The Big Think

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.

Plasma TV buying guides. I’m in the throes of a decision on which 32″ HDTV to buy for my studio wall. Guides like this help.

Had a good time today on the set of Friday Night Lights as an extra. We worked from 3:30 until 9:30 (actually on set from about 6-9). If you watch the show look for me in the background of both the breakfast and the dinner-time scene of episode 8. I’m wearing the brown fabric baseball cap in the b-fast scene and a generic blue t-shirt (no cap) in the night scene.
Fun! My friend Zach, who I worked with a few years ago on the 48 hour film festival, was pulling focus for camera C. I caught up with him briefly after we were done. He’s been working on the show for its whole run so far. Good on him.

I also observed that they run a very tight audio ship, which is typical (20 crew for the camera and visual side of things and three for the audio side). All the actors were wired (yikes!) and the boom supplemented for a couple of tight shots. Very efficient and fast moving set.

I hadn’t eaten much when I got to the extras holding area and I just missed the food being served, so I was pretty hungry. When we got to the diner they put our breakfasts in front of us and said “eat!” so I dug in gratefully. I was almost finished and a set decorator said “oh, you’re almost done. I’ll get you another one so we can do the scene again”. So I had to eat some more.

Thirty minutes later they picked me and one of the female extras to sit at the same table for the dinner/nighttime scene. This time they plopped down a couple of cheeseburgers and said “eat!”. By this time I was getting full, but I took a few bites. Same story. “Oh, your burger looks bad. Here’s another one. Eat!”.

No wonder everyone exercises so much in Hollywood. *burp*

It’s a little early for turkey (for most of us), but you can now see the Thanksgiving video I worked on a few weeks ago over at eleven72. Enjoy!

I’m driving the boom all day today for a Thanksgiving shoot with Storme and Lee. The script is a hoot and it’s always a grand time working with these guys. I’m sore by the end of the day but it’s totally worth it. Should be fun!

I just booked an audio gig in a few weeks with a crew I’ve worked with before. I’m really looking forward to it. The director is a lot of fun to work with and the script is a riot. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.

I’m getting some mileage on the new SD302. It’s a completely unassuming bit of gear that’s built like a tank (cast aluminum) and it transparent as wet gossamer. I think you could throw the thing down a cliff and it would operate just fine after. It’s got most of the bells and whistles you need while still remaining very small- about the size of a paperback book.

It’s sitting proudly on my desk. I always get a kick out of people when they ask about the mixing toy.

Adam posts a very nice summary of our tracking and editing session the other day, with a picture of the inside of the booth!
Thanks, Adam!

My friend, vocal/actor extraordinaire, and all around good guy Adam Creighton came over today to finish tweaking his character demo in the studio. This has been an invaluable exercise in learning the idiosyncrasies of the new setup as well as getting some hands-on time with the 5.0 version of Digital Performer.

We spent about 4 hours auditioning and adding sound effects and music to his sixty second character demo. I’m gearing up to offer demo recording packages to local voiceover talent as part of the studio remodel. Adam’s will serve as an example of what kind of service I can provide. I’m rather pleased with the results. Take a listen.

Sean has a nice writeup of our session the other night. Thanks, Sean!

Geeky post. Just ignore.

Been messing around in Soundtrack Pro looking at the sfx and foley stuff, as well as Apple’s idea of audio workflow. I still don’t think Apple has quite the power in Soundtrack that they want the public to believe (jumping from version 1.1 straight to version 2 is a bit of a cheat), but Soundtrack Pro has some amazing features that leave other audio apps (Pro Tools and Digital Performer) in the dust. Stuff like auto click removal and DC offset fixes, as well as timeline conformity across several apps (mainly FCP). I only hope they continue to improve the product.

For now, even though it means a bit more hand tweaking, I’ll stick with DP. As a result of the session today with Adam I’m going to go ahead and upgrade to the X version of DP. I discovered that the computer likes to rev the internal fans up to full power when in OS 9. During the tracking session today it got hard to hear detail with the machine screaming along next to me. It’s virtually silent (okay, not silent, but much quieter) in X, and the power management software in OS X enables better cooling at slower fan speeds. I can even close the cabinet door and the computer doesn’t go into high-power conniption mode after three minutes. And I can monitor the internal heat in X. I can’t do this in OS 9 for some reason. The HD temp rarely gets above 110 degrees F so I don’t have much to worry about, but I’m loathe to seal the computer in the cabinet without sufficient circulation. I’d hate to see silicon melt.

