this lossy codec

Cole was always wary of my blog, preferring to called ‘boom guy x’ instead of his real name. Why? I guess it cramped his style. He said it was something about anonymity or someone finding him…As if his name wasn’t going to be on the credits anyway. “Besides,” I tried to tell him, “who reads my blog anyway?”

Well, both he and I were vindicated today when comments about Cole began to flood my inbox awaiting approval. It appears someone was in fact reading my blog and it was to find information about him. Cole’s family had found my post, presumably, while searching for information about his accident on the web (as I had, unsuccessfully). I guess Cole was right! Still, I am glad to have gone against his wishes to remain anonymous if I have benefited his friends and family in some way. If you knew Cole, please read the comments linked to at the bottom of the previous post and feel free to submit your own. Furthermore, Cole’s good friend and his boss & mine, David Brownlow, posted a really wonderful memorial on the ramps (rec.arts.movie.production.sound) board. Several folks have shared there as well: In Memory of Cole Gittinger.

As for me, today was rough though probably not as hard as yesterday. Of course, ‘the show must go on’ as they say and I heard a couple people mentioning how they felt it inappropriate to be shooting today. I understand and I have felt that way before, but honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to process than by working. Further, the outpouring of love and support from the crew was really spectacular. Kind of like a family coming together to support one another. People across all departments loved & respected Cole. Still, it was hard and every hug I got brought tears to my eyes. I suppose it will get harder as the days go by and the ‘conscious’ outpouring of compassion is forgotten by many. As for me, I just can’t imagine getting used to his absence.

Before I sign off I’d like to leave you all with something that was shared at the wake I was attending Saturday night. Actually, it was something being shared there from a previous wake. A small child, upon seeing all the adults trying to cope with the passing of a close one said, “You know, she went straight up.”

If Cole passed from this world in any way like he lived in it, then he is there, unburdened, free and finding his own way. Blessings & Peace in your passing, my friend. You will be missed.

This is going to be a little hard.

Last night I attended a wake for Lake, a friend of Daniél’s, who had passed away recently after a long struggle with cancer. I knew her only slightly but learned much more about her over the course of the stories & ceremony. It was a deeply moving event and there seemed to be a real catharsis over the course of the night that allowed for a true and graceful acceptance of the natural process of death.

Later, at home, Dani & I spoke about death & dying and compared our own experiences of losing people close to us (we both had tragic losses in our teenage years). It seemed apparent that, toward the end of her life, there was an acceptance and resignation that death was inevitable that allowed Lake and her loved ones to prepare consciously for her passing. It seemed apparent to me that this could be the most therapeutic way for loved ones to prepare – to know and begin to slowly become prepared for their inevitable disappearance. For death, otherwise, confronts the human ego with a fact that it forever seems to be trying to avoid – that this life is temporary and just as the miracle of birth is one aspect of life, so to is death just as mysterious and omnipresent.

I wish I could end this post here, with a seemingly significant statement that we can hold in our mind without having to be faced with these facts any more intimately. Unfortunately, it is not so. This morning I got a call from David telling me that my friend and colleague, Cole Gittinger (aka ‘boom guy x’) was killed in a tragic car accident last night. As you would expect I am in shock and as I’m sure many of his friends are, totally devastated but his sudden passing.

I had spent a lot of time with Cole over the past several weeks, both on set and off. After work I’d frequently join him in his hotel room (which he’d decked out with Turkish rugs he had recently begun collecting). He was full of life and a ‘free spirit’ if ever there was one. With the money he made booming he traveled the world and was planning a trip to (and across, via horse) Mongolia after this picture. He shared his knowledge and experience working in the industry with me openly and I learned a lot (mostly off the set). When, after work, I would be complaining about something David had hassled me about, Cole would tell me stories about David falling into a river while booming or falling off an apple box during a shot. Jokingly, in reference to his lifestyle, he had said he probably had less than 5 years left. Strange how things like that come up.

While we were down shooting in Carizozo, he had taken David and I to Lincoln, the site of the Lincoln County War. Apparently, Cole had done some studying of Billy the Kid and knew quite a bit about the war. He’d even begun to think of moving to Lincoln, if just for a summer.

How strange it seems now, the wake, the conversation with Daniél last night and now this tragic loss.

