New Blog!

Shipping this blog to daycare.

Ok.

You know me. I tend to overwrite. Sue me.

Mincing the words this time.

The well of "Notes from a Sound Guy" has dried.

Following my muse and starting a new blog.

Also, I'm not technically a sound guy anymore so addressing the world via this medium would be a little too much like lying.

Lying generates bad karma.

Maybe my next blog will be a buddhist tome.

Time will tell.

Signing off for the last time,

(or until i announce my new blog here)

Ryan the Sound Guy

Baseball

Miguel Cabrera: The Patron Saint of Awesomeness

Hey there sports fans!

Perhaps the best secret that this blogger has kept from his loyal readers is how much he loves baseball. Don't get me wrong. Anybody who interacts with me in the realm of reality during late spring, summer, and early autumn knows that I'm a baseball fanatic, but in what is supposed to be my online testimonial, I've given little attention to my love of America's Pastime a.k.a. The Greatest Game on Earth a.k.a. God's Gift to Earth a.k.a. the Jesus sport (I pray that God forgives the egregious blasphemy of this. Though I do believe that were baseball invented during Jesus' time not only would he have been an avid fan, but a heck of a shortstop in his own right. Again, God forgive me.)

At it's heart baseball is a romantically simple game and the reasons why I love of it are romantically simple as well. In fact the reasons why I love it are awfully similar to the reasons why one may love another human being, or pet, or ubiquitous gadget of the moment (i'm looking at you, iPhone addicts). In fact, I'd go as far as to theorize that theres a reason why single guys flock to the game in the summer months and their relationship with it flourishes during a time that any red-blooded human being yearns for steady companionship. There's just something about the warm weather and long days that inspires this feeling. Or maybe it's just the need for a person to rage about bad summer movies to (I'm looking at you, Knight & Day).

What's in my love of baseball? Let me break it down for y'all.

Baseball is a committed and dedicated game. It shows up everyday without fail deterred only occasionally by the rain. Come home from work and there it is to greet you with wide arms, bringing you your slippers, and a cold beer to sip while you sit in a meaningful three hour conversation with it in which you muse about the ironies and complexities of life.

Baseball isn't a jealous game. It won't tear you a new on if you miss a game. In fact it gives you 162 of them every year thus encouraging you to have a life outside of it.

Baseball accepts you for who you are on the inside. Ugly or good-looking. Young or old. Intelligent or not so much. Rich or poor. Short or tall. Tea-toter or raging alcoholic. Baseball only sees what's inside and if you love it, by god it will love you back. There's no such thing as unrequited love or rejection with baseball (that is unless you were a Detroit Tigers fan in 2003).

Baseball actually likes hanging out with your friends. Not a selfish game, baseball invites even your most obnoxious friends to hang out with it on a nightly basis. And, really digs drinking with you too.

Baseball understands that you'll sometimes forget. A lot goes on during the course of the season. Information piles upon information and sometimes it's hard to keep track of everything. Baseball doesn't get upset if you forget a detail or two. It will kindly remind you that Miguel Cabrera is leading the league in batting average or that Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs in his career or that tomorrow's game is a day game, or that the Chicago White Sox won 20 of their last 25 games or that the Minnesota Twins are satan incarnate. It won't stop talking to you, argue with you, or call you inconsiderate. It empathizes.

Baseball in in tune with your emotions. Your team is in a slump. You need space. Your team is kicking ass. It gets crazy excited and pumped up with you. There's no need to explain yourself to baseball. It gets you.

Baseball is a patient game. It doesn't allow itself to be rushed along by time or a clock, but develops, progresses and grows gradually ending only on mutual terms when each team has had their say in matters and done all that they could to make it work.

Baseball is perfect. The most beautiful game in the world and it's all yours.

Now to do you get why I adore baseball so much?

Or, maybe you just think that I REALLY need a girlfriend.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Hiatus Schmiatus/For the Kids/et al

Ground control to Major Thelonious, commencing countdown notes on hiatus

April 22, 2010. The date of the last post on this blog. Some might call the past 2+ months a hiatus. I'd still call it blogging.

Legendary (and eccentric) jazz pianist Thelonious Monk is as noted today for the uniquely shaped melodies that he composed as for the unique spaces that he placed in between the notes that made up those melodies. Miles Davis was heavily influenced by Monk and touches of the pianist's spacious style can be heard all over Davis' later period work (Bitches' Brew, in particular, where one often has to listen very attentively in order to catch Davis' trumpet).

Last year mega-director Steven Soderbergh, helmsman of films such as the Oceans series and Traffic, stopped by NYU to deliver a lecture to the debt-ridden students in the MFA program. In it he described himself as a synthesist and went on to explain to us what exactly that a synthesist is the type of artist who takes in numerous external stimuli, processes and reflects on them, and creates something unique that is an expression of this work.

Oreo cookies are known not for the chocolate cookie discs, but for the spaces in between them.

What's my point? Two months without blogging, were just as expressive, honest, and substantial as two months full of blogging. Just as the spaces in between Monk's notes express, just as the cream in the oreo is more famous than the cookie, and just as the time of synthesis is needed in order to produce meaningful work, these two months were, if not necessary, then definitely honest.

