Well That Could Be. Too.

C'mon. Jalopy. I haven't even been there and yet still I know it's the most awesome music venue.

In the Vast Iteration is a City Samanas record. Well. Maybe. It may be a Diatomaceous Earth album. In any case, Greg has somehow been saddled with the responsibility of arranging the elements of this album into a single song -- like "Roundabout" or Pink Floyd's "Echoes". Ha! 
Might this also be a part of The Imaginary Opera? Well, that could be. Too.

Tom Tom Notes

So I'll admit it. I failed. I tried a 3-microphone setup on drums. And I just couldn't quite get the sound I've been looking for all this time.
The only things I know about recording drums are what Eric Rachel at Trax East has told me. One thing he pointed out is that recording toms and making them sound good is relatively easy. And to rely on the overheads and room mics.
We're not using room mics because the room isn't that awesome sounding anyway. But just putting microphones on the toms makes mixing the drums so much vastly easier because I'm not over-compressing everything just to get the toms to sing. Instead the cymbals can sit where they need to (most of their sound comes from the overheads) and the toms will go boom when they're played.
This is an improvised rehearsal. There were some songs or song-like things which some of us knew but others didn't. All the mixes were done on my laptop with an archaic version of Samplitude. This is because my main mixing computer lost its power supply and I'm waiting on the new supply to show up. So we're using the Tascam US-2000. The overheads are a pair of very sweet-sounding Ear Trumpet Labs mics going into Neve 1272 preamps.
There's a "distance" kick mic which is a RODE NT1 feeding a 1272.
The bass goes direct into the US-2000's DI input. The guitars are both recorded with SM58's. Mine goes into the last channel of my 1272. Greg's (in this recording at least) is preamped with the Tascam's internal preamps. Which sound surprisingly good.
The snare goes through an Equation Audio hypercardioid. And then it hits a Lindell 500-series preamp.
There's no close kick-drum mic on this recording. That'll be different next time. Also, my listening to the mix makes me want to do, er, things with the drum sound. And before we go and release an album with this material I want to actually mix it -- bring some instruments up and down rather than just setting the faders and letting it run all the way out.

Shower Scene

Although principal photography on Android Masquerade is complete we knew we had to get this one shot of Kate coming out of the shower.

First I had to prep the gun. It looks roughly the way it did when Joe put his red-dot scope on it. But the caps had to be taped in the "up" position (which they don't really do). This closeup makes the contraption look awfully ersatz, but we didn't photograph it such that you should really notice or care. I think.

Yes. It's not in the script. I just thought it would be amusing if her character were hiding in the shower -- with the shower on -- fully dressed and carrying a gun.

I want credit here. Hottest day of the year so far and the lead actor gets to stand in a shower where she can control the temperature. It seems like every other time we're shooting on hot days we get the "Oh for continuity you have to wear this winter coat/be slathered in body paint".

Because it amused me. It still amuses me.

I'm glad that you can't see my reflection in this shot. But you can see the mask hanging on the wall.

I also got some very gratuitous closeups at high-speed of water dripping off the muzzle of the gun. Click through to embiggen a little selection of that. I am enjoying my ability to shoot high-speed again now that we're using a GH3.

Cat In The Machine

Today was cat in the Machine day. We seldom have a set cat. But today kitty came out to make sure we were all on schedule.

Where exactly is craft services on this show?

You know I'm on golden time from the minute you pet me, right?

How do you know when a grip dies? He drops his doughnut. Ha!

I shall lurk like a vulture.

I think you should do more cats-in-prison pictures. There's a huge untapped market for those.

Invaded Their Home With Myself

We recorded a new Diatomaceous Earth rehearsal.

This was the first experiment with close-miking the toms and snare (and, theoretically, the kick). I had been under the impression that everyone hated the way I'd been recording the drums so I went to all this trouble to set up a system where the drums could be recorded a tad more conventionally. As it turns out, apparently the other band members claim happiness with the drum sound up until now.
To which I say "feh".