While we finished shooting some insert shots of the ‘engineer’s shop’ scece I had the chance to shoot the breeze with T.W. At the request of the directors he had brought (delivered actually) an old ‘barrel piano’. I’d never seen one of these things. Sort of like a player piano crossed with a music box. The barrel itself is quite large and, presumably, not interchangable meaning this is a ‘one-tune-instrument’. Unfortunately the barrel had become swollen & cracked from exposure over the years (over 150 of them). It still could be wound up and rotated but it was all catywampus so it played no recognizable tune.

In between takes I struck up a conversation with Tom. I had a compilation called Gravikors, Whirlies & Pyrophones that he had written an introduction to so I asked him if he’d built any instruments lately. He told me that he didn’t really build them (though he had friends that did) but sometimes he said he’d go into a hardware store and bang on stuff. He then mentioned Reed Ghazella, the godfather of cicuit bending, and Harry Partch, the godfather of experimental musical instruments. This opened the door for me to tell him about my own creations (the ‘electroacoustycle’ & circuit bent speak ‘n spell – with an obvious nod to Mr. Ghazella on that one). How cool it was to wrap with him on such familiar subjects.

On the down side, once his scenes were finished he mentioned his impending flight & was scurried off to get de-wardrobed & shuttled to the airport. This meant the sound crew was robbed of the chance to record Tom playing (er, plunking) the hammers of the barrel piano. Instead, we recorded the sound of the wind up motor running and the few disonant plinks & plunks that still made contact with the barrel. Then “boom guy x” (name witheld at his request) manually played the hammers in leu of Tom. Saddest part of all, fair readers, is that somehow I neglected to snap a pic of Tom or even the barrel piano for you all to see. Sad sad sad. I’ll see if I can get on from the set dress guys.

Today’s end wrapped us out of Carizozo (or the ‘zizo’ as we have dubbed it) and sent me back to Santa fe.

Whew! Sheesh! I’m forcing myself post an update even though my spirit really isn’t in it. The past couple days have been pretty brutal. It’s been an gunfight sequence (outside of course) and the weather has been typical New Mexico in the springtime (windy and alternatively hot or cold). Today was cold, yesterday hot, tomorow a chance of freezing rain. Lots of gunfire & lots of dust blowing around. Same old same old. Ah well, guess it wasn’t that bad.

Pix provide a dual view of front & back of one of the buildings.

A little discombobulated as I write this. Before I try to dig out a story from last weeks end I will try to explain the forces that brought about my current state.

In case you were unaware, we had to work on Saturday. Gratefully though, sound (among others) got wrapped early and I was back in Santa fe by 5. No rest for the weary though as the house in Golden still needed the final clean. So that was Saturday’s activities. Ended up finally unpacking the vehicles around 7pm. After packing I was back on the road down to ruidosa by 9 (7am call in the morning) finally arriving at the hotel around 1am. After this it gets more blurry. Right before closing my eyes I recalled that tonight was when clocks were to be moved forward. Unfortunately, the automatic clock setting on my phone had been screwing up ever since I got to ruidosa. After struggling in my confusion I settled and went to sleep. It wasn’t until after my alarm had woken me from a brief night’s sleep and I was showered and awake that I came to realize that somehow I had woken up an hot earlier than I needed. Thus, insted of 4 hours of sleep I got only 3. Good grief. Oh well. At least I had time to hit the starbucks across the street. And it’s raining anyway. Who knows what we’ll be able to shoot…the rain & wet everything don’t really match the post-apocolyptic windblown dust storms of our previous shots. Standing by…

Five hours later and the crew is desperately trying to turn rain soaked everything into dust & dirt blown. Great big fan blowing dirt everywhere. Just when we get it the rain starts up again. We eventually pull a couple shots off and are let out early. We’ll pay for it later…

Another ridiculous commute from
Riodosa to “the highway of death” (somewhere near White Sands). This time though mostly cloud covered though the forecast was windy. We had wind but the clouds made a short day of it by annhiliating our dry lake bed / miragey scene.

Still, sound was in action and I was instrumental. A big wide shot with no chance for boom and the whipping wind demanded a serious lav mic’ing with a totally gacked up wind cover. It was ok. I’ve broken my stride with “D” & wiring M.K. Is no sweat because she is laid back and has been wired a million times from her work on that 70′s show.

All things considered, we were able to ‘dig it out’ and ended up capturing decent sound for a 20-30 mph wind storm.

