Week 1 in the Can!

Day 1 at Alvin, TX. Just too damn hot...

I am attempting to keep this blog a little more current while I am shooting in Texas. Today marks the end of my first week here, and I wanted to share some stories of what being on set is really like. Bottom line: it’s not always pretty.

The main character in our little story is the heat. We shoot almost every single day outside in the sun, and the mercury continuously clocks in at over 100°. Add humidity to the mix, and you have one very uncomfortable shooting environment.

Our first day was in Alvin, TX, about one hour from our production office in Richmond. Without getting into too many details, our show is about restoring old equipment; preferably diesel powered equipment. The first one up was a vegetable farmers’ International Harvester Farmall 140 tractor. I don’t know much about it beyond that it was manufactured sometime in the early 70’s. The unit needed urgent attention as it had no seat, but plenty of rust. I’m not sure what the show has in store for it, but it will be interesting to see a pimped out tractor.

As for shooting this, it couldn’t have been a harder introduction. We ran out of water very quickly and there was absolutely no shade for most of the day. The farm itself was suffering from a severe drought (it has not rained here in over 200 days). The tow truck for the tractor died, and our host’s trailer had a faulty A/C unit, though he was very patient about it.

I
also had my share of sound problems. There was significant radio interference at one point, and I had to resort to a boom. This was not good in such a loud environment, but having people waiting in triple digit temperatures was simply not an option. Otherwise the day went well, but the thought that there were 10 plus weeks of production did seem daunting after it was over.

Day 2 was not any easier. Our next vehicle was a cement mixer at a stone supply company. The heat was even worse, since the ground was covered in white rocks and sand that acted as a mirror for the heat. Beyond that, the wind really picked up and blew dust all over the place, so keeping our gear clean was a constant chore. At one point, the wind was so bad it almost collapsed video village (this is where the director and producers watch the video feeds from).

The mighty International Farmall 140 Tractor

The sound problems continued. On shows like this, production wants all mics hidden. This requires me to carefully attach those small radio mics (see previous post below) to the actors clothing with mole skin. Normally I could just attach the mic to the actor’s skin, but with the heat the tape wouldn’t even stick. On this day, the heat was so bad that the sweat soaked the shirt so bad the adhesive wouldn’t even stick to the clothing for very long.

Beyond that, every time the actors moved, the sound of tiny pebbles getting crushed ruined the dialogue. Mics can be more sensitive than the human ear, so it sounded like people talking while stepping on Rice Krispies. Ugly, ugly sound. My solution was to lay down furniture pads on the ground. It completely eliminated the problem. I got mostly great audio, but we still had to watch out for the endless semi trucks, airplanes, and trains.

Day 3 was a really long trip. We left at 6:00am for Crystal Lake, TX, which is very close to Galveston. I have fond memories of this area when Mom took us there to visit Uncle Dave’s family, but maybe it seems so pleasant because we had an epic family implosion a day or two later in San Antonio.

The camera department prepares the jib arm.

The gentleman who owned the soon-to-be-restored Diesel Semi Truck (circa 1991) owned a sanitation business. Specifically, he changes out Port-A-Potties, so as you can imagine, this location wasn’t whole lot of fun. It didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would, but eating lunch was still kind of hard. As for audio, this was my best day so far. The area is pretty desolate, so traffic noise was limited. I was able to avoid overload and clothing noise, and the owner was very accommodating shutting down his workers’ trucks for me.

On the way back, we had to take a ferry back to cross the peninsula. As I looked over the Gulf of Mexico, I remembered how good of a way this is to make a living. It certainly beat my old, windowless office at Columbia.

The next day was a pick-up truck at a construction site. Not much to report here. Since it was deep in the woods, the audio was very clear, though the guest did tend to breathe very heavily from the heat and how hard he was working. The post-production folks are going to have fun with him later in the editing room, I’m sure.

