A few people have asked me how the writers' strike is going to affect my work, so I figured I would take a stab at answering this question in public (while restarting Pro Tools after it crapped out on me).
Since our facility works mostly on reality TV, most of us editors and mixers are not directly affected by the strike at all. We do have a few feature films in here at the moment, but I don't think we get more than a handful of those per year, though we would like to.
As far as I can tell, the strike is going to affect us positively in the short term and, maybe, negatively in the long term, if it lasts that long. Since reality shows (theoretically) don't have scripts and thus don't have writers, production companies are focusing on producing more reality TV during this time. And networks are airing more of it to fill the airtime between commercials. This is, for example, why the most hyped thing on NBC is the new American Gladiators series that is starting up (sort of the 'less talk, more rock' approach to dealing with the strike). So we will end up getting more work from the production companies that already come to us, and hopefully we'll get new clients as production companies expand their reality departments or as new companies start up to generate content.
In the long term, it's likely that other post-production audio places in town will shift focus to work more on all the reality programming that is going to pop up, so they may try to take some of our business, and we could be negatively impacted by that. But it's more likely that they will be working on shows from production companies with which they already had a working relationship. So they are probably not going to take clients away from us.
There is also the pipe-dream hope that we'll get some new clients who start up to make reality TV, get some success, and then after the strike ends, they'll start producing some scripted shows and they'll continue working with us on those, so we'll have more of that type of work around the facility.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Comics
I guess I missed the boat on these, since they have all been around for a long time, but I just got into them:
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF238-Capital_Punishment.jpg
http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/284
http://alienlovespredator.com/?id=7
http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF238-Capital_Punishment.jpg
http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/284
http://alienlovespredator.com/?id=7
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I'm dreaming of what?
Due to uncertainty in my work schedule and lack of planning ahead on plane ticket prices, I'm not going back east for Christmas this year. It's not a big deal, I guess. I was in France last year and I was in the South on tour the year before that. To be honest, I'm really not that big on Christmas to begin with; I think Thanksgiving is the best American holiday and Halloween is a distant second. But I have to say that I was looking forward to the snow. It's almost like the cold and the snow are a part of me, as much an aspect of my culture as local art or music. I feel like My People are, by default, dressed in layers ranging from hoodies to parkas, all the way from October to April. My People spend three months out of the year subsisting on hot chocolate and maybe warm apple cider. My People know how to drive in slippery conditions and know how to properly use the windshield defogger. Though My People are not necessarily MountainDewXtreme enough to go snowboarding, they all know at least three good spots to go sledding. My People love snow days. So I feel a little lost without any snow in the foreseeable future.
Come to think of it, I got just a taste of it in August, actually, up in Lake Tahoe.
...though maybe mountain snow is cheating.
Anyway, it's definitely the time of year when you know, beyond all possible doubt, that every reasonable person working in a retail store somewhere is already sick of Christmas music. Candy Canes abound. But it's still... Los Angeles. Do you have any idea how silly Christmas lights look on palm trees?
This time last year I was in Brittany, where it pours incredibly cold rain in the winter, but rarely snows. The science there escapes me, to be honest. In early December, when Emily and Jerome were still around, we went up to the coast near Plouha, stood huddled up on the rocky cliffs and peered over the sides at the thrashing water below while the winter wind combed through the long tufts of grass that grow there.
Later Emily went back to the States and winter vacation started and I was the only one left on the school campus. From the refectory to the dorms, all the classroom buildings and offices, everyone was gone for the break. And I was the only one without anywhere to go, the only one passing through that big metal gate at night, around the dark corners in the half-light. So they turned off the institutional oil heat and supplied me with a small electric heater, which worked out alright. I turned it off when I went out during the day, to the market or the library, so my room was always frigid when I returned. (Why is Inside-Cold so much colder than Outside-Cold?) Those twenty minutes waiting for the heater to warm up the room were always 'fun' in that at-least-it's-never-dull kind of way.
I spent a lot of time under blankets that winter. Under blankets, watching VHS movies (WTF, PAL speed-up?) from the local library with the amazing AV section, taking days to binge on one director at a time, Hitchcock (subtitled), Truffaut, Woody Allen (subtitled, poorly), Polanksi (st), Besson, Godard, Jarmusch (st, p), Tarkovsky(st), blah blah.
