Blog

Top Model New Zealand

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

I’m working in Auckland New Zealand as the international A2 for Americas Next Top Model season 14. I’m facilitating the needs of the sound department, managing equipment and mic’ing our cast and talent. We use Sennheiser wireless transmitters and a variety of lavaliers, Tram, Countryman, and Sennheiser.

It’s a beautiful place with great people and an amazing pool of talented professionals that would shame most from the states. All of the film production here in the last decade has done a lot for their industry, the Lord of the Rings series, Narnia, King Kong, Avatar, have been keeping the locals very busy.

The scenery is spectacular of course and the weather is quite a thing! We’ve been shooting in extremes for 2 weeks, it’ll be sunny in the morning, pouring rain in the afternoon, clearing up within 5 minutes, then rainy and windy again! So having lots of ponchos and trashbags handy for our sound mixers is very necessary, along with Zeppelin windjammer’s for our shotgun mic’s to help eliminate the wind noise.

I highly reccomend a future visit to New Zealand, either for film and TV production, or just for fun. It’s beautiful, affordable, and they speak English!

Concerts available now on iTunes from Live Nation

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

You can now purchase concert recordings on the iTunes music store. Thanks to a recent collaboration between Apple and Live Nation. Skepticism abounds but I think this is a step in the right direction, albeit from major heavyweights. I’m sure this will open up the door to a platform of convenient access to live music that everyone can benefit from. Concert recordings are traditionally hampered by the legalities of copyright protection, but if the iTunes music store is handling this, I’m very optimistic that this will be a very good thing!

Recording Ben Harper and Sheryl Crow

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

I joined the cause of “Feed America” and helped raise awareness and support for the hungry in the U.S.

FeedingAmerica

There were many great performances and appearances, including many of the cast of “Friends,” comedian Gary Shandling, and musicians Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, with Ben Harper, and a closing performance by Sheryl Crow.

Ben Harper was great as always, and at the end of one particularly quiet song exclaimed, “You people dont even shut the f**k up for hunger do ya?” Then he looks offstage and says to his son, “Thats another dollar for the swear jar. You know what, make it $20 that was worth it!” I felt his pain, but the audience still applauded!

A great show for a great cause. Look for it on DVD soon.

Equipment used: Euphonix console, 2x 24 channel fiber optic interconnects from stage to studio, an assortment of studio mics and monitors.

Busy Week Mixing Popular Bands

Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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KISS

I worked with KISS this week, mixing their live satellite tour to promote their new album and tour, hitting 15 cities in the US and Canada. I was the broadcast sound mixer and also handled micing up Gene Simmons and the rest of the band, outfitting them with their IFB earbuds for their personal monitoring of their televised conversations, as well as operating the telephone “hybrid” systems to connect the multiple studios country wide.

It was quick work to have so many individual conversations with 15 different networks in just 2 hours time but it all went pretty well and served as great publicity for their show.

incubus

Incubus

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Hoobastank

Worked with Incubus and Hoobastank mixing promotional content for the new X-Box 360 game “Halo 3 ODST.” They were nice guys and darn good gamers!

Live Sound Mixing at Nokia Live

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

I’ve started working at the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live. A great new space in Downtown, next to the Staples Center where I help with audio for live concerts and broadcasts.

This is the audio control room, with a Studer Vista console. I especially like the touch-screens meters and controls!

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Studer Vista 5 at the Nokia Theater at L.A. Live

Recently we mixed Stevie Wonder for a live taping of “The Brian McKnight Show.” Stevie was such a great guy, so fun and funny, and legendary!

Stevie Wonder at the Nokia Theater for "The Brian McKnight Show."

Stevie Wonder at the Nokia Theater for "The Brian McKnight Show."

Got a chance to work with Design FX remote recording systems and engineers. They were great guys and have a good system for big concert multi-track recording’s on big-budget events. Certainly not the small laptop system I use!

Production Sound on “The Office”

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

So I worked a day on the Office for NBC as a boom operator / A2 and it was a great experience. We traveled to Buffalo, NY to shoot the vows at Niagra Falls for the wedding episode. The production was really well run, and the locals were all so great. It’s so fulfilling working on a popular show, you are welcomed with open arms to a town who are so happy to have us.

At one point a young elevator operator interrupted to say that it was a pleasure to meet and work with us. So cute.

John Krasinski was feeling under the weather that day but still pulled out a great performance. and Jenna Fisher was very helpful to me with the mic-ing process in her wedding dress and ‘baby belly’ costume. I honestly hadn’t been too caught up on current events of the show so was quite surprised to see that the character’s were expecting! (I didn’t mention that to them tho)

Equipment used: Sennheiser and Lectrosonics wireless lavalier’s with countryman mic elements, both chosen for their waterproof characteristics. Sound Devices 442 for on-site multi-track recording, and a Sennheiser MKH-70 hypercardiod condenser “shotgun” microphone.

Our director was a recognizable actor/comedian Paul Feig, who I loved in the movie “Ski Patrol.”

We made the front page of both big newspapers for the city, and I was even in one of the pictures! Flying my boom in the background.

While flying home to LA I was sat next to the actress Isabel Lucas most recently in Transformers 2. She was trying out for a part in a movie based on the book that I was reading that very moment, On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Pretty coincidental.

It was a great experience working with the cast and crew of NBC’s “The Office” and I look forward to helping out again soon!

Banner Advertising

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Always interested in advertising and marketing!

Listed on ProductionHUB.com in Mobile Audio Units in California

Search Engine Submission – AddMe

Busy Year Mixing and Mastering!

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

The first 3 months of the year were taken up by shooting 2 seasons back-to-back, of FOX’s Hell’s Kitchen, as a control room sound mixer. Hell’s Kitchen Season 6 & 7 were quite exciting! Tune in for more details on that.

Hell's Kitchen Audio Control Room

Hell's Kitchen Audio Control Room

Then I went on to help with CW’s America’s Next Top Model Season 13. I am an “A2″ on that show so I place the mics on the contestants and help facilitate the rest of the sound crew. It’s a fun show and a great family of people on the crew, many who have been doing it since the first season!

Top Model Audio

Top Model Audio

After a long run of work in ‘09 I took the month of july off to “recharge the batteries.” And it was fantastic. But it’s great to be back!
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I’ve since worked a few days a an alternate control room sound mixer on CBS’s Big Brother. Its a great control room to work in but can sometimes get a bit booring watching “the paint dry.” But its pretty close to the dream job of mixing a live broadcast in surround sound, so one step closer, right?!

Live Gospel Album

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Alexis Joi Live

Feb 2009

Portable multitrack recording of a live gospel band performance.

Gospel Recording

Gospel Recording

I always love any chance I can get to mix some music. And these guys are great! Album mix soon to come.

Listen to “Inspired”

Equipment Used: Yamaha o1V mixing sonsole, ProTools, Digi 002, Metacorder, Presonus optical preamp, Motu 828 optical I/O, Whirlwind XLR splitter, Shure, Sennheiser, and Audix microphones.