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.