this lossy codec

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.

Currently writing this at Starbucks, using the ATTWifi that ATT graciously allows iphone owners to use for free. It is unfortunate they don’t allow ATT subscribers to use their computers as well. Yet here I am, typing away. Sure, it took about 30 minutes but now that I have it setup I’ll be good to go next time (fingers crossed). It’s pretty simple although the command line coding will probably scare off most people. Still, for the record, here is the link to where I found it:

Hack for Free Starbucks wi-fi on your laptop (if you have an iPhone

I was a little confused by the digits that look like “ones” (11) but are actually supposed to be “elle’s” (ll). so, it would look like this:

sudo ifconfig en1 down lladdr 00:11:22:33:44:55
where the digits are replaced w/ the MAC address of your iphone.

Pretty sweet that this works. hope it continues to.

In all the hullabaloo of catching you up on my recent activities I totally neglected to wax on about stuff unrelated to me (or maybe not!.  On Wednesday I got an email from a friend alerting me to the sad passing of television superstar Patrick McGoohan.  Unless you grew up in the 60′s and had a fascination for british conspiracy shows you might not know him.  McGoohan was the creator, director, producer, writer and star of one of the strangest and coolest shows of all time, The Prisoner. Now, to be fair, he didn’t write and direct all 17 episodes but he did the original 7 and is credited with conceiving of the concept for the show.

Basically, he plays a retired ex-spy who is kidnaped and taken to a resort community and given the title “Number 6″ (to preserve anonymity everyone is given a number).  The president of the Village (as it is called) is Number 2 and the series shuffles through a new number 2 pretty much every episode (as 6 thwarts their ability to crack him).  Meanwhile 6 is continually asking “Who is Number 1?”.  The whole show is considered a mythic psychodrama and often the action takes place inside 6′s head while doctors use drugs and technology to manipulate his dreams and ego.  The final 2 episodes are arguably the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on tv (although Lost & Fringe are getting pretty close). The show was shot during 67-68 so you can imagine the cultural forces at play that were influencing the storyline. 

So, then later on I got another email from a friend alerting me that Ricardo Montalban diedthe same day.  Now, I didn’t notice anything particular odd at first about 2 television stars dying.  A follow up email pointed out that it was a “bad day for guys whose shows took place on imaginary islands” (Now, unless you are muchyounger than me you will recall Montalban as “Mr. Rourke” from Fantasy Island.  Now, ok ok ok. Thats not that weird  right?  Except that Lost (another show about a disappearing island that has taken  obvious inspiration from The Prisoner) is  premiering its 5th season next week! Now I’m starting to think those guys on Lost are starting to jack with the  space-time televisual cortex.  

I’m even starting to notice other connections…like the similarities of the map of where we’re moving to & this map from the Prisoner….

Finally some down time so I can write for a while. And considering the amount of coffee I have ingested this should be a doozy. Let’s reflect on what’s new:

For one, I have finally published my Top 100 Photos from the Winter Holiday. Narrowing them down was a tough job and I apologize to those who didn’t make the cut. Just remember, there is always next year (and pay attention here, you can learn a lot about cuteness from these kids). I just noticed many of these are already posted via by other folks…oh well.

Let’s see, what else? Oh, yeah, we have decided to move from our little oasis in the desert to a location closer in to town (Santa Fe). You can see some pix of the inside (w/o our furnishings) here. The neighborhood is called Rancho Viejo. Follow the link to read about the area if interested. Needless to say, it will be quite a shift from our current lifestyle. You see, it has what is called a low environmental impact which means the houses are crammed in together. Also, I guess there are some restrictions about decorating the outside of your house or something because all of them looked very similar when we were there. In the past I have always shied away from environments that enforce uniformity suggest a cookie cutter existence. Perhaps it is the herald of a life shift as the imminent return of baby-dom crests on the horizon. Regardless, there are enough amenities to make the place inviting (like radiant floor heating, curbside trash pickup & potable water out of the tap).

And in case I had any doubts about it, the ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office) settled it all by arranging that the owners of the house actually met 30 years ago at Daniél I my alma mater (FairhavenCollege). Pretty wild. So, anyway, it’s like I said to Daniél, “at least when you follow the suggestions of Fate then what happens is fated and not just by chance.”

Also, I been hired for another movie gig that starts the first week of February. It’s called B.O.E.(click link to see real name). It is being billed as a “post apocalyptic western” and it has a pretty big budget. I’m expecting some explosions and such. Just found out yesterday we’ll be recording analogue (as in tape) so that sounds exciting. Expect lots of news from the field posted soon.

One last note, if anyone has been putting off coming to visit our ghost town existence you’d better come soon. I’ll be filming all through Feb. and we’ll move at the beginning of March. Come visit soon!

Back in ‘the Q’ after a lovely break visiting the fam back in ‘the K’. I put aside the blog while there to focus on the beingness rather than being the observer. This is an experience I am well familiar with and I suppose I have developed an awareness of when to withdraw behind the veil of my perceptive mechanism and make conscious commentary on events around me and when to surrender myself unto the waters of life and allow them to wash over me. To this point it has pretty much been an either or situation. Perhaps someday I’ll develop the ability to exist in the world while simultaneously scripting a narrative about it. Unfortunately, my time has grown short and now I must dive back in.

