22 July 2007

Booked.

Ladies and gents, I am booked.

I'm now ten days into a twenty-two day shoot in and around Portland, Oregon for the movie Trainmaster, directed by Phil Branson.

I'm production sound mixer on my first full feature (I've only day-played before). We're shooting single-system (yeah, I know...), with two Panasonic HVX-200's, utilizing both P2 and Firestore hard drives.

It's long days in hot rooms with sweaty people. Luckily, everyone's cool and I have an awesome boom op in the form of Creed Spencer. Actually having someone who is more of a teammate rather than an intern has made an incredible difference in the efficiency and quality of the work that we've been able to produce.

Plus, I finally got my kit.

Things happened in a hurry. I was asked to come on board about ten days before we started shooting, so I had to make it all happen post-haste. Since I'd been refining my wish list for the past two years, it was only a matter of calling in the order and getting it shipped in time. As it turned out, I used the kit for the first time on the first day of shooting (after having diligently tested everything at home the night before, natch:). A full review of each piece will be forth coming sometime after we finish.

This is what we're working with:

Sound Devices 442 mixer
Sennheiser G2 Evolution wireless
Countryman B3 lav mics
K-tek boom pole
Rycote S-Series suspension
Petrol PEGZ-1F audio bag
AKG Blueline modular mic system with SE-300b amp body, CK-93 hyper-cardioid capsule, and CK-98 short shotgun capsule

We're slated to wrap in early August. Until then, quiet on set. :)

-Christian

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one! Can you post some snippets of AKG recording as part of your review?

Anonymous said...

congratulations on this tremendous break-through/break-in/break-out opportunity.

what doesn't kill you...

Unknown said...

Nice Kit! Have you considered using a small digital recorder like M-Audio Microtrack or Zoom H4...just for peace of mind? (Perhaps you already are?)

I used a microtrack on a shoot in Namibia last year. Fits nicely into a small audio production bag and worked quite well for size and price.

Cheers!!

syncsound said...

Mike,

Eventually, I could post some audio samples. I did already link to another site that has some AKG samples up:

http://www.syncsoundcinema.com/2007/05/shotgun-shootout.html

Anonymous,

Thanks! :)

Piri,

If they won't pay for a back-up, then I'm afraid they won't get one. I'm not too keen on being expected to pack two of everything while only being paid for a basic kit. (Plus, when was the last time you saw the video department running a back-up recorder? Doesn't seem quite fair, does it? :)

Thanks to all for commenting!

-Christian

Eric said...

Thanks for listing the kit - I'm always interested in what people are using and why.

And congrats - have a great shoot!

BTL said...

Congratulations on the gig. Hope you get to record some cool wild sound - that's always my favorite part.

(By the way, I love how y'all get all sound-geeky on this blog!)