A little exploring around Ruidosa last night and an early turn in at a much nicer hotel. I don’t actually recall falling asleep but I suspect I was able to get a adaquate nights sleep for once, despite a 5:30am call for a bus pickup at the hotel. Not sure how long that ride was. At some point we land at White Sands National Monument, eat & are treated to an orientation lecture to inform us what kinds of activities will get us kicked out of the park (almost anything but breathing).

(later on)

Well, another banner day for the sound crew. Although we were transpo’d all over hell & high water (that morning drive took 1.5 hrs) and pulled out the sound cart, jammed up the slates & the cameras & had the boom all rash to go, no actual usable audio was put to tape. Sometimes the shot just doesn’t have sound and sometimes there is just too much noisy machinery around to get anything usable. A waste of a day but still, a paycheck.

Still, I snapped some good pix.

Today was a shift. After filling another couple carloads and driving them to the new place I finally hit the sheets around midnight. Up at 6 to pack for 10 days of uncertain new Mexican weather down around Ruidosa. On the road by 9:30.

Upon arrival at location we eat, and shoot for 2 hours. That’s it. Then we split to our hotels 40 miles away down in Ruidosa. Last time I was here was watching my grandfathers horse race probably 20 years ago or more.

En route down we hit the most insane road construction I have ever encountered. The pix hardly paint a picture. I guess the stimulus pkg must me kicking in.

Back on set after a brutally exhaustive weekend. In case you weren’t following my updates on twitter we are in the midst of relocating. Saturday was spent packing (mostly my office – I have too much stuff). Sunday we picked up a truck and with the assistance of some very blessed souls were able to pack it full and unload at the new place by late afternoon. After shuffling cars and finagling more help and another vehicle a late night run was made for more stuff resulting in a pickup truck piled high like a scene from Sanford & son. I finally hit the sheets in our new crib around 1:30. Had to get up at 5 to make the 7am call in Abq. Ugh. Now I’m a walking zombie. 1000m B12 from the medic, 800m ibuprofren from one of my moving compatriots then David sends me to take a nap bit I get intercepted by Saul from craft service who insists on giving me an afternoon espresso. Now I’m in my car, contemplating both.

After a couple short reshoots in the am (no dialogue) on Thursday the sound crew went on stand by for half the day.

Just before lunch we got our chance. We’d been waiting for the stunt crew to get free of the green screen so they could come down to the culvert location from earlier in the week. This was our second chance to capture the sound from a fight sequence and this time we were prepared with these. The work was a bit rushed as the stunt guys needed to get back to the camera but we pulled off 8 or 9 takes (and some of them sounded good despite the wind that still howled through that tunnel. Pretty cool experience though.

After lunch we waited and waited and waited. Apparently T.W. needed quite a while to get his wardroom & makeup done. Unfortunately, when the time finally arrived for his scene with G.O. and the AD called for ‘a bell’, only then did I realize I had neglected to gather up the ‘bell & light’ gizmo (this is rung / turned on right before we shoot to lock down the building so no one interrupts the shot). Oh well. I shot up and ran around searching for it. Apparently, the stage manager had “helped” by taking it over to stage 4 for the green screen shooting (even though sound didn’t roll there….).

Ah well. Lesson learned. Pic is of our D.W. stunt stand in with mics in his ears.

Today brought a change of atmosphere. Gone (uh, for now) is the smoke filled (what is that stuff anyway?) stages & stresses of wrangling cable over powerful electric cables that pollute our pure, clean audio w/ yucky RF & 60 cycle hum noise. No, now we are in the open air, fresh and comfortable. But wait a second. No, wait. The sun is getting higher. It is getting HOT. OH GOD, the HUMANITY, please make it stop.

Oh well. there was a brief period of comfortableness. Too burnt to write any more. And this is only the beginning of outside. It’s only February and already burning up. Sheesh.

Another day in the sun but the forecast is a little milder (still, a high of 70 all week here in Abq). Shooting pace was a bit slower as we were now dealing with special fx (amputated limbs squirting blood, etc – fun stuff). Still had a little dialogue to shoot though. All was going smoothly until about 3:30 when out of nowhere up comes a dust storm. Wooooeeeee. To try to paint a picture, the crew was stationed underneath a culvert (almost a tunnel) in the middle of a deserty-landscape. In fact, from the looks of it, the set had been dressed with more sand & dirt to make it properly emulate a “post-appocolyptic wasteland.” Anyway, as you can imagine, the tunnel channeled the wind & dust strait through it and, with the same suddeness that a real appocolypse occurs, transformed the set into a man vs. nature scene. Quickly, those prepared donned goggles (& some masks) and commenced to assisting those without. Pretty intense, especially thinking that in all likelyhood we’ll be seeing a lot of this weather.

