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Language In Production

No, I don’t give a shit about cursing

Microaggression is a form of bias that can occur in everyday language, often subtle and said inadvertently. Language can be problematic when it’s a common phrase or saying and people avoid understanding its origins or implications. We use language to express ourselves, and even when we have the best intentions some phrases, wording, and terms, in general, are no longer applicable or widely accepted.

Just last week I overheard someone (a white thirty-something dude) say to one of our members of the production team (a 19-year-old black student) ask “how’s it going, Boy?” Racism is reprehensible and protests are happening across the world, and he had the balls to be casually racist. I doubt it even registered to that “southern boy” that what he said was horrible. The student took it well, I don’t even think he flinched, I’m guessing he is used to it. I didn’t ask him about it, maybe I should have, but I did give him a ride home since the city was under a curfew and we were working past it. I went to a protest last weekend as well. I took my dad’s advice and protested peacefully and kept my distance from the police. He lived through the civil rights movement as a young man in the south, recalling abundant racism and fellow students as KKK members. Although not surprised, my dad is concerned and worried about the future of our country. So am I. It feels like a dystopian society where we are repeating the same awful battles over and over.

“In many ways, overt racism has declined gradually since the civil rights movement, Kanter said, and white people often assume that because they do not utter racial slurs, or perhaps are well-versed in and value social justice, that they do not have to worry about engaging in racist behavior themselves” (Eckart, 2017).

We should avoid perpetuating stereotypes just because it’s always been done that way. Complacency is the root of many issues in our society. People get oddly protective over “the way it has always been done,” even if that way is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or generally just an asshole way to behave.

JK Rowling recently made a statement via Twitter that was trans-phobic where she attempted an awkward joke about people who menstruate. There are probably a lot of people who have never heard the terms cis-male/cis-female and have no idea what TERF stands for in this context (it means trans-exclusionary radical feminist). There are loads of new terms, phrases, and words to add to our vocabulary, and there’s plenty of old ones that we can let go to make room for them.

Handsome transgender teenager tearing the word Female into MALE in Gender identity, equality and human rights. Breaking silence about own gender identity transgender Pride and freedom concept.

Most of it comes down to simply respecting other people. Inclusive does not mean “people who are different, like how I am different.” The intention of inclusivity is not as meaningful as actually doing the work.

“People are tired of talking about diversity and inclusion, frustrated by talk not turning into impactful action, and overwhelmed by the number of issues to address and the scope of what must change” (Crayton, 2017).

It seems contradictory when we are working toward being “sound humans” rather than the “sound guy” when we are still using racist & sexist terminology. I’ve explained to more students than you’d expect why one end of a cable is male/female. There was a better way to explain connectors without invoking the birds and the bees. Maybe it doesn’t bother you because “that’s not what I meant by it” but the phrase “Master/Slave” when referencing control and communication is troubling as well.

Now I use plug/socket and hot (for voltage). I don’t want to be the person who singles someone out because I was ignorant, insensitive, or holding onto implicit biases. I want to be better than that, we all need to be better than that. Through teaching and education, we can reframe society into a transformative version.

Resources:

Crayton, Kim. (2017, June 19). “There’s a big difference between an intention to be inclusive and a strategy.” Retrieved from https://qz.com/work/1308410/theres-a-big-difference-between-an-intention-to-be-inclusive-and-a-strategy/

Eckart, Kim. (2017, September 13). “Offhand comments can expose underlying racism, UW study finds.” UW News. Retrieved from https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/09/13/offhand-comments-can-expose-underlying-racism-uw-study-finds/

Im, Sinclair. (2020, June 12). Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/12/tech-industry-has-an-ugly-master-slave-problem/

Read more:

Avoiding Casual Racism

Harassment Training 

Avoiding Sexist Language

 

Pride Through Our Eyes

 

June has arrived! We are officially half-way through the year. June is also Pride Month. Pride is known in the LGBT Community as a month filled with celebration, joy, and parades. But this Pride Month is different. Pride parades and events across the globe are canceled. But this doesn’t have to stop the spirit of Pride. I couldn’t write this article without including others. I asked our SoundGirls Community that identify as LGBTQ+ to share experiences and insight. Here is what some have to say.

What does Pride mean to you? 

