Butter

Ahh... Nestlé's Butterfinger. Big name. Big candy bar. Tiny budget. Say what??

Yes. This is one of the lowest paid gigs I've had. It's a scheduled 12 hour day, plus an additional two for those going on the last minute tech scout. The budget for the entire sound department (the sound mixer, the boom operator, and the equipment) was a whopping $300. *Gasp* We pulled favors from three other places to complete the sound package. We wanted five microphones out there: 1 boom, and 4 wireless. Sy's kit so far is a 4 track recorder, a boom, a bag, and the necessary cables. The 2nd A.D. lent us his 3 input mixer, the 1st A.D. lent us his little buddy, and our Alma Mater lent us the other three wireless kits. I bought a roll of snot for $4.25.

Since my last job, I really felt the deep need to be uber-prepared, so I decided to go up to location two hours early for the tech scout. There's not much I could do as a sound guy on a tech scout (since the location is already locked down) other than advise against noisy spots and try to stake out my boom operating territory. However, I liked the idea that I'd have plenty of time to scan Griffith Park for open RF frequencies (the tip of the Santa Monica mountains overlooking Hollywood on one side and Burbank on the other sees a lot of radio-TV signals). The Sennheiser G2's are much less convenient than the Lectrosonics, in this regard. See, the Lectro receivers can scan the 256 selectable frequencies in it's block of UHF and present a graph on the little display screen to give you an instant idea of which radio frequencies are cleanest at your location. It takes about 30 seconds. The G2 receivers can only scan 4 selectable frequencies per bank at a time (There's either 7 or 8 banks plus a customizable User bank), and it only tells you which of the four is best at the time you scanned, at your location. The only indicator of the strength of radio energy on or close to the frequency selected is a row of 7 bars fluttering on and off as a miniature peak meter, and a green LED labeled RF which will be on when receiving strong RF. So, it doesn't scan the area and report back which frequencies are open, it only reports which of your four channels with the least interference. This becomes a ten minute task now, as I go through each bank of four channels looking for the one that is least evil. Stop. Okay, as I am writing this blog, I've been referring to the online manul to make sure I got the facts straight, and I discovered an error in my thinking. Actually, the SCAN feature tells you how many of the 4 channels are free. Boy that would helped to know. Jiminy Christmas. Alright. Well, the only times I get to play with these is when I'm on set, since I don't any, and only when I'm having issues. However, if none of the banks have enough free channels, you're still going to have to find freqs by trial and error through the User bank. There's 1440 different choices! Needless to say, it's not a quick fix. That's why I wanted to be there early.

But that didn't happen. I hitched a ride from the A.D.s that day, but they got held up at Budget because the 12 passenger van they reserved was not there. Had to go to the downtown office to pick one up, holdiing us back about an hour and a half. Got to location about a half hour early, but my partner in crime had volunteered to pick up walkies from Wilcox, fire exitinguishers from another place, and make a stop at Location Sound for adapter cables. The poor guy showed up about 20 minutes after call time, (missing breakfast) with most of our gear, including the wireless. The D.P. was going to use natural light during the day, so with no lights to set up, the whole crew had to wait on us for about 30 minutes. Luckily, the mixer brought a print out of L.A. TV stations' frequencies, so I knew which channels not to even try. The snot tape worked great on the ME 2 lavs. I never had to change the tape, and they stayed put under the talents' shirts for the whole day. I just left the wires on them and removed the bodypack transmitters during breaks. We had just a bit of drop-out at one spot on one actor, but otherwise, the wireless worked perfectly. Good thing, too. Booming was another story.

Normally, on a shoot that's been prepared, a scene will be covered from several angles (wide, medium, close) and there's plenty of chances to get the best sound, which is always from a well-placed overhead boom.* This shoot was so run and gun, that the D.P. operating the camera wouldn't know what his frame was supposed to be before shooting. That makes it a challenge. I want to get in close but I have to keep one eye on the camera and guess how wide or tight he is, so I can ride the frame without dipping in. The focus puller had it bad, too. It was all guesswork for us during the day.

*Lavs can save your soundtrack sometimes, but they don't have the same response, and they often must be placed on the chest, making actors sound a little bassy. It's like putting your ear on someone's chest and listening to them talk. Booms sound amazingly clear and natural comparatively. There are techniques to help this trouble with lavs, but generally you can always tell which track is a boom and which track is a lav.

After lunch, and our transition into night shooting, the rest of the day went swimmingly. Great sound. We won. There was a fun moment on one tracking shot of feet running through the woods. The Gaffer took a china ball on the end of a pole and boomed the feet for a little extra fill. Naturally, I'm doing the same with a microphone on the end of my pole. We ran together on opposite sides of the tacks as the dolly glided alongside the running actor. Just before the take, with our arms up in a mirror image I looked at him and he looked at me and we smirked.