The Big Think

As many of you know, Erin and I got to spend last week up in Colorado. I had been hired to go shoot another video by a camp that hosts military soldiers and their families. Three years ago we went up to the very same camp and made the first video. They were so appreciative of the first vid that they wanted me to go and update it, so off we went again. For a whole week I shot footage around the camp (6 hours), conducted lots of interviews (8 hours), ate great food, and got to know the “other 1%”: the soldiers who make up our military (Army, in this case). They told some incredible stories. I had my perspective rocked quite a bit three years ago and worked really hard to make sure that their stories and their appreciation for the donors got through in the video. Through the whole process I have felt like all of my skills have been engaged. Technical: filmmaking, audio, lighting, framing, etc, and interpersonal: interviewing, getting to know people, keeping the “customer” happy, trust on camera, etc. I’ve felt completely “used up” and stretched to my limits while I strove very hard to put out something that would be high quality and hopefully have an impact.

Mission accomplished. I just found out that the people responsible for getting funding for the camp were able to use my video to raise half a million dollars for subsequent camps. This money has been used so that hundreds of families could come to camp together and reconnect after their soldier-parents had been overseas serving for one, two, or even four different deployments (up to 15 months per deployment). Seeing the appreciation on the families faces and knowing that I had a small part in that has probably been one of the most satisfying things I have ever done.

I’m definitely not taking credit for it, though. There were a few other key people who spent those three intervening years traveling around, talking to donors, interfacing with the military machine, and generally making it work, and they’re the real reason that the camp continues to this day. But I’m proud of the small part I was able to play and happy that I got to go back. It’s not often that we get to see the fruits of our labor used in such an obvious and meaningful way and I’m grateful to have seen first-hand the effect that my work had on these wonderful families.

You know you wanna push this button.

I think I might have mentioned that I was going to buy some sand bags for my upcoming Colorado gig. Sand bags are indispensable on the movie set. They’re used mainly for holding things- like tripods- down to keep them from being knocked over. When the tripod is connected to a thousand dollar microphone, it’s very important that they stay in one place. Consequently, you can find all kinds of bags on a set. They’re universal and hardworking. Unfortunately, they’re also unreasonably expensive for what they are-basically a thick-material bag full of sand. A decent one can cost you $40, and I need three.

So you won’t be surprised to know that I decided to make my own. They’ll look like this:

I started off by going to Jo-anne’s fabrics. I really like this place. It’s like a tool-world for the softer Maker skills. I picked up a yard of bright blue rip-stop nylon, a yard of black “duck cloth”, which is basically heavy cordura nylon like you find in backpacks and those cheap stadium chairs, and a couple yards of heavy duty nylon ribbon for the handle. I also got some Zip-loc freezer bags and a 50lb bag of sand from Lowes. All together I ended up spending less than $20 on all of the supplies, and I had enough to make three 30lb sandbags, which would have cost me over $170 with shipping (what, you think shipping a 30lb bag of sand across the country is cheap? Shipping alone is $28/bag!)

I came home and filled six ziplocs with approximately 7.5lbs of sand each, weighing them on our bathroom scale. Then I closed the bags and taped them shut… thoroughly. The last thing I want is for the sand to come out and get in all of my equipment. Next, I double bagged them all and taped them shut with gaffer tape, again, thoroughly. The I did it again. That may sound like overkill, but 7.5lbs of sand is a lot of sand, and if it ever got loose in the gear crate it would probably do several thousand dollars in damage. Laugh if you want, but I feel pretty good about it.

Next, I made a basic bag with the ripstop nylon. In addition to being ripstop, this stuff is also more or less sand-proof, so I don’t have to worry too much about any getting out if the worse happens (see above). I sewed the bags inside out so that I could turn them right-side out and not have any seams showing. Except, of course, the last one. Lydia, care to tell me how I can do a good job of hiding this seam? I know I can’t put it inside, but there must be some trick to it.