“Pride to me is just being true to yourself. Loving what makes you different from everyone else. Loving the parts of yourself that people will try to shame you for. Being you and loving it. That’s pride to me.” (Alexi Wright, She/Her)

“Pride means being able to bring your whole self to any situation and not feeling like you have to hide or amend any part of who you are” (Kacie Willis, She/Her)

“Pride means being unashamed of who I am and what I accomplish, or how I live.” (Samantha Potter, She/Her)

“Pride means not being afraid or ashamed of my own identity. (Luana Moreno, She/Her)

“To me, Pride is about being able to come together with my queer community and take up space in a way that we are not normally afforded.” (Audrey Martinovich, bi, she/her)

Have you ever experienced prejudice in a work environment because you are LGBTQ+? 

“I’ve experienced the typical misogynists that come with working in a very male-dominated industry. A lot of LGBTQ women do go through some form of bs, which is very unfortunate because these women are more than capable of doing their job. But, I personally don’t have any crazy horror stories when it comes to my experiences.”

“Not overtly, as in “we don’t hire lesbians”. But I have experienced being equated to “the guys” and being expected to be complacent with the objectification of other women because I’m attracted to them. I have been objectified because I am a bisexual woman. And heard that this orientation is “just an excuse to be slutty”.”

“I am very fortunate to have never had my sexuality be an issue at work but I recognize that this is not the case for many LGBTQ+ people.”

In what ways can the Entertainment Industry, particularly the Audio Industry be more inclusive? 

“The industry should make conscious and consistent efforts to provide educational/shadowing opportunities to students in under-represented demographics. It all starts with exposure.”

“Be more welcoming to women in general. Stop the boys club culture, because toxic masculinity and homophobia come in that same pack.”

“The audio industry can be more inclusive by marketing towards minority groups of all kinds and encourage participation. It’s becoming way more of a casual topic, gayness, and the like than it used to be. I think the Entertainment Industry probably has the highest ratio of LGBT-to-het/cis-gendered individuals. Audio is not a large group and by sheer numbers, there are just statistically more white straight men. It’d be nice if we could have a space for LGBT audio folk. It comes down to the question, “How do we get people who have no idea this industry exists involved in said industry?”

“The audio industry needs to make a conscious decision to be more open and include images of Queer, POC, and women in their advertising and media campaigns. Normalize the look of someone other than straight, white, men as a place to start. Hiring people with the intent to have a diverse staff. If Beyoncé can find 15 black women who can play the violin while being her tap-dancing backup dancers, it’s possible to find more queer engineers/producers for projects.”

What advice could you give to a SoundGirl that is struggling with their identity? 

“Best advice I can give you if you’re struggling with your identity is, trust yourself.

Nobody knows YOU better than YOU. Trust that you’re not crazy, and there’s NOTHING wrong with you. Most importantly, love yourself. You’re beautiful in every way.”

“Anyone struggling with their sexuality or identity should find a group of friends through which they can find a support system. SoundGirls is a great community to sort of shout “Hey, is there anyone else like me out there?” and find those other people who can relate or at the very least, are strong allies. We should never be afraid to live like how we want, but there are some real-life limitations and it’s a tough line to walk — that world between being true to yourself and a working professional. Sometimes those can be mutually exclusive but often are not. Like most things, there’s a huge land of gray where we can live as ourselves and be amazing professionals in pro audio.”

“Reach out to the community, in private if needs be. It’s incredibly inclusive and most people in this group are committed to being supportive.”

“I would tell a struggling SoundGirl to find a community. Whether that’s a friend they trust or to post in the SoundGirls Facebook page. We are here for each other from amateurs to pros, gay/straight/everything in between and beyond, and I know personally that older LGBT+ folks went through some stuff and love passing down advice and guidance to the younger generation. Whatever you’re experiencing, someone has been through it. Find them and ask how they dealt with it and how it turned out.”

“The struggle is real…but on the other side of the struggle, you will eventually find peace. Breathe. Live life day by day.”

As a Black Queer Muslim Woman working in the audio industry, I am thankful for my SoundGirl’s Community. I am grateful that I have a community that is empowering and uplifting. At times, when I felt like my voice wasn’t heard or I was discriminated against in a work environment, I am always able to count on SoundGirls for support and guidance.

Have a safe Pride Month, filled with love and self-love.

Thank you to all of the SoundGirls that have contributed.

Black Technicians Matter 

Before I get into this blog, let me say that I am writing this with very high emotions.  My heart is breaking for BIPOC.  I am horrified by the overwhelming lack of acknowledgment and responsibility in regards to the aggressive use of police brutality that has plagued this country for years, decades, even centuries.  I am utterly sickened by the blatantly flagrant display of racism that pours out of the White House every single day.  So, yes, it’s possible that you are reading a different, maybe more fiery tone from me today because I am fired up.

