Sound Mixer Hell

If i keep posting things like this, people will draw the conclusion that i am a miserable curmudgeon, nevertheless here it is.

Oh, and did i mention I’ve got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side? I mean, I’ve asked for them to be replaced, but no-one ever listens.

Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I’m standing?

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Myths of Sound Recording

Extracted from www.eqtion.com. This was originally posted on craigslist, before being passed around the industry; I found it on Facebook posted by the fine chaps at Trew Audio ( www.trewaudio.com ). I didn’t write it and don’t know who did, but it is pretty spot on about many elements of the film/tv industry. The UK equivalent of these ideas and opinions on sound can be easily found at sites such as Mandy.com, Productionbase, Shooting People etc etc. In a nutshell these are the reasons that people calling me and asking me to record sound for their film for expenses only (plus a copy of the film on DVD!) will get short shrift from me. As far as i know, none of the organisations that I make payments to regularly for things like my house, electricity, food etc currently accept payment in the form of a DVD.

Myth #1. Sound is less important than your picture. Most new people to the production biz always think this is the case, and it has actually been proven to be the opposite by several focus group studies by major studios and smaller acoustic societies. With the dawn of Youtube and similar outlets our public have become conditioned to accept shaky cameras, grungy looks, and bad lighting as shooting style, which is actually great news for a new shooter with little experience. However, audiences will sub-consciously or consciously lose interest in the material, change what they are viewing, or completely turn off what they are viewing within 30 seconds of being subject to bad sound. What makes up bad sound? Bad sound includes poorly EQ’d voices, a high noise-to-signal ratio (from too much background noise and/or electronic noise captured with the voice signal), and non-continuous sound (sound quality changing often) so as to make it difficult to edit, to name a few.

Myth #2. The camera costs more than the sound gear. When comparing the price of a good camera and its tripod which are the basic essential gear for a shooter, versus the gear for an even adequate sound person, the cost of sound gear far surpasses the costs of the camera. This has not always been the case, but starting 20 years ago with the advent of lower-cost digital video it’s a solid fact. Here is an example of a basic sound package provided by a typical location sound person:

•Portable 3- or 4-channel field mixer ($1500-2500),
•Boom pole + head + zeppelin + windmuff (for indoor & outdoor sound)
($800 - 2000),
•Boom mic ($600 - 3000)
•Shotgun mic ($300 - 1000)
•Lavalier transmitter/receiver combo ($600 - $2400 per combo),
•Lavalier mic ($150 - $400),
•Portable 2- or 4-track Recorder ($900 - $4000)
•XLR cables/connectors ($100-300)

This pretty much covers the basic sound package ranging from the low-end gear to the accepted industry standard gear. At the lowest end with bargain low-quality gear, the cost of gear is roughly $5000…equal to or much more than many of the cameras used in the low-budget indie scene today. And when you have access to the gear that anyone that’s been in the industry for more than 2-3 years will have strived to own, and which is considered good sound, the gear will cost in the neighborhood of $12,000 to $18,000 and up — usually double or triple the cost of the camera gear used for the shoot. (Cart-based sound packages are even higher). Rental of a very basic lowest-end gear package from any indie-friendly rental house in the country starts at $250-350/day. In addition, with the multiple components and connectors of a complete sound system comes additional upkeep, repair, and replacement of about double the rate of camera gear–easily $1000-2000/year. A lens or tripod can last for 20 years, a lavalier mic or transmitter might break in 3 months.

Myth #3. Anyone can do sound. I’ve witnessed several productions willing to train a PA to do sound with the most dismal results, including: the boom in the shot, the boom shadow on the actor’s face during the shot, incorrect levels from the mixer to the recorder causing the recorded signal to be too hot and distorted to use, the mic not facing the subject or being too far away to be usable, the heavy-handling of a boom pole creating rumble in the sound, clothing noise from poor lavalier placement, RF noise on the lav’s wireless channel, and continued shooting through sirens and plane noise. I’ve seen it slow down production to half, and when the person starts feeling inadequate and a liability, they won’t speak up when a plane goes by because he doesn’t want to create any more problems. Result: even more surprises and problems in post-production. I actually witnessed an entire feature having to be ADR’d due to a so-called sound team with no previous credits with “borrowed” gear and no clue how to use it. The producer found out the hard way that he needs to pay the professionals in the sound department first before allocating any further funds to other departments. Any producer that has produced more than one feature has either learned it the hard way as above, or learned it the easy way through advice of experienced colleagues who have tread that ground before them.

Myth #4. Sound operators need your material for their reel. Have you ever listened to a sound operator’s reel? No? Probably because first of all no one (except other sound people) really know what good sound is and what to listen for. Also, anyone can throw up their most-quiet scene they’ve ever recorded at the most ideal, sound-isolated location, with adequate time for placing and positioning mics and then heavily EQ’d in post-production by them to sound like the most professional sound ever… do-able and time-consuming. But in truth, on a set you don’t have time to find that perfect sweet spot for a mic via multiple trial & errors, nor do you have 3 weeks to work on the post-processed sound for a single scene. Sound reels are misleading and easily manipulated. This is why sound guys don’t need a reel — it is a complete mis-representation of what they truly can do on a set when time is of the essence to ensure a shot list is completed and your budget is maintained.