I’m looking at other equipment upgrades as well, but those won’t be for awhile, or unless I get a big gig that enables them. I really need to get the AT4035a mic and boom kit from B&H, as well as a wireless mic (the Sennheiser G2). I’m considering a solid state recorder like the Marantz PMD670 or even the Tascam HD-P2 down the road. With this rig I could record on location at 48khz/24 bit resolutions straight to a CF card that would transfer data directly to the Mac. Dual record systems for film work (instead of the adequate but non-redundant system of recording straight into camera), as well as the ability to record foley and fx work in the field. I’d love to take the system to the shooting range up the road and spend the afternoon, then dump all those samples into Apple’s Loop Utility and categorize them. It’d be fun banging around to get sfx in the shop, too. I had to do a bunch of shop-sound foley a few years ago and lugging the tools upstairs into the studio was a huge pain. I don’t have any way to record off-site except for the wonky DAT deck (or a client’s DV camera), so having a system like this would greatly add to my flexibility.

Lots of gear that I could get, but it won’t be happening for little while. Still, today was a good work day. It’s good to feel the business momentum!

Today I had the most excellent day of voiceover work in the new studio. My friend and actor/voiceover artist (and there’s a big difference! Just because you can act doesn’t mean that you can do convincing voice work) Adam Creighton came over and we spent about 6 hours wringing out the new booth, new mic, workflow, and everything else that pertains to having sessions here. It was a great experience. Adam got some new additions to his demo and I got to tweak and track down gremlins. It was particularly helpful to have someone in the booth so that I could see what my workflow is going to be. How am I going to interact with the computer and the mixer (which are about 7 feet apart)? How is the workspace in the booth (need a clip-on music stand). Where should the talent stand in order to use the window most effectively? Do I need any more equipment (as always, yes: more auralex, bass traps, monitor mounts, a better talkback mic setup, and a small headphone mixer).

Adam spent about 90 minutes in the booth positively wringing himself out doing all kinds of different stuff. He went from soft Japanese Kanji-Master (okay, you know what I mean, grasshopper) all the way to enraged comic book superhero (wow!) while I tried to follow his levels and get a good setting on the gear. His performance gave the new AT4040 mic a serious workout and convinced me that it really is at the top of the pack for the price.

After the recording we did some editing and comping of the raw tracks, in addition to laying out a good flow for the two 60 second demos. We’ll add music and sfx early next week. I’ll be sure to post the demos here and link to Adam’s demo site.

By the way, if you’re in the market for a really stellar v/o talent, give Adam a call. He’s quite a good actor, as well. He’s had gigs on Friday Night Lights, industrial and training films, and all sorts of other projects. Plus, he’s a real pro and a pleasure to work with. And he likes buffalo wings. How can a guy who likes wings be bad?

I got some good pics of Adam in the booth for the eventual website upgrade/redo. I keep promising to post studio construction pics. Sorry that I haven’t done it yet. I want to do a really good job on the post and that will take awhile.

Had lunch today with Storme and Lee from eleven72 productions. They came over to eat some homemade bagel sandwiches and check out the new studio. Thanks guys!

Pictures to come soon.

The Ten Commandments of shooting sound for picture. Yes! Yes, yes, and YES!

I especially liked #3:

2) Thou shalt budget or make arrangements for a dedicated boom operator (aka: No, the boom op is not just another “carbon-based stand”).

I’ve been on several low/no budget shoots where, as production sound mixer, I was promised a boom operator, since I don’t personally know of any that would do the job for free (for which I don’t blame them in the slightest).

Inevitably, production assigns me either a Craigslist volunteer who’s never operated before, or someone who “totally went through the audio program at the Art Institute”, and thinks that learning game audio for post qualifies them for the position. I’ve worked with both, and while they’ve all been perfectly nice people who really gave it their all, the simple fact is that it’s too critical a job to just drop on whoever is within arm’s reach.

The audio department’s job is to shoot your sound, just as the camera department’s job is to shoot your picture.

Good boom ops know acoustics, microphones, and lighting techniques. They have to be able to direct the boom to the right actor on cue, silently, while making sure not to cast a visible shadow. They have to be physically agile, able to walk backwards while not running into camera rigging or tripping over dolly track. They have to be able to hold a boom fully extended over their head for hours a day.

Would you really expect to shoot your movie if the camera operator was someone who had never touched a camera before in their life? If you wouldn’t ask this of the camera department, don’t expect the audio department to do it.

The best sets I’ve worked on involve the director and DP understanding this and giving sound not priority, but consideration. And they invariably end up with happy directors, producers, investors, and audiences. An extreme example of the opposite I’ve seen is crummy audio that was the result of poor planning and a lack of understanding about how audio works (not to mention the dreaded “just fix it in post” attitude). What happened? Well, for one thing, the movie never made it to the audience, partly because of bad sound. A very expensive mistake.

I was interviewed a few months ago for Austin’s Caught in the Act magazine, the magazine for the Austin film and television trade. They interviewed me as a composer and audio guy and I got to share about the importance of (quality) music and (understandable) audio. You can check it out in this month’s issue.

Sheetrock is done! Hallelujah. I actually have a 12×12″ patch to apply to the wall over the hole I cut to extricate the network wiring, but the main batch is up. My hands hurt, but it’s done. Progress should be quick for the next few days.