this lossy codec

Workers unite

pointy — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:32:59 +0000

I happened to be standing near the AD when I heard him say to one of his minions, “Make it your responsibility to prepare the box lunches.” This was not fortuitous news. Barely half an hour to lunch and we were apparently going to work through it. Sure, box lunches would arrive and we would zealously snarf them down (when we had a chance) but the best part of lunch (sitting. or, for some, sleeping) would be denied. Who knew what their rational was. The wind blown dust storms which always seems so bad after lunch? The desire to “shoot out” JD? It didn’t matter.

I did mention the wind, right. It’s interesting how easy it becomes to tell everyone apart despite their face being hidden beneath goggles & bandana. While the lunches sat getting cold the crew scrambled in the blowing dirt to rig and prepare for what, in reality, is the biggest stunt of the show so far. So there we are. Hungry. Hot, squinting and spitting at the dirt. I’m contemplating the date and our solidarity on International Worker’s Day. My blood sugar has dropped to dangerous levels. Tempers flair. Stupidity reigns. Suddenly, the music playback for the scene blares (and I mean blares) the Star Spangled Banner. That just took the cake. The humanity!

In the end, a minor miscommunication ruined the shot (apparently) so it all was for not. Serves them right. Of course, I’d rather they have gotten it. The crew will be the ones picking up the slack in the end.

Canyon

pointy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:48:20 +0000

If only I had some semi-reliable signal then perhaps one of these posts might actually make it up. As it is I have time this morning (so it would seem) but we are remote indeed. Tucked far within Canyon de Chelly. Each morning we stakebed our gear 20 minutes down the riverbed (see pic) then we offload into a smaller 4 wheel “gator” and drive down a finger of the canyon. We have park rangers standing by to make sure our massive footprint doesn’t disturb the remains that populate the park. A ranger informed me that only about one third of it’s 38,000 acres has been fully excavated. As the FX guys dug a ditch yesterday deep enough to hold a person I wondered what they would find.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that this may never get posted. We are scheduled to be here through Saturday and then move back to Monument Valley to try to finish what we didn’t get due to the bad weather last week. The morning is young and stunt shots don’t require much from the sound department. A rare moment of peace. The days have been long and hard this week thus far. I’ll take what I can get.
Eventually, the “real” work commences. There is a period of 4-5 hours where some scurrying in somewhat sweltering heat occurs. The nice thing about working in a canyon though, is the narrow window of daylight. The shadow creeps gradually closer to our frame until it is so mind-boggling close it nearly slices the actors head off. Unbelievable.
Finally we scurry out toward the still existing sunlight but luckily we are spared the pain of struggling to build our rig onto driving vehicle. We would only have gotten the sound of a diesel engine. We would have done it but time (and light) was short.

On a wire

pointy — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:29:52 +0000

God it’s depressing to write a blog post only to have it disappear into the ethyr. Apparently the wordpress app doesn’t understand the concept of ‘local draft’. Whatever it was I was writing about it sure seemed a string of genius thoughts at the time. Come to think of it, there is something about the act of writing itself that tickles the particular part of my brain most sensitive to genuineness. Much more stimulating than whatever part browsing effects. For now anyway, the solution is writing to my notepad. I’ll copy and paste it in later.

Waiting on weather. Not that it is raining. Though it is threatening to. We actually got rained out two days last week. The desert just doesn’t have the ability to absorb heavy amounts of rain quickly. And, remote as we are, in the middle of a big hunk of nowhere, it just got plain ol’ silly and maybe even dangerous. So, on a show off 128 days with only 2 days off our biggest break may have been due to rain. Oh well, they don’t seem too worried about it.

Hard to muster up good humor on the first day back after a holiday weekend. Ho-hum. Wednesday we head to Arizona. Monument Valley & Cayon de Chelle. Should be pretty anyway.

Ended up trying for the shot several times over the course of the next 4 hours, as the sun played hide and seek on the edge of a giant dark cloud. Finally, the futility of the situation won out.