Still, we pulled off a couple good shots that, thanks to the dust & wind, really captured the landscape the movie is attempting to portray.

Oh yeah, the pix:

- an attempt to show how close aircraft were flying (in this one – a huey)
- the tunnel itself
- my dirt covered mug

Ok. No excuses. Thursday & Friday of last week had strong potential for blog- fodder. Hacked up cadavers all over the floor (see pic) & more time-codey-goodness. The pix speak for themselves but the timecode…ahhh timecode, the bane of a sound utility’s existence.

After some more tests with the Red cam tech crew the problem with drift was isoated to (guess what) the Nagra. Apparently the timecode crystal needs tuning every, say, 30 years or so. Anyway, it just wasn’t keeping good time and since we’ve been using it as our master clock it was giving our edit / post friend headaches.

Anyway, Friday morning, after deciding I start using the Sound Devices 744T recorder as the master clock we suddenly had a problem with the bloody sync box not jamming the camera (oh god this is a dull post). So there I am huffing and puffing up & down the stairs, back & forth from set to the sound cart triying every combination of device jamming fruitlessly. Finally, I try a new cable & discover the problem. With the new cable I scurry back to set, by now dripping with sweat and get the cameras jammed. By now the actors are on set & I am thrown into the action to second boom a scene I am only periferally familiar with (a boom op’s nightmare). Furthermore, this was the firat time D.M. & G.O. had a scene together so there was a bit of pressure there. Miraculously, it went off without a hitch. Still, it sucks to think you are prepared only to find out in the last minute you are not. At least it made the day interesting.

Enjoy the pix. Btw, first phase of moving began this weekend. Next weekend the real deal. Any interested parties contact me directly.

A bit of a change today when a friend of David’s brought in a binaural head named Fritz. Apparently these are very rare (only 22 of them in the world!). What is it? At first it seems simple : a mannequinesque head with microphones planted in the ears to simulate the experience of listening. Understand, there are actual ears because the shape of the ear does indeed effect the way we hear. To be more accurate it helps us orient sounds in the space around us. To highlight this effect David had arranged to have this head put into the center of a fight scene to (hopefully) emulate the experience of the fight happening around the hero. The fight scene is pretty intense (seems like about 10-15 people are involved). All in all, it went well. I was thrust into the position of Mixer as Dave was mixing on the other set. Still, it was over all to quickly as the stunt guys had to get to lunch.

One of the pics is of Dave Weininger, a really cool guy who brought and is pictured here w/ Fritz. That link on his name will give you a glimpse of how much of a mad scientist this guy is. The other pictures of are of some seriously real looking fake guys. It took me walking over to check these guys out several times before I believed they were “really” “not real.” Ah, movie magic.

Week 3 started off with, well, a day off. And wasn’t that nice. Tuesday we are ‘back in’.

Fight scene this morning. Pretty cool, with a motion capture setup to film the scene. This involved a dolly track that wrapped around the action and a dolly w/ a camera and a huge snake of cables flying up above from the camera. The dolly moved on some kind of motor (pretty fast and pretty noisy). The fight scene itself was incredibly well choreographed.

Later on it was insert shots and little this and that. NO DIALOGUE. So, pretty slow day… You’d think I would have had time to get this blog done before landing back in the hotel. Problem was, it was such a slow day I could hardly think of anything to blog about.

Tomorrow should be interesting though. A friend of David’s is bringing in a couple of cool toys. One is a holophone. The other is a binaural microphone. I guess we are going to rig both of them up in the middle of the fight scene to capture the action. Should be cool.

What else? I got some pix today that will be up in a jiffy.

I’d be writing more if things were more interesting. Not that it’s boring but my duties are certainly mundane. Also, the pace of the work is way mellower than previous movies I’ve worked on. One gets the feeling there is lots of money (& subsequently- time). Often enough we (the crew) end up having the shot set and are waiting around for the talent. At this point, at least, it’s nice to not have a producer breathing down your neck to hurry something along. I rarely feel any pressure while wiring someone on set. That gives me the opportunity to focus on wiring well (It certainly can be done poorly). So that is likely the most crucial aspect of my job.