And that brings me to today, which just so happens to be my birthday. My present? A 5:00 am call time. Ugh! We drove to La Porte, TX to pick up an old steam roller. This one really got to me. The sun was just becoming unbearable, and I really struggled to stay hydrated. The issues with sweat and the mole skin removed, and I resorted to using a vampire clip at the end (this is a small mic holder with two little metal “teeth” to attach to the shirt. That fixed the placement issue, but we were still shooting next to a Freeway. Not much we could do about this, so I just did the best I could.

Looking back on all of this, ll I can say is that this has really been a pleasure. On the other hand, I am really missing Jen, and I hope to see her soon, even if I have to fly her out here. On this, my 28^th birthday, I am relieved to say I am extremely grateful. I used to hate birthdays, since I usually spent them alone. Even though I spent this one working, I'm still very grateful for many things: good family, the best girlfriend ever, and a great job. I can’t really ask for more out of life.

On the ferry at the Gulf of Mexico on my last

day being 27 years old.

THE BIG ONE!!

Hey friends and family. About a week ago I got the kind of job that takes years to snag. I cannot discuss it in too much detail because I have signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I can say that it is a Reality show that is shooting for 10 production weeks near Houston, TX. I am actually writing this from the Lone Star state as we speak.

I was busy right up until I left. Before leaving, I wrapped up production on an infomercial, and was doing sound for a documentary on Keanu Reeves’ old metal band Dogstar. Unfortunately, taking this job meant I would NOT be meeting the big K, or other stars like Carrie Ann-Moss and Sandra Bullock, but this was too big of an opportunity to pass up.

In addition to all that, I also subbed for a production sound class at Columbia. After which, I had to give my notice to the Dean (my old boss) that I would not be able to teach in the Fall as I had originally planned.

Without question, Houston is the hottest and most humid place on Earth. I was practically swimming when I got off the plane. My hottest day in Chicago doesn’t even compete with this place. Production on this show will start on Monday, with two days of “prep” on Saturday and Sunday. This turned out to be much more difficult then I thought. Unlike my usual gigs, where productions pay me for my labor and rent my equipment (this is called a “box rental”), this time the production was supplying the gear. This is typical when a production company shoots a lot of shows. The problem with this is that I’m using someone else’s gear, and it was not in order when I got there.

In fact, it was a complete mess. The audio package was spread over six or seven Pelican cases, and countless other odds and ends were in other boxes. The first problem was that I could not find the recorder, the nerve center of my operation. After about two hours of looking for it, I finally had to bring the matter to the Production Manager, who promptly flipped out and called the main production office in Burbank, CA. We eventually found it in the catering department. Whew!

It ended up taking me a full 12-hour day to find all of the little pieces and wire the audio package. The package currently consists of the recorder, the mixing control surface, eight receivers, two camera hops, a Comtek, and a bunch of little audio accessories. The picture below may help to illustrate this. All of this is attached to my back and is a considerable amount of weight. This is serious, folks.

Serious Audio. The silver thing is the audio recorder.

The bottom half is the mixer. Receivers are on top.

The blue wires to the right lead to the wireless audio for cameras.

A lot of you have asked for more info about what I actually do on set, so I will try to explain what my job is. With a reality show, we shoot with multiple cameras at the same time. We follow multiple subjects (or “talent) with these cameras, and this has very specific demands from the audio dept. I use the words “audio dept.” loosely, because it’s just me. I don’t even have a boom operator.

In order to pull this off, all the talent must be recorded several times. People on camera will have a tiny microphone (called a lavalier, or lav) hidden on their person. The mic is connected to a transmitter on their belt line. The transmitter is that tiny box you see refs wear on their belt in the NFL. The receivers are in my audio bag, and the signals are fed directly into the recorder. The recorder is the Sound Devices 788T, and has a built in mixer. This allows me to route, or “mix” the signals any way I need. The recorder can accommodate up to eight inputs, but it can record up to twelve tracks: the two channel “mix,” individual isolated tracks (called “Iso’s” or “stems”), and two auxiliary tracks. I will explain that more, don’t worry.

