Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1515068
Spring 2024 – LOCAL695.COM 17 My prejudices must stop at the door. A leader takes information and recommendations from the team and then makes a decision. This is the responsibility of the director. But how you present where your concern comes from should redirect the attention from yourself to the "we-together" problem solving of the project. My ego is intact, but it's directed toward serving the project, not about protecting my "work" or worry of being criticized in my absence, I work at defusing the notion of bad production sound by establishing my credibility. I aggressively maintain a collaborative relationship with the Supervising Sound Editor and the Re-recording Mixers in pre- production, and then through production. I want that open line of communication, not just for challenges and problems, but for creative contributions that together, we interpret the intent of the director. I did a film called Cowboys & Aliens with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Harrison created a voice for that character that he turned on and off like a switch. Cameras on, he's in that voice, it's sort of low and gravelly, very consistent. He was his own reference. That voice impacted my choices for tonality, which mic and its placement I would use for him and how I would mix his voice into the scene. This is an example of being aware of a significant actor contribution, and how I was collaborating with and protecting that contribution. That's the mindset I have when I'm dealing with this idea of "Okay, we want to create sound that tells this story, we're really with you." Then on the day, we're chasing the sun up the hill. It's panic vision and f**k sound and we're off and running. I try to be a buffer to that impulse. Often the First AD is an interpreter of a director's decision-making prerogative. The First AD has more than one agenda. Surface-wise, they're the director's advocate and a conduit of information to the rest of the crew. But they're also part of production; they are shooting a schedule and making their day has financial implications for them. They get bonuses for coming in under time and under budget. One could argue that this is a conflict of interest, but nonetheless, there it is. Or they may have very deep conviction that they know exactly what is and isn't okay without consultation. We're there to be the "DPs of Sound," if you will, on the set. Our responsibility is at this level. Some mixers remain silent out of fear of alienating themselves with the ADs and the Director. To me, this way of thinking is a strategic mistake. There's a third way. You don't need to be in an adversarial posture over the challenges created by competing elements. Moviemaking is all about competing elements. Every day, every shot, there's some kind of element that seeks to be dominant in the shot. It's not up to the Department Head or the mini-department heads to take it personally. The higher up the food chain you go though, the less frequently that occurs because they've been seasoned, they've been experienced. They understand it's not just about them, it's about the project, serve the project. So, if you're challenged by an element that has not been fully thought through and that is damaging other key elements, that's a situation that could possibly have been solved in advance, but then... If it isn't, on the day, on the fly, in the moment, you, together, collaborate on a solution (if there's one to be found). On a big movie, it's probably five thousand dollars a minute of shooting time to run a two-hundred-million-dollar budget! You miss ten minutes and that's fifty grand. You're already stepping into a schoolteachers' annual salary for those ten minutes. So, how do we transcend that conundrum? A: Become deeply invested in anticipating. B: Become deeply skilled in interpreting the truth of the moment, not what everybody thinks what the moment will be, and C: Have an armful of potential solutions for that moment in a very short period of time. That means having more than one game in play simultaneously, most of the time. The most important issue is how you are communicating these concerns? My partner, Patrushkha Mierzwa, says, "When you come up against a challenge … never describe it as a 'problem.' "We don't have a problem, we have a situation, and these are the competing elements, and here are the solution options. We need to decide what's the best solution for this, whatever that range may be." It's often our responsibility to make clear to people who do not understand what we do to not jump to a conclusion about how long something will take to do. We may have a much better solution that's actually equal or less in time than the solution that they leap to in their mind. It's up to us to be able to say, "This will take thirty seconds. This will take four minutes. This will take…" Whatever they need to be soothed in their anxiety about the time lost, and then to perform within the parameters close to your estimate, because you have the experience of how to do that. It's in your repertoire. When a DP needs to add another light, and there's a ten-minute interval, it's OK. But when our department asks, we sometimes hear, "We have no time." In The Godfather, Mario Puzo reiterated an ancient Greek saying: "The fish stinks from the head down."