What have I been doing for two months? Researching for my next screenplay: Synthesis. Watching a lot of baseball, LOST, and movies, and reading: Creme filling. A lot of nothing: The spaces in between notes.

After two months of relative inactivity you may be wondering what spurred me to finally revisit this old sounding board. The answer: my summer gig teaching high school kids filmmaking. It's strange how a whole day spent instructing young students the art of expressing themselves via the mediums of film and video can fire up one's own expressive motor. Strange to look in the eyes of these kids and see in them a voracious hunger to develop the tools needed to become great filmmakers and strange that they're looking to me to show them. Strange how eager they are to hear about my films and my experiences as a filmmaker, who my influences are, and what my process is.

I finished today literally pumped that I get to help these kids bring their dreams to life and I can't wait to get on set with them again to see how they've synthesized what they've experienced and been shown. This was all that it took to catalyze me and return to the blog.

Maybe it's because today was the first nice day in a string of absurdly hot ones in this city, maybe my blogging conscience was screaming at me to get off my ass, maybe I want some oreos, what ever it was the space between notes finished synthesizing into this new note from the sound guy you all know and tolerate.

Special thanks to Monk, Soderbergh, and Nabisco.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Looking Around My Room, I Wonder...

...When did I get all of this crap?

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could just snap your fingers and find all of your stuff packed and loaded into the u-haul when you were in the process of moving? I mean I would willingly unload the truck, it's just getting all of this stuff together that's going to take forever.

It would also be awesome if I was organized to begin with. Then the task wouldn't be so daunting.

What if there was a service that airlifted your room as is and just dropped it in it's new location?

Or like a gigantic suction tube, that that sucked it all up into the truck and spit it back out into the new apartment.

Or like one gigantic suitcase, big enough for furniture and all. Sure it would be heavy, but it's nothing that a good dolly couldn't tackle.

Matter of fact, why isn't there an iPhone app to make moving more painless?

Or an iPad app?

Initially I thought it was a waste of money, but if the thing could break down my futon for me I would willingly give Apple more of my hard-borrowed money.

Thinking about it, one really has to be unhappy with the state of their current accommodations to willfully undergo the arduous task of moving. The only thing less exciting than it is probably taking a punch in the face from Mike Tyson in his prime. Or even Mike Tyson now. Though I think that if Mike Tyson asked to punch me in the face in exchange for doing all my packing and moving for me I would strongly consider it. Sure it would hurt, but I'd have so much moving-free time to convalesce.

Ryan the Sound Guy

What Happened?!?

From Manahattan: "Talent is luck. The important thing in life is courage."
Damn, this man is a genius...

After only four hours of sleep I woke up Monday morning with a ridiculously fierce chest cold and a severe realization that there were only two weeks of school left. Such extreme circumstances are capable of bringing only one question to mind: What the hell happened?

This school year is easily traceable in terms of my mood and energy level. If I were good at math and charts and graphs and all the stuff that I ostensibly avoided by studying film, I would draw up a diagram that shows the correlation between the progression of the year as it related to the devolution of my energy, ambition, excitement, etc. Since the final product of the year will be birthed next weekend when I show my second year film to New York's unforgiving public, it seems fitting that I divide this arduous journey which I am near completing into trimesters.

Trimester 1: Late August-Early October

Distinguishing Characteristics: Energetic, excited, inspired, ambitious, and imbued with a general sense of invincibility.

Description: In the throes of my favorite part of the filmmaking process, writing, I was inspired by every single little thing that happened to and around me. The Tigers were leading their division and on their way to a playoff berth! Inspiration. My friend, Cathlin, arrived in New York City! Inspiration. They put extra rice in my burrito at Chipotle! Inspiration. I felt unstoppable and on my way to an incredible year.

Trimester 2: Mid October-Mid January

Distinguishing Characteristics: Anxious, nervous, self-doubting, exhausted, and imbued with a general sense of being in over my head.

Description: By far the most exhausting period of my life and one that was well documented here in this blog. Began by the Tigers blowing their playoff chances in a tie-breaking game with the Minnesota Twins. Proceeded to me somehow finishing production on my film and crewing on seven other films as a sound recordist. Ended with my being a shell of the man I was before.

Sidenote: I've always had this inability to get stressed when the situation calls for a need to feel stressed. It's a little bit persistent optimism a little bit naivete, but I think it's a reflex that most people have for a reason and is both a blessing and a curse not to have. Stress is what kicks us into high gear and helps us perform when circumstances are dire. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a generally easy-going guy. This doesn't change when I'm under pressure. Probably the reason that my shoot went as smoothly as it did and I made through the rest of production period with my mind in tact. Definitely the reason why my shoot should have been a complete disaster. Where I lack stress I maintain neurotic anxiety in abundance. Balance?

Trimester 3: Late January-Present

Distinguishing Characteristics: Exhausted, disenchanted, lonely, and imbued with a general sense of inspiration (?)