So. Some things.
The Equation Audio kick drum microphone was DOA. But we slapped a pair of mics on the toms and one on the snare. We continued to use the distant "kick drum microphone" which is a Rode NT1 about a meter from the front of the kit.
The other thing that happened was that the Aphex dual-channel microphone preamp which we were using on Greg's guitar and Lily's bass pretty much just crapped out. The signal just faded in and out and started crackling and so we gave up. Instead we used inputs 7 and 8 on the Tascam US-2000. The preamps on the Tascam sound pretty good actually.
One issue is that we'd got very used to the soft limiting on the Aphex and in order to give Lily the headroom she needs on her Schecter bass we have to turn the preamp down pretty low and then turn up the monitor output on our headphone system. Which does make the whole thing noisier to listen to.
Next week we hope to use Ethan's compressor as a limiter on the bass just to control the "funk". And that will help us keep the levels up a bit.
Me? I'm under the impression that the close mic of the toms and the snare does in fact help betterize things. Not in the manner that I was thinking though. We have bleed through all the mics like crazy. And sometimes the cymbals sound pretty good on the off-axis tom and snare mics. I know. It's weird. I believe the mixes you hear above have pretty heavily compressed toms and snare (and maybe even kick) but the overheads are left wide open without much (or possibly any) processing.
The effect of the snare drum mic is that we put a bit of plate reverb on that channel but it's not super-duper loud in the mix. Most of the snare sound (I think) is coming from those overheads and the "kick drum mic". Right? I know.
+++++ 
If you want to know anything about Afton, here's a view. I mean, the concert business is rough anyway. I'm not really one of those "the musicians deserve to get paid" folks just because, it seems impractical. As long as the sound mixer is paid it's all right with me.

Whack a Letter

Teen Getaway is another cool Alabama band. Dig this review.
+++++
But you're asking yourself: how are you going to arrange the preamps and A/D converters in order to record Diatomaceous Earth?
I know. I know you're asking this. I will try to help.

US-2000 input -- Source              -- Preamp used
1.                                                 --  Tascam preamp 1
2.                                                  -- Tascam preamp 2
3.                         Low tom mic --     Tascam preamp 3
4.                         Hi tom mic --         Tascam preamp 4
5.
6
7.                         Greg guitar    --       Aphex preamp L
8.                         Bass DI --              Aphex preamp R
9.                         Kick close mic        Lindell L
10.                        Snare close mic      Lindell R
11.                        Drum OH L            Neve 1
12.                        Drum OH R           Neve 2
13.                        Kick distant mic     Neve 3
14.                        Drew guitar            Neve 4
15.
16.

Rubber Shoulder Kilt Scope

Aaron Schillinger grooved me to the movie Rubber, which looks simply off the hook.

Eventually I'm going to need one of these Letus shoulder-mounts in order to be able to go from sticks to shoulder-mount quickly, aren't I? Yes. I'm sure I will.
There are a lot of working kilts out there in the world.
I may need to get a red-dot scope. Eergh. It's just for one dang shot but it has to match the scope which... which we don't know where is.

The Future of the Machine

Over the last 6 years (I actually went back into my Google Documents and checked old spreadsheets) every time I do a calculation of the realistic minimum amount of money a company needs in receivables each year just to stay afloat sustainably the number is... $250,000.
A quarter of a million dollars.

So we have to push way up there. We have to do a better job in the details of our art department (see photo above). More grit, more grime. Oddly we can mass-produce those sorts of details. We will.
And we have to produce much, much more. One day we might be able to see more than that from "catalog" sales but right now we're targeting 8 movies in a year. This year we've been on track to shoot three pictures. That's cool but I bet we could get up to 4. 2014 however, that's gotta be 8.
And sure, there will be some repurposed and re-used sets or set pieces. But we'll go to every effort to make them not obvious.
And that's that.

Mars Needs Producers

We put an ad on Craigslist today.

Production/Producer Intern for Film (no pay) (TriBeCa)

What we're looking for ideally is someone who wants to produce movies. We are a micro-studio in New York which makes science fiction no-budget movies. Right now we make two movies a year but we're in the process of ramping up production.

Our blog (NSFW) is at blog.pandoramachine.com and links to trailers are on the upper left hand side. We also have a fairly extensive wiki at www.pandoramachine.com/wiki

Time commitment: anywhere from 4 hours/week to whatever you want to do really.
Some work would need to be done in our office, you can also work from home on many parts of projects.