In an effort to provide some kind of tangible support, I want to use my small platform here to discuss some ideas for the future, when we’re able to live and work freely in the world again (remember, even through all of these recent atrocities, we’re also still in a pandemic).  One day, we will be healthy again.  One day, we will be able to work again.  One day, people will start forgetting the protests, the rallies, the news.  That’s the time that we need to remember that even when we’re not inundated daily by all of these disgusting displays of inhumanity pouring in through social media and other news outlets, it will still be happening and will continue happening until enough of us start using our fiery emotions as fuel to actually DO something about it.  It’s not just the inhumanity toward BIPOC that is a problem, it’s also white complacency, and, frankly, blindness.

A couple of summers ago, I hired a crew of seven sound technicians to support my theatre company’s summer season. Generally, most of my hires come from the USITT convention, KCACTF, and SETC.  A couple of weeks into the summer, one of my interns said to me,” I just wanted to let you know that I think it’s really great that this crew is mostly women and mostly people of color.  You’ve created a really inclusive department, and I wanted you to know that I appreciate it.”  Wow.  What a fantastic compliment that I, in no way, deserved.  What she said was true.  They were mostly women, and they were mostly people of color.  It’s just that I didn’t do that on purpose, and I didn’t even realize that’s what we had until she brought it up.

I was blind.  I have to imagine that, as a black woman, the person that said this to me probably enters almost every situation looking around the room to see how outnumbered she is in terms of race.  I didn’t think of that, because it’s something I never do.  I really don’t walk into a new situation and think, “Oh good, at least there are other white people.”  That summer’s beautiful blend of racial variety was a complete accident.  I learned from it, though.  I learned that as a person who regularly hires other people, I have an obligation to make sure that I am not just going through the same old motions and that I am using my privilege and my position to promote diversity and equity.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with the organizations I listed above, in fact, it’s quite the contrary.  USITT, KCACTF, and SETC provide so many opportunities for so many young people throughout the year, and I would be lost without them.  They all have many subgroups within their organizations that are specifically geared toward marginalized communities such as BIPOC, Women+, and LGBTQ.  I just think we can all be taking another step.

Maybe we should recruit specifically within HBCUs.  In researching for this blog, I very easily came across this list of HBCU schools offering performing arts programs. I also came across this HBCU list which provides useful statistics related to the schools and their demographics.  It takes two minutes for that extra Google search, and then finding department faculty email addresses after that is easy!  As I’ve already mentioned, the theatre organizations and conferences I’ve encountered in the past are doing a good job of continuing to promote diversity and inclusion, but this thought led me to Google search “black theatre conferences,” and the first hit was for The Black Theatre Network.  What a fantastic recruitment opportunity that I have been missing out on.

My point is that I don’t want us all to relax when the heat is turned down.  Let’s keep moving forward.  Let’s take another step—push a little harder.  I want to challenge shop heads, recruiters, and managers to remember this blog during hiring season, and ask yourselves if there’s something else you can do.   It’s our responsibility as artists to never stop learning, and never stop growing.

Diversify You Crew

The EQUAL Directory is a global database of professionals that seeks to amplify the careers and achievements of women working behind the scenes in music and audio. Any person around the world can add their name and claim their space. And, any person looking to hire a more inclusive creative team can find professionals in their area.

POC in Audio Directory

The directory features over 500 people of color who work in audio around the world. You’ll find editors, hosts, writers, producers, sound designers, engineers, project managers, musicians, reporters, and content strategists with varied experience from within the industry and in related fields.

While recruiting diverse candidates is a great first step, it’s not going to be enough if we want the industry to look and sound meaningfully different in the future. Let us be clear: this isn’t about numbers alone. This is about getting the respect that people of color—and people of different faiths, abilities, ages, socioeconomic statuses, educational backgrounds, gender identities, and sexual orientation—deserve.

 

Alexandria Perryman – Audio Engineer for the Astronauts

Alexandria Perryman is a live broadcast engineer and Emmy winner working at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where one of her jobs is to run audio for the astronauts on the International Space Station. Every “Mission” is different for her. One day she might be working a spacewalk, making sure the astronauts have a clear connection to mission control the next she might be mixing audio for a video that’s going up on the NASA YouTube channel.