Description: Edit film. Screen to class/faculty. Get ripped apart. Fix film. Screen to class/faculty. Get ripped apart. Re-edit/fix film. Screen to class/faculty. Get ripped apart. If you've noticed a pattern here, it's because there is one. There's nothing more demoralizing than working on something that you've put your heart into and seeing it not work they way you had originally hoped in the writing stage. Granted, our films (alternate reading: lives) are treated as works in progress until we get to the end of year screening (alternate reading: the pearly gates), the fact remains that art is made for an audience and if the audience doesn't buy wholesale into it and love it, the artist feels as though they've failed. I realize that it's a teacher's job to be critical, but damn, you can at least tell me what actually works in my film as opposed to relentlessly hammering on the things that don't. (I've since gotten compliments on the story, acting, and editing.) It's been a rough 2010, but I'm inspired by the horizon and the ideas that I have simmering in my head right now that will find their way onto paper this summer.

So as I continue to fight this awful cold and catch up on all of the end of semester projects that I've successfully procrastinated on doing to this point, I have a general sense of what happened. I had experiences. You know those things that make up life and that we're supposed to learn from. A hard year it was, but I can definitely say that I've grown from it, both as a filmmaker and an individual. There's this old quote from Thomas Carlyle that I remember hearing when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school on the basketball team and getting VERY little playing time despite working hard in practice everyday. It went:

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

I'll be damned if anybody ever calls my soul weak...

Ryan the Sound Guy

Boca Meatless Chik'n Nuggets

I like Boca, it's Nice.

Remember a while ago when I used this blog as a medium for complaining about the inequality between the insurmountable intolerability of Tofu Pups and their interminably instant ease of preparation? Oxymorons aside, I had another ridiculously long day in which I didn't get home until 11 pm after leaving my apartment for school at 9:15 am. Needless to say I wasn't in the cooking mood. Needlesser to say, I didn't have any Tofu Pups in my fridge.

Given that it's been a good week since my transition to non-contrived vegetarianism, I decided to take a trip to the grocery store yesterday to explore what the Spanish would call opciones para mi sustenance when I stumbled upon a miracle.

Maybe I was too tired to be super-discerning. Maybe the consuming of anything edible would have satiated my hunger enough for me to fall asleep. Maybe I dreamt the whole thing (including this blog post). But, I will go on record as saying that Boca Meatless Chik'n Nuggets have delivered fast, quick, and delicious food where Tofu Pups failed oh so miserably.

10 minutes in the oven and a little hot sauce and ranch dressing later I have a ridiculous grin on my face that has nothing to do with the awesome weekend that's just over the horizon or the fact that the Tigers staged their second incredibly awesome comeback of the season today.

Thank you, Boca. It's good to have a friend like you as a beacon to bring me home on manic days such as these.

Now, I pass out...

Ryan the Sound Guy

Indecision...

Rodin and I would have been bros.

Decisions. We make a countless number of them everyday and don't even think twice about most of them. Remember this morning when you pressed snooze half a dozen times? That was a compilation of a half dozen decisions. Remember when you had to choose between the t-shirt or the ascot to accompany your tweed jacket? That was a compilation of a half dozen decisions. Remember when you decided to cross the street against traffic and flip the bird to the cabbie that almost took your life? That was also a compilation of a half dozen decisions. In my life and time I've found that decisions can be lumped into one of two distinct categories: Convictionariables and Noncertainafiables.

The first category is easy to define. You're in a situation in which you know for a fact that what's in your heart is what's true. Examples of this are when you decide to step over dog excrement on the sidewalk, when you take your first sip of beer on a Friday night and know that it's going to be a solid weekend, and of course when you turn on the TV to find the episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air on where Carlton overdoses on amphetamines at the school prom and you know that that particular half hour of your life can be spent in no other way but watching it. Certain things are able to exist beyond reproach or argument. Convictionariables are these such things.

Noncertainafiables are those things that are capable of being deliberated over eternally. Things that you can never be really sure about and will spend the rest of time second guessing, vetting, and doubting. Examples of these include whether to become a dog owner, choosing between regular fries or sweet potato fries, or deciding whether modern art is really worth your time and attention. (People will tell you over and over again that the MoMA is SOOOOO cool, and you'll be inclined to believe them despite how pointless most of it is to you. It's a vicious cycle.)

I find myself caught in one of each these days, but will use this post to speak on the latter. The noncertainafiable in which I find myself trapped is that of choosing a new apartment. (Cue foreboding music.)

I've always been a very indecisive guy in general. It's a component of my Achilles heel. So when it comes to making a critical decision such as where I'm going to be living for the next year, I buckle under the pressure and prolong the inevitable, convinced that I am capable of exploring each and every one of my options before I have to make a decision.

Not possible.

Apartments fly on and off the market in this city faster than you can whip out your check book to make a deposit. (I feel like that sentence is pretty flat in this context, but would be a pretty juvenile yet clever euphemism were this blog more lurid.) And, it's people like me who end up in overpriced East Village crackerjack boxes because they move to slow.

I've been told throughout my adult life that I have to eventually learn to grow out of my slow moving ways and be more bold and decisive so this situation is nothing new. But, until I make that change I'll leave you with this inspiring example of bold decision making:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcrunt_addition-fail_fun

Ryan the Sound Guy

Opening Day/Notes from a Vegetarian?!

