this lossy codec » Speculation

The final sprint

pointy — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:50:59 +0000

Ok. Well, I kind of gave up on trying to document what was, a painfully monotonous 5 months. Some days were less so but it was becoming difficult to mantain the conditions of the NDA I signed when I began the show. It’s a very fine line trying to document this life while not letting the cat out of the bag.

So here we are, the final few days of the final week of a show that ate half a year of my life (and perhaps more… time will tell). All in all it’s been a great run. Learned a lot more about all kinds of aspects of filmmaking. I’m better at my job for sure. And I understand the roles of other crew better as well.

Night worl

pointy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 06:50:56 +0000

TV work may be involve grueling long hours for months on end but luckily with this show we haven’t had any night work (yet). Alas, there are always exceptions.
It’s getting cold this time of year, which actually, is refreshing. The New Mexico sun can be brutal and the onset of the cool blanket of night helps me understand where the egyptians came up with the concept of worshipping the setting sun (or dying god). Yes indeed, you can always bundle up to stay warm but removing clothes only does so much in dealing with the heat.
Anyway, we’re out in an RV park so it’s a little like camping. At least the “wild” outdoors is a welcome shift from working on the stage all week. Of course, at this point we’re widdling into our weekend hours. Ah, well….
In other news, I’ve gotten offers to work on two other pictures here in New Mexico. Unfortunately, the schedules overlap with this one (& each other) & I can’t really justify leaving this longer show to work on a shorter one. Nice to be in demand.

Boom bump

pointy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:31:37 +0000

I filled in as boom op for Jeff today (as well as last Friday). All in all I think it went pretty great. I had a good time doing it anyway. There’s something really thereputic about it – it’s probably the physical dicipline & focus. My regular job on the other hand is all about sloth & work on the peripheri. Ugh. Not really looking forward to going back to it… For certain, booming is high pressure. Still, even though I was nervous laying in bed last night, a kind of deep calm came over me in the midst of the day. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting comfortable; of getting to the point where you trust the decisions your brain makes. That’s a good feeling.
Jeff says booming is like acting. Much of the time you’re out there with the actors & I guess it’s true, you’re performing. I certainly feel that way – it takes a great deal of effort to pull off. A lot of knowledge & experience as well as finess & grace.
Anyway, there were probably some things I could have done better (better choices I could have made for position, better comunication with the camera crew, etc) but still, I made very few mistakes (dipping into frame, casting a shadow) & for the most part I think I successfully passed myself off as a boom operator.

Mixer dump

pointy — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:45:52 +0000

Boyoboy. Just when I thought the week would pass relatively uneventfully, a major upheaval occurred midway through Friday(uh, last Friday). The mixer, the guy who hired me for this gig, got canned. There were, apparently, some technical issues with the sound he was sending to post. We knew this of course but we weren’t aware of the extent of the problem. As recent as Friday morning I was sending emails to post in a continued effort to troubleshoot what the heck we were doing that was causing such issues. Funny timing, I suppose. Anyway, it made for dark, dark Friday & especially the wrap, where, instead of loading the sound carts onto the camera truck as always, we pulled all the sound gear off the truck & loaded it onto a selerate truck. Made for quite a scene with the crew. Despite the fact that it was made clear that the boom & I were to stay, I couldn’t help feeling bad. Just leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now I’m wondering if we’ll be back to square one with the guys in post.

Tried to get this post up while it was still “news” but the weekend was crazy busy & the week is worse. Anyway, on the fourth day with the new mixer the transition has been relatively smooth. Relatively.

If course, by mid-afternoon the wires have somehow degraded (sweaty actors, etc…) and have now gone all “rustly.” God I hate that. Anyway, I’ll be booming tomorrow & Monday (god willing) as Jeff is taking a couple days off. Should be a nice change of pace. Still, the future in this business, is entirely unpredictable.

Tortuga

pointy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:33:47 +0000

4:am wakeup, stretch (yoga), eat & prepare for the day
5:am leave Santa fe for abq
6:am eat breakfast at basecamp before 6:30 call time
7:30 Outside the Sandi Bar in corallas getting ready for the first shot. Shooting here all day.
8:12 The first shot is off. Kind of an odd day – Spanish dialogue for the duration.
9:30 crafty calls…thank god for crafty.
12:00 nearly lunch already. Time flies when you are reading. (Great article in current Fortean Times on William S. Burroughs.) This is one of those days that earns the cable guy both the hatred & the envey of the crew. Sure, I worked a little; placed a plant mic or two, wired up an actor, replaced a battery in a transmitter pack & handed out some headsets. Those are momentary bursts of activity that are surrounded by long periods of waiting. It’s dangerous business – if something isn’t ready when we start to roll & I’ve been sitting around…it doesn’t look good.
2:pm after lunch rewired the talent & wd-40′d the squeeky door – ready for the first shot after lunch.
3:30 thunder. Sure, we’re shooting inside but there’s alll kinds of electic stuff outside (lights, generators, etc) not to mention our sound carts. We’re hiding under popup tents, anticipating wetness.
5:30 Not much rain after all. Back to sitting around waiting while they film a large turtle (tortoise?) named Otis.
7:30 wander around looking for a place to nap (as expected, 4 hrs sleep has caught up with me). Manage to close eyes for a few minutes. Wander around some more, eventually ending up my craft service (go figure) looking for something to medicate me from all the crap I’ve eaten. While talking to a local neighbor who has set out to watch all the hoopla, he points me away from the tums (“it’s got aluminum in it!”) and hooks me up with some aloe vera juice. Nice guy, if a little out on the fringe & perhaps slightly paranoid. Well, who knows…
8:30 we’re wrapped
10:00 I’m home
11:00 sleep

6:00am start all over again

Deja vu all over again

pointy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:46:30 +0000

Days roll on. I lose track of time. This week we’ve been shooting episode 3 of season 3. Simultaneously, the script for episode 4 was handed out to the crew to prepare for next week. I’ve been devouring the scripts when I get them…. Meanwhile, at home, Dani & I are still working our way through season 2 (we’re on episode 10). Needless to say, its a little confusing. Often it is difficult to recall what scenes have or haven’t been shot, which ones we watched & which ones we shot.