Lately, she’s been working to provide Skype links between astronauts and students. The effort is part of NASA’s “Year of Education on Station” – a program where ISS crew members and teacher Ricky Arnold Skypes in via satellite and performs real-time experiments for kids in classrooms around the country.

Alexandria discovered audio when she was in her high school’s marching band and was put in charge of the on-field sound mixer. This is where she started to fall in love with the idea of live audio mixing. She always had a passion for music and sound and as she got older she became intrigued by how music and sound are created. She remembers seeing Blue Man Group perform when she was in elementary school and being in awe with how they used everyday items to create music.  Alexandria would enroll at Full Sail University and study audio engineering and graduate in 2015 with an Associates Degree of Science.  

She got her start in audio volunteering at her church, mixing their online broadcast and working part-time as an AV Tech. Early on she learned how important troubleshooting quickly is and learned how to work in fast-paced and high-stress situations. She says “I made many mistakes in those early gigs but I was in an environment where if I could troubleshoot my mistakes quickly then it was not harmful to my career.”

She has been at NASA working as an Audio Engineer and Chief Engineer and Producer of Podcast for the last 2 ½ years. Alexandria says there is no typical day at NASA.

“The workday starts for me an hour before my first show which sometimes could be at 3 am. Then there is the podcast that I produce weekly and studio shoots. It is common for me to go day by day.”  Staying focused and organized is difficult Alexandria says “I may have a live event then an hour later I am recording a podcast, two different mindsets. Staying focused on the task I am doing at that time is super important.”

Some of Alexandria’s job duties are coordinating Skype signals in space and she is proud that during her time at NASA her team has never lost a Skype signal in space. Mission Planning and Operations works with her team to find optimal windows between satellites and schedule sessions accordingly.

Alexandria also works on archiving and preserving audio for the historical record and the U.S. National Archives. The crew of the ISS rotates every six months and NASA will use this audio for training new crew members and for reference on repeat problems. Alexandria with other engineers monitors the day to day operation recordings and are often the first line of communication between station and NASA. She often works with the astronauts before missions, she is the one mic-ing them up for interviews and trains them on using the audio equipment.

In addition to all of her official duties, Alexandria also serves as the producer of NASA’s official podcast Houston We Have a Podcast.  The podcast talks with and interviews astronauts, scientists, and engineers working on furthering space exploration.

Alexandria says she loves that her job allows her to be part of something bigger than herself, but is not a fan of how politics come into play with what she does as a creative. She is awaiting NASA’s return to the moon and hopes to be able to mix the audio. Her long term goals are to mix audio for the Grammys.

On Challenging Projects

One challenge that sticks out the most was the Space X Demo-1 mission. It was challenging because it was the first time we ever merged our NASA shows with SpaceX. Learning how to coordinate a show between multiple locations and have it flow easily was definitely difficult. The audio setup was new and extremely complicated but as a team, we managed to put out great shows for that mission. It’s also the same mission I won my first Emmy for.

On Failure

For me looking back the biggest failure, I had happened in college. I had become lazy with class and my grades quickly fell, to the point that I was put on academic probation. That was a big wake up call for me, because if I had failed another class I would have failed out of college. In the next couple of months, I kicked it in gear and studied more, went to my instructors during office hours for extra help, and surrounded myself with positive people. I learned from that experience to never slack off and always do my best. Most importantly I learned that even when the odds are against me that I can overcome anything as long as I never stop trying.

What if any obstacles or barriers have you faced?

I have been fortunate to not have faced many obstacles or barriers in my career. The only thing that was an obstacle was having such an age gap between my coworkers and them being able to trust that I’m mentally capable of the job regardless of my age.

How have you dealt with them?

Earning trust takes time especially in this industry. I was able to do it by constantly giving them my best work and attitude and showing up in big situations.

Advice you have for other women and young women who wish to enter the field?

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, that’s the only way you can really learn. Some of the biggest mistakes in my career offered me the most valuable lessons.

What is your favorite day off activity? 

While I work in live television and not the music industry, I still love creating music in my free time as a way to express my emotions.

Must have skills?

Must be able and willing to be teachable at any level. Also for anything-audio understanding signal flow is key.

Favorite gear?

My favorite gear would have to be my Zoom F8N recorder, it’s perfect for in the fieldwork.

