Milk Studios - Twilight Fashion Shoot

So this was a big one. I got hired by Channel M again to do sound on a Nordstrom fashion show; a two day gig. This one was going to showcase a new line of clothing inspired by the Twilight craze. Big money was on the set, and that wasn't good when things started to go bad.

The gig was in Hollywood at Milk Studios. We were shooting on Stage 5. At first I thought my job would be a piece of cake since we were shooting on a sound stage. It wasn't. The place is for art exhibits and photo shoots; meaning it was built for picture and NOT sound. We could hear construction from both of the adjoining stages!

But the more immediate problem was that the driver with our equipment had gotten into a car accident. So we would be starting very late. Once we finally did start rolling, we could not get clean audio because there was just too much noise, including from within our own stage. It was a struggle to even get them to turn the music off. But the priority was to the photo shoot, so we'll see how post deals with that.

Luckily, we ended up taking so long the art crew eventually finished and we got some clean takes. We ended up braking after about eight hours, which in film is a very short day.

Day 2 started off with a shocker. On my way to the studio the director called me and said there were problems with the audio. I was puzzled by this because I hadn't surrendered the sound masters yet, so how could he have made a judgement call without hearing it? It turns out that when I brought the sound problems up, he had asked the folks to keep it down (this was people in our own stage, mind you). Apparently, someone high up had a problem with that.

I cut him off and asked straight out, "Excuse me, are you trying to tell me that I'm fired?" He replied, "You? No! I'M FIRED!" I was really caught off-guard by this. The director, from what I saw, was very professional when he asked for the crew to keep it down. He didn't tell anybody anything, he asked. I know this town is all about ego, but I was genuinely surprised that someone would have such a problem with that where they would go out of their way to have him fired. They could have just had him spoken to and put in his place, but I guess that's how it goes in this town.

I told him I felt bad that an audio problem brought all this up. He said not to worry, and he was sure that the firing was just for this gig and not with Channel M entirely. He even told me that I was his favorite sound mixer that he ever had, and he has worked on some BIG shows. But he closed the conversation with a warning: I would need to be "invisible" to the art crew since an audio problem brought this up.

I had to take a picture of this. Honestly, when was the last

time you saw Big League Chew?!

That's a lose-lose situation, folks. On one hand, if I bring up another audio problem, I could be fired next. On the other hand, if I don't, then post will get the audio and complain that the sound is bad. Word will get back to a decision maker who is unfamiliar with the problem; all they know is that the sound is bad and that means the sound mixer is bad. Presto, Channel M doesn't call me back. I would be doing a delicate dance today, it seemed.

I got to set early, and the replacement director immediately made it clear that sound would not be allowed to roll until after the photo shoot (some five hours later). He dismissed me from set with a new call time of 2:00pm. I decided to go to Location Sound Corp. in North Hollywood and get a rental straight for a gig in April.

I swung back home and hung out with Jen for a minute before going back to set. Lunch was amazing, but after that things got pretty busy. I did get them to turn off the music, and for the most part the sound was clean given the circumstances. One of the models did not like being recorded though, and started to bat at my boom microphone. Luckily she missed it, because if she didn't I would have said something to her. To hell with being fired, it's a $2,000 microphone and this gig wasn't insured.

We wrapped out the talent pretty quick and then we shot out the stage. It had storyboards from the upcoming Twilight film, and it turned out the whole cast and crew was next door for the premiere party of the last installment, Breaking Dawn. I ran into someone from the crew in the bathroom and asked if they could sneak me in. He said, "no way" without a laminate and informed me that security was armed. So I stuck to my stage.

We finished up a few hours later without incident. In fact, someone ordered champagne from us (and not the cheap crap either) and we all had a toast at the end. I was able to make a pretty clean getaway, and the whole day was done once again in about eight hours. I really hope to work for Channel M again. They are by far my best-paying client, the easiest one to work for, and the one with the biggest gigs. We'll have to wait and see...

P.S.: In case you're wondering, the t-shirt I'm wearing in this picture is from the North Carolina School of the Arts Film Conservatory. They had given it to me when I was being interviewed by them, and I very nearly went to that college instead of Columbia. I didn't even know I had the thing until I dug it out for this job (dress code was all black). Looking back on it now, I feel I definitely made the right decision to go to L.A. instead of that school. I questioned that decision many times before because it was an incredible film school. I'm glad I am at peace with that now.