Today was a gorgeous NC fall day so I posse’d up with some friends and rode some bikes in my friend Brad’s backyard dirt jumps. FUN TIMES!
Today was a gorgeous NC fall day so I posse’d up with some friends and rode some bikes in my friend Brad’s backyard dirt jumps. FUN TIMES!
Recently I worked with PACE communications on a series of Verizon Wireless web spots with comedian Kevin Hart. Check out some pics after the jump:
This past week was full of interesting characters to put microphones on.
First up: Vice President Joe Biden
A stop in NC on his political campaign got him mic’d up with one of my zaxcom transmitters.
Next up: Dan Ariely
The job was a corporate video, I don’t remember the exact details but I can tell you that this dude is cool. Very interesting cat. He’s a professor at Duke University covering psychology and behavioral economics. Basically he studies lying and cheating and why we do it. All kinds of cool experiments. He’s done some TED talks that have had a looooot of views. By far the most interesting dude to get mic’d up this week. Check him out.
And finally, we have: Billy Burke
Billy is mostly well known for his role in the teeny vampire heart throb Twilight Saga. But he’s now starring in the new NBC show REVOLUTION. The job was an EPK(electronic press kit, or promo video if you will) for NBC on the set of the show, which is shooting in the Wilmington, NC area. Check out the extended web trailer for the show, looks to be interesting!
Its not very often I get the chance to pair up with a fellow soundie, but over the past few months I’ve been bumping into some cool dudes.
Here’s Brooks Lester and myself working on a sizzle for a UK show. And we both have Nomads!
Christopher Brown and myself running in to each other while working for different clients at Charlotte Speedway.
Myself and Charlie Macarone out of NJ working on Baggage Battles for Travel Channel
Dan Brooks and myself working on WE tv’s Mary Mary in Charlotte
Once again I’ve somehow managed to get my bearded mug onto local teevee. Last time it was with the ESPN crew while shooting ESPNu’s roadtrip in Blacksburg, VA. This time while shooting the travel channel show Food Paradise, good friend and awesome DP Jason Dowdle of Blue Sky films and myself were captured while we did our thing down in Greenville, SC.
A lot of the work I do with big crews usually involves some sort of communication device, a walkie talkie if you will. And obviously you can’t have a PA coming through an open walkie saying, “I can’t find the c-47’s!” on an open set. So what is usually employed with a walkie system is a surveillance mic/ear piece. Observe in the image below:
So what you see there is a microphone with a push button activation and an in ear piece that clips on your shirt collar and wraps around the back of your ear and then sticks in your ear hole. Now for any extended use of said in ear listener, its going to start getting irritating. And to add to that, if you’re wearing headphones, such as I do all day long, they are going to press on that in ear piece even more, making it more irritating. So what I’ve done is THIS:
I cut off that blasted in ear listener and soldered up an 1/8″ male connector that I run into my Nomad. I route it so that it doesn’t go to camera or get recorded. And that annoying in ear piece? well its stashed back in a box in my kit not making me cringe in pain. I plan to eventually solder on a female 1/8″ so that I can connect them back in case I ever need to use it sans sound kit. So now after long days I no longer have that constant inner ear pain combined with producer/crew ramblings/dirty jokes, just the latter coming through my headphones and a feelin good ear hole.
Look Ma! I’m on the teevee!
Had the pleasure to work with Beaudry Film works this past weekend on their show Road Trip for ESPNU. The Show will be airing this Wednesday at 6:30pm eastern time on ESPNU(its usually at 7:30 but this week there is a schedule change).
Here’s the camera man, Robb Shaw and myself after getting rained on in 40 degree temps, aka not so fun. But other than that, an awesome crew and a good time hanging around Blacksburg and VA Tech!
One thing I’ve been pretty active with is the whole DSLR movement. I did a post a while back about using a DSLR, separate recorder and plural eyes to sync in final cut pro. Thats been a pretty easy deal for most productions but now I have devised a new way to get all technical with post syncing that involves no need for a plugin! All it takes is just a quick glimpse of my bag slate for camera while its rolling and you’re good to go. Here, ladies and gents, is my bag’s mini timecode slate:
Hit the jump to get some more photos and details
Read the rest of this entry »