Check out Alexandria on The SoundGirls Podcast

More Profiles on The Five Percent – Profiles of Women in Audio

 

Making the Transition from Wedges to In-Ear Monitors

 

When you work in live sound, at some point you will find yourself in a similar position to me: mixing monitors in mid-to-large sized venues. You will begin encountering bands that have their own front-of-house engineers but no monitor engineer and manage in-ear monitors in many forms, ranging from tour-ready packages to a hodgepodge of cheap receivers to crappy gaming headphones used with an adapter (yes, that happened). And you will need to adapt your mixing style to the monitor combination of the day. This strange territory in the transition between mixing wedges and mixing IEMs can be tricky to navigate, so I thought I would share a few of the strategies I’ve developed.

Manage expectations. This might be the most important. Chat with the band while you’re setting up – introduce yourself, point out the monitor location, and try to get a feel for mix needs. After testing mix connections with pink noise I like to make an announcement restating my name and explaining that I’ll do my best to get them what they need as quickly as possible. If it’s a rushed soundcheck, I’ll explain that I’ll focus on levels and basic EQ first, to get through the line check quickly, and make higher-level tweaks as they check songs.

Use headphones. Relying on headphones or using a cheap pair of IEMs as your cue mix makes your listening experience much closer to that of the artists on stage. Headphones are especially useful with bands that are only on IEMs, since in this case listening to anything in the cue wedge may affect the mix you’re building onstage.

Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for information you need or double-check things you aren’t sure of. Asking the musicians where they want something in their mix – ears, wedges, side fills – or if they have panning preferences is also useful, as some bands have a template they prefer their mixes to follow. I also like to confirm that everyone has what they need of a certain channel before moving on during soundcheck.

Set vocals first. This includes talkbacks! Ideally, you can set the talkback and vocals at a healthy level and bring the rest of the mix up around that. Keeping the levels at a comfortable volume matters even more now, with the mix going directly into someone’s ears. And from a practical standpoint, setting vocals first is a must so that you can communicate effectively with the band. Don’t forget to put a little of both talkbacks into the side fills so that you can communicate with front-of-house easily.

Watch your levels. Sound going directly to your ears is a much different experience than sound coming at you from a nearby speaker, so be extremely careful when setting and adjusting mix levels (especially if you do not have headphones or your own IEMS available for use). Whenever I adjust the levels of an IEM mix, I take care to go much slower and be extra aware of what dB level I am at.

Befriend front-of-house (if there is one).  It’s important to have a good working relationship with the front-of-house engineer. Make sure it is clear who will lead soundcheck, when you’re ready to move on within the soundcheck, etc. Generally, a touring engineer will also be able to give you some tips about the monitor mixes and the general preferences of the artist.

 

 

Post-Production Mid-Pandemic – Boom Box Post

We recently received a request to write a post on how we’ve been dealing with the global pandemic. While I am a bit worried our audience may be exhausted by COVID-19 coverage, I think it’s important to share our experience at this time with one another. With that in mind, I hope this post brings some information your way about work from home workflows as well as our unique perspective as a boutique post-production studio dealing with the crisis. I’m also hoping it may spark some new conversation about how we are all working in a creative, collaborative field while isolated from one another. So let’s dive in!

Since starting the studio, Kate and I have tried to have as many editors work in-house as possible. We love having our team interacting with one another every day. Great for creativity, tough in this crisis. We had a challenge on our hands sending everyone home.

When it became very apparent that the COVID-19 crisis was getting serious (around mid-March) Kate and I started to formulate a plan to transform Boom Box Post into a remote studio over multiple phases; each phase triggered by differing levels of danger. Preparing for the worst (full stay at home orders) just in case. Oh what a simpler time!

CREATING A REMOTE STUDIO

Phase 1 – Sending our Editors HOME

I started by visiting every editor to audit what kind of equipment each had at home. Results ranged for fully able to work from home to having no gear at all. With this information, I was able to create an individual checklist for each staff member, down to the cables, of what they would be taking home from the studio.

At this point we decided to send all non-client-facing staff home for their own safety. It was a bit chaotic loading up cars with gear but everyone was in remarkably good spirits.

Phase 2 – Sending Our Client-Facing Staff HOME

Very quickly it became obvious that our clients were no longer going to be able to come by the studio for in-person reviews. In the span of 24 hours, we heard from all the major studios that staff would either be sent home or isolated to only their corporate workspaces. It was at this point we decided to send Brad Meyer, Lead Sound Editor and Tess Fournier, Supervising Sound Editor home as well. We also worked out a VPN remote control system for media management and were able to send Sam Busekrus our Assistant Editor/Office Manager home.

