this is a job related vent. in my job, doing mixing and editing for movies, it's usually a pretty insular world. we get the clients and do the work, any problems and issues are worked out, we are good people, we want the client to be happy because we get most of our work by word of mouth and repeat clients.
so, i was flabbergasted at how this other gig went down.
we have a client, let's call him 'ted'. he has a movie that has been fully mixed, with stems of seperate elements, at a different house. a much bigger house. let's call them 'mother russia'. our job is simple, they are doing a tv cut, so we need to take the stems and cut them.
here's where the joy begins. i open the stems, and nothing syncs. things are 2 and 3 frames out. we send it back to the filmmaker, asking if they have better ones-these won't work.
we bring it to mother russia, who begins giving us a raft of shit about how we need to do this or that conversion. this is bullshit-it's not a slide or a conversion. things are all over the place.
now, things have to be in sync. labs, as i understand, will listen to the domestic mix along side of the 'm&e'-the version with the dialogue clipped out. when things flam or go out of sync, they get sent back.
none of this bothers mother russia. they barely look at the sessions, heaving every accusation at us, opening up one element at a time and saying 'looks good to me'. when we point out the bit about how the elements are out of sync from each other, they say 'that's not a problem, looks good to me'.
these guys make 5-10 times as much money as i do, and they are dicking ted around, because they don't care. it's not worth it to them to eat the shit sandwich they fixed themselves, so instead, they will just fall back on their policy of shouting down the opposition and hoping they don't get sued. fucking disgraceful.
well, we're going to get a repeat client out of it at least. fuck you, mother russia. fuck your asshole editors and your incompetent sound mixers. fuck the 6 interns you have eating peanuts waiting to load a tape. fuck your shitty bloated bullshit and your evil business practices.
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a FAQ for ariel\\\'s dogs
GORDON FAQ: q: where does gordon like to poop? a: he is very picky about where he likes to poop. he tends to choose a different area everytime, about a mile away from the house on a walk. sometimes the person walking gordon will be able to suggest spots for him. bear in mind there is no template for a good spot-sometimes the area is grassy, sometimes he like to poop in a bush. mostly, he likes the poop to be out of the way. we think this comes from when he was a young puppy, and the people at the farm where he used to live would throw things at the giant pack of rotweiler puppies when they started to poop somewhere where they could see. q: why does gordon act like he\\\'s been abused? a: we\\\'ve been trying to figure that one out forever. ariel\\\'s had him since he was 6 weeks old, and she doesn\\\'t hit animals. probably it has something to do with him being a runt in the litter-all his brothers were big dopey rots, and he has a more slender lab appearance, so he probably got his share of beatings in the womb. he\\\'s mercurial. q: why does gordon \\"do bitings\\"? a: we think that\\\'s his nervous response to everything. although, it may have its root from when ariel was in college, living with a bunch of dirty hippies with fleas. q: why does gordon get \\"stinkface\\"? a: he likes to diguise himself from bigger dogs. he thinks \\"i\\\'ll just smell like a nice dead bird and nobody\\\'ll know i\\\'m here\\". q: what are some ways to address gordon? a: \\"best boy\\" sometimes pronounced \\"bist buwey\\" as in \\"he IS bist buueey\\". \\"speak boy,\\" \\"stink face,\\" \\"peanutbutter eyebrows,\\" \\"dancing peanutbutter,\\" \\"puppycakes,\\" \\"best swimming boy,\\" and \\"a real best boy\\" are also acceptable. q: why does \\"his lip get all messed up\\"? a: sometimes, when he\\\'s very focused, like on \\"some fishes\\" or a nice work of art, he\\\'ll close his mouth carelessly and get a hanglip. q: what are some of the grammamtical subtleties i need to know to communicate with gordon? a: he can spell, but only a few words like \\"w-a-l-k\\" and \\"l-e-a-s-h\\". also, present tense and third person are usually prefered such as \\"gordon goes to the puppy park\\" and \\"gordon wants a treat\\". however, the grammar is always in dispute. q: what kinds of music does gordon like? a: the more off-the-wall, the better. he especially likes conlon nancarrow and karlheinz stockhausen. seriously. OLIVER FAQ: q: why is he so goddamn cute? a: because he has no soul. q: why doesn\\\'t he have a soul? a: because he\\\'s so goddamn cute. q: is he a girl? is he a miniature lassie? OMF HE\\\'S SOOOO CUTE a: no, kind of, he\\\'s the devil. q: where does oliver like to poop? a: in the same spot in the neighbor\\\'s ivy every day. q: why does he get up all indignant when i sit next to him? a: because he\\\'s a little bastard. q: what kinds of music does oliver like? a: pop music, like kelly clarkson and ashlee simpson. q: can i pet him? a: you can try. q: is he really that cute? a: you\\\'d want to drop an anvil on him. My Gear
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Written March 17 2009
Comments
i can totally sympathise here.
i just been syncing up bits of audio to graphix i have been waiting weeks for and the mix back over credit card wireless whilst on holiday cos after effects kid was too lazy to get his shit together. are they gonna go back to him? no. it makes me want the house that i work at to succeed more than anything else. we are as good and are more honest than those other places.
syncing sucks. with all of the new frame rate formats it's amazing anyone gets it right. And I bow to you for making such an entertaining read out of a rant!
I hate that kind of half-assed behavior.
I can totally sympathise as well.
Ive just got 6 laptops that I requested some upto 5-6 weeks ago to fulfil break/fix tickets [I get 4 hours to meet service level agreements for IT support] and they are complete POS. One BSOD's when I remote into it [fukd terminal services] another has software delivery application all munted so cant install stuff and third is dead slow for installing stuff on. Havent even got round to looking at last 3. Might just send back to build team and write all of them off. fucking commies. USA RULES!
I feel your pain. I have a friend who works for a small TV production company in NZ and according to him, this sort of shit happens all the time.
Hope this cheers you up link Show em why the God Lovin' USA don't have gun control!!!
Pa-Choooo! well, like the guy i work for says "it's not a question of if or when things will get fucked up, it's what you do when it happens"
ask them for 5-10 times the money!!
(spark, we luvs you.)
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in russia, dialogue clips you.
this is why i could never do what i love for a living, because of shit people and/or establishments who only do so for a living but not for the love.
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when i am rich/famous or rich and famous, i will hire you and only you to make sure the soundtrack on the documentary of my life is fucking dead-nuts spot on right. FACT.
umami said: "when i am rich/famous or rich and famous, i will hire you and only you to make sure the soundtrack on the documentary of my life is fucking dead-nuts spot on right. FACT." But what would these people do? link Reminds me of a job I was working on where the video we received dropped 1 field (half of a frame) somewhere in the middle of the show. It was virtually undetectable to the human eye. So everything is going smoothly, and then all of the sudden, everything is 15ms out of synch. Needless to say, the shit-storm started flowing my direction since I, of course, must've been the one responsible! Baffled- I did some detective work, found the frame where the problem occurred and showed it to the powers that be- who had never seen anything like that happen before. At least it wasn't my fault (that time ;) )
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