How Another Sound Mixer explained his job

This was posted by user “Kill Bill” on RAMPS and I Love it!!!!

My 12 year old daughter had an assignment to gather from her father,
“What does Dad do?”.  She asked me to put down in my own words, and
summarize what I do.

So here it is..

While working in the biz as a Location Sound Mixer, I spend most of my
time trying to explain to producers why they can’t get sound people to
work for free like they can actors and PAs. If by some miracle that the
producer actually knows how important sound is and chooses me to work on
the set, and they have budgeted more than 100 dollars for the entire
sound department for the shoot, I then spend all my time planning on
getting a mountain of equipment to the actual location. I rigg up that
equipment while on the set, then wait on camera, grips, and actors to
get the camera rolling with the rare possibility that I might get 20
seconds of usable recording.  This goes on for over 12+ hours every day
while on my job hoping nothing goes wrong while noting and stopping the
production for every plane, dog barking, and voice that goes overhead.
When it’s all over, I’m out of a job again and spend the rest of the
month looking for another job to do it all over again.  In the mean
time, I go out and spend more money on equipment than I made on the last
job with no end in sight for equipment buying.

It sounds allot like a job, but since when do you have to pay so much to
work on your last job?

Hope she likes it..

-bill

I sometimes feel the same way Bill does but I think he expressed it well. I wish more people realized and knew how important sound is but no one is perfect. I am off to work another 14-16 hour day.