Phase 3 – Everybody Goes Home

On March 19th, California issued the “Safer at Home” order and it was time to send home the last holdouts (myself included). Having been over a decade since I worked from home, I needed to set up shop from scratch. My kids moved together into one room, my son’s former bedroom becoming my home studio. I packed up every piece of gear into my car, even a desk, and chair! The studio was officially empty as of Friday, March 20th.

After almost six years of building Boom Box Post from the ground up, this is something completely different.

Re-Recording mixer Jacob Cook and I still go in about once a week to mix alone on our stage. I have to be honest, going into an empty studio that was so vibrant only a month prior is very odd. With each room stripped of all gear, devoid of our amazing staff, it’s a shell of what it once was. Will we be able to bounce back just a quickly as we sent everyone home? For sure! But for now, it’s still very sad for me.

TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

Getting everyone working at home was a challenge but even more importantly, we needed solutions that would work well for our clients. After all, we needed to show we could continue to do great work with client direction even in this new setting. After extensive testing, here are some of the strategies and tools we settled on. Note: we are in no way paid to endorse any products.

SyncSketch

The big hero of the pandemic for us has been the remote review platform SyncSketch. With this web-based program, we are able to upload client videos which can then be reviewed either individually or in sync as a team, leaving timecode specific notes tagged with the reviewer’s name. Once complete, notes can be downloaded as a PDF with thumbnails of the shots being referenced. It’s as simple as watching back a Quicktime but without the mess of typing out timecode and organizing them into an email thread. This alternative to attempting ‘live’ reviews over a video conferencing solution has proven to be the most effective since the quality and playback remain rock solid. All it requires is rendering our mixes to quicktime and setting up review timelines and deadlines with our clients. We have used SyncSketch for spotting and previewing sessions, ADR calling and final mix reviews. Best of all, SyncSketch employs the highest level of security, so clients know their data is safe. After introducing SyncSketch to our clients, a number of them implemented it internally for their own production use.

UPS Battery Backups

In the early days of the California “Safer at Home” declaration, I didn’t know what kind of access we would have to the office. Our server is the heart of our business, all media coming and going from this central location. I ran out to Best Buy and bought the two largest battery back up units in stock. Advertised as giving us about two full hours of power backup, I figured this could buy us some time in a power outage for this critical part of our infrastructure.

ETHERNET CABLE

Building CAT-5 cable is a very specific skill. Lucky for me, I wired multiple houses in college with ethernet (it was the early 2ooo’s and rental homes in Bloomington, Indiana weren’t coming pre-wired back then). As it turns out, home wifi isn’t necessarily going to cut it when our editors need the ability to download very large files in short time frames. I spent quite some time on the floor of my office creating very long custom cables (the biggest was 40 feet!) so that our team could wire up directly to their routers.

Zoom Conferencing

Zoom seems to have gotten the lock on conferencing for this crisis. And it’s no wonder why. In my testing, it’s clearly the most stable. When a session has required ‘face to face’ interaction, we’ve turned to Zoom.

Security

While we have the majority of our staff in the office, we did already have a few editors working from home. This proved very beneficial as we had already put in place stringent remote work security protocols which we simply had to apply to our new work from home staff.

In the midst of all our work from home prep, I was so proud of our team’s resilience that I tweeted about it. This caught the attention of Teresa Morrow, co-host of the Tonebenders podcast. They reached out to ask if we could participate in a roundtable discussion on how we were handling the crisis. You can listen to Kate and I recount our experience in detail in this surprisingly fun (given the subject matter) conversation.

COVID-19 has stretched the very idea of adversity in business for us. That said, I’m doing my best to focus on the positive here. Who knows what kind of efficiency changes will come out of this crisis? I’ve been keeping a running list of post-COVID to-dos, a lot of which are going to be improvements. I try very hard to be grateful, but I think this change of pace has still shown me how much we have in this studio and this incredibly talented team of sound pros. It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day operations and lose sight of the amazing work happening around us. I know that when we return to the office, things are going to be quite different. It’s my hope that I’ll appreciate our shared creativity even more once Boom Box Post is under one roof again.

Stay safe out there.

JEFF SHIFFMAN, CO-OWNER OF BOOM BOX POST

Post-Production Mid-Pandemic Part 2: Staying Connected

A couple of weeks ago, Jeff wrote a great post about our journey from an in-studio editorial and mix facility to an entirely work-from-home team with remote client services. He talked about all of the challenges of quickly pivoting our entire business model in the face of COVID, which was no small order. You can also hear more about that time if you listen to the Tonebenders COVID & the Sound Community Round Table that we took part of. They caught us mid-transition, and we were tired, overwhelmed, but so appreciative of our team’s ability to rise to any challenge.