Two posts in one. I must be crazy.

I woke up this morning. I woke up this morning with a strange feeling. I woke up this morning with a strange feeling that there was something dramatically different but strangely familiar about today. In the words of Stephane Miroux in the oft-referenced blog favorite The Science of Sleep, I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was nostalgia or the need to go to the bathroom.

Could it really be here already? I got up to check my calendar. I don't have a calendar. I got up and opened up my computer. Yes. Yes, it was. Yes it was April 5th. Opening day of my completely heterosexual summer obsession. That's right folks. Detroit Tigers baseball has finally arrived in 2010!

Words cannot properly describe my happiness but they're whispering from behind my mind's curtain to be given a college try. So, my lovely readers, I turn the floor over momentarily to my esteemed collaborators with whose help this blog and my prospective livelihood would be impossible. Let's hear it for words.

(Words enter, stage right)
Baseball good do fun thing bat with field and home run mitt slide three strikes excitement for bases stealing bleachers. me take out game ball for jack crackers and sodee popp. tigers play!

(Words exit, stage left)

Thank you, Words.

With all this baseball excitement it will be nearly impossible to complete all of my end of semester projects, but I shall do my best.

Switching gears slightly, as you all may know Easter was the past Sunday. While I was too busy closed off in my dark and hot room editing my brains out to celebrate the holiday with my annual one-man Easter egg hunt (yes, I both hide the eggs and seek them. It's very zen), I did not however fail to recognize that Lent was over and thus was to end my separation from meat and vegetarianism. Parting is such sweet sorrow. (Can somebody explain the oxymoron of this statement, how can parting be sweet and sorrowful?) But, the end of Lent met its match in my spotty OCD.

When I develop a pattern of behavior for myself it's often hard for me to break it. This is the explanation behind why I have seen so many movies, watch baseball everyday of the summer (heaven), and run so much. When I find something that I'm really into and am able to find a deeper meaning in my experience of, I tend to stick to it steadfastly. Such is the case with foray into vegetarianism.

Since seeing a film called "Our Daily Bread" (an artsy observational documentary about the food industry) a few years ago, I had been thinking about what it would be like to be a vegetarian. However, I found that I loved burgers too much to give it serious thought. Then, I saw a film called "Food Inc." last year and my mind was blown. I could never look at meat again the same way.

I saw Lent as as good a reason as any to challenge myself to become a vegetarian figuring that it was only 40 days, I have an awesome Vegan friend who can cheer lead me through it, and my parents wouldn't think that I'm a heathen when they heard that I'd be forgoing something so drastic in the name of Jesus. I have to say that 40 days can be utterly enlightening folks. (Actually, I think the Bible said that first in way, hence the point of Lent. But, if the s.o.b.'s from Westboro Baptist Church can co-opt it's message to distort it, I can co-opt it in an attempt to illuminate it.) Illuminate on.

I'm proud to say that I've made it two days through post-Lent vegetarianism and see no end in sight. What's that? Oh, I think Words wants to say something again. Let's hear it again for Words, guys.

(Words enters)

Broccoli

(Words exits)

Thank you words. You summed up this post very nicely.

Ryan the Sound Guy

50 Seconds

McCarren Park, I Remember Thee...

Another 2 AM post. I like the idea of a series of posts solidified by a a single idea or concept. That's what this blog started as. You'll be happy to know that I am little bit more lucid tonight too. (Not really.)

Right now I am 50 seconds away from locking picture on my film. The screenplay for the film was 16 pages long. In filmmaking one page of script equals one minute of screen time. I've known that for seven years. I also knew when I started writing this film that the final cut had to be under ten minutes. Why then did I write a 16 page script? WHY???

My first cut of the film was 16.5 mintues. It included every line and every moment of the script as written. They say that writer-directors should NEVER edit their own films because they are too attached to the story as written and directed (naturally). A story which may or may not be the best story to be found in the footage. This explains the frustratingly hard time that I've had cutting this film.

There are certain shots and moments in the film that I feel contain the essence of what I'm trying to say and that for all intents and purposes is probably not communicated to the audience outside of my mind. (The audience inside my mind is totally digging this shit though.) I'm 50 seconds away from excising these moments and getting my film down to the 10 minute streamlined version that the faculty will rip apart in about a week and a half.

Thankfully at 10 minutes and 50 seconds the film still feels like the one that I initially set out to make. We'll see what happens when I finally get those 50 seconds out and lock picture.

The film may turn into a hockey movie. Which is cool as long as its D3: The Mighty Ducks.

Guy the Sound Ryan

On Editing

Another 2 AM post. You've been warned.

It's funny.

I began researching the film that I'm editing now last summer.

I wrote the first draft of script for the film this past August.

I produced and directed the film in November.

The film is due on April 6th.

Creatively I've been focused almost solely on the characters and the world that I've created in this film for about 9 months.

I'm in my final trimester.

Hoping the baby is healthy.

I have a short attention span sometimes which makes editing challenging.

All of the care that I put into researching, writing, and directing kind of falls apart when the film is on a hard drive and not in my head or on paper.

I'd much rather be writing my next film.

