Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/856624
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y S U M M E R 2 0 1 7 33 you know, Mark [Ulano]—I always say he's my favorite "ENG Warrior" because he did a lot of The Hateful Eight in the bag, and he did a lot of Inglourious Basterds in the bag." My hat goes off to Chris because a lot of what he is doing is outreach that manifests into educational events. So this extends the educational platform away from just relying on asking questions online. He continued, "The other thing you can do with locally focused groups is have educational initiatives and social functions that are tailored to your group—and that's one of the things we do really well at L.A. Sound Mixers. So we love doing that. People love to learn." With everyone I talked to for this article, I wanted to get Chris' take on the type of questions like, "What shotgun mic should I buy?" "I think we have had people ask questions that are very basic and very simple. Like, page three of the manual would tell you. But sometimes people are out in the middle of nowhere or they may not be able to look it up. I always kind of—I look at it in a couple of different ways. The group can be seen as a life jacket and, sometimes, people are quick to use it. We all go through that learning curve. We all get caught with our pants down at some point. But for L.A. Sound Mixers, there's no hard and fast rule like, 'Please never do this.' I do have in the group description: 'Please respect the time of the professionals. Do your own due diligence'—and it's always been there." Chris added, "So establishing yourself with your peers is a huge step to moving forward and growing. And learning. You never stop learning. And then you're talking about exclusivity, I guess the other thing that should be acknowledged is that—and this took another mixer explaining this to me for me to really get it—the really big forums that will accept anybody and everybody can contribute—[but] they're a little bit more of the Wild West." THE BIRTH OF "IT DEPENDS" Senator Mike Michaels CAS was a frequent poster and replier on both R.A.M.P.S. and JWSound. The frequent answer from him to every question just stated: "It Depends." In my opinion, this answer is 50 percent condescending and 50 percent brilliant. On the surface, it can be perceived as rude and combative, but it deeply and truly exemplifies the very answer to most questions regarding our craft. It demonstrates that there are a variety of answers to every question—each depending on individual circumstances that can vary day-to-day and minute-to-minute and shift unpredictably depending on the various moving parts of any situation. Honestly, nothing replaces experience. An answer of "It Depends" is found on the heels of a question that suggests the only answer is to go out and experience the craft and potentially make mistakes and then you'll know. But as we also know, learning and building from others' past mistakes can be an efficient way to enrich the entire community with knowledge. The debate between these two wings of thought is a good thing to elaborate on. Why is this important? It examines the philosophy and divide between the sharing of knowledge and the exclusivity of knowledge. I sat down and discussed some of this with Senator Mike Michaels recently. "People who want everything handed to them without putting in some effort—that's where one of my sides comes from, you know. If you can't pick up the instruction manual, and if you can't do your own de-bugging, and if you're unwilling to even pick up the telephone and call the manufacturer for some reason when that's what you've got to do..." This sounds similar to my earlier ranting, but with a different generational spin to it. He adds, "In my day, when I was working on ham radio stuff, we didn't have the internet. Long distance was considered a luxury and expensive. If you were in Cleveland, Ohio, and the equipment was manufactured someplace in Oklahoma, you didn't just pick up the phone every morning and call them up and talk to them." I hadn't even thought about this. I come from the generation unofficially called "Xennials." Basically, in-between "Generation X" and "Millennials." The reason this is relevant is Generation X and earlier didn't grow up with technology and internet as we know it today. Xennials, on the other hand, experienced a childhood where the World Wide Web and its relating technologies were rolled out as they grew up. Millennials have had pretty advanced internet and technology their entire lives. So, it was enlightening to get Senator Mike's perspective on this. He embraced technology, but applied his old-school logic to it. He continued: "What we'd find is these people would just go, 'I don't have to know anything. All I got to do is put out a search on the internet and enlightenment will land on me, and it's a no-brainer, and I'm entitled to it.' The kind of stuff that would turn me off is when people would