But, now we’ve all moved on to a whole different phase of the pandemic: one where we’re fairly settled into our new normal and just waiting to see how long we stay here.

Our Business During COVID-19

We, at Boom Box Post, are among the lucky ones. Because we work in animation and our clients aren’t on set, our entire Los Angeles client-base was able to transition very quickly to work-from-home, thus keeping our operations alive and well. That is far from the case for our live-action counterparts. But, that doesn’t mean that we haven’t also seen changes in the amount and type of work that has come through our now-virtual door.

Unlike live-action, animation is often done overseas and then shipped back to an LA-based production company. A number of our television series are animated in China, India, Israel, and other countries that have undergone various degrees of government-mandated quarantines. Some of these companies were able to set up part of their staff to work effectively from home. But in most cases, workers do have the means to work from home, and schedules were delayed for as long as those closures persisted. In this way, our business is being greatly affected not just by US legislation, but by health concerns and political action across the world.

Additionally, on our series, all dialogue is recorded in a voice-over booth here in LA. With Safer at Home in place, currently, all sessions have been canceled. Some productions were able to quickly gear up to get all of their talent recording effectively at home–a very tall order considering that some of that talent consists of child actors who are not as tech-savvy as an adult professional voice actor. But others are making do with sub-par home recordings done in whatever fashion is possible, considering them scratch, and planning to record the real lines when we are all allowed back in the studio again (whenever that may be). Some series are mixing with scratch in place and planning to punch in at a later date. Others are holding off on mixing all together until all materials are available to avoid confusion in the post-COVID aftermath.

Whatever each crew has decided, none of it is simple, and none of it is consistent from series to series. So while we have been able to adapt amazingly well and continue our business in a way that few are lucky enough to do, it has been a struggle to keep up with all of the different needs, demands, and concerns depending on each unique client situation.

Great Things that Have Happened

On the upside, some amazing things have happened. Number one, I’m typing this blog post while sitting in my backyard, sipping iced tea, on a beautiful Los Angeles day. So really, how could I possibly complain about this? We’ve all had more time with family lately (um…. for better or worse. You know what I mean, fellow parents!!!). I haven’t eaten this many home-cooked meals for at least ten years. Maybe twenty, if we’re honest.

And we’ve proven yet again that we, at Boom Box Post, have the best staff in the biz. We have not received one single complaint through this whole transition–even a good-natured gripe during one of our Zoom Tipsy Tuesdays! So while I’m sure that everyone is tired of learning all this new technology (I feel like my head will explode if I’m asked to figure out one more remote playback solution or video conferencing platform), I think we’ve also learned so much in a very short time that will benefit our workflow in the future.

How We Are Staying Connected

Meet Roger, Tess’s new pup!

It’s hard to feel like we’re all part of a cohesive team while working in isolation. So, we’ve been trying hard to continue our usual team-building and social engagements. But, we’ve had to get creative in order to keep things fun!

We’re still organizing virtual team lunches from time to time when we watch each other slurp spaghetti and spoon leftover chili into our mouths while oohing and ahhing over how cute everyone’s cats and dogs are. I have to admit, the pets are a great addition.

We started a #recipes channel on Slack so we can share easy recipes that require few or very easily modified ingredient lists since grocery shopping can be hit or miss these days.

We goaded Tess into adopting a dog. The pressure was real. But she’s going to be an awesome dog mom, and I think we can all agree that those dog walks are clutch right now.

And, we’re still doing our Lunch & Learns and Tipsy Tuesdays via Zoom! They’re incredibly chaotic, but it’s cool to see everyone in their natural habitat. And it always reminds me how much I miss having a big, vibrant, talented team surrounding me all day.

Tips from Our Team in a Time of Turmoil

 

Because, as I mentioned, our team has been so amazing about not saying a peep about how COVID is affecting them, I decided to reach out to ask what their experience has been so far and if they have any tips on how to stay sane during this tough time. Here’s what they had to say!

What do you miss the most about the office?

Tim: I feel like everyone is going to say the thing they miss most about the office are the people. Which is true, I do miss seeing everyone’s face every day. But I think what I miss the most is our server. At-home internet just isn’t it and I miss being able to download large sessions in 2 seconds. I also miss the act of actually going into the office. My commute always turns into a karaoke session…

Jacob: I miss seeing my coworkers and eating lunch with them. I miss hearing about what is happening in all my friends’ lives and taking a relaxing break with them during the day.