After the six bright blue bags were sewn together (which took about two hours), I put two side by side and measured for the large cordura outer bag. I cut the cordura and again sewed a three sided bag. Whoops. Forgot to sew the handle-strap on! I managed to get it sewn on but it took some finagling with the three-sided bag on the sewing machine. For bag #2 and 3 I sewed the strap on before sewing it into a three sided inside-out bag. Lesson learned.

From here it was an easy step to insert the blue inner sand-filled bags into the main case and sew it shut. Again, there’s a messy 4th edge to it, but it’s a functional bag- not beautiful. Still, I’d like to know how to make it look a little neater.

The end result? For $20 I have myself three very cool 30lb sandbags for the set! And I’m even more convinced that sewing machines rock. Lydia, feel free to chime in down in the comments if you have any suggestions (Lydia of patrickandlydia.com sews up a storm, so she could probably whip these up in half the time and they’d look twice as good).

An interview with Mark Ulano in Film & Video magazine:

Do you often get to work with the same directors repeatedly?

It happens quite a bit. You never know. But I’ve been grateful that there are certain people who like to have us as part of their jazz band. What I do — psychologically and emotionally — is a lot like being a session player. We come in and sight-read the chart and perform immediately in the context of the band, or the orchestra, that is the film crew.

Mark has mixed some of the most popular films of all time (Titanic among them) and really knows what he’s talking about. Good stuff.

The Lowell lighting kit just arrived! It’s smaller than I thought, but that’s probably due to the fact that it’s factory-packed into a small soft-sided case that’s too small to ever re-pack correctly. I’m sure once I take everything out and try to fold it all up again it’ll take up twice the space as it does now. So I’m going to be very careful unboxing everything. I want to see how they origami-ed it all together. Here’s a pic:

Nice kit. Portable and flexible with a softbox included. I’ll set it up tomorrow (along with everything else) and do a faux-interview. I’ll post it on YouTube or something and link to it from here.

Had to order a 4GB card off of Amazon today for the HDP2. I only have a 512MB CF card and that won’t come close to getting all the audio I’ll need in Colorado. We have a bunch of other media cards of various sizes lying around, but they’re in different formats. Darn format wars!

Oh, I also have to order spare bulbs. I hate to drop the $75 or so on the replacement bulbs (they’re really expensive!), but I don’t want to have one pop while I’m doing an interview.

I also need to make three sandbags to weight the tripods down. I could buy them for $30 each, or go to Home Depot for playground sand and the fabric store for thick cordura and make my own. Since the sewing machine is already out on the table I’m going for option #2. Did I mention that I sent back the $23 Rip-Tie’s and made my own? They’re not pretty, but they work great! Total cost: $10 and they’re much bigger/better. Hooray for Makers!

I’ve been making plans to build some sort of Über-case with wheels that can hold all of this stuff. Small enough to fit in a car trunk, but flexible enough to store everything I need so it’s all in one easy-to-steal package! Efficiency.

Seriously, I need to call the insurance company….

Wooo! The new digital CF recorder just arrived and I’ve spent an hour or so playing with it. Very nice! It’s flexible, silent (due to the fact that it records on CF cards and not DAT tape or anything else that needs motors and moving parts), and sounds great. Plus, it’s got nice little touches like instant record (you don’t have to cue the recording up to the end of the previous take), and non-destructive trashing.

If you’re curious, it’s this one:

I’m not crazy about a few things: the headphone jack is on the other side of the unit. I’d prefer it to be on the right side for wire management. It’s also mostly plastic, which is a disappointment. But the machined aluminum SD702 that every sound man lusts over is about a thousand dollars more ($1500 more with timecode option), and that’s just not in the cards. My new unit (the Tascam HDP2) has a timecode input, which just seems like it should be standard on pro decks.

One more bummer is that this sucker takes 8 AA batteries, and goes through them in about 4 hours. That’s a LOT of batteries over the course of a 2 day gig- consider also that the wireless mics go through four every 3 hours or so (2 for the receivers, 2 for the transmitters). My mixer uses up 3 every four to five hours as well. So added all together, that’s nineteen batteries used up every 4-5 hours. Over a two day gig (10hr/day), that’s almost forty batteries!. At that rate, a $300 rechargeable belt-mounted battery system starts to make sense. They also make bag-mounted ones with neat power distribution systems, but they’re more in the $500 range with chargers. NP1 batteries can run a couple hundred dollars each, but they’ll last all day and recharge hundreds of times.