I presented the idea for my next script to my writing class a few weeks ago.

I feel like everybody had a sense of why I wanted to write the story that I presented, but nobody outright asked.

There's this unspoken rule amongst screenwriters that my professor alluded to in which nobody ever likes to reveal their methods or process.

Thus, by not asking what inspired my script idea, my classmates were unknowingly abiding this rule.

Good people.

All of this has nothing to do with editing my current film though.

Which proves my previous point about my short attention span regarding editing.

And, subsequently, blog posts regarding editing.

Sleep.

Ryan the Sound Guy

On the Need to Write a New Post

Two of My Heroes (or should I say six)

Residual spring break laziness.

Legs sore and tired from yesterday's half-marathon.

Led Zeppelin on mile 11.

I could have punched Jimmy Page.

Young Folks in my head on mile 5.

Found that It's hard to whistle and run hard at the same time.

Talking bout the old style too.

I just sneezed.

This post is written in real time.

Is it possible to pull an ab muscle?

I only ask because my upper-right ab muscle is rather uncomfortable.

And, when I sneezed I noticed it.

I guess everything is done in real time though.

Health care passed!

If I wasn't a student and had no benefits I could go get this checked out.

My trouble lies in how people see this as a negative thing.

End of semester school assignments on the horizon.

A film about baseball that I need a break from.

My mind on the summer...

Finding a new apartment...

Exploring and getting inspiration from this city...

Writing my new screenplay.

Writing

My

New

Screenplay

And, finishing this baseball film.

Love

Love

Love

All you need is...

A spectator was holding a sign yesterday that said "Run fast, Lennon"

I thought to myself, Lennon isn't a bad first name to have.

Possible first names that I'd consider:

Coltrane

Hendrix

Monk

Simon

Bowie

Armstrong

Gershwin

Ellington

Copland

Harper

Dylan

Stravinski

There are some things that are rendered impossible if intellectualized.

These usually fall into the category of "daring" and include:

Kissing someone for the first time.

Being a Detroit Lions fan.

Jumping off of or out of any high edifice, object, or vehicle.

Running long distances for fun.

Arguing with a Republican.

Playing pro baseball and trying to hit a 100 mph pitch.

Studying filmmaking.

I really want to buy a fedora but I'd have to get over my self-consciousness.

Cath says I can pull it off.

I saw a man walking one day who looked just like Chuck D.

Now I'll always wonder what would have happened if I'd asked him to fight the power.

Anybody ever read Hegel?

Don't.

Does anybody find rhetorical questions to be pretentious?

Why ask a question that you intend to be a statement?

Nobody will ever mistake you for Socrates, I assure you. So why not cut the BS?

Why not just make a statement?

Who's excited for baseball season?

A rhetorical question.

I know that EVERYBODY is.

Pretentious.

The Coen Brothers are certifiable geniuses.

The Big Lebowski. No Country for Old Men. A Serious Man. Fargo. O Brother Where Art Thou?

Geniuses.

All of those films are adaptations, too.

In my next project I will combine and adapt Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Spirit" and Sartre's all but indecipherable "Being and Nothingness" into a kid's movie.

It'll be called "Cloudy With a Chance of Existential Anguish and The Will to Be or Bring Into Existence the State of Being That Which Validates One's Being As Such"

It'll be a commercial and critical hit and in my academy awards speech I'll address the podium and in my best Denzel Washington impersonation claim that "Pixar ain't got s*** on me!"

"Because everyone else is boring. And, because you're different."

The best line in The Science of Sleep.

To sleep I go.

Good night, you different people.

Ryan the Sound Guy

8 1/2

My apologies abound for how cinema-centric this blog has been lately, this being my third film-related post in as many days (goes to show you how one-dimensional I am). But, I just finished re-watching Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 for class, and I'll be darned if it didn't remind me why I was so obsessed with this film and its director when I was in college. Matter of fact, it was the studying of this film and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless that mostly informed the type of films that I wanted to make when I was the tender ages of 18-21.

These two are two very different films but the techniques that they employ to tell their stories make for some of the most breathtaking and engaging viewing experiences you'll ever come upon. 8 1/2 in particular struck a resonant chord for me both then and now due to the way that Fellini renders his own psychology and state of mind so concisely and imaginatively on screen. As the legend goes, the story is very autobiographical in its depiction of film director, Guido Anselmi's myriad problems as he approaches production on his next film. I won't give any more away, but I will say that if you haven't seen the film you will be left dizzied by this characters many encounters and misadventures.

In film school there's an on-going debate (more like lecture) in most writing and directing classes regarding passive characters vs. active characters. Most professors frown upon passive characters as non-engaging and unsympathetic, and regard active characters who possess a tangible goal and the will to achieve it as the reason why audiences shell out their hard earned cash to sit in a dark room and watch light projected on a screen. I was very resistant to this argument for many years, but have finally come around to it. It's true. (Yes, I am the product of NYU brainwashing.) But, I have to say 8 1/2 makes a compelling case for passive characters in film. You should watch it if you haven't seen it and tell me what you think. Warning: It's 2.5 hours and Italian with VERY chatty characters (translation: A LOT of reading). BUT, it's a miraculous film (and I don't use that word lightly, or ever for that matter).