What else?

Let’s see, highlights of week 2.

Working with G.O. Besides being an incredible actor it turns out he is a very cool guy & gracious to work with as well. It’s amazing to see him go from his English accent to a western drawl (while seemingly channeling the spirit of William S. Burroughs) in the blink of an eye. What else can I say? It’s only the 2nd week.

Lowpoints?

Not really a huge deal but this jamming the timecode of the Red camera every 30 minutes or so is kind of a drag. I’ll spare you the technical details…

In other news, the world suffered a tragic loss yesterday in the death of Ed Grothus, owner of the Black Hole and inspirational peace activist and artist. It’s sad he didn’t live long enough to see his Doomsday Stones put into place. Let’s hope his memory lives on.

After an oh so refreshing weekend involving several consecutive naps I returned to work with invigerated spirits. Yesterday was a little odd (full moon – go figure) and it ended up being short too. So far we’ve only been attempting a couple pages a day. Nice pace compared to the usual 4-6. Maybe that’s why this shoot is scheduled for 3 months…we’ll see.

The day might have been shorter still except for some technical issues that needed ironing out. In the end it was a minor fix but I got the credit for it, redeeming me for the moment and ensuring my job security for another week. Next week I guess I will have to engineer another dilema for me to fix.

Best of all, I was able to snag a pic of the set. Totally cool old run down movie theater lobby/balcony. Unbelievably, this whole building is built inside one half of the sound stage.

I found these strange formations growing out of the ice cube tray over the weekend. Kind of freaked us out at first. Still blows my mind a bit. A quick search of the googlewebs for “ice cube odd growth formation” didn’t fail me. In fact, there’s a plethora of info out there on this strange formations. Best place to start is here, a site dedicated to ‘ice spikes’ (as they are called) with a collection of links on the subject. Pretty cool stuff. My favorite is the An account of a walk across a frozen Lake Erie in 1963 with a description of ice spikes as tall as telephone polls!
The last pic is from earlier in the winter back at the Farm in Kansas. Perhaps this ice covered rock can be explained the same way…?

Last day of the first week of principle photography (that’s what they call all the real shooting with actors and whatnot – the next 3 months are all ‘principle photography’). Pretty tough week. Contrary to popular belief, the ‘utility sound’ position is NOT the easiest job on set (though that is what I overheard the otherday). The challenge relates to the diversity of the duties involved (which change depending on the movie, the scene & most significantly, the Sound Mixer). Basically, he tells me what to do and I do it (or try to do it – with a margin of success vs. failure). As anyone who has worked under a boss knows this can get stressful. But I am doing my best to keep a cool head (& keep my hands from shaking while taping a microphone to D. W.‘s chest – he’s very cool though, just intense).

Everyone else on the set has been very gracious & cool as well. G.O., for instance insisted on playing a ‘soundtrack’ while I mic’d him (some old school blues – definitely a cool guy). The directors, Allen & Albert H. are totally chill as well. They’re young (or, uh, er my age anyway) and hip & seem interested in having some fun while we make this movie.

As for the title of this post, I guess it’s sort of an inside boom op joke. Panatape is this gizmo that sits on the camera and uses sonar to provide a digital readout of the distance between the camera and the action. Just one of the noisy parts of a modern movie camera. The ‘conspiracy’ part just refers to the age old battle between sound (or “good”) and camera (or “evil”). Whether the boom is in the shot or camera is making whirring & grinding noises, it blows my mind that this hasn’t been worked out before.

Although shooting (aka ‘Principle Photography’) actually begin tomorrow (2/2/9), I was working most of last week. There were camera tests Monday & Tuesday that we took part in to be sure the work flow of sound & camera were all worked out. Monday we shot some explosions that were incredibly loud and huge. Perfect time to show off the benefits of recording sound to tape (a Nagra IV-S. Tape saturation sure beats digital clipping. Tuesday was a 5 hour marathon shooting a printing press (zzzzzzz…). Woop-de-do.

Anyhoo, the next couple days were spent wrangling gear together and getting prepped. Total new experience for me, having time before we begin shooting. A great start. I’ll try to keep the blog coming although I’m not completely sure how many pix I will be able to take (can you say nondisclosure agreement?). More soon folks.