Re: Zaxcom Wireless Story

On 11 Jan., 22:52, Martin Harrington <len...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That's a great story, Billy ..... But !!

What you have done is make it near impossible for anyone to follow you.
The production personnel, right down to the lowest assistant AD, will think
that's what can always be done.
They wont have to "re-negotiate" with the railway people to get close, the
wont have to do their real job and get conditions that are as good as
humanly possible.

You have all the gear, and Zaxcom behind you...you are their "power user",
but most mixers out there don't have that backup, and their task has just
become much harder.

Well done.

Martin Harrington

On 12/01/09 4:58 AM, in article
7f1e97c2-a731-4148-85db-9a133043c...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,

"williamsaro...@xxxxxxxxx" <williamsaro...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Friday was a cold day in NYC.  I was working an episodic with a crazy
schedule.  First up was a big scene on an elevated subway platform,
then a big scene on the street a few blocks away, then a company move
back to the stage for another 5 pages.  Of course we were winging
everything and while other departments had scouted the subway
platform, I didn't (sound usually doesn't scout on episodics because
other departments can spare a person to scout, we can't).  Locations
had described the setup so I figured I could carry my cart up to the
platform and run on batteries.

The subway platform scene consisted of 4 characters on 2 different
platforms yelling to each other and talking quietly to themselves.
The subway safety people would not allow my cart up on the platform,
so I had to set up by the token area and ran a 100' antenna cable up
the stairs to get my antennas outside.  At the last minute the
director and DP decided to move the scene further down the platform
(away from my antennas)to catch the daylight.  That effectively put
the scene out of my radio range.  First team was dressed, wired, cold,
and on set.  Without the recording radios my only option would have
been to get the producers and locations department to renegotiate with
the subway people and allow me to bring the cart up to the platform.
My other option was to shoot immediately, get what I could in the mix
(the radios were in and out), and dub from the radio cards later and
deliver to post the unmixed raw tracks.  I was able to hear enough to
know that the radios and boom were working well and the Zaxcom
receivers gave me confirmation that the transmitters were recording.
As it turned out, about half the takes we did the radios range held up
so I was able to provide a mix so post will know how I played the boom
and body mics when they re-mix it the rest of the takes.

Without the radio mic recording capability it would have been a big
mess and would have cost easily a half hour on a beast of a day when
we were fighting daylight and sub freezing temps.  I hate to use the
recording capability as a regular option, but on occasion, on days
like this, they're a huge help.

Billy Sarokin

I was doing a doc the last two days about the Austin Mini (Mini Cooper
that is) and as you can imagine there was little to no space for the
sound mixer when the camera was mounted on the engine cover and
filming nearly everthing inside. The director was hiding on the
backseat and was asking his questions which the driver would answer on
camera. I was following in a transport car trying to get signal off of
my Zax radios. While the plant mic was alright most of the time (the
TRX was mounted in plane sight) but got more of an ambient track the
actors tx was producing drop outs every now and then (was hidden
inside his jacket). My options have been to either put my recorder
inside the Mini and show the director the Rec button or to record as
best as I could and deliver the actors lav as a back-up track from the
SD card which I did.

I`m with Martin that most productions won`t realize that this is not a
standard feature but will tell the poor next sound mixer - "well on
our last production ..."

Anyway to me the recording feature of the Zaxcom TRX was a true life /
job safer.

Matthias
.

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