Hope to post more tomorrow. Must close eyes.

The Enola Gay

pointy — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:27:00 +0000

Overall a good week for the sound crew. Despite some continuing concerns of the Production re. certain details of sound recordings themselves. Anyway, word has come around that ‘all is not aught’ so that kind of put a damper on our feelings of accomplishment for the week. we’ll see what happens next week. looks like i’ll be getting a chance to talk with the dialogue editor. looking forward to that.

In other news, I did a fair amount of booming this week, leading up to a moment of incredible embarrassment when I accidentally let the boom fall on the camera operator. Oh god. Still, as bad as it was it wasn’t that bad. Luckily, he is one of the nicest people on set & really let it slide right by. I apologized immediately & then a gain later. He said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you feel worse than me.” He got that right. Other than that moment that day had gone well. Jeff basically let me boom a whole scene (granted, it had no dialogue of course, so it was all just ambience & sfx).

The end of this week finished up episode 2. Now on deck: 3 day weekend. woo-hoo!

The sound crew finds their groove

pointy — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:37:15 +0000

Weeks reel by – picture the sun flashing across the sky in a hi speed time lapse. Regardless, when the sun beating down each moment seems to last an eternity. I’ve been busy, focusing on the job, dialingin our wiring technique & even booming most days. Most of the time I’m too focused (to use that word loosely) on the job & for better or worse that means less time/mind focused on documenting my day. Anyway, the good news is that some of the issues we had been having with wires (radio mic’s) are disappearing & the sound is really sounding top notch. Mostly it was scratchy, clothing noise on the mic, which is an eternal issue on set because the sound crew almost never has an idea what the actors are wearing until right before the shot. Of course, the mic cannot be seen so burying it in the clothes is pertinent. Unfortunately, clothing (especially certain fibers) rubbing on the mic makes noise. We have all kinds of stuff to accommodate different wardrobe challenges. The standard is medical tape. Then there are little “bumpers” to hold the mic (which provide some degree of insulation from the clothing). Moleskin is something I just turned on to & I’m finding it useful much of the time. Also, a company called Rycote makes little sticky things that you can attach to some furry windscreen material & stick on the clothes. Still, with all this, each & every time I do it I am uncertain & always seem to be struggling to figure out what is appropriate. But, I’m learning. Oftentimes, the best bet is on the skin, somewhere recessed where clothing won’t rub. Something must be working though because this week has gone by so far without a single scratch. That, combined with a complete lack of booms dipping into frame is putting the sound crew comfortably safe in holding onto their jobs.

Other than that, at home we are still going through season 2 of the show and I’m beginning to see things link up. Still, its a very strange nonlinear narrative I’m following which might make the rest of this year go by faster (or slower) or might make it seem like its over before it began…

Cabezon

pointy — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:47:54 +0000

A little slow on the upstart keeping the blog current. Hard to find the inspriation sometimes…especially on uneventful days. Oh, there have been explosions & hot days swealtering in the last dog days of albuquerques summer but I had no desire to retell those days.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was unexpectedly cool & rainy. As chance would have it, we were sceduled to begin our week a couple hours NE of Abq in a ghost town called Cabezon. The clouds & rain made the day perfectly barable. There was zero dialogue scheduled so the sound crew was left to our own devices. Oh, we recorded sound on most of the shots but I doubt if 20% of what we recorded will be used (the director, Brian Cranston, was giving direction over most of it). The location had a stunning view though so the day went fairly quick. The ghost town itself, I learned, had apparently experienced it’s heyday as a moonshine epicenter, trading the booze to the natives mostly. None of that going on now. A few people still reside there. As I was wandering around I found this piñata hanging in a little courtyard(or perhaps the roof had collapsed?). Anyway, it was weird & a little creepy. I’ll let te pics tell the rest.

Here we go again

pointy — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:05:27 +0000

Not really my first post since that one was lost due to a technical glitch (beware iPhone wordpress app users). The gist of it was that the first day was a bitch with as many curve balls as could be thrown at a sound crew (500 extras, prop mic wired into real house PA, dialogue spread all over a gymnasium). I ended up needing to dial in the 30 band EQ built into the gym PA because whoever set it up was either an idiot or a moron. Needless to say, when the next pep rally happens they may wonder why the system isn’t feeding back anymore.

So that was Friday & we immediately had a much needed weekend. Today is Tuesday & the sound crew is started to catch our stride. NOT feeling an immenent fear of being fired anymore. We have spent the second half of the day back at the Q studios (where a lot of Book of Eli was shot) so it is nice to a) be in a familiar locale & b)be inside in the AC. By the way, did I mention it’s been nearly 100′ F in Albuquerque? Sheesh it’s been hot. We won’t be shooting on the stage a whole lot but it will be a welcome break when it happens (& gives me a glimmer of hope when contemplating the next 5 months).

The funny story about today happened when a baby was brought in for the scene. The (real) mother told me the baby had been born June 29 (the day before Griffin). That fact brought even further into relief the stark contrast between the scenes portrayal of a mother & newborn & the reality I experience at home. Perhaps it took me all these years to realize tv isn’t real. Huh, go figure.