You'll Hate Central Park!

Central Park is evil.

Yea I said it. New York City's number 3 tourist attraction behind Times Square and the city's collective pretzel vendors, was designed, landscaped, and is preserved by Satan himself.

Is it stunningly beautiful in autumn? Sure. Is it a blast to chill in during the summer? Sure. Is there anything like it anywhere in Manhattan? Not even close. But, don't be fooled ladies and gentleman. Underneath its painting-esque foliage and sprawling grandiosity is unspeakable evil.

Most are naive to this evil, but I saw it head on today while half-marathoning. In fact, the only way to get a glimpse of it is to run around the park. It's a lot like the story of Faust. Mephistopheles in this case is the New York running community. Everybody talks about what a great course Central Park is for running and how all the elite athletes run there to train, and so on and so forth. They lure you in with these tales of instant greatness only to allow the park to slowly suck your soul when you run.

See, there are hills in this park that the most daring climber of Mt. Everest would shudder at. And these people expect you to run up them. Hogwash. It's all a ploy to strip you of your morality. The logic goes as such: You aspire for the glory of having raced in central park, you nearly lose use of your legs while running, knowing it's a lost cause during the race you pray to the park for mercy, the sky gets dark, you begin to smell evil (in Central Park this smell blends naturally with all of the horse droppings), and magically you're 21 grams lighter and flying up those hills like Charles Lindbergh. Want to know what just happened? You just made a deal with the devil and you didn't even know it. Sneaky.

Now my purpose here in this city is a dual one folks. Not only am I honing my filmmaking skills, I am also on a mission to reclaim my soul. I will be enlisting a band of followers as soon as I finish my film to exorcise Central Park and make it safe for runners and tourists alike.

Well... I may leave tourists to fend for themselves.

Ryan

Me vs. Technology

When I first told my parents that I was going to go to Michigan to study film they expected that I'd counter it with something practical like computer engineering. To them my uncanny ability to connect and configure the family PC was equitable to a complete mastery and expertise of computer science, thus making any foray into the field a sure shot. Good thing I put all of my eggs into the filmmaking basket because if I had to make my living in front of a computer/working with computers I would most definitely be a basket case (writing doesn't count).

See, the thing is, I shouldn't have time to write this post right now. I have to have a cut of my film done in three days (now two), and aside from the absolutely necessary breaks to run a half marathon and take a stab at the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle my time should be totally devoted to making this first cut happen. Then why am I here typing instead of splicing shots together? Answer: because technology hates me.

It seems as though I am a persistent victim of Murphy's Law when it comes to technology. My hard drive crashed a week before my honors thesis was due back at U of M. My cell phone is a consistent source of headache and not living up to expectations. My computer decided to stop working this past summer costing me $300 dollars to repair (a lot to a grad student) and a week and a half without a computer. And today my external hard drive, which contained all of the files from my film decided that it didn't want to work anymore. Fitting.

If there's one thing I learned from my many technological misadventures, it's never to trust technology. Luckily, I backed up all of my files. But, I still had to go purchase another hard drive today and now have to wait 5 hours for the files to re-transcode so that I can start to edit. Thus freeing me up to complain...err....blog about it all here.

When I was still an impressionable young adult, I happened upon Henry David Thoreau's Walden and thought about how awesome it would be to shun society and technology and go chill and be all introspective in a cabin on a pond in the woods. I was a lot like the kid from Into the Wild, just not as bold. Thus, part of me now hates that I am completely tethered to technology. This is almost as bad as computer engineering.

Except, not really.

Ryan

The Most Delicious $19,500,000,000 Ever Spent

Normally I sit and scratch my head while reading business related news articles. My degree in film and video studies didn't prepare me at all to understand the intricacies of chapter 11 whatnots, corporate merger whoseits, and majority shareholder shenanigans, but today that mattered not. Today, I read the most mouth watering piece of business news ever to be scribed in cold and dry ink by those who ply their trade in reporting the cold and dry stuff. I'm talking about the selling of Cadbury to Kraft for $19.5 billion.

The AP cited Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld as saying that the deal provides "both immediate value certainty and upside potential." What she forgot to add to the end of that sentence was "...for deliciousness." So I'll fix it for her. The deal provides "both immediate value certainty and upside potential [for deliciousness]." There, that's more like it.