The producer intern can do a variety of things depending on their skill sets and interests including:
Breaking down and scheduling shoots
Overseeing post - production (or even picture editing)
Making sure elements are prepped for delivery
Making sure contracts, etc., are all in order
Help with casting

And so on.

We're looking for someone who is capable and competent and interested in producing and has free time in which to do it.

Contact me for more information.

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
• Compensation: no pay

Posting ID: 3908143654

Posted: 2013-07-01, 8:09PM EDT

Falling, Hats, Arrows

Jeremy over at All For Gun discusses the ballistics of different ammunition. Which is a subject on the Interwebs which is typically a shouting match of malarkey. Jeremy is, however, exceptionally clear.
One thing which confuses people is the fact that all bullets "drop" at the same speed. Just because an object is going really fast doesn't mean it does not fall at the same rate as (say) an apple.
The confusion is that bullets are usually shot upwards slightly and so they spend some of their travel going against gravity, until they determine at some time that they will go ahead and start falling down at the prescribed 32 feet/s/s. Unless they're European bullets in which case they fall at 9.75 meters/s/s or thereabouts.*
+++++

The hats of Copper. I've been trying to find out what that short top hat was called. Now I know.
+++++
Arrowhead: Signal is an Australian short which is begging for funds to be a feature. The production design looks nice.
Via.
*UPDATE: my dad would like to point out that the bullet is always falling and that indeed if you drew an imaginary plane along the barrel of the gun you'd see that the bullet is essentially falling from the plane at the prescribed rate (although not quite because it doesn't work out that way trigonometrically.) My dad also pointed out today that the University he went to has changed hands so many times that his graduate degree is now from NYU, but that's an entirely separate subject.

Park That

As far as I can tell there's basically only one street in lower Manhattan which has single-day alternate-side parking. That's this little patch of Harrison Street.

There's probably a handful of other places but, like all things in New York, someone else has realized this. So you probably actually have to sit in your car at 8am on a Tuesday (on the south side) in order to get a spot (meaning, you move your car for when the street cleaning machine comes and then you go right back to your spot and wait out the meter maids*).

*Yeah, I know, I can only think of the Beatles song. But what are they actually called? They used to be called "brownies" because they had brown uniforms, no? What are they called now?

9 to 15 Months

So we're looking to the future. As one does. Our sales rep says we should look 9 to 15 months into the future at other big sci-fi features coming out. You know, on the mockbuster tip.
Not that we really do mockbusters, but if we can make a movie that can draft on another title, you know we'll do it.
So looking at movies. Sci-fi movies coming out in 2014.

Jupiter Ascending.
Our Robot Overlords (which, although I have no idea what it is, certainly sounds like a Pandora Machine movie, doesn't it?)
Untitled Blade Runner Project. Let's shoot some replicants.

Wrap on Principal Photography

Yep. We wrapped. A guerrilla style shoot.

At the Android Masquerade Jared Van Heel (as Tanner), Kate Britton (as Barbara Slade), and Ruby Thomas (as Janice 213).

 The white balance was set to 7000 Kelvin. Other than that there was no lighting done specifically for these shots. The only trouble I got into was the camera didn't always want to autofocus on Ruby. So I threw it into manual a couple times.

The thing is that the spa attached to our office is supposed to go home at 7:30pm. Tonight they never left. Which mean that the lights stayed on. Which meant that there was no playing with the lighting. We were expecting to bring in some extension cords and light the whole thing. But it was already lit. So. Uh. Who knows?

It would have been nice if we could have gotten the music turned off but instead we just had the actors play like they were in a loud store and we'll put some loud music in later.

We wanted the role of Janice to be as inappropriately touchy-feely as we could go.

We also went in a general way for "weird". I actually started using the word "creepy" as a direction.

We used a thigh rig on a mini Lectro transmitter on Ruby with the transmitter hidden as high as it could go. Luckily those transmitters are the smallest there are.

We did no dressing. We didn't exactly ask if we could use this location. But it's the place we have to walk through to get to our bathrooms. And we were very well behaved.

The crew was one. Me. I became quite shvitzig.

Wherein I find costumes

Here's Ruby Thomas trying on her new costume.

The Queen of Mars found those shoes for only 8 dollars. But the dress came out of my personal collection I ordered online.