Just now done for the Holiday break. We are still on Medium, and will continue until the end of January. I believe Kim Ornitz will return to the mixer position at that time.

It is great to be back on the show. The crew for Medium has been together for a couple of years now and there is a great feeling of 'family' on the show. Since we were a part of the first season, however brief, we were welcomed back into the fold. It's a great gig.

The new year has yet to unfold, so there is no telling where it will lead us. I didn't think 2005 would be nearly as exciting or as busy at it was...so I wont even guess as to what awaits us.

Stay tuned.

PWP

And that door would be... Medium

After a brief week off, actually less due to some prep and clean up, we will start on Medium for Paramount/NBC. We will complete one more episode before the holiday hiatus, then see what happens. Not sure whether this is a long term engagement, we'll have to wait and see.

More later...

PWP

It's official, we're done. Threshold has been pulled. We will finish the last and 13th episode the week after Thanksgiving. Too bad, there was a lot of potential there. Great group of people to work with.

When one door closes, another opens.

~~PWP

The somewhat current view of the sound cart 

We had a little fun with Brent and his trailer...


The new Brent Spiner building. :)

Yes, I know it...it has been months. The TV series grind is quite tough, and I just haven't been motivated. So...there, I'm back.

We are on episode 12 of the 13 show order of Threshold. We have no idea whether we are doing any more, as CBS and Paramount are waiting to see how are ratings do on our new night...Tuesday at 10pm. Watch please!

Shows are getting very interesting, lots of action and alien goings on...

On the gear front, I tried Metacorder...didn't work for me. It was frustrating trying to marry consumer, "prosumer", and professional gear all into one recording device. The audio interface was the most troublesome for me, as I tried the Edirol UA25 first. It inducted all kinds of noise, mostly from the Mac Mini. The sound of processor whine with every thing the computer tried to do was annoying. After trying the Traveler, it was less but still there...and all I really wanted was a back up device. I've got a DEVA as my main recorder. I pulled the computer, monitor, keyboard, track pad, power supply, audio interface and pile of cables off the cart, and put a Fostex FR2 in it's place and it works great. I pop the CF card out and burn a disk, same time as it would take with Metacorder, and I'm out the door.

Since I spent so much money trying to get the Metacorder to work, I will continue to experiment with it. Hopefully it will work in another form, perhaps with a laptop.

Cross your fingers for the show pick-up!

~P

We have been working some long hours on our first 3 weeks of Threshold. We have just begun shooting our 3rd episode. Great cast and crew!

The Jeff's are back with me on this one, after a few weeks off. The Entourage experience was tough on all of us.

I'll try and post a little more often now that we are settling into a groove over at Paramount.

P

A few weeks off and we will be back at it. Next week is the Monday Night Football opener shoot with Hank Williams, Jr....lot's of playback and cheerleaders.

Then, beginning July 12, we will begin shooting season 1 of Threshold for CBS. It's a Sci-Fi/thrill show that will air on Friday nights this coming fall season. I'm really excited about this show...great cast and a great story.

My crew will be the same as the last few projects, Jeff Norton on boom and Jeff Zimmerman as utility. I'm sure there will be many opportunities for others to join in, so I'll be calling my regulars. We are at Paramount for quite a bit on this, which is awesome. I get to finally get back to the gym!

We start in just a couple of weeks, so more later.

We've finished filming Entourage, season 2. It was quite a wild 5 months of shooting, but we made it through. I can actually say that there are things that I did on this show that I thought I would never do. The scene at the Laker game was by far the wildest recording experience in quite some time.

This picture was taken by Jeff Graham, one of our camera assistants on the beach in Malibu. It was one of our last days of shooting. We had a big walk and talk down the beach. At the end I was able to put the rig down...it was getting heavy.

The second season premieres tomorrow on HBO.


Malibu

Three weeks left on the schedule and we are getting close. It's been a long run since January and everyone is looking forward to a break.

There are a few things that this show has done for my mixing abilities. Since we rarely, if at all, get rehearsals, the art of mixing on the fly has really become important. It's very interesting how, after a few months, you can get a feel for how actors will make their way through a scene...even if they have never done it together before. Jeff Norton had a great way of describing it: it's like getting out of the van every morning and jumping into a blender. A good analogy I think...

I've really put my crew and all of my equipment through a great amount of test and stress through the last 4+ months. We've changed how we do a lot of things...including the entire cart. I had to ditch the big magliner and go with my older, smaller and more agile PSC cart. Way to many moves and small locations to use a battleship like the Magliner as a sound cart. Now that I've gone to the PSC, though quite modified, I'll probably not go back to the Magliner again. Check out this link for pictures: http://www.palmeraudio.net/equip.htm

This coming week I will be giving the new FAT32 OS of the DEVA a good run through. Hopefully things will go well...I've been testing it all weekend.

Cheers...

We've got about 5 weeks to go on Entourage. We've been shooting a Comic Book convention the last few days...funny stuff.


?!?

We've been shooting all over Los Angeles. Nearly a different location every day, sometimes two. Recently we shot at the Vista Theater in Los Feliz. It has recently been remodeled and has a great interior design. You should really stop by and see it...Sunset and Hollywood Blvd.


Jeff Norton at the Vista Theater...

Long days, late nights, not enought coffee... :)


Thanks Claudette

We are very deep into filming of the second season of Entourage. Not quite mid way through, and we are very busy. This weekend was highlighted by the transfer of all my equipment back on to my smaller, more mobile vertical cart. It is a modified PSC cart, with some additions by Chindha Kommarath. I'll ad some pictures in the next few days. After a couple of years with a big Magliner to manuever around our locations, I got fed up and went back to the original cart design.

This week was highlighted by two days of shooting at the Playboy Mansion. Lot's of people with very little clothing.

The week ended with lots of rain...not my favorite way to work.

I'm really thinking of moving back to a smaller, more mobile cart. It is just too hard to move around a magliner in so many of our locations. Back to the drawing board...again.



at the mansion 

Really sorry it's taken so long to get back to the blog. I've been very busy with the new show, Entourage. It is a very difficult show from a sound view because of the amount of dialog and poor locations. The locations are all Hollywood, Beverly Hills and LA practical locations, with very little stage work. Some of the locations have no sound control what so ever. The show is wall to wall dialog with the 4 principals in almost every scene. My work has been cut out for me!

This past week we spent in Park City, Utah at the Sundance film festival. We shot exteriors on Main St. in Park City for 2 days, then went on top of The Canyons ski resort for a scene with the guys snowboarding. It was quite a trek up the mountain. The gear had to go up in a snow cat, while we took a gondola and a chair lift.

We returned late Friday night and have a 5 am call tomorrow. That's all for now.

Happy New Year to everyone...still not sure if anyone ever reads this. It's New Years Day here in Southern California, and it's not sunny...at all. In fact it looked like rain all day. We're in for another cycle of rain storms over the next week.

Starting to prep for Entourage tomorrow. They have moved the start date to Friday of next week, so I've got to get things going.

This Mac powerbook is really great. I find that I am on it much more than the PC, much more. When I do get on the PC, it just looks bad...I mean ugly. The Mac interface is so much more pleasant, easier on the eyes.

I've gotten into the chat thing so here are my screen names.
For iChat: pwpmixer@mac.com
For Messenger: phil@palmeraudio.net

Let me know when you're online...