A mix is the main audio on a project. Basically, it’s a selection of what I think is the best audio. It consists of two channels: left and right, like stereo. In this particular case, the host of the show will be placed on the left channel, and all other talent will be on the right channel. In order to make it to the mix, I have to have the fader turned up on the given talent. This is done so you, the viewer, only hear who is relevant to a particular shot. For example, if we were in a garage with eight workers, but only one of them was talking to camera, I would have the other workers turned down in the mix.

The isolated tracks will record every talent separately regardless if their fader is muted. This is done as a redundancy in case I miss a line, or if there is an add-lib. The auxiliary (or aux) tracks are two more tracks that I could put anything on, but in this case I won’t be using them.

Since there are multiple cameras shooting wide shots and close-ups at the same time, I probably won’t be booming much. This will require very careful mixing on my part. As if that wasn’t enough, I am also in charge of sending audio feeds to several key personnel on set. The left mix is sent wirelessly to Camera A, the main camera that will primarily feature the host. The Right mix is sent to Camera B. In post-production, the cameras will be synced to the slate (aka the clapper), so the editors can use the audio sent directly to camera without having to sync my audio up.

Another duty I have is timecode. Timecode is a numerical system for labeling frames of film and video. Represented visually, it might look something like this 09:17:52:03. The numbers mean HOURS:MINUTES:SECONDS:FRAMES. Since timecode is set to time of day, in this example it means that the footage is currently rolling at 9:17am, plus fifty-two seconds and three frames. I set the numbers on my audio recorder, and feed the timecode into the cameras via BNC cable. This means that if an action happens on the cameras, the editors can locate the audio that goes with it by simply typing the numbers on a keypad. This is very useful if we must roll cameras without getting a marker.

A close-up of the Countryman B6 lavalier.

This mic will be used on the host.

It's so small I can hide it behind a shirt button!

I also need to send audio feeds to the producers. Most likely they will want to hear their star talent only; regardless if he’s on camera. To do this, I route his lavalier into Output 1, which is hooked up to a Comtek transmitter. The producer and several other personnel have receivers with headphones tuned into the same frequency, and are able to monitor talent at all times.

The recorder is completely digital, and this is how it is able to accommodate many of these advanced functions. At the end of the day, I download the takes as computer files directly onto a hard drive. From there, I burn two sets of DVDs, one is the actual masters and the second is a back-up copy. I also make notes on a sound report when possible to let the editors know of any sound problems I had during the day. All of this is combined with the shot rolls (the rolls are HD video tape), and shipped back to California.

Back in LA, the post people will digitize the tapes, sync my audio to the “dailies,” and begin editing. We can easily shoot 12 hours or more a day, and it usually takes five days to shoot out an episode. All of this will eventually be cut down to a program of less than forty minutes (expanded to 60 with commercials). We have an order for an eight-episode season, so as you can see, this is a LOT of work.

Production is currently scheduled to go at least 10 days straight. I should have one or two days off, but that will not be enough to fly back to Los Angeles, so I will be staying here in Texas. After that, there will be another extended shooting schedule before the next hiatus. How long, I do not know, but at some point in September I should be able to fly home for a week or so before flying back for round two. As of right now, my stay in Houston is indefinite. My return is dictated strictly by the schedule of our host. Funny thing is that I’m going to have to find more work in LA, or people will forget about me! Gotta stay relevant.

Needless to say this is quite a change from my usual projects. This TV show will air on a cable network, and I look forward to giving you that info soon. The pay is very respectable and I shouldn’t have to work for months if I don’t want to. Plus, I’m hoping with this experience I will be eligible to join the sound mixer union. It will be hard to be away from Jen this long, but we both have our eye on the prize. We did long-distance when I first moved across country for college, so this will be a piece of cake. Still, I miss her.

I really don’t have the words to describe this (well, clearly I do, look at how long his post is!). I have been trying to work on a real film or TV show for over seven years; pretty much ever since I came to Hollywood. I never thought it would be in the sound department, but I am thrilled to finally earn some serious credits. Here’s hoping that the show is renewed for season 2!

A closer view. The top module is the recorder.

The faders below adjust the volume being fed

to the main mix.