooting on 16 , using more wires than I'd like to. We did 118 setups last Thursday. I'm recording to the Deva II through a Cooper 106 with Lectro's and sankens, Mkh 50's on the poles. Great Crew.

I can't wait to go home to North Carolina, 30 more wake ups , but who's counting?

LL

[Simon Paine]

Just finished a summers worth of work for a local production company on 2 pretty opposite styles of shoots.

Earlier in the year we did 5 - 1 hour dramas with a Sony f-900 camera. I was doing double system with my 744t, but also sending audio to camera.

Great anecdote about that one, they were very leary of using hard drive, and wanted to use the camera as master audio at first. Since the video tapes were actualy being shot HD, but then transfered to betacam for editing, I wanted them to use HD only audio, and avoid the whole transfer process. But they insisted on camera master. So i complied, still running my HD aswell for scenes where i would want multi track capability. We came up to a scene with multiple wireless, i sent them the files from the HD, and I got a call from editing saying they could actualy hear an improvement in the sound, and wanted me to send all audio from the HD from then on. We worked through the FCP / BWF transfer steps pretty seamlessly and things went pretty smoothly. Also, we were doing rec run timecode on this one. But it worked out great. I took a hardline feed of TC from the camera, and plugged it into the 744t. I switched it to auto-rec, and i never missed a roll !!!

This past friday i just wrapped the final of 70 days on a french language kids series. Audio was One man show with 3 RX / TX and a boom going to my 442 direct to a Sony Z1. (Not a bad little camera.) Beleive it or not I enjoy working with kids, they keep you young !

[Ramsay]

Shooting AVP2 in Vancouver on film. Recently wrapped "Deck The Halls". Always a three person crew except if it's really boring or late at night and we're tired. 744T and Boom Recorder with Dat backup. PR

[curleysound]

I've been at Al Gore's new cable/satellite network "Current TV" which is a studio setup. Lectro VRM rack going into a Yamaha DM1000, firewire and AES multitrack out to 2 final cut pro decks that get 3 SDI cameras switched live, stroed to HD, and sent to HQ in SF for post over a fiberoptic OC3 line. I've been doing this for over a year, but I'm leaving in January to brave the Amazon river on a 75 day doc called "Amazon Swim" where, you guessed it, a guy is going to swim all 3400 miles of the Amazon river!

Tom

[Guest Mick]

What an incredibly diverse variety of jobs you guys are doing. It's so interesting to hear about the different types of applications that require such a variety of audio knowledge. Pre and post jobs are all represented here and it's great to hear about all the gear and the various uses to which it's put. I'll put in my 2c worth. I'm on "CSI" at the moment going into season 7. Grateful and appreciative of this job as I was out of work for nine months before I lucked into it after a "cold call" My gear is pretty standard for a TV series, Deva 5, Deva 2, Cooper 208, 2 Lectro racks with an assortment of Rx/Txs. I will mention though that everything including the boom is wireless and has been for several years. Although I know that this will change over the next year or two I've always been happy with the results but if Universal sheilding is not what it should be on these stages then it'll be back to the duplex cables for the booms and pot luck with the wires.

On a different note, there are four TV series shooting here at Universal and I always make a point of visiting the other mixers and putting the face with the reputation. I've met some interesting guys lately...Aggie from"Desperate Housewives", Steve Nelson and then Ed Novic from "Ghost Whisperer", Ken Fuller on "Crossing Jordan" and I ran into my old mate Peter Devlin who was on the feature "Fast and Furious" It's so nice to chat with these guys and share experiences that are mutually beneficial and fun to boot!

[Rob Lewis]

Two shows left supervising season 3 (my second full season) of FOX's "NANNY 911".

[cstauffer]

Well I am currently on a new TV series for CBC up in Vancouver, Canada called Intelligence. Lots of afternoon and night stuff outside in mostly downtown Vancouver. Easily the fastest moving show I have ever been on. Usually no rehearsals (50/50), the hand held look for everything. Lots of wires for ass coverage. We company move typically at least a couple times a day, sometimes up to four times. Though the odd stay in one spot kind of day as well. Three person team and using Portadrive, 702T backup, a Cooper board, Neumann mics and Lectros with Sankens and Countrymans. I send post the usual 2 tracks but they have the option of pulling out wires on the multi track if I miss something due to the pace at which we move. It is very nice just handing in a hard drive at the end of the day. But really everything is going fairly smoothly and the whole crew and all our actors are great. There you go...

CRAIG

[soundtrane]

Currently working on soundproofing of the train we are going to shoot on for Wes Anderson's film. Six weeks on a moving train and four weeks on solid ground. Shoot starts December, I will be working with Pawel Wdowczak, sound mixer as his local third and as II unit mixer.

-vin

Bombay, India

[Joe Finlan]

Just returned from a six week road trip on what can best be described as a comedy/sports/reality show.

I had my first experience with the simultaneous two camera wide/tight style of shooting that required the use of lavs almost exclusively on the talent. Not my personal preference but I can work with it.

However, in this instance the two main characters would often go from a whisper to a full-out, top-of-the-lungs, face-to-face screaming match. Being essentially unscripted and mostly ad libbed you never knew when it would happen and if there were multiple takes of a scene it was never the same twice. I did become fairly adept at reading the talents' body language in trying to anticipate these outbursts but in the end the limiters in my Lectro transmitters and on the inputs and outputs of my SD442 kept the signal from going through the roof when I was caught offguard.

I do now, however, know exactly what capsule overload distortion sounds like for all my lavs.

Good luck to the boys in post.

[Jethro_S]

I just finished working a few days on an Army ROTC video, shot on HVX200's. It was just me, my 442, 2 Lectros, and Boom. The video will end up on the web, as Windows Media 9 format, I believe, and is designed to offer insight to the ROTC program. Various scenes including bits of classwork and field training shots, mixed with very personal interviews from a Sergeant, a former trainee (Lieutenant Street) and his mother. The interviews sounded very good, I was using the Schoeps I bought from John Blankenship a while back, I realllllly love that mic. One interview with all 3 talent on a couch could have sounded better, but they were wide and tight, and I had to blend 2 lavs with the Schoeps, which was stationary (boom guy: Charlie Stand) because I didn't want to swing it around during a one take scene with non actors (especially mom who was nervous)...