Nothing like being inspired on a Wednesday night.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Master of Fine Arts in I'm Right, You're Wrong

How awesome is Kathryn Bigelow?!?

It's always great debating the Oscars with film students. As long as we avoid public places and elevators where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, we are likely to be accused and scorned for pontificating in the ears of others, it can be a magnificent thing to observe. You all know the film student stereotype, the self-important aesthete, self-proclaimed master of all things visual and god's gift to cinematic expression, and fervent believer that in the grand scheme of things their work actually matters. While the type does exist in the real world, I'm happy to say that most of us are not actually quite as pompous as all this. At least most of the one's I've met and worked with.

Most of us, however, are quite opinionated in what we believe constitutes a good film. While I believe that everybody is entitled to their own opinions and are allowed to like what suits them, I'd be lying if I didn't hold strong to my own beliefs regarding this (you should hear my rant against Transformers which actually caused my brother to cease talking to me for the rest of the afternoon after we saw it). Which is precisely why listening to film students discuss the Oscars is like observing chimps in a zoo. Strangely bizarre, weirdly fascinating, and slightly discomforting.

After two of my classmates and I saw the Oscar nominated live action shorts this past weekend, we argued all the way home about which ones were good, which ones were trash, and which one deserved to win. It was absurd how up in arms we all got in voicing our individual opinions. I'm sure there was many a passerby who would have liked to tell us all to stfu. But, there we were arguing so passionately that you'd think our conversation held the key to finally getting a health care bill passed. I'm proud to say that the movie that I argued in favor of was the one that actually won (The New Tenants), in a way vindicating my taste in films and giving me a trump card for future debates. If anybody in the Obama administration is reading this and wants my advice on how to crack the health care nut, you undoubtedly have my number.

Speaking of the Oscars, who isn't geeked about the Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow?!? It only took me the better part of a year to finally get around to seeing it, but what a great film it was. This movie only made about $20.5 million in domestic and foreign box office (which means that pretty much nobody saw it). Compared to the $2.5 billion that Avatar has made in global ticket sales (which means that everybody has seen it, with the lone exception of me, not because I'm boycotting, but because EVERYBODY has seen it and nobody will go with me) we can honestly call this a David vs. Goliath story. Not to mention Ms. Bigelow! Horray for history being made!

I read in the Times today that the screenwriter Mark Boal (who also took home an Oscar), "stood on street corners with his teenage nephew handing out free tickets to passersby with the idea that if they could stack the house, perhaps the theater owners would book it for another week." A great idea if I ever get a film into a theater (unless it's snowing). Who's down to man the New York street corners with me?

Ryan the Sound Guy

Of Ideas, Ideation, and Inspiration

The weather is warm. New York is alive again. I am in my windowless room in front of my laptop. Something doesn't quite add up here.

Robert Downey Jr. pretty much summed it up last night at the Oscars when he described screenwriters as "sickly little mole people." What other person would forgo the sun's victorious reemergence, to sit in a dark and hot room recording imaginary events onto his MacBook Pro? Think about it.

Since I am a natural born procrastinator, I of course am not actually writing what I should be writing right now. Instead, I am writing a blog about how I should be writing, but am not. Kind of meta in a way. (Not really). It's just that I've spent the greater part of the last two weeks developing this feature script idea - of which I have to hand in two scenes tomorrow - and now it just seems more interesting and entertaining to reflect on the idea as opposed to...you know...actually writing it. Fitting. (Not really).

When your life is such that your realm of immediate experience grants you a sublime level of inspiration, what choice do you have but to draw from it? When a film has so affected your consciousness of late, what choice do you have but to glean idea after idea from it (I'm referring specifically to The Science of Sleep)? What I'm saying is that the best ideas seem to always somehow gravitate to you. One never has to reach for the inspiration behind their best work, they just find it around them.

I created a character way back in 2006 whose experiences I used as a vessel to express everything that I was in some way thinking, feeling, or experiencing at the time. His name was Will Stewart. I haven't made a film as personal to me since then. With half of grad school almost in the bag, this crazy city beginning to have more and more of an influence on me, and my interactions and friendships in this absurd place taking my mind in places that it's never been, I think I have enough fodder to make another personal film.

Inspired by Woody Allen's meta-odes to New York City "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan" as well as Michel Gondry's masterpiece, I am putting on my meta-narrative hat again for the first time in 4 years, resurrecting Will Stewart, and putting him smack dab in the middle of this mad metropolis where he will embark upon his own journey for happiness and spiritual and emotional fulfillment. If you saw that old film of mine and wondered whatever happened to Mr. Stewart after that fateful day, you'll soon find out. There'll be romance, music, jokes, and somebody will die in the end (not really).

Two scenes in. It's nice to meet this guy again...

Ryan the Sound Guy

Tofu Pups

It has just occurred to me that the key to success in my flirtation with vegetarianism this lent lies almost solely in my ability to make Tofu Pups (a brand of tofu hot dogs) edible. The fact that they are three of my favorite things (1. Cheap, 2. Easy to make, and 3. filling) leads me to really want to forgive how awful they taste. And, after days like today where I'm at school from 9:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night (yes, you read that correctly), it's raining outside, and I'm too tired to make something throwing these intolerable things into boiling water for 2 minutes sounds incredible. Forget 40 days without a burger, I will be more proud of myself if I can force myself to actually appreciate tofu pups.