How much chocolate can 19.5 billion dollars actually buy? While reading about the buyout I imagined miles of trucks filled with Cadbury chocolates lined up outside of Kraft's World Headquarters. I imagined Warren Buffet munching on and deliriously enjoying a king sized Toblerone as he negotiated his innumerable shares of Kraft. I imagined stock piles of "The cheesiest" Kraft macaroni and cheese being disposed of to make room for stock piles of Cadbury creme eggs. I imagined a world being ruled by a mega rich chocalate king who lives in a palace comparable to Willy Wonka's factory. I imagined utopia.

I don't know the details of what exactly this deal entails. I imagine with all that money being spent a lot of changes will occur. People will lose jobs, factories will close, the British will seethe in bitterness over their no longer owning a beloved brand, the cadbury bunny will be replaced by the Trix rabbit, who knows. All I know is that I'm thrilled about Irene Rosenfeld's call for the deal's upside potential for deliciousness. In the end isn't that all that really matters.

Ryan

Day 33: Wrapped V. 7 (Back to Reality)

Not to be a defeatist at the start and all, but I feel that anything I write will do no justice to the momentousness of this occasion. I remember finishing the last shot on the last day of shooting for my most recent film and my unwillingness to trivialize the sense of relief that I felt after it was done by yelling the requisite "That's a wrap!" Instead I called cut, looked at my DP, and very quietly uttered, "That's it." I think this took my crew off guard (and maybe scared them a little bit) as in response they looked at me very solemnly and said "Thank you." They thanked me. I was the one who mercilessly put them through 15 hour days and they thanked me. It doesn't make any sense but that moment will always live in my head.

33 set days. The equivalent of 400+ hours as a sound guy. I like the number 33. It has an uneasy symmetricality about it. Sort of like it's confident in what it is, but lacks some confidence in what it's supposed to do. Well anyway, the roulette wheel has spun and this is what it has landed on. If asked to sum up the experience of the last three months I would reply: unlike anything I've ever undertaken...in so many ways.

Because I enjoy writing and this blog has given me an excuse to consistently do so, it will continue. Perhaps not as frequently, but quality certainly matters over quantity as the old cliche goes. Besides let's face it, a lot of these posts have been lackluster (some would say half-assed), so at least the posts to come will emerge from so-called inspiration to write and not at the end of long and tiring days on set where I stretch futily for clever things to write.

So allow me to apologize for the anti-climacticism of this, the last post in my chronicle of the absurd endurance test of masochism that NYU belyingly calls "second year production period." Anything that I would have written in an attempt to sum it up would have undoubtedly foundered due to unwieldly sentimentalism and/or hyperbole. Me, I'm all about telling it like it is.

Back to class and real life in the morning. Maybe I'll be overtaken by a Stockholm syndrome-esque malady and miss the madness of all of this.

Probably not though.

Until next time...

Ryan the Sound Guy

I should add that my last day on set was spent doing little work. I mostly ran through the woods like a little kid and got my clothes all muddy while throwing a football around with the producer and unit production manager. Yes, it was a slow day on set for a boom op.

Day 32: EXT.

New Jersey woods, leaves scattered.

Cold.

Sun rises and sets above and below the horizon respectively.

A six foot hole the ground.

Shots from a 30 foot tree.

Hand warmers burn holes in my coat pockets.

Melted fruit snacks result.

New Jersey Transit train station. New York bound revelers with alcohol in brown paper bags.

Mindless chatter en route.

Inspiration.

Inspired.

Inspiring.

Up at 5 am, sleep at 2:30 am.

When will I train?

One more day.

One.

The Science of Sleep still resonates in my mind.

I want to write, write, write. But, I lack the time, time, time.

Scattered thoughts on a lazy afternoon.

And one more day to go.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 31: What If...?

If there's one thing that I've hung onto from my youth until today it's my love for the hypothetical question. Because 90% of my life is actively spent in my imagination, I'm all about the myriad impossible possibilities of existence. (Kind of like Stephane from Science of Sleep, a film that I loved when I first saw it, but watched recently and while it remained a fantastic film I was SERIOUSLY bummed out by it. Like enough to write a blues song or something. A sad, sad, sad movie, it is.)

There's this awesome scene in Richard Linklatter's Slacker where a guy (played by Linklatter himself) hops into a cab and talks about an alternate dimension in which all of the choices that we didn't make in life and the consequences that would have resulted therefrom have played out. This has always been a fascinating idea for me. Being dubbed "too careful" and "too cerebral" by friends of mine (you know who you are), I'm sure there's a Proustian epic filled with chances that I didn't take and decisions that I didn't make in an alternate dimension. Maybe there's something to be said about mulling over an issue to the point of inconsequence though. This will be the topic of the first book of philosophy that I write. If I garner enough followers I may start a political party that will eventually be dubbed incendiary by a senator from Wisconsin for its Un-American logic. My career in film will be ruined when I am called before a congressional committee and blacklisted.