It may sound like I’m complaining but I’m really not. The Tascam is a great little recorder being used in the industry every day. It’ll be great on set as well as in location recording for SFX and dialog/interviews. Can’t wait to see how it works out on my next gig. I’ll be using the new recorder on the Colorado documentary later this summer. It’ll act as a backup to the camera audio in case anything goes out there. Good insurance for the price.

The final piece of the puzzle, my Lowell light kit, is currently in transit and should be here tomorrow.

So, I got the gig! Erin and I will be traveling back up to Trail West in Colorado to spend another week with members of the military. I’ve been hired to shoot a short (6-8 minute) documentary/thank you to show the donors. They used the last version I did three years ago to raise $250,000 so more military soldiers and their families could enjoy a week of vacation (something, sadly, that few of them had ever had). They were pleased with the video last time and want to make a new one.

So I’m in the process of gathering the equipment that I’ll need for the project, as well as planning shots and talking to the folks up at the ranch. I’m using part of the pay from the gig to continue purchasing equipment. For a longer project like this (we’ll be gone for 12 days), the gear rental is approximately 1/4 the cost of buying new, and I’m starting to do more of these things. So instead of continuing to throw money away on gear rental I’m committing to purchasing my own. I’m getting a good quality CF recorder, an decent 3-light kit for interviewing, a C-stand, and a couple of other small things. Unfortunately, I have to rent an anamorphic adapter for the camera I’m using (the DVX-100), and that will cost a bit for the 12 day rental, but as I have no need for it long term, it’s not worth spending the $1000 to buy the thing for one gig. Yes, a thousand dollars for a lens adapter. Sheesh. Just renting it will cost me almost three hundred. Ouch.

We are SO looking forward to this. The only downside is that they have to put us up in a hotel a couple of miles away since the camp is so full. But we’ll be there from sun-up until after sundown so it’ll feel like we’re staying at the camp- we’ll just be sleeping somewhere else. And this means that one more military family can go (we won’t be taking their spot), so that’s a very good thing.

Got an email tonight that’s got me all atwitter. It looks like I’ve been hired to do another major documentary project that will require some travel. I’ll post more in a few days when I have things confirmed (and if we can work out schedules), but I’m really jazzed about it. And the CFO of the company wrote me himself to tell me that he had sent word down to “absolutely use” me. Can’t get much better than that. Truly grateful that I’m able to do what I love so much.

The twenty one voices of Amy Walker.

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.

Went for a rehearsal down in Buda for the movie shoot. What a great time! It’s so nice to get a rehearsal and get an idea of what we’re going to be shooting. I’m really grateful to not have to hit the ground running tomorrow night with setups, cameras, and unknown actors/lines. There will be 20 principle actors and 30 extras, a prop dept, an extras wrangler, a continuity person, script supervisor, director, sound dept (me), AD, DP, and even a “greensman” (who I conscripted to trim some trees for me so the boom wouldn’t hit branches). All in all, a very professionally run operation (I even got the first half of my payment- joy!).

After the rehearsal the technical crew sat down for 30 minutes for a full on crew meeting to resolve last minute issues and make sure we’re all on the same page, so to speak. The director, AD, DP, producer, props, and other departments had a final check before we do the double overnight thing.

It’s really going to be a slog but I can’t wait. Everyone seems extremely professional and knowledgeable. I’ll post in a few days.