That's all. Now, I pass out.

Ryan the Sound Guy

On the name of this blog.

this dude ruined everything

If you weren't able to glean it from the long hiatus, this blog has been undergoing an identity crisis of sorts. Since relinquishing my sound guy credentials about a month ago, I've thought long and hard about what this blog was to become. No longer a sound guy, I wondered if even the title of this blog was no longer true to what my blogger voice would become. How could I write a blog with such a blatant and obvious misnomer? How do my ridiculous musings about delicious business deals and John Mayer's idiocy have anything to do with the experience of a sound guy. Not to mention the fact that my recent signing off as simply "Ryan" seemed only to sorely remind me of the glory days of this blog past. It appeared that this blog was in an existential pickle of sorts.

Just as I began to consider new and more truthful titles for this blog ("Leaves of Grass" was the front-runner until I heard that it was already taken a 150 years ago or so by some dude named Walt), I decided to first breakdown all of the elements of the current title to find which were problematic and attempt to tackle it from there.

I saw that all of these incoherent postings still sort of qualified as notes so "Notes" wasn't the problem. They had to come from somewhere so "From" wasn't what was hanging me up. "A" was just a harmless article and I saw no reason to come down on it for that, even if it was of the indefinite variety. Wasn't its fault that "the" gets all the glory in the article world. I'm just glad that I could give it a chance. Last time I checked I was still a "guy" (is it weird that I put that in quotes?), so there was no question there. After my extensive investigation it became clear that the problem was with "sound."

I then moved to thinking of other definitions for sound that didn't involve audio. After days and days of scouring the stacks of NYU's Bobst library to research the word, I stumbled upon the answer I had been looking for. A definition of sound that I could maybe apply to me and this blog:

sound adjective competent, reliable, or holding acceptable views

Eureka!

While I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to call myself either of the first two, I would deign to lay claim to the last. The views expressed in this blog are acceptable right? (Unless you're a die hard John Mayer fan.)

I like to think that you, my readers, are in good hands. Therefore I shall again reclaim the "Sound guy" moniker.

Existential anguish extinguished. I can breathe again.

Ryan the "Sound" Guy

Physical Therapy

I feel betrayed.

Running has betrayed me.

My body has betrayed me.

Everything that I once depended upon to get me through this life sanely is mutinying against me. Leaving me foundering in a foggy existence of strange days and lost ways. How will I emerge from this murky state?

I was pretty loyal to running. Even on days when I was really tired, when it was really cold out, or I had to get up super early in the morning to make time for it, I still did and I did it gladly. And look what it turned around and did to me. It went out of its way to make it so that I have to go virtually three weeks without being able to visit it. How could you, running?

And, my knee. Did you and running conspire to throw my life out of wack. Why, knee? I thought we had a silent agreement. OK, so maybe I was running a little too much and wearing you out a little, but all you had to do was speak up and I would have listened. I would have given you the ice and ibuprofen that you so needed and deserved. All you had to do was say something. But instead you decided to give up on me. You just gave up. Come on, man. In the words of Puff Daddy at the end of his timeless song, "Victory," "What imma do now, huh? What imma do now?"

Physical therapy, of which I just had my first session today. Hard to believe that this is my second round of physical therapy (I injured my shoulder five years ago, an injury which still hasn't totally healed). While therapy is really inconvenient, I have this hope that once my knee is healed it'll be like that movie Rookie of the Year (Daniel Stern's directorial opus) where the kid breaks his arm, it heals, and he ends up with a wicked fastball and pitches for the Cubs and gets the girl in the end. I'm setting my goals high after this folks. My plan is to win the NYC Marathon in November, rocket to rock star fame, and use the money from all the endorsements I get to write and produce a film about my experience (and then get Daniel Stern to direct it. I mean, what has he even done since the Home Alone movies?).

At least my therapist isn't that chatty. She's cool and all, I just have this thing about small talk. (I'm too shy and not good at it.) Even though a good conversation would be great during therapy to alleviate the self-consciousness of being the sad sight that one inevitably is in the therapy room. I just sometimes bring up some mindless stuff in conversation sometimes that puts people off a little. There is little separation between my written mind and my spoken mind so you can imagine, being that you are acquainted to the former at this point. While on a first date, I infamously once argued simply for the sake of arguing (and maybe because I was a little bored) that professional athletes perhaps deserved to be paid more than teachers. Needless to say, I didn't get a second date. My good friend Steph, once described me as exhausting, which I still find hilarious. Thanks, Steph.

On that note I'll stop while I'm ahead, so as not to exhaust.

Oh yea, if somebody has an in with Daniel Stern's agent please pass it along. I'm determined to get this genius working again.