Anyway. I'm not quite sure what my original point was. I think I began writing with an entirely different objective in mind, got on the topic of movies, and began typing Beckettian nonsense as it emerged in my exhausted mind. Cool, no? Why not continue...?

is this real life?

What if I wake up tomorrow and the production period hasn't even started? I haven't written the script for my film yet? I'm not an NYU student?

What if I wake up and I'm back in Michigan?

What if The Godfather, Breathless, Stranger than Paradise, Do the Right Thing and West Side Story were never made?

What if Coltrane, Vonnegut, and Truffaut were still alive and I could have coffee with them?

What if...?

What if...?

What if....?

Boom operating puts me in a strange mood.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 30: Insert Blog Here

Me: Too...tired...to...type. Must.........................eat sandwich.....and............go to bed.

My Better Judgment: But Ryan, what about your blog? You said you would write an account of everyday of production and now you're being little baby and saying your tired. Man up!

Me: But........long days. No sun.............can't breathe, lungs.......................full of dirt. Take. me. out.

My Better Judgment: It doesn't make any sense though.

Me: What?...............that I'm..........tired? You......you...............you.... were there. On feet. all day........arms....in....sky.....with boom pole. What......do you................expect?

My Better Judgment: No, not that. I get that boom operating is thankless, tedious, and tiring. It just seems like you're wasting more energy separating your words with long ellipses to represent the the fact that you're tired than you would if you wrote an actual blog post, you know?

Me: OK......you................ write....post........then. You pompous.....son of............a.......

My Better Judgment (interrupting): Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude. Let's just relax and take a deep breath here. I'll write your stupid blog for you. Won't be the first time I've saved you from making a fool out of yourself.

It's no surprise that the so-called author of this blog would enlist another guest blogger not two weeks after the first. Always looking to shirk work. Always looking for the easy way out. My words about the so-called author of this blog will not be quite as nice as the previous guest blogger's were, but that's mainly because my relationship with the so-called author of this blog is largely antagonistic.

For the past two months I've been trying to get this guy, to start editing his film and what has he been doing? Claiming that his inspiration lay in another story and that he'd return to his silly baseball film when school started and he actually had to have a cut done. Says he has to follow his muse in the meantime. What a load.

And then I say, "Ryan, you need to sleep. Why do you insist upon blogging when you get home every night?" And he says, "Must......finish..........what I...................started." What a load.

Then he says he's going to run a half marathon in the blistering cold of January with the minimalist of the minimal amount of training under his belt. I say to him, "You're an idiot." He says, "It'll be fun!" What a load.

And here I am, as always, getting him out of a situation that he knew he was in over his head for from the beginning. We'll see if I can do the same thing about the half marathon in a week. One day this kid will learn, but until then I apologize to all of you for his broken promise of a blog. One day he will learn. One day.

Ryan the Sound Guy's Better Judgment

Day 29: Notes from a Boom Op

Here we are on the final stretch of my journey as a sound guy and I have one final plot twist to reveal. Ready for it? I've given up my post as sound recordist on this shoot to take on the low man on the totem pole role of of boom operator. (Cue dramatic strings). Alright, so I guess this isn't a major surprise. I didn't drop out of film school during the last week of production or anything which I'm sure would have been genuinely shocking.

Instead of manning the mixer on this my seventh shoot of sound duty, I'm the cat holding the mic above the actor's heads. I'll do my best to capture what this is like in my posts as it has been a while since I've done this as a job on a set (I think since junior year of undergrad). I can say this now though, besides having tired arms, the boom operator ALWAYS has to be on standby. At least as a mixer you have reasons to not be ready for a take. Nobody, however, has patience for an unprepared boom op. Mean stares, glares, boos, and hisses greet he who asks for five. Being a boom op means being on hand always. Maybe a life lesson awaits me on this shoot.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 28: Wrapped V.6 (And Then There Was One...)