Posting this now or else it may never make it.

Hard Wires & Piss Buckets

pointy — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:14:28 +0000

Nearly two weeks in on the ‘Big Show’. I was beginning to doubt the gig would ever allow me the opportunity to dump some verbage on ye. Well, here goes…

Very different show (in many ways). I am actually a ‘cable guy’ as in wrangling and humping a significant ammount of cable around all day. Whereas I was previously trained in a post-cable (“hard line”) era this is like a throwback to the classic time. There’s a technique to wrapping cable (“over-under”) and it is essential.

There are other differences to this show (an espresso machine at craft service, shooting one scene over the course of two days & actually appreciating what is being shot) but It is still too early to know much of what is yet to come.

Other interesting accounts:

A photo shoot. To officially capture T.L.R & T in all their glory, on horses in front of a blue screen & with a boom operator swinging a long pole over them…wait, what? That’s right, the genius of corporate Dismay decided they needed to lock down the image of our heroes to be sure no one else stole a shot of them first. The boom? Isn’t it obvious? Anyway, we were asked to loan out a spare pole/zeppelin setup for the shoot. I prepped it (and even combed out the furry sock). First we were told the picture boom op was to be our resident cowboy advisor for the movie, a really nice guy who, without exception, blesses his lunch with his hat over his heart every day. He was nixed. Then it was to be our ‘heavyset ranger’ stand-in. He got nixed. Then they gave it to Jeff, our boom op. this seemed best and I thought increased the chance of it getting shluffed off on me. T’was not to be. In nearly the last minute (and each time the news of the change reached us ‘did you hear about the change for the boom op?’. Finally, (for ‘paperwork reasons’) they went with J.D.’s sound guy, Keenen. In an utterly surreal moment, I was briefly the stand-in for the boom op for the photo shoot.

If you don’t appreciate the subtlety of that humorous situation perhaps this other ditty will get you. The justification for all this hard-wiring is the quality over wireless (“man!”). It’s like a vinyl over digital argument to me. But hey, I collect records & 8tracks so how can I argue. Anyway, late in the day yesterday we were getting close to finishing so I had begun to wrap the boom cable back (in hopes of the last shot being MOS). Well, we ended up needing to roll on it and Jeff, in an act of utter pity for me) suggested we just fly with the wireless for this shot. Great, I thought. I’ll wrap the cable back to the cart(100′). So we finish that shot and find that the last shot of the day (the ‘martini’ as its called) was a shot of piss in a bucket (literally). Well, Lee & Jeff decide this requires a level of fidelity not possible via wireless. So back out goes the hard line for one shot of piss in a pail. Man, did it sound good!

More pix from the compound

pointy — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:44:25 +0000

Put the lid on another show, leaving a little early for downtime to prepare for next one right around the bend. This show was alright. Good peeps on the whole crew. Next one will be a major shift. Hardly any family faces. I’ll be cabling instead of booming. $215m budget instead of $2m. Abq instead of Santa Fe. Doubt I will even be allowed to take pictures on set. I’ll try to keep the tales of my exploits happening but I really don’t know what to expect.

Here are a few more pix from my final days on ‘code name: geronimo’. Lots of interesting structures around the old prison. Not sure which are original and which were added over the last ten years of movie production.

The insurgence

pointy — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:31:05 +0000

Day 6 already. Back in the field. A week ago I had just returned from a trip to KC with a trunk full of 60 year old tape recordings from Afghanistan. Today I am on location faking Afghanistan in New Mexico.

Days later we are in the old prison in Santa Fe, for the duration of the show. Lots of gunfire. Be it known that blanks are loud & very dangerous. This prison is the site of the worst prison riot in US history. meanwhile, the news reported this horrific prison fire in Hondurus.
I haven’t had much free time on this show as I’ve been busy booming but I did take some pictures. Hopefully they tell the story.

Mobile Unit

pointy — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:22:26 +0000

I can say this about this line of work, it is rarely monotonous. Most days are new adventures in foreign locales. The days since my last post are a blur of hectic motion followed by brief periods of deep unconsciousness. Loosely, the unconscious periods correspond with when I am sleeping and the hectic to those when I am at work. I have vague memories of a horseshoe tournament and a ‘spirit journey’ gone awry.
Yesterday though, laid some deep grooves in the memory region of my grey matter. The details of the stunt aside (see the movie for that), suffice to say there was a ‘bit’ of driving down an uneven, bumpy dirt road. Now, for driving shots in general we ‘go mobile’ and my role turns into driver while the mixer works the gear in the back. He’s got a nice 4 wheel drive jeep (with leather interior no less) that enables us (at least in optimum conditions) to track the picture car from close enough range that the antennae on the roof are able to pick up the feed from the wireless mic’s in the car. The range can be a bit finicky at times due to various factors so it is ideal to stay as close as safely possible. This particular shot got a little hairier than usual and moved my role more toward that of the ‘stunt driver’.
“Faster! Faster!” he yelled as the car sped closer. I knew of the car’s impending approach as the focus of my attention was the rear view mirror. The other part of my attention was on the truck in front of me, also trying to optimize the distance between it and the car so the director could maintain strong enough video reception. There was a moment when I could hear the engine of the picture car plowing down out the rear passenger window while the tail of the truck seemed to be all to close and moving all too slowly in front of me. I went ahead and gunned it, to avoid clipping the camera hanging off the driver’s side window on a ‘hostess tray’. Reflecting the well oiled, synchronized motion of a crew who have obviously gotten “into the groove,” the truck pulled ahead almost as if we were one. This kind of opportunity only happens on these little low budget shows. Show gets more fun every day.

White Out

pointy — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:31:46 +0000

Snow was in the forecast but most of the day passed mildly. It wasn’t until just before evening that giant flakes began to fall. And fall. And fall. It wasn’t as cold as day one but it was a blizzard. Our location, near the fly fishing spot, is up a winding valley along route 63 north of Pecos. By wrap the snow had begun to stick and it the roads were getting icy. My precarious parking job from the morning left me with little other option than to abandon it for the night and catch a ride.

Day 4 was an easier day (I’ve begun to detect a pattern (bad day, good day, bad day, good day) with most of the work inside an old rustic cabin. The weather was sunny, at least while the sun’s trajectory crossed the small window of the valley, slipping away by 3 o’clock. The transo guys got my car free while I scurried around doing my regiment of 2 peoples work. The motions are getting smoother as Bayard (the mixer) and I fall into a groove. Battery, jam, wire. Point stick, suck up sound.

Today (noon call time – I’m writing this at a cafe before I go in), if my pattern is correct might be a rough day. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

Stars

pointy — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 02:17:02 +0000

The problem with two man crews is the lack of a “third”. This is the second one in a row (low budget) but I’m committed to making time to blog about it.

I awoke this morning at 4:30(after a minor DST fubar). After yoga and an hour drive I land at a remote (ie. no cell service) valley wilderness along a river north of Pecos, NM. It’s cold and there is snow on the ground but soon the sun breaks over the mountainside. Taking high end sound & film gear out into remote areas scratches a particular itch in my novelty obsessed mind. Not quite sure what it is…
Regardless, soon the cameras are set along (or in) the river and I’m wading into the river alongside the actors, flyfishing. Pretty damn fun. Challenging, for sure. Between the angle of the sun creating shadows, the 2 guys casting their lines & dueling cameras at apposing angles & divergent lens sizes I am pretty well fucked most of the time. It is HARD. A hell of a fun challenge though.

After shooting in the river nearly all day we finally ‘move on’ to some driving stuff. This requires a major rework of the gear so I have to slip into geek mode. More fun. Wire the actors, build antennas on the roof rack of the mixers jeep, etc. etc. etc. I drive the jeep behind the car while he mixes.

Thankfully, due to the nature of sunlight in a valley, it is an early day (made even earlier by DST). Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

In the midst

pointy — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:33:55 +0000

Regardless, time passes.