The school has these energy-saving light switches in the hallways that all run on a timer. There is a round button, illuminated by a thin orange circle, and when you push it, a soft grinding sound starts, and you get about two minutes to get where you're going, and then it turns off again, to prevent it being left on unnecessarily. A good idea for an institution. Hell, a good idea in general. But it does mean that at night, the hallway is always really dark in the time it takes to get from your room (or the kitchen, or wherever) to that little orange circle. That, combined with the fact that I was all alone in this big building, combined with the creaky, smooth hardwood floors, and the five-hundred-year-old stone stairs, so well-used that there is a scoop worn out of the center of them, made it pretty eerie to watch Hitchcock up in the living room and then creep back to my bedroom, dashing around corners to the next little button to illuminate the next (creaky) segment of the walk.
Actually, now that I think of it, one of the lights in the bathroom was on the same setup, so a couple of times I was surprised, two minutes into a shower (after manually turning on the electric water heater, also turned off during break) when I was left in darkness. Showering in the dark is actually kind of nice, it turns out.
Maybe it's just that I'm never satisfied. Always longing after whatever season it isn't. After winter break, in the middle of that winter that was heavy and dark, without giving the satisfaction of snow, I drove a borrowed car on the weekends to other places on the coast, mostly the beaches, bundled up against the wind and the rain, looking longingly at the sand and the waves crashing against rocks and even the German bunkers from the war. I remember picturing those same beaches in the summer, and picturing myself returning there, thinking, "Five months and forty degrees from now." I wanted to go and sit by myself on the beach and get sand in between the pages of all my favorite drunk authors, maybe make some new friendships that would only last twenty minutes, absorb a little sun, lie there and think about things. I remember thinking how much I wanted to eat summer food, bread and fruit, let the juice get all over my fingers and leave me sticky and preoccupied about it until I rinsed them off in the sea. Maybe that would leave them all salty, but that's probably better, anyway.
So maybe I always displace myself a few months or a few thousand miles ahead. In the meantime, there's good news: I just found out where to ice skate in Los Angeles. And I can drink warm apple cider even if it's not that cold out.
Come to think of it, I got just a taste of it in August, actually, up in Lake Tahoe.
...though maybe mountain snow is cheating.
Anyway, it's definitely the time of year when you know, beyond all possible doubt, that every reasonable person working in a retail store somewhere is already sick of Christmas music. Candy Canes abound. But it's still... Los Angeles. Do you have any idea how silly Christmas lights look on palm trees?
This time last year I was in Brittany, where it pours incredibly cold rain in the winter, but rarely snows. The science there escapes me, to be honest. In early December, when Emily and Jerome were still around, we went up to the coast near Plouha, stood huddled up on the rocky cliffs and peered over the sides at the thrashing water below while the winter wind combed through the long tufts of grass that grow there.
Later Emily went back to the States and winter vacation started and I was the only one left on the school campus. From the refectory to the dorms, all the classroom buildings and offices, everyone was gone for the break. And I was the only one without anywhere to go, the only one passing through that big metal gate at night, around the dark corners in the half-light. So they turned off the institutional oil heat and supplied me with a small electric heater, which worked out alright. I turned it off when I went out during the day, to the market or the library, so my room was always frigid when I returned. (Why is Inside-Cold so much colder than Outside-Cold?) Those twenty minutes waiting for the heater to warm up the room were always 'fun' in that at-least-it's-never-dull kind of way.
I spent a lot of time under blankets that winter. Under blankets, watching VHS movies (WTF, PAL speed-up?) from the local library with the amazing AV section, taking days to binge on one director at a time, Hitchcock (subtitled), Truffaut, Woody Allen (subtitled, poorly), Polanksi (st), Besson, Godard, Jarmusch (st, p), Tarkovsky(st), blah blah.
The school has these energy-saving light switches in the hallways that all run on a timer. There is a round button, illuminated by a thin orange circle, and when you push it, a soft grinding sound starts, and you get about two minutes to get where you're going, and then it turns off again, to prevent it being left on unnecessarily. A good idea for an institution. Hell, a good idea in general. But it does mean that at night, the hallway is always really dark in the time it takes to get from your room (or the kitchen, or wherever) to that little orange circle. That, combined with the fact that I was all alone in this big building, combined with the creaky, smooth hardwood floors, and the five-hundred-year-old stone stairs, so well-used that there is a scoop worn out of the center of them, made it pretty eerie to watch Hitchcock up in the living room and then creep back to my bedroom, dashing around corners to the next little button to illuminate the next (creaky) segment of the walk.