Ryan

Ash Wednesday

I should begin with an apology to my parents. I did not go to church today to get ashes. In fact I can't even remember the last time that I stepped foot inside of a Catholic church actually. I haven't really been a good Catholic since 2003 (the year I graduated from an all-boys Jesuit high school and went on to form my heathen Christo-Buddhist hybrid at the haven of heathens also known as the University of Michigan) and I know that you've struggled to understand the seemingly illogical paths that my mind has pulled me in from time to time. But, allow me to assure you that my next door neighbors here in New York are not the cult members from Rosemary's Baby and that I am consistently keeping Satan behind me.

Anyhow, I don't think this is the appropriate arena for me to discuss matters of my spirituality and I ask you all to look for my soon to be published memoir in which I expound upon my unique beliefs and my love of Italian food entitled, Mind Your Dharma, Son Please. And, Find the Parmesan Cheese (Random House, MSRP $79.95). All proceeds will go toward funding my first feature film.

Ash Wednesday always seems to sneak up on me. I walk around and see folks with smudges on their foreheads and suddenly remember that I'm supposed to give up something that I love for the next 40 days. I feel as though such a sacrifice is something that requires extensive meditation and thought and I don't know if I'm exactly comfortable making a decision the day of. So what do I do?

I've been experiencing a lot of psychological and physical extremes thus far this year. From subliminal inspiration to temporarily crippling disillusionment. From top physical condition (or so I thought) to wincing in pain after walking only a block (currently attempting to recover from a knee injury). It seems only fitting that I use this year's Lent as a time for reflection on what this all ostensibly means and give up something that is as extreme as this young 2010 as been so far.

After having thought about this for a great deal of time (and by that I mean the last hour or two), I've decided to give up meat in its entirety this Lent. This could potentially serve to dampen my mood persistently into the nether extremes of the spectrum, but I feel as though I need a challenge right now to keep my mind balanced and focused. So if I seem like I'm always in a really bad mood for the next month or so, take that as a good sign. If I'm down one day and chipper the next, check my backpack for a hamburger.

Ryan

Things I Learned From NBA All Star Weekend and John Mayer

If there's one thing I love as much as film and literature it's sports and music (yes, you read that right). I think if I had it all to do again, as a kid I would have put the books down, stuck with the violin lessons that my dad made me take, and spent more time shooting hoops in the backyard. Or better yet, kept the books in hand WHILE shooting hoops in the backyard AND practicing my violin. All at the same time. You would have heard of me. Mr. Ryan James Carmichael to my friends, the Renaissance child from Southfield, Michigan to the world. It's a shame that didn't work out...

Anyhow, I digress.

My college counselor in high school thought it would have been a great idea for me to go on to study journalism. This was before I even dreamed of being a filmmaker so I humored the thought for a while. I think in some parallel universe I am actually a fledgling cub journalist whose ultimate ambition is to see his byline above the fold on the front page of the New York Times. Or, given my stated love of sports and music, with my own column in Sports Illustrated or Spin. Or, BOTH. I'm going to live in this universe momentarily, bear with me if you will.

This past weekend, there occurred in the NBA what could arguably be called the most meaningless event in all of sports: the All Star Game. Let's watch a bunch of guys who already get paid too much get paid even more to play a game that has no bearing on anything but itself. Well, will they play their hardest? Of course not, why risk injury. Does the winner get a parade or something? Nope, they all take a day off after the game and the season starts again. So, what's the point? Exactly.

Worse than the game (which was pretty entertaining, but I shall maintain this air of cynicism to prove whatever point I'm trying to make here), were the pre, during, and post-game interviews. I've NEVER understood these. They get asked the most obvious questions and give the most obvious answers. Absolutely nothing is gained from these things. Examples:

Courtside Correspondent: What are your thoughts going into the game?
Player: You know, I'm just focused on playing hard and winning the game.

Courtside Correspondent: What are your thoughts going into halftime?
Player: You know, I came out hard, wanting to play well and I think the main thing, you know, is to keep up the intensity in the second half and try to get the win.

Courtside Correspondent: How do you feel having won the game?
Player: You know, it's like, you know, when you come out and play hard and you know, your teammates come to play too, it's like you get the win, you know. It's all hard work. We played a good game and good things happened. You know.

Thanks.

I exaggerate a little. BUT, only a little.

I guess athletes aren't paid for their amazing oratory skills so I shouldn't be so harsh. But this is all the more reason for us to axe these execrably inane interviews. THIS is why I love Lloyd Carr (you'll want to watch :35 and 1:30 for the gem). God bless you, Lloyd.

Before you tire of my rant I have to comment on the other thing that's been on my mind recently and that's stupid John Mayer. I recognize the failed attempt at irony in his "racist" statements and I'm not the one to throw that label around haphazardly unless it's deserved (Rush Limbaugh comes to mind), so I'll reluctantly give him a pass this time. But, come on John, I read the interview and how tactless can you be? Do you kiss your mom with that mouth? You're a talented dude, but that doesn't necessarily make it OK be an unabashed tool. Where's you sense of decency?

If anybody from Sports Illustrated or SPIN is reading this blog, I have no commitments at the time and will be awaiting a call from you.

Ryan

Postscript: My grumpiness is probably due to the fact that I was in class until 10 tonight and this is the second year in a row that Fat Tuesday has passed without my eating a paczki. Not ok.

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