Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1525020
40 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Fall 2024 him, what would he do in battle if the radar was knocked out, how would he continue? I guess he accepted the challenge and ordered radar aircraft out in different directions, to cover their needs. The radar was turned off! At Miramar Naval Air Station, with Tom Cruise delivering a high- five and the words, "I have a need for speed," I asked that the twenty or so screaming jets behind them all be turned off. It went to the commander quickly, who showed up with a stack of bumper stickers and dropped them on my mixer. They read, "Jet Noise, The Sound of Freedom." And that was that! Again, my first nature is mechanical, not digital. Now we can make the world quiet through apps in post, not so historically. On Crimson Tide, we had a submarine set, in cross section, longways. It filled the entire stage. Hydraulically, it had an arc of movement of over sixteen feet. A lowrider crew was hired to do the under-platform hydraulics. It was very loud. Showing it to the director for the first time, it self-destructed. A wonderful special effects department came in to do it correctly. I appealed to Tony Scott again, that I could make it completely silent. He gave me carte blanche. All the hydraulic pumps and motors were moved to a concrete block shack off stage, and all the skinny lines changed to large diameter ones to eliminate the sound of the rushing hydraulic fluid. We cut the stage floor and had the hydraulic hoses put three feet deep in wet sand. Half the rams were eliminated by introducing a massive universal joint. The set could move in its entire range rapidly, all in silence. Tony's support let me do that! That film brought me to my knees, asking my higher power if I was cut out for this profession. We had to use plant mics only with no booming possible. The mix was furiously fast and never the same take to take. It got my deepest attention. I took a five-year break from mixing and started a grip-electric rental facility with several eighteen-wheelers, grip, electric, generators, expendables, manufacturing, with thirteen employees. After five years of running a business, I got home sick. I sold the company and went back to the set. Roger Corman As I'm writing this, I'm finding out that Roger Corman just passed away. This is powerful, I am crying. That man gave us the passion for the art and craft of filmmaking. Rarely, he came on the set of his movies. When he did, we knew it was important. On one appearance, he asked to see the director's script and announced that we were four pages behind. He took the script from the director's hands, tore out the four pages, folded them into his pocket and walked off, saying, "So, now you're back on schedule!" Another time, he appeared and stopped everything. He announced that we were taking too long lighting and working out camera moves. He gave us a lesson on the spot. With two people seated on a couch, two end tables with a lamp on each and a large picture frame behind them, he proclaimed we could shoot a wide master, a medium two, two tight profiles, opposing over the shoulders and two tight singles, all without moving the camera or one light. I won't take the time here to offer the lesson, but please know he enlightened us with the magic of filmmaking. Thank you, thank you Mr. Roger Corman, for taking a chance and trusting us with so little money and hardly any time that we could be good enough to make releasable feature films. You gave us the opportunity to trudge this path, sharing your film knowledge with us. No one else was willing to do that. As an homage, many of us have used you as an actor in our films, as we grew up. We will miss you. God bless. Currently After a mix of one hundred fifty-seven documentaries and features, and over fifty-seven years, I'm doing television, for the first time. The Morning Show, for Apple TV+ is one of the largest projects I've ever done and possibly the most complicated. It's such a good vibe, from the bottom up and from the top down. It's a gift to get to work every day. How are we so lucky that when we walk on the set, we might hug or blow a kiss to our stars, to our amazing director/producer, Mimi Leder, crew and the rest of the talented production. I realize after decades of therapy and a long career; the set is my home, and the crew is my family… On this job, I have an amazing, four-person sound crew. My utility and technical genius, equipment builder, tech-digital master and partner in sound is Tom Giordano. We've been on projects together for twenty-six years. My phenomenal Boom Operator, Johnny Miller, can do anything with a microphone, besides he's a full mixer himself. And the love of our lives, our fourth person, Krysten Kabzenell. Krysten can radio mic perfectly the craziest clothes or a character with no clothes at all. She might be the smallest on our crew, but she wields all the power. I thought I'd reflect on my gratitude for some magical and privileged moments a film life has gifted me, beyond those childhood moments by my father. As a single parent for thirty-six years, my career supported the three of us, and put my daughter through medical school to be a Veterinarian Surgeon, and promoted the know-how for my son's business of constructing TV broadcast studios, after he worked on several huge films A brief gratitude list, from my career in sound. I got to: Two interviews in India with Indira Gandhi, as she teased us about phony gurus in America… Recording the singing of prayers in the Taj Mahal… Accidentally baptized in a Doughboy pool, documenting Christian baptisms… Getting to walk the life of Jesus in Jerusalem, from his manger, down the Via Dolorosa and to Cavalry… Walked with Frank Sinatra in The Vatican City… Went around the world three times… Worked in more than twenty-eight countries… Doing behind the scenes of several world-famous rock musicians all over the world (and somehow lived through it)… Lived aboard active-duty US aircraft carriers, three times… Recorded sync dialog in F-14's beyond the sound barrier… Secret interviews with still unnamed fugitives… Got to drive every Formula-1 race track in Europe… Got to be friends with some internationally, well-known people, being able to know them merely as regular people… Been blessed with seven Oscar nominations, received the CAS Award for Forrest Gump, the MPSE Award for Crimson Tide, and the CAS Career Achievement Award… Tom Giordano and I have been privileged to mentor up and coming film students on productions, through an Oscar- supported program… My sound career is where I have met my greatest challenges, learned to appreciate my victories, and to gracefully accept defeats as wonderful lessons. There is nothing more fulfilling than giving back.