Sunday, September 23, 2007

Mini rig in action

For those sound mixers out there who daily do the bag rig deal, this probably seems like a strange post. However, those of us who primarily spend our days sitting behind our sound carts...this is a pretty big deal. I put together this bag rig as a totally separate recording system for when I have to jump in a car, on an insert vehicle, top of a building, down on the beach...you get the idea. Anywhere the cart is a difficult operation.

These past 2 episodes of Jericho have been really rough and tumble. Lots of difficult locations and situations. I've been able to do these things by having this rig ready to go at any time. I just burn a different sound DVD for these situations. It's working great! Redundant receivers for the mini rig, allow for the seemless transition to my cart when we jump back to normal operations, as we did here. As soon as the dialog was complete in the vehicle...we continued the scene outside.



~PWP

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ep 6 almost in the can...

We are on the last day of photography for episode 6 of Jericho season 2. Scott Peters has been our director for this episode, and done a fine job with so little time to tell a story.

Scott is most known for his work as Writer/Director/Producer of the popular series 4400. Also quite a bit of work on the series The Outer Limits. Don't worry Jericho fans....we haven't jumped the shark and gone to the Aliens did it. But that's a good leap...

We have one episode left before we put the show to bed once again. It will be up to the fans once again.

Buy the DVD box set please. I believe there will be quite a few extras such as commentary, behind the scenes, etc. in the DVD package.

~PWP

Friday, September 07, 2007

Going green - using rechargeable batteries

This season of Jericho I decided to try and cut down on my waste of one use alkaline and lithum batteries. We would go through a bucket of batteries every couple of weeks under normal operation. The wireless transmitters, IFB receivers, sync boxes, TC slates and many other items all use 9 volt and AA batteries. So I have given it a try and I am very pleased with the results.

For 9 volt batteries, I have been using the IPower Lithium Polymer battery system. The batteries seem to last longer than your average alkaline and on par with the lithium single use battery. The accompanying chargers are called smart chargers, due to their conditioning ability of the battery. The battery is drained and charged properly to ensure a longer and more reliable life. There have been a couple of batteries that had strange behavior. Specifically, showing full charge but having absolutely no voltage when metered. When put back on the charger, they still show full charge. Then taken off the charger, they might show max voltage...or not. Apparently the internal circuitry is at fault here, and the battery is no good. I've sent back a couple. These are easy to single out, and I've replaced them. I also had one charger that was quite flakey. It would sometimes light up when a battery was placed on charge, and sometimes not. That one got swapped out too.



The AA batteries are Duracell NiMH 2650mAh batteries, and again have better performance than the comparable AA alkaline battery. The chargers are the Maha MH-C801D eight cell charger. These work very quickly and produce a lot of heat. If you try and grab a battery off the charger right as it's done...you'll get burned. They are really hot!!



We keep 16 9 volts and 32 AA batteries in circulation. I hope to add some more Ipower 9 volts soon, to start using them in all the comteks as well. I've cut down on my disposable battery usage by at least 50% since starting this season. The results have been much better than anticipated.

~PWP

Monday, September 03, 2007

Jericho ep. 5

We are a few days into episode 5 of season 2. Guy Bee is our director for this ep. Guy was our director for "Rogue River" and "Coalition of the Willing" last year. A seasoned veterin of the Jericho family. Very happy to have him for another great, action packed episode.

It's time I did another equipment related post, so tomorrow I'm going to try and put something together about my new rechargeable battery systems. Boring as it may seem, it's part of my world.

~PWP