*UPDATE* I forgot to mention that I got to try out my new AT 4073a microphone tonight. LOVE. It’s a huge improvement over the old ME66 I was using. It was about half the price of the standard workhorse 416’s, but (IMHO), 95% the sound. Just a wonderful mic with an extremely long reach, great rejection, nice air, and lightweight (a good attribute when you’re holding it overhead for a few hours)

About a week ago someone on the film list of which I’m a member posted that they needed a soundamn for a two day shoot. I made the call, met some people, and got the gig. I’m really excited about it and have been prepping the past few days by going to the location, reading the script, studying storyboards, and generally doing the conscientious soundman things. One of the cool things about the gig is that the 16 page script (about 15 minutes) takes place entirely at night. As a result, our shoot starts on Friday night at sunset and goes until sunrise, then repeats the following night. I’m gradually adjusting my sleep time by one hour later each night (not hard to do for me anyway). By Friday I figure I’ll be staying up until 4 or 5 AM and sleeping until noon or 1. When the shoot arrives I’ll be fairly fresh in the middle of the night. I’m looking forward to the challenge. I’m unreasonably excited about this and haven’t the foggiest idea why, except that maybe once we’re all bleary eyed and sleep deprived it’ll feel like a feature film set around day 85. Think of me this weekend.

The other thing that happened this morning is I finally decided that the time was right to invest some more in my audio kit. I’ve been renting a mic and boom pole for several years and decided that I had a good idea what I wanted to own long term, so this morning I took the plunge and purchased a 20 foot breakaway cable, a professional 13 foot carbon fiber boom pole, a shotgun mic, a mount, and the harness system for my audio gear bag. The harness system means I can hang the bag in front of me comfortably instead of draping it off-center over one shoulder. It’ll be MUCH more comfortable long term than the old way.

The gear took some courage to hit the BUY button on, but I’m glad I did it. I’m now the proud owner of a truly professional mic, brand new, who’s history, condition, and provenance I don’t have to question. When you’re the only member of the audio dept, and some director has put the entirety of the audio for their baby on your shoulders, it’s nice to know that you can trust the gear. As good a job as the rental house did of maintaining their gear, I never had that 100% faith. A reputation means never being caught short with a bad mic, or having to apologize and stop production while you go search out another mic, so it’s nice to have this covered. I’m still renting the two wireless systems, though. Those range from $500 to $4000 EACH so it’ll be awhile until I’m ready to commit to buying them.

So now I’ve got a killer little mixer, a stellar mic, a very useful breakaway cable, a light and sturdy boom pole, and a harness system/bag to hold it all, not to mention all the fun little accessories that make life easy on the set. Bring on the work!

The list of reasons why everyone should start a business, and why the home is a great first frontier for many of those businesses, is long. Here are some examples:

1. Because of online and communications technology, you can start many businesses at little or no cost.

2. You can start a side business without foregoing your “secure” day job.

3. You can spend more of your time doing something you’re passionate about.

4. You can make a little extra money, and maybe eventually ramp up to replacing that day job.

5. The biggest companies now have many free or inexpensive solutions available for small business making it easier than ever to start and grow.

6. If you have a family, just imagine what a positive impact it could have on your children as they watch you toil, create, breakthrough, tough it out, and demonstrate how to take control of your life and live passionately rather than being a cog in the wheel.

7. Outsourcing enables you to streamline your activities (and the physical footprint) of your business so that you focus on doing the work you love and farm out the other stuff.

8. Home-based business is generally accepted - even preferred - as a mode of business in the marketplace these days (whereas before there were credibility issues).

9. Tax write-offs are often available.

10. You take control of your destiny rather than relying on someone else to make the right decisions for your future.

link

Holy Cow, Snapper is cool. I might have to get me that thar thingie. It would sure beat spending a ton of time in the finder clicking and manipulating a lot of files.

“Keep Rolling from the Top“. The Boom Operator Blues.

Storme and Lee got interviewed on Churchy Media. Cool.

Total pages: 368
Total “active measures”: 10,310
Total number of measures: 24,001

My charts for Sing 2008 are done! I still have to copy everything onto card stock and organize it all into folders (which will take a couple of long days), and mix the mini disc (another three or four days), but the vast amount of work is behind me. Sipping on a Glenlivet 18 and enjoying being finished.

Eleven72’s extended Thanksgiving film is up on YouTube. It was a blast doing the audio for this a few months ago, and yes, the boom shadows and mic frame-breaks are intentional.

My friend, VO artist, actor, and professional example, Adam Creighton, has accepted a job on the east coast. He’ll be leaving shortly. You’ll be missed, Adam! Come back and say hi often.