As I sit here on the cusp of what (historically anyway) will be viewed as “the late naughts” it is customary to put to rest that which is left behind. Arbitrary, really. Still, for whatever reason humans find habit in mapping development, movement and “progress” with markers in the outside world. Hence, the New Year’s Resolution. Generally, I tend to resist making this kind of momentous gesture in fear that a failure to actualize it might gradually chip away at my ‘wholeness’ (As Master Yoda says, “Do or Do Not, there is no try”). Furthermore, the assertion of an “I” at point “Now” making a decision to be “Not this” but “This” challenges a perspective I have intentionally been developing and experimenting with for some time – that all things merge into other things and attempts to divide “this” from “that” or maintain “beingness” against “unbeingness” (or vice versa”) will only succeed as a momentary blip against the eternal flux and flow of constantly shifting uncertainties. There is no “there” there. The building of the castle continues even as the oscillating waves gradually deteriorate the foundation.

Oh well, maybe next year.

Currently cruising down HW-54 in southeastern Kansas en route to KC for the holidaze. WordPress (& it’s companion iPhone app) is awesomely handy. Now, I’m not driving, mind you. That was last night for the first leg if the journey. Our start was later than hoped (a noonish departure turned out to be 6:30pm). Around midnight, eyelids heavy, we pulled into the El Rancho Motel in Elkhart, KS. At least we made it out of NM. The El Rancho Allowed pets and was decently cheap ($60). Looked like a popular place for hunters.

Another 6 hours over gradually rolling hills and plowing (ha) through golden colored fields and the sun sets behind us. The landscape of Kansas has a calming (some might say somnombaliatic) quality. So much open land, like a boat on the ocean. Of course, the land is very different from the water. For one, while the land can be built upon the surface of the water is more tenuous. The give and take relationship of a sailor with the sea is an everpresent necessity. Not so with those who walk the plains.

“Plains”. What of this word? A cursery glance at etymonline.com reveals that the history of this word is long and mysterious. Simple, undecorated?

After selling a couple older mac notebooks I just scored 17″ 2.5ghz for 1500! Shawing!

Ok, ok, ok already. Like a telltale heart beating under the floorboards, as is the constant refreshing of the browsers of my audience, haunting me with questions and uncertainty – “did the movie finish?” “did he die before it’s completion?” “what of it you jerk, don’t leave us hanging here” and so on and so on. So here you have it. Though some time has now veiled my memory I’ll try to recollect.

The truth is that we were moving so fast on that final day in a rush to get through and it may have been the coldest day for us yet so that I rarely had a chance to pull off my gloves to get my fingertips close enough to exchange electrons with the screen of my iPhone (that’s how this happens you know). As for specifics, I did feel like I had one of my consistently best booming days. Pulled off some tricky maneuvers and captured some quality sound. Felt good. After lunch the production handed out our wrap gifts; doc west shirt, hat, belt & buckle(!), crew picture and a letter from Julio (the director). We shot until way after dark and it got colder and colder. The final scene was of Terence (doc west) getting hit on the head by a falling beam. It was kind if odd because due to the nature of the beam gag eveyone had to be out of the barn and film and sound had to be operated remotely. Strange end to the shoot.

That night was the wrap party which for me went until about 3 and required such an amour of recovery that I’m still not sure if I’m recovering from the shoot of the party.

So that’s it (oh yeah, ‘check the gate’ is what the director says to signal that the last shot was good and we should move on. It refers to the film gate and making sure it is clean(no hairs or gunk). Idea being that if the gate is not clean then there may be a problem with the last shot and we would have to ‘go again’).

Now I am in the midst of selling a few different older macs in hopes of buying a new MacBook. This had better happen soon. As of today my phone is my computer.

Thanks for following the blog folks. I will probably slack off for a while as I only tend to get fervent about this when I have some interesting project going on. Until then…the photo is from yesterday, driving down hw14. The clouds were really wild and at one point this materialized.

Well the final few days are going smooth. The weather has been holding off and the crews’ spirits are high. Every shot, every hour and every minute bring us that much closer to wrapping. To top it all off, on Tuesday we were surprised to be visited by a contingency of Tibetan Buddhist monks (oddly enough, I dined at the table next to them the day before). After lunch the crew entertained them with soccer tricks, juggling, accordian and animal tricks. Then, the whole crew gathered together and the monks chanted a blessing for us. I’m certain that to many their low gutteral tones were strange but I was grinning from ear to ear (this branch of Buddhism is close to my heart). After that, purified by blessing, we finished the day.
Today, we burnt down the barn.

Getting down to the leftover scraps. No more thanksgiving sandwiches. Maybe enough for a thanksgiving shake.

Ahhh. 4 whole says off in a row. Refreshed. Back on set today but in a novel environment. ‘Inside.’ Specifically, inside the Masonic Hall in downtown Santa Fe. Very comfortable (ie. Not freezing). That, combined with the fact that the script for the day seems to reflect a complete lack of any dialogue whatsoever and the fact that only 4 more days of this picture remain, takes the edge off of the whole “waking up at 4am on the Monday following a holiday weekend” thing. As today will, most likely, be uneventful, I’ll unload my Thanksgiving for you.
The Playlist
What defines Thanksgiving music? To some it never goes further than ‘Alice’s Resaraunt’. To me it is some kind of Amercana aesthetic combined with the autumnal folk vibe of those gathered around the fire. The basic progression was something like this:
1. Incredible String Band – ‘Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter’. What can I say about ISB? Everything sounds too trite. Let me just say that I will play the song ‘A Very Cellular Song’ on occasions that warrant an uplifting of the spiritual in the tones of youthful, innocent, worldly folk songs.
2. John Fahey – ‘the Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death’
3. ‘Last Kind Words’ – various artists. A collection of blues songs from the 20s & 30s.
4. Pentangle – self titled first record. Folk rock at it’s best.
5. Sandy Bull – ‘Phantasies for Guitar & Banjo’. While possibly classifiable as a ‘folk guitarist’ in the most broad sense, Bull’s ‘Blend’ (as well as ‘Blend 2′ & ‘Electric Blend’) takes the style of folk guitar and applies it to the driving tempo of the middle eastern oud. The piece is long and meditative, stretching to the entire length of an albumside. Not sure how it applies to the theme, aside from being an American playing a guitar. Just an excuse to play one if my favorites I suppose.
6. Harry Partch – ‘The World of…’. A shift into the avant garde. Still, Partch’s independent thinking, whether in inventing homemade instruments or his passion for hobo life exemplify the american pioneering archetype. Plus, for avant garde music it is pretty ‘folky’.
7. David Hykes ‘Hearing Solar Wind’. In case you missed my blog about it, I met Hykes a couple weeks ago and so he has been on my mind. Solar Wind is a masterpiece of acapella chant. Indescribable in it’s novelty. An amazing, moving and inspiring work of sound.
8. Nick Drake ‘Pink Moon’. Brooding but beautiful songs by a guy who makes the soundtrack to sadness, loss an lonliness so beautiful its almost appealing.
9. Vashti Bunyan ‘Just Another Diamond Day’. Whispering, breathy psych folk from the late 60s. Like Drake, Bunyan was also missed in her own time, leaving her records to be rediscovered in 2000. Nowadays we can listen back to and be glad we never had these songs drilled into our heads by popular radio.
10. Terry Riley ‘Shri Camel’. Like icing on the cake or a night cap to settle the mind, Riley’s rolling reputations of ‘just intoned’ organ are a kind of massage on the brain, bringing about a meditative state convulsively.

(In the midst of these were brief cameos of Neil Young’s ‘Tonights the Night’ & an obscure Folkways lp of songs by Allen Ginsburg (recorded by Harry Smith!).

What else? Hmmm. Thanksgiving sandwiches the day after. Mmm good. Thanksgiving shake anyone? Anyway, it was good. And today wasn’t too bad either. Ended up wrapped by 2:30! An 8 hour day? Whoa! Apparently, the next 3 days won’t be so easy…

Yesterday was spent booming in the sheriff’s office (and ultimately a picture wrap on the sheriff, Paul Sorvino). His presence will be missed by many as he was always telling stories and playing characters and (of course) singing Italian opera or old cowboy songs.
This morning, as my alarm stirred me, I had a dream vision that getting out of bed would require me to do so without making any shadows (this is a major part of booming). It’s a good thing this show is almost finished. It’s beginning to haunt my time off.
If you want to check out a trailer for the movie it is already available here. It looks pretty good. I think the sound needs a little finishing. Sounds a little over tweaked (not my fault).
Anyway, we ended the day (& a short week for thanksgiving) waiting for the sunset to get a shot of Doc riding out of it. All in all a pretty mellow day. Almost no dialogue, just the ambience of horse hooves.

Charles Fort once wrote, “reality is indistinguishable from dream existence.” The implications of this line of thought are at once profound and unsettling. I mention it because the ‘doc west’ set has been leaking into the dream matrix. It is probably no surprise that I have had a few dreams about life on the set. Perhaps more interesting is an email I got from someone who follows the blog. I’ll preserve their anonymity here but give you the gist.
Basically, s/he was asking the people at the saloon and general store if they were hiring. They replied that there weren’t any openings because they were “just actors.” Sometimes dream logic just stops my brain in it’s tracks. My brain is still grappling with that one.

The pic here is a good example of what my perspective has been all week. It’s the ‘poker tournament’ and that means shot after shot of disqualification rounds of bit part characters with no dialogue in a room constantly being pumped full of ‘safe’ but irritating fx smoke. On the upside, we are shielded from the wind and, actually, it can get pretty warm up on my post on the balcony, due to the several thousand watt lights around. Somehow I make it through another day without knocking something over or getting the pole tangled in the morass of wire and rope suspended from the ceiling.