These “four myths of sound” that seem to run rampant on Craigslist and the like, get perpetuated by new people to the business that read ad after ad of “no pay”, “copy, credit, and food”, and “will be a rewarding experience and good for your reel” over and over. It’s like the blind leading the blind, and please chime in if you concur. If you’re a producer or potential producer, please consider this a friendly chunk of knowledge to help you along your way. Nothing is worse than the setback that an unknown “myth” might subject you to.

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Tanterella!!

The last couple of months have been fun, and i am sorry to see this most recent of jobs come to an end.

I have been working for almost all of Feb and March for a Japanese production company called Moritigamu Cell 1, who make a series of Japanese gameshows and reality shows. We have spent the last 8 weeks following 6 Japanese couples (and one Korean couple) who had been sent to the UK, with the basic task of getting a job.

Once established in the job, the contestants are given a series of ‘dares’ to complete. the first few centred around cultural and language misunderstandings - using the wrong toilet, eating someone elses food from the fridge, wearing trousers with the buttocks cut out to a work drinks do.

However the next round of dares cranked the jeopardy up - i cant give too much away but if you would like to see a woman dressed as a large penis try to initiate intimate relations with an office worker in the photocopier room, only to be caught by a horrified man dressed as a vagina and the resulting erotic fight on the floor of the office (watched by most of the office in a mixture of horror and amusement) then do tune into Tsukuba channel sometime later this year.
The crew were mostly Japanese, and were an absolute pleasure to work with - talented, professional and with hilarious taste in clothes and English food. Domo arigato to Ryouta, Tsubasa, Akane and Kouhei!

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Katherine of Alexandria

I have recently been working as Sound Mixer on a feature film which started shooting this January at Pinewood. The film stars -among others - Peter O’Toole, Joss Ackland, Steven Berkoff and Sam Beckinsale. There are plenty more familiar faces in the cast too.

The films recounts the story of Katherine of Alexandria; Katherine is probably best known for the ‘Katherine Wheel’ firework which symbolises the instrument of torture designed to break her. More importantly, she was the first woman of position to publicly denounce Rome’s false gods and her eloquent arguments with fifty of Rome’s finest scholars in an open court in Alexandria captured the spirits of ordinary people around the world.

It was Katherine’s belief in the freedom of faith that led to the eventual collapse of religious persecution under the Romans.

For the recording process I used the new Sound Devices 552 mixer, feeding 4 individual tracks to a Sound Devices 744T and a mixed track to a SD702T. The booms were using Sennheiser MKH50 mics to allow us to record as much of the superb vocal dynamic range of actors such as Mr Ackland and Mr O’Toole as possible, with a couple of Audio Ltd 2040 radio mics with DPA 4071 capsule attached - for emergency use only of course!  We also sent a feed of the mix to camera A (shooting two Red One cameras - one on a dolly, and the other on a Technocrane for much of the time) via a Ricsonix Camlynx bluetooth connection, which was an elegant, if slightly troublesome (lots of wireless frequencies, metal objects, bags of water - people - and small electric motors eg on the smoke machine caused  a few issues) method of connection to camera without adding to the numerous cables already attached to the Red. This allowed immediate playback with audio for the Director and DOP. We synced rushes using the time honoured method of a clapperboard, rather than jam-syncing the timecode of two audio recording devices with the Red cameras. This would have been easily achieved with Lockit boxes and a Digislate, but i prefer the simplicity of the clapperboard, and the assistant editor was happy to sync using a clapper.

You can see (and more importantly hear!) the results in this brief trailer; http://www.katherineofalexandria.com/trailer1.php

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Olga Kevelos

I was driving home from a film shoot last week, and was listening to ‘Last Word’ on Radio 4 when I heard the sad news that Olga Kevelos had passed away. I had met Olga earlier this year while working as sound recordist on a piece about the ‘Land Girls’ for The One Show, and was immediately struck by what a varied and fantastically interesting life she had led, as well as by what a friendly, intelligent and interesting woman she was.

We were filming for Real Life Media with Olga and two of her crewmates from the second world war when she and other young women took over running the barges up and down the canal system of Britain. They were known as ‘Idle Women’  - a title derived from the ‘IW’ emblazoned on their badge, but which actually stood for ‘Inland Waterways’, although the work they were required to do was intensive and hard by anyones standards.