Brad: I miss my full 5.1 rig. I currently only have the capabilities for stereo. However, I’m no stranger to cutting shows that get mixed in 5.1 in stereo, so it hasn’t been too hard to adapt.

Tess: I miss seeing everyone every day and catching up! Both coworkers and clients.

Sam: I would just say being around the whole team. Working at home can get lonely and boring not having others to talk to. I would say being able to socialize and going to other people’s rooms for a question or for whatever reason makes the time go by a lot faster. Another aspect is that it’s a change of scenery. Working from home is just the same thing over and over again. I hardly even know what day of the week it is anymore.

For you, what’s the best part of working from home? 

Kirsty: For me, the best part of WFH is I don’t need to deal with traffic anymore. It’s great that there are only 20 feet from my working desk to my couch. But I also miss being able to communicate with people in the office. Now we have to type in Slack. I’d love to congratulate people in person for their promotion or pet adoption.

Natalia: Being able to have home-cooked meals! I like to cook so that’s a good thing about working from home, also I’m fostering so I get to spend much more time with the dog!

Tim: I adopted a cat a few months ago, so it’s been nice to spend all day with her. She is almost always on my lap or by my feet while I work. It’s also nice to be able to keep an eye on her and tell her to STOP SCRATCHING THE COUCH!

Tess: Honestly, not a huge fan of working from home. But I’m glad we’re all being safe!

Jacob: It is awesome to lose my commute. While I enjoy listening to my podcasts on the way to work, I enjoy using the extra time to cook breakfast and tidy up the house before I start working in the morning, not to mention the extra time with my wife after work.

Brad: Having my wife as a coworker!

Sam: There are a few major pros of working from home that I love. The first one being that I get to be around my dog all day so he does keep me somewhat entertained. The second one is not having to drive to work. Everyone knows LA traffic sucks so not having to deal with that is amazing. One other bonus is being able to wake up later. All I have to do is walk from my bed to the computer!

Do you have any hot WFH tips? 

Natalia: Be organized, especially if you have different work projects going on. And also, have a dedicated space for work and don’t bring it into your personal space of the house. You need to create boundaries between work and downtime within the same home. Also, set a strict schedule for when to work, pretty much keep the same schedule as if you were going into the studio. If not, you’ll end up losing track of time that way. But also, don’t forget to stand up and take breaks from time to time!

Tim: I have made multiple quarantine playlists. Jamming out while I work helps keep my mind off the fact that I haven’t left the house in weeks. So if you’re someone who can focus while listening to music, I definitely recommend putting on some tunes!

Jacob: I like to set hourly benchmarks for myself when editing sound effects. I sort of did that before WFH, but I find it to be extra important now that I have all the distractions of my home close at hand. This way I always know where I am and where I should be in my work, and I’m never surprised if I am running behind at the end of the day.

Tess: Best WFH tip I have is to keep your regular schedule! I’ve found that to be tricky, but if I drift out for a day I’m much less productive than when I’m strict about my schedule.

Brad: Be conscious of the work time/home time divide. When there’s no clear cut end to your workday and you don’t have to leave work to go home, it’s hard to know when to stop for the day, which can lead to fatigue on your ears, eyes, and mind.

Sam: I think the most important thing for me is taking breaks away from the computer to not lose sanity. Exercising on my lunch break and going outside for a few minutes at a time throughout the day really does help me personally.

Do you want to share any fun internet time-wasters to brighten everyone’s day?

Greg: I play sudoku, solitaire, Tripeaks solitaire, and wordscapes. For websites, addictinggames.com is a classic for a multitude of quickplay games, mix.com is the updated version of stumbleupon. It’s now a browser add-on that you can just click the button and it takes you to a random page of your selected interests. Everything from games to photography, science and technology articles, comedic/satiric articles, etc. etc.

Also there’s this classic for a good throwback game every once in a while https://gold-miner-games.com/classic-gold-miner.htm

Tim: My friends and I have been playing skribbl.io over Facetime a lot. It’s basically Pictionary without the teams. I don’t like to share my wins.

Kate: If you’re having a hard time with the utter silence of working from home, you can use this office noise generator! Move the sliders to make just the right mix of chatty colleagues, aggressive typer next door, room tone, and that solidly 90’s printer technology that can screech louder than any banshