In The Works

Going to be doing post production sound for WWJD. I'm obsessively organizing myself for the project: contacts, schedule, budget, calendar, lists. My first screening was Monday night; I saw the third cut of the movie. Picture lock should be happening sometime next week. Meanwhile, I'm carefully planning out the hours I'll most likely spend based on past experiences. Also ran a test OMF conversion, which revealed an odd problem that I hope can be fixed before picture delivery. As always, when I'm ramping up to work, I'm reading my technical books like crazy to see what else I can learn to prepare a smoother workflow.

I also met with the head sound guy at a production company, who may have some freelance production gigs for me next month. As fate would have it, I got a call last night for a live event happening tonight. There will be a filmmaking discussion on stage among five people at a theater in Beverly Hills. Today, I'll be running up to Coffey to pick up the mikes, the mixer, and the cables, to hook into the theater's system. Scary thing is, I've never seen this place, nor will I be permitted to load in until 30 minutes before showtime! Wish me luck.

Deva

Let me tell you about the Deva. When I started looking outside of college for professional audio gear, my Google search stumbled upon a blog by Glen Trew. His Memoirs of a Sound Mixer spoke of working on Jersey Girl, a Kevin Smith movie. I like Kevin Smith movies. Cool. Hey, he's working with Vilmos Zsigmond! Vilmos was one of the only 2 cinematographers that visited my school when I was there. So this is what it's like on a "real" set. Glen included some pictures of his equipment, too. It was my first time seeing a cart. I studied his labelled jpeg with boyish wonder, soaking in all the components. I'd never seen a mixing board outdoors before, and my, how boxy it looks. How cool is that? He's got little monitors on his cart, and a surface for taking notes! It all seemed so logical. Of course this is how a sound department should be. Why could I have never imagined it? Boy, I felt like I had just ducked underwater and seen the rest of the iceberg. Names like Sanken, Countryman, Lectrosonics and Zaxcom, names that are industry standards, I had never heard of before. At this point, I pretty much only knew the name Sennheiser, what a Fostex FR-2 and a Nagra was, and my Sony MDR-7506 headphones. I had know idea that the sound department handed out headphones for others to listen, using Comtek transmitters and receivers. Hey, I remember the cans I wore on the ESPN Racing said Comtek on the cups. Curiously, I had never seen a DAT recorder, because its time had come and gone, replaced by solid state recorders. Glen's main recorder was capable of 4 tracks! My first glimpse of a multitrack recorder was Zaxcom's Deva. Today, the Deva is up to 10 tracks, writes to an internal hard drive and to compact flash cards, instead of DVD-RAM. Many of the production sound mixers at Jeff Wexler's forum use one. Phillip Palmer, the first production sound blogger I found and the inspiration of this blog, has gone through about three versions of the Deva. I have been following the mythical machine for over a year now through the lens of the internet telescope. Last weekend, I finally got to try one out.

Hat Trick

Good time last Friday. Thanks to Shahin for insisting on bringing me aboard Gabe Michael's webisode.

I finally tried out a hat rig. Dave was wearing a necktie, and I had originally placed the microphone inside the knot with the wire running inside his shirt. That sound was working, there was no cloth rustling, but his voice was slightly muffled from all the fabric in the tie. I repositioned the lav to inside his shirt, just to the right of the buttons over his sternum. This sound was clearer, but too bassy. It was like resting your head on someone's chest as they talk. Dave was wearing a cap that day. I looked at the brim and my eyes lit up. The brim is tilted downward when he stands, nobody would see a mike capsule sitting just an inch in front of his forehead, the mike would be out in the open more like an overhead boom. I asked Dave if I could try it and he was game.

Here's a close up. Smooth. The wire runs along the middle of his hair and then down inside his collar. It wasn't even visible from the back!
There was a wide shot outdoors of Dave playing guitar and singing. Obviously, my boom placed the mike as close as I could while staying out of frame, which turned out to be diagonally about six feet away. The guitar was loud, and its sound bled out to the concrete steps and the surrounding buildings. The audio mix of the boom getting that and the lav picking up voice louder than instrument sounded amazing. I love when you get two perspectives in a stereo pair. Sounds like the environment is really alive.