The Big Think

The twenty one voices of Amy Walker.

His music tends to work in all versions, I submit, because the notes-qua-notes are so good. Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, or [your favorite composer here] were constantly concerned with the instruments that played or sung their work: great notes, too, but intimately bound to their media. In The Art of Fugue Bach didn’t seem to care what the medium was; it would work no matter what. A lot of his music—not all, but a lot—is like that: incomparable notes, regardless of avatar.

I’m sure what ultimately turns everybody onto The Art of Fugue, not limited to musicians who understand its arcana, is how melodically expressive and rhythmically vital it is. You never forget, for example, how Contrapunctus 9 gathers like a force of nature from a galloping D minor to the most hair-raising D major final chord you ever heard. Bach universalized what he called “the art and science of music” by the power of gripping melody, rich harmony, towering perorations, intimate whisperings, explosive joy, piercing tragedy: the same human stuff we find in Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, and all the great creators. But nobody in music had the science down more than Bach did, and nobody ever wrote better notes.

full article.

Now that my body has recovered a bit from the abuse of two consecutive all-nighters, I figured I’d post a few pictures of the gig. Overall it was a great experience (with the usual occasional snafus here and there). I managed to do my job and get the sound recorded well in the midst of a somewhat challenging schedule. Normally you’re lucky to film 3-5 pages a day but we were on a schedule of 9-10 pages each night. Lots of footage shot and a bunch of camera changes, as well as shooting coverage (where you re-shoot the same scene from several angles), meant that I was constantly futzing with the wireless mic placement. Sometimes I had to wire up an actor and sometimes I had to hid the mics in the scene. If the camera shifted a bit the mics would become visible, so I had to keep constant vigilance over what was going on.

At one point in the night one of the set guys asked me if movie sets are always like this. “Always like what?”, well, with lots of sitting around and waiting. I told him that’s usually the case for a chunk of the crew, but the time passes very fast for me because I’m always doing something- wiring actors, moving mics, looking for shadows, coiling cables, untangling cables, changing batteries, or watching the scene rehearsals to try and figure out where I can put the boom without a) breaking the frame (horror!), b) getting squashed by the camera dolly, c) tripping over the tangle of cables leading to and from the recording rig strapped to my chest, or d) all of the above. It’s a very dynamic and challenging environment to be in. The more I do this, the more amazed I am at how misunderstood sound on the set can be. For instance: do you watch Lost? Did you know that up to 80% of any one episode might be looped? Yes, 80% of what you hear isn’t what was recorded on set. Usually big wide shots or shots in the water or walking through the trees all have to be looped. The closeup stuff is probably audio from the set, but everything else you hear comes from the actor recreating his or her dialog in a studio sometime later.

On this shoot the producers didn’t have the money to loop anything, so it was extra important for me to get clean tracks. This meant that I had to be very careful with mic placement and the final sound of the dialog. Add to this the normal stress of having to get all the shots before the sun comes up, the time it takes to move the camera, blocking and rehearsal, and there’s normally little to no time for the sound guy to place mics. It’s a common thing in the business, unfortunately. What happens is that the director or A/D calls for the next shot (okay, moving on… scene 101), they decide how they are going to shoot it, they move the camera and lights, set up any dolly or special equipment, and rehearse the scene. While they’re rehearsing the scene the director is over at the monitor watching what the picture looks like and making comments (more light… close-in… pull out, etc). It’s basically a camera rehearsal and the only ones in the shot should be the actors. When the director is happy, the A/D gives the command to roll and we start shooting.

Notice anything missing? Yup, the sound department didn’t have time to set the mics. I can only set mics once the rehearsal is done, and that can only happen once the basic blocking is completed and the camera angles are chosen. Unfortunately, once all that is done there is nothing to do BUT shoot the scene, so I usually have to rush in at the last second and place a mic, tape up an actor, or do whatever I need to do without getting in the way. It can be very frustrating and stressful, which is why I spend so much time watching what the evolving shot plan is going to be. If I can see where they’re going with the shot, I can take a good guess at where the camera is going to be and where I should locate my mics, dodge into the frame (hopefully without getting yelled at for being in frame!), place my mics, and then scurry back out. If I’m lucky I’ll only have to do a quick adjustment to something before the director calls ACTION. If I’m unlucky, I might have to call a hold for 3 minutes while I fiddle with something. The other night there were about 15 people dedicated to how the frame looked (lighting, grips, camera, props, continuity, etc), and only one guy (me) dedicated to how it sounded. If I do my job wrong the entire investment is wasted because there’s no sound. Do it right and it doesn’t get noticed because, hey, doesn’t “running sound” just mean holding a pole over your head for ten hours and turning some knobs? Get off the set, we’ve got a tree to light!

So overall, a very fun experience. The producer walked up to me at the end and gave me a very nice compliment, and the DP was a dream to work with. 40ish camera guy with a substantial investment in equipment (I was dodging and plugging into a $100,000 camera all night!). I really liked the directors as well. Hope I get to work with them all again.

Here’s some pics from the other night. Enjoy!

The dreaded noisy generator to power all the lights. It was pretty quiet once we hauled it around to the front of the house.

Grip truck with the camera and lighting stuff

Here’s the set

Cool action shot between takes. I like the way this is blurred with the actress partially in focus. The scenes take place in the 1950’s (hence the dress) in a Biergarten.

Me with my great new Petrol bag and harness. WHAT a difference a good harness makes. Best $99 I’ve spent in a long time. While my shoulders were killing me after the shoot from holding the boom over my head, my back and neck felt fine. I love, love, love this system. Small, light, with a billion places to hang stuff. It was really designed from the ground up for this kind of work. Buzzy in the middle is a key grip who’s been doing movies since 1973 (worked with Steve McQueen), and the great DP, Charlie is on the right. Charlie and his business partner Bobby own Producer’s Choice. We shot the film on his great HD Varicam.

If you look closely at my bag you can see the small repurposed Glidecam monitor I use during a take. I grab a feed from the director’s monitor so I can see what the camera is doing during the shot. This is incredibly valuable as it lets me ride the very edge of the frame without poking into a shot so I get the absolute best sound. If the DP pulls back or tilts up and my boom is there… whoops- busted! If I can’t get a feed from the camera I have to take my best guess and leave a bit of leeway, but it’s easy to get “caught” if the DP does something unexpected and I can’t see a monitor.

If you pay attention during a lot of TV shows it’s easy to catch a boom shadow or even the very tip of a mic poking into the frame. It’s very hard to be 100% clean all the time and I’m proud of the fact that I only had one boom shadow and one frame violation in two days, and we had to reshoot those takes anyway for other reasons.

Action shot. This was about 4 in the morning saturday night. I’ve got a short boom (6-7 feet) in this shot because I’m right next to camera. For a few shots I had to really stretch it out to the full 14 feet because the shot was so wide.