Actually, now that I think of it, one of the lights in the bathroom was on the same setup, so a couple of times I was surprised, two minutes into a shower (after manually turning on the electric water heater, also turned off during break) when I was left in darkness. Showering in the dark is actually kind of nice, it turns out.
Maybe it's just that I'm never satisfied. Always longing after whatever season it isn't. After winter break, in the middle of that winter that was heavy and dark, without giving the satisfaction of snow, I drove a borrowed car on the weekends to other places on the coast, mostly the beaches, bundled up against the wind and the rain, looking longingly at the sand and the waves crashing against rocks and even the German bunkers from the war. I remember picturing those same beaches in the summer, and picturing myself returning there, thinking, "Five months and forty degrees from now." I wanted to go and sit by myself on the beach and get sand in between the pages of all my favorite drunk authors, maybe make some new friendships that would only last twenty minutes, absorb a little sun, lie there and think about things. I remember thinking how much I wanted to eat summer food, bread and fruit, let the juice get all over my fingers and leave me sticky and preoccupied about it until I rinsed them off in the sea. Maybe that would leave them all salty, but that's probably better, anyway.
So maybe I always displace myself a few months or a few thousand miles ahead. In the meantime, there's good news: I just found out where to ice skate in Los Angeles. And I can drink warm apple cider even if it's not that cold out.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Quests and Discoveries
Went to the West Hollywood market today and then Grand Central Market, looking for shallots and dried porcini mushrooms and not finding either. So I've bumped the beet reduction sauce a little farther down on the menu for this week and threw together a curry with potatoes and cauliflower for tonight. Hopefully the market at 7th and Figueroa on Thursday will have what I need, cuz otherwise I'm going to give up and go to Ralph's.
I really need to get a camera to take some pictures of the markets I like and the dishes I make. But for now, believe me when I say that Grand Central Market is pretty amazing. I'm going to take some time and learn about the different chilies available, and all the Mexican spices and produce, including different varieties of dried mango, tamarind, and tomatillos. I also need to spend some time at the stand that specializes in mole and learn how to use that.
As a chronic dish-reuser, either from some sense of saving the water that it takes to wash them, or a fundamental laziness, or some combination of the two, I discovered something very interesting. I made myself a small PBJ sandwich and noticed that it had a little kick. I realized that this was because I had used the same spoon for the peanut butter and jelly as I had for the chili powder in the curry. It's really good! So I made another half-sandwich, this time with about 3/4 teaspoon chili powder. I recommend it highly.
I really need to get a camera to take some pictures of the markets I like and the dishes I make. But for now, believe me when I say that Grand Central Market is pretty amazing. I'm going to take some time and learn about the different chilies available, and all the Mexican spices and produce, including different varieties of dried mango, tamarind, and tomatillos. I also need to spend some time at the stand that specializes in mole and learn how to use that.
As a chronic dish-reuser, either from some sense of saving the water that it takes to wash them, or a fundamental laziness, or some combination of the two, I discovered something very interesting. I made myself a small PBJ sandwich and noticed that it had a little kick. I realized that this was because I had used the same spoon for the peanut butter and jelly as I had for the chili powder in the curry. It's really good! So I made another half-sandwich, this time with about 3/4 teaspoon chili powder. I recommend it highly.
Monday, December 3, 2007
No Sleep Schedule
Night before last, I stayed up late ruining a beet reduction sauce. I guess I thought that a fair amount of starch would strip out of the chopped-up beets and precipitate into the liquid, but that didn't really happen. The beets really kept their form and the liquid didn't thicken up much. So when I tried to reduce it, there was nothing left, really. Hard to explain. The water and wine and sautéed onions and carrots were all in there, but there was just shockingly little left after evaporating the water off. It smelled and tasted good and everything, but...
So I repeated a few cycles of this and then fell asleep in a chair at 4am, waiting. Thankfully the roommates turned off the burner. In the morning I decided to get some starch in there to thicken it up by any means necessary. So I cut off a little bit of potato and sliced in into the saucepan, with the idea being that potato disintegrates pretty well and the starch from that could lend some texture to the sauce. It was going pretty well at first, but then at some point I left it alone for 15 minutes (not a problem pre-potato) and when I checked on it, it was black and hardened and required steel wool.
sigh.
So I'm going to try it again, this time pressing juice out of the beets more before introducing it to the mix, and maybe trying xantham gum instead of potato. Consulting my new, trusty list of farmers' markets, at least six of which are within reasonable biking distance to me or the metro, I think I'm headed to West Hollywood today.
I kind of fell in love with beets in France, actually. Staying away from meat isn't that hard, but when trying to avoid dairy and eggs over there, it's easy to fall into eating only fruit and bread at home and salad and fries in restaurants. but the french are really big on beets, usually cut into little wriggly worm shapes, with a little vinaigrette, sometimes a little corn. Beets are astounding in that they kind of taste like dirt, but in the best possible way.
In other news, it might be a good time to visit me, because I am beta-testing a couple of recipes for dessert breads this week. I need to put in some work ahead of time, because there is a Roller Derby bout on Saturday, and I am baking a pumpkin bread and a zucchini-walnut bread for the Sirens, my friend Amber's team. Actually, two loaves would probably be enough for both teams. Maybe they'll share. Though actually, that's unlikely, since I baked the Sirens brownies for their scrimmage last week (I bake something or other for them every time) and left them at the track with a note and they never saw them! Which means that someone stole them! Which means that my brownies are worth committing crimes for!
For those of you who have asked questions about it, Roller Derby is kind of hard to explain. I mean the rules are simple enough, but the mood of the games and the culture that surrounds it is kind of hard to outline precisely. It's also easy to misunderstand, so please go here and read a little about the game, its role as an event somewhere between sport and spectacle, some of the practical difficulties in presenting a DIY sport to the public, being taken seriously as athletes, etc. It's articulate and has a good perspective.
One of the most alluring things about the Derby Dolls is ...they need a lot of help! It's a mostly-punkrock event that turns out 1200 people, so there is always a project to work on. Lately it's been acoustic treatment of the room, setting up the scoreboard, putting together a rented sound system and planning out a permanent one.
It's been over a year since I worked on live sound for an event, and once you've spent years working to be good at something, you naturally miss it. I don't mix the bands at Derby Dolls events, but still. Projects, projects, projects.
So I repeated a few cycles of this and then fell asleep in a chair at 4am, waiting. Thankfully the roommates turned off the burner. In the morning I decided to get some starch in there to thicken it up by any means necessary. So I cut off a little bit of potato and sliced in into the saucepan, with the idea being that potato disintegrates pretty well and the starch from that could lend some texture to the sauce. It was going pretty well at first, but then at some point I left it alone for 15 minutes (not a problem pre-potato) and when I checked on it, it was black and hardened and required steel wool.
sigh.
So I'm going to try it again, this time pressing juice out of the beets more before introducing it to the mix, and maybe trying xantham gum instead of potato. Consulting my new, trusty list of farmers' markets, at least six of which are within reasonable biking distance to me or the metro, I think I'm headed to West Hollywood today.
I kind of fell in love with beets in France, actually. Staying away from meat isn't that hard, but when trying to avoid dairy and eggs over there, it's easy to fall into eating only fruit and bread at home and salad and fries in restaurants. but the french are really big on beets, usually cut into little wriggly worm shapes, with a little vinaigrette, sometimes a little corn. Beets are astounding in that they kind of taste like dirt, but in the best possible way.
In other news, it might be a good time to visit me, because I am beta-testing a couple of recipes for dessert breads this week. I need to put in some work ahead of time, because there is a Roller Derby bout on Saturday, and I am baking a pumpkin bread and a zucchini-walnut bread for the Sirens, my friend Amber's team. Actually, two loaves would probably be enough for both teams. Maybe they'll share. Though actually, that's unlikely, since I baked the Sirens brownies for their scrimmage last week (I bake something or other for them every time) and left them at the track with a note and they never saw them! Which means that someone stole them! Which means that my brownies are worth committing crimes for!
For those of you who have asked questions about it, Roller Derby is kind of hard to explain. I mean the rules are simple enough, but the mood of the games and the culture that surrounds it is kind of hard to outline precisely. It's also easy to misunderstand, so please go here and read a little about the game, its role as an event somewhere between sport and spectacle, some of the practical difficulties in presenting a DIY sport to the public, being taken seriously as athletes, etc. It's articulate and has a good perspective.
One of the most alluring things about the Derby Dolls is ...they need a lot of help! It's a mostly-punkrock event that turns out 1200 people, so there is always a project to work on. Lately it's been acoustic treatment of the room, setting up the scoreboard, putting together a rented sound system and planning out a permanent one.
It's been over a year since I worked on live sound for an event, and once you've spent years working to be good at something, you naturally miss it. I don't mix the bands at Derby Dolls events, but still. Projects, projects, projects.
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