Fish(er) Tales

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! These posts will give you a better idea about what this site is about. Start here, then go here, and here, and then here.It seems people want to know a magic formula to fame and fortune. I could be flippant and just say hard work, talent, and dumb luck. While those three notions often do result in success, they do...

Boundary mics are handy to use for sound recording. They are especially useful for recording dialog when the actors don’t move much and are near a surface — such as when a scene takes place in a restaurant. You can place the boundary mic on the table and get great dialog. My favorite boundary mics are hemi-cardioids meaning they pick up primarily in one direction and reject sound arriving...

According to Wikipedia “A shill … is a person who helps another person or organization to sell goods or services without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with the seller.” I’d suggest that many of the so-called experts you hear on radio and/or see on TV news and related programs fit that definition. And that’s a terrible thing. I find that too many people...

Need a simple, homemade way to haul your gear around and keep it safe? Here’s a picture of a nifty trolley (from Ian Thompson) for lugging around and setting up your gear when recording film sound on-location. Gear stays safely packed in the cases. Boom poles are safe and within easy reach. And the two shelves are perfect for setting up and running the mixer/recorder. There is more detail at...

Here is a terrific Sound for Film Profile about the work done on the new film, The Social Network. It features Ren Kylce, supervising sound editor, and Michael Semanick, re-recording mixer on the film. They discuss the major and minor steps involved with bringing this film to life. This video comes from the outstanding series of profiles available from the SoundWorks Collection. Check it out: “The...

I’ve worked on a number of indie films. And it’s difficult to compete with Hollywood et al. Indie filmmakers shouldn’t even try. The best indie films stay outside the mainstream and that’s their power. And strength. What I’ve noticed, though, for indie filmmakers to succeed takes attention to only a few key areas. And Kelley Baker knows what he’s talking about....

This Sunday, October 10, 2010, at exactly ten minutes and ten seconds after ten o’clock in the morning, the digital date and time will be: 10/10/10 10:10:10. And if you miss it, you can catch that again 12 hours later. But after that, probably none of us will ever see that happen again!

How do you become a much sought-after expert in the field of sound design and sound supervision? It’s an easy three step process. 1) Do the soundtrack for a film. 2) Make mistakes, and then learn from them. 3) Repeat steps 1 and 2. It’s simple I know, but valid. It’s an approach that you can use for just about anything. In fact, I read this elsewhere (thanks, Cory) and thought about...