We spent the day on an original barge used during the war, and Olga and two of her contemporaries talked about old times, and reminisced for the camera. It wasn’t until lunch that I found myself sitting next to Olga, and she began to tell me a little more about herself and her life. When I asked her what she did after the war I wasn’t entirely prepared for the reply I got; to paraphrase her slightly she said ‘After I left the Land Girls I became interested in motorcross - it started as a way to see my boyfriend at weekends at first, but I soon realised I enjoyed it and was quite good at it too - I won two gold medals’ … I didn’t quite know what to say - here was this sweet, twinkly eyed old lady with coiffured hair telling me that she had been a motorcross champion? I thought she might have been pulling my leg, but she continued; ‘I then ended up on Mastermind as a contestant’. When I asked her what her specialist subject was she replied ‘Ghengis Khan’… From what I can tell from other people who knew her much better than I, this was typical Olga - feisty, intelligent and with a cheeky sense of humour.

I only met Olga for a day, but in that time I was impressed by her drive and ability, the variety of her life and her obvious intelligence. There is more about her life and achievements in the obituary from the BBC which can be heard in the player below - for my part I am proud to have met her and learned a little about this extraordinary woman.

The clips of her talking about her time in the ‘Land Girls’ in this obituary were taken from the interview I recorded with her that day, and may well have been the last recorded interview with her. Below is a photo of us filming with Olga and her colleagues from the IW - Olga is the brown haired lady sitting in the middle on the boat.

Filming with Olga for The One Show

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Teaching Sound at the Met Film School

For a while now I have worked as the Sound tutor at the Met Film School. The Met Film School is based in Ealing Studios which makes it quite handy for keeping in touch with what is being shot on the UK’s most successful film studio. Ealing Studios has a pretty illustrious past, being home to all the great Ealing Comedies such as the Lavender Hill Mob, and The Ladykillers. The studios are still much used today, as evidenced by the fact that John Landis is currently working there on a black comedy based on the graverobbers, Burke and Hare. Whenever I see John around the studios i have to maintain my professional dignity and not go running up to him blabbering how much i loved Trading Places, An American Werewolf in London, Coming to America, Thriller or any of the other numerous films he has made that had such an impact on me in my childhood especially.

Teaching at the Met is a really enjoyable experience - i particularly enjoy teaching sound for a few reasons - firstly i was lucky enough to be taught Sound at one of the best places possible - The National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield. I really appreciated being taught my subject thoroughly and by a range of people who not only knew what they were talking about, but had many years of professional experience behind them. When teaching filmmaking, sound often comes a poor second to the more glamorous subjects like camera and directing. There are not as many good quality sound courses in the UK as there perhaps should be, and running the sound courses at the Met Film School gives me a small chance to put that right. I have tried to imitate much of the excellence of courses such as the NFTS, Ravensbourne, Bournemouth and the Tonmeister course - all of which regularly produce high quality sound people of all types. We try and give the students a good understanding of how sound can impact on a film, its uses and how it can entirely alter the perception of a scene, as well as giving them practical skills and techniques to allow them to achieve this.

I really enjoy passing on a little of the excellent training i was given, and hopefully make a small contribution towards improving sound standards in UK filmmaking.  I am now the Head of the Location Sound Department - this is probably due to there being no other tutors in this subject area! HOD by default you might say, but between the post production sound tutor, Alistair, and myself i think we offer an excellent learning experience in sound, along with all the high quality courses offered at the Met Film School.

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Paul Trevillion interview on Test Match Special

Here is a fantastic interview conducted by Jonathan Agnew with Paul Trevillion - artist of the classic ‘You Are The Ref’ strip - to discuss ‘You Are The Umpire’. Enjoy.

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You Are The Umpire - Q&A session with Paul Trevillion, John Holder and Vic Marks - audio recording

After posting Paul Trevillions fine interview with Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special recently, i was delighted to be contacted by both Paul and his agent, Peter Willis. They were both pleased with the way the TMS interview had gone, and were kind enough to invite me to the Guardian/Observer offices on Wednesday 3rd June for a Q&A session arranged with Paul and the umpire John Holder and chaired by Vic Marks of TMS and The Guardian to celebrate the launch of You Are The Umpire.

It was a fantastic evening - well attended by numerous fans clutching copies of the book, and all of us trying not to seem too sycophantic, but i personally was very excited to be able to stand and have a pleasant chat with the contributors. I found John Holder particularly to be a hugely intelligent and perceptive chap, with some fascinating insights into the world of cricket, especially for an armchair fan like myself. As he pointed out, he has the best place in the world to watch cricket from!

Below is an audio recording i made of the evening, which with kind permission from the contributors and The Guardian you can listen to. It’s a lovely collection of memories and observations from Paul Trevillion and John Holder, so enjoy. Its a bit long so i’ve chopped it into two sections. It’s perhaps not up to my usual standard of recording, done as it was on a small handheld flash recorder placed in the front row. Still, enough there to enjoy hopefully…

Part One (first voice is Paul Trevillion, Artist)

You Are The Umpire Q&A session with Paul Trevillion and John Holder, chaired by Vic Marks. Part 1 from matthew on Vimeo.

Part 2

You Are The Umpire Q&A session with Paul Trevillion and John Holder, chaired by Vic Marks - Part 2 from matthew on Vimeo.

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Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

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