Doing Sound While in Paris

whitneyince

Well Guys I am on Day 3 of 7 on my documentary shoot in Paris. So far everything is going great. My Block 27 Lectros have worked everywhere little difficulty and only had to retune a few times (All shooting has taken place near downtown Paris). Overall it has been a great and very easy shoot. We are doing mostly sitdown interviews in private residences and a tiny bit of of walk and talk mixed in with B-Roll around the town most days 8 hours or less. So my 302 mixer with (2) 211 and my Mkh-416 on my K-tek Ke-89cc which fits inside my backpack perfectly. I haven’t really used the boom at all though since it is so loud outside. The French people we have encountered are all very nice and the language difference hasn’t really caused any major issues at all. The only thing this trip has really reminded me is how much I hate rolling around a light kit. We don’t have a P.A so part of my job when we are not shooting is to roll the Softbank kit around. But hey as sound jobs go I am having a great time going out at night and eating great food

Giving Film makers a reality check

whitneyince

Today I had a long talk with an Indie Film maker who really wanted to hire me to mix his film for $100.00 a day with equipment, Which I explained was so low there was no room to negotiate. He then tried to explain to me that I could defer $1500.00 a day so when his film “Made Millions after it went to Sundance” I would make more than I normally charge. These comments use to anger me but I have realized recently that most of these people have no F**king idea how much sound equipment costs. So I told him for his 21 day shoot he would be better off buying a sound package and getting a eager film student to do it. He then responded, “I should be able to get a 4 channel mixer 3 wireless, boom, shotgun right”. So I explained to him for $1250.00 he could get a Professional (well Prosumer) PSC Dv3 mixer, Rode NTG2 and K-tek pole. So he decided to go that way instead and hopefully we have one less uneducated film maker.

HVX-200 P2 Camera

whitneyince

This camera seems to becoming the go to camera for all lower budget projects but producers don’t realize that using this camera instead of a full size pro camera creates audio issues:

1. No where to mount my Wireless Hop at all most operators hate wearing a waist pack and trying to get them to wear 2 lectros is even harder

2. Power the Zaxcom Hop is a pain with internal batteries

3. Some audio issues with camera firmware and 16gb cards that creates beep, which are sometimes recorded to the card. So now I should record backup

4. Poor headphone jack volume and quality.

More on this later……

Why I am a Location Sound Mixer

whitneyince

I have been doing a variety of different types of projects recently. The last year or so I have been doing mostly corporate video stuff, reality tv and some news. But in the last few weeks I have done a indy film, corporate video, national commercial and some audio consulting work. It has been nice having a change of pace, even though the indy films don’t pay as well as some of my other types of work. I had a 1st year film student ask me “Why your a Location Sound guy?”. So I went through my normal answers of I enjoy a new challenge everyday, I like meeting new people,I like being my own boss and enjoy being able to mix and spend time in South Fl, Ga and many other places. After I answered he responded, “You could have had those same things if you where a grip, camera operator or any other film job. So I responded, ” I am a sound guy its in my blood, I have an instinct and 6th sense about it that most people don’t have. I also couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life and even if I made alot of money doing something else I would do something sound related still. It is that passion that drives me to work hard even at hour 14 of a 16 hour day. I would love to hear your comments on why your a sound person.