Sadly, I'm actually starting to get used to this. Maybe I'm just pumped that there's only one more week of this hellish production period left before I get my life back, but I think that my mind and body have finally grown accustomed to this exhausting mode of living. It took all of two and a half months to get to this point, but I'm feeling pretty good about my mental ability to handle the production side of filmmaking when I do seek to go pro in a year or two. It probably also has helped that I've had a persistent beacon of inspiranity (a hybrid of inspiration and sanity) to get me from week to week. Even so, I'll be glad when I'm writing Wrapped V.7 next week and celebrating the end of what has without a doubt been the most exhausting three months of my life.

Not to veer off into too sentimental a mood, but depite the physical and mental toll that this production period has taken (I'm almost positive that I've aged five years), I'm actually a little glad to have gone through it. As with most things in life, it's always gratifying to put yourself in a challenging situation and see yourself come out in tact at the end. Not only do you learn a lot about yourself and grow in the process, you also inevitably become avid in your search for the next challenge, believing yourself that much stronger for having gone through the most recent one. I think that this cycle has been the central driving force in my life. My adult life at least. Never being satisfied with having accomplished something and always wondering what else there is to be accomplished.

In French New Wave all-star, Eric Rohmer's (pictured above) great film, La Collectionneuse, he infers that the trouble with collectors is that they place little value in each individual item that they procure. The item only has value in respect to the rest of the pieces in the collection. While for the film's protagonist this is a problem (she collects lovers), it sort of seems like life is a lot like this. Each new thing that we accomplish contributes to the aggregate of experience that forms our existence. Life doesn't stop to pat us in the back when we achieve something, so why should we stop to rest on our laurels?

One of my favorite quotes by the incomparable Duke Ellington came when he was asked which of his innumerable outstanding compositions was his favorite, to which he responded, "The one coming tomorrow...always." Duke Ellington folks! Just imagine, the dude wrote "Dimuendo/Crecendo in Blue" and then couldn't wait to get to the next one.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself again. I still have a looooooooong week ahead of me. It's just that the light that I see at the end of the tunnel is not only a light of freedom or relaxation, but also a light of more interesting challenges to embark upon. Personal, intellectual, physical, and creative.

Just get me through this week.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 27: Post Shoot Dinner

I'll admit that when the great history of the "Notes From a Sound Guy" blog is written someday this post may go down as one of the lesser ones. (Or, since blogging is essentially recording one's history I'll just go ahead and proclaim it so now). But, what's on my mind is on my mind so I'm just going to go with it. In the words of Kerouac, "You can't stop the machine!" And, I gave you warning.

It's been another long day. It's 11:45 and I just got home so you can call it a 16 hour day if you'd like. (FYI: the last half hour was spent on the New York side of the Holland Tunnel waiting for Port Authority to file a report on the dude who tore off his rear view mirror on the side of our van while trying to merge into our lane). Aside from being tired and having to get back up and do it all again in 6 hours, my big dilemma is whether or not to eat dinner. You've been in this predicament before.

What do you do? You're so tired that you can literally lie down with all of the lights on in the room and music blaring and still fall asleep with ease. BUT, you're really hungry. The hunger doesn't initially, but may later impede on the comfort of your good night's rest and may wrest you from your slumber in a couple hours and annoy you as you return to the kitchen again and again in hopes of quelling it. AND, you can't really eat a lot now because you're too tired to devote energy to cooking or staying up to wait for delivery. What do you do?

I'm giving myself until 11:59 to make a decision. I'm hoping it will be the right one as I'm getting hungrier and hungrier with each keystroke. Being hungry and tired turns me into Mr. Hyde. Just ask the classmates who have 9:00 classes with me. My responses to everything are monosyllabic and I am apt to not even try to smile. I'm getting close to that.

Hmph.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 26: Hiding in the Back Seat

My phone is pretty much only good for only a few things. Ironically, as an actual phone it's an absolute POS as it struggles to make calls and send and receive text messages. BUT, It functions as pretty solid music player. It prevents my ever getting lost in this ridiculous city (when the network decides that it wants to work). And, it provides me with a passable camera when I need to capture moments in my life that...well...are notable. Why then did I fail to use it to capture the one situation that I've always wanted to mix sound in? Perhaps it was the rushed pace that the AD was keeping us on as we were racing against the sun to finish all of the shots before it set. Perhaps it was my dedication to good levels. Whatever it was, I seriously dropped the ball, as today I mixed my very first car scene and have nothing to show for it.

The car scene embodies everything that a sound mixer dreams of. A quiet interior location where good levels are pretty much a given (as long as the actors don't scream). And a chance for the mixer to show how invisible he or she can make himself. You start to get a complex when you get asked to move 500,000 times each day, whether the boom is in the shot or you're in the way of an all important grip or AC. No complex today though, folks. Today I was like Buster from Arrested Development (a.k.a. the greatest sitcom ever). A proud graduate of the Milford Academy where children are expected to be neither seen nor heard. And I'll be darned if there was any trace of my scrunched up self hiding in the back seat of the Jeep Cherokee in the scene that we shot today. I was in nobody's way.

The sound guy answered the call today, and got some sweet sound. Unfortunately, you'll never see evidence of the amazing work that I did...

...But that, my friends, is how it should be.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 25: Lines

One of the things that I feel to be truly unique about life as sound mixer on film shoots is the verbatim familiarity with the dialogue that you come to acquire.

It will be interesting when I sit and watch all of the films that I mixed sound for to see if I can recite the scripts in their entirety. Think about it. You have your headphones on. You're focused on getting good levels. Rehearsal after rehearsal and take after take you figure out just the right way to ride the gain (The knobs on the mixer that control the level on each individual mic that you have in play), in order to make each line sweet and the film not sound like...well I'll be honest...a student film.

One of the things that I feel to be truly unique about life as sound mixer on film shoots is the verbatim familiarity with the dialogue that you come to acquire.

Though I have little interest in becoming a professional sound guy, I've come to take a lot of pride in my work. While I had a fledgling knowledge of directing and writing before making the trek to New York, I had absolutely no knowledge of sound recording. I guess my tuition dollars are being well spent as I've gotten pretty good at in the past couple months. It's one of those pleasant surprises that life sometimes throws at you. Would never have thought I'd address myself as a sound guy. Then again, I never would have thought I'd address myself period.

One of the things that I feel to be truly unique about life as sound mixer on film shoots is the verbatim familiarity with the dialogue that you come to have.

Here I'm talking like I'm almost done. Many more days to come. Many more scripts to memorize. Oh yea, if you're wondering whether mixing the same lines over and over ever gets tiring, I'll leave that to you to guess. I will say that when you get to around take 10, the patience does run a little thin. BUT, by then you'll have figured out how to mix the scene so well that it almost don't matter. Take 10 will probably be the best take for sound. And then you mark it in your sound report that it was so that the director sees how skilled you are. And then you give yourself a pat on the back. And then you hit craft services.

One of the things that I feel to be truly unique about life as sound mixer on film shoots is the verbatim familiarity with the dialogue that you come to have.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Day 24: Life in a New Jersey Supermarket

I went back home today. No not to the mythical land of Michigan or to the Alabama boondocks where my parents have chosen to raise their homestead these days. No, today I returned to a place comparable to the one where I held one of my first real jobs. That's right, I traveled to the all too recognizable realm of the suburban supermarket. Going back as a sound guy and not a bag boy, cart wrangler, or deli server I felt the feeling that a well-to-do oldtimer must feel when he revisits his old paper route or the soda pop stand where he worked as a soda jerk or the barber shop where he swept up hair on the weekends or the drug store/ice cream parlor where he made deliveries for old man Gower and once prevented him from putting poison in pills. A feeling of having risen above. I almost broke out into the show tune "Memory" from Cats.

Not really.

I hated my days at the Farmer Jack in Bloomfield Hills. Still, so much of the spectacular Shop Rite in North Bergen, New Jersey reminded me of the wretched place. I have to say though, shooting in a supermarket is probably one of the most annoying things imaginable. Not only are there always unwanted people in the frame and in the audio talking and yacking it up, they always have to look right into the camera if they happen to pass by.

Come on guys.

Maybe that's one thing we take for granted when we shoot in New York. People here are used to this craziness. Sure you'll get the occasional conversationally enterprising would be film fanatic of a pedestrian who wants to know all of the details of what you're doing, but you almost never have to wave people out of the frame. If anything they're the ones cursing US out for being in THEIR way. It's just the way it is. Take the tunnel to Jersey though, and wham, you'll spend a good hour waving folks out of the way or retaking a shot because the sound guy heard someone somewhere yell "Whadya shooting? A commericial?" in that great New Jersey accent that's music to the ears.

Jersey. You have to love the place.

Ryan the Sound Guy

2 to Go...

Cue Europe's "The Final Countdown"

Almost there folks. The light at the end of the tunnel is visible. In two weeks, with two more shoots to go, my sojourn as a sound guy will be over. Not one to put the cart before the horse, I fully realize that two weeks on film sets is a god awful long amount of time, but I shall take them day by day, and recount them here all the same (unlike the shoot I was on last week). 2...

AND. Returning her tremendous favor, yesterday I wrote a guest post for my friend and the world's foremost authority on Completism, Cathlin Olszewski's Pulitzer Prize worthy blog. CHECK IT OUT. Fitting that it should correspond with today's post denoting the countdown to the end of production period, as she is largely responsible for keeping me grounded and sane throughout this maddeningly tiring few months. For that I am insanely thankful and (though I tried) my guest post on her blog kind of doesn't come close to to fully expressing that!

2...

Ryan the Sound Guy

Guest Blog: The Completism of Extremes

My favorite person in New York City, the lovely Cathlin, picks up the overwhelming slack of this past week for me with a guest post and in the process shows why she is the most awesome person in this crazy city. Thanks, Cath! - Ryan

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

Our dear friend Kurt Vonnegut, in “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”

I think this quote quite accurately sums up the experiences of a film student/Sound Guy, as Ryan refers to himself as of late. There’s no shortage of extremes - weather (working outside in 10 degree weather? check), working hours (all night? 24 hour + shoots? 6am post New Years Eve celebration call times? triple check), and so on. We won’t even get into the fact that winter is probably not Ryan’s favorite season. Yet in these extremes is a learning experience like no other, as well as the chance to exercise mind over body control. And let’s not forget the power of keeping one’s sanity in the midst of chaos, which Ryan has done remarkably well.

The shoot that recently wrapped, in Virginia (see below posts for detailed accounts of it), is probably the most fitting example of the extremes. Filming on a holiday! And continuing with the shoot the next day, while likely hungover! Not easy tasks, my friends. I say this with no knowledge of this type of work, as I recovered from my post New Year’s hangover in bed. All day. While Ryan and crew were making movie magic, working through the fuzziness that too much celebration and champagne elicit.

In some ways, the life of a Sound Guy is perfect for Ryan, with his superb ability for introspection, dedication to detail, and ability to sleep in between takes (seriously, these skills seem to be equally important). But above all else, as Vonnegut puts so succinctly, is the ability to be kind. Also, inherent in this statement (I think, at least) is that a person needs to find joy before they can truly be kind.

The ability to find joy in everything you do is basically the holy grail. I don’t know how, but at 23, Ryan has seemed to find this. While at times it may only be a glimmer of happiness, this serves as an elixir so strong that a drop is enough.

So to summarize, I have a few other friends I’d like to quote:

“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right.
Little darling it's been a long cold lonely winter,
Little darling it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say it's all right.”

The Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun.” Which reminds me of the fact that a really good break from crazy work weeks is playing Beatles Rock Band with a slightly less overworked, but still stressed, friend. Just a thought.

Signing out,
Cathlin (the Sound Guy’s friend mentioned above)

Check out Cath's blog here! I'll be darned if you're not inspired by it.

Days 20, 21, 22, 23/Wrapped V. 5: The Sound Guy and New Years

2 postings for a six day shoot. Underwhelming at best, I know. In my defense my internet access this past week was very limited and it was hard to find time to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to this blog. That being said I've missed the opportunity to note the many observations that I've had this week relating to the sound guy experience in Virginia and don't know that I can make up for that in one post. So allow me to summarize the key one:

Never drink heavily before a day as a sound mixer.

I can't tell you how important this lesson is for those interested in filmmaking. Having a hangover is bad enough, having a hangover while trying to get good levels on dialogue is an arduous task worthy of Olympic mention. When all you can think about is your throbbing headache and wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep it's a little hard to focus on keeping the audio sweet. (I never explained this term: the "sweet spot" in location sound recording is the area a little bit before the sound begins to overmodulate or distort. If the sound mixer can manage to get all of the dialogue levels to land in this area the scene will sound crisp and will need little tweaking in post-production.)

Sound mixing is a pretty chill job. Sound mixing on New Years Day morning is something that I'll be a lot smarter about if I ever have to do it again. I guess I'll never forget January 1, 2010. It was my first time mixing while hungover. Scrapbook material.

On a similar sound note, I apologize to any of the staff and guests of the Dulles Airport Hilton who may have been disturbed by the obnoxious noisemakers that my crew mates and I blew in painful dissonance throughout the hotel hallways on New Years. I also must apologize for the drink that I spilled in the Ballroom that we had no business being in. Stupid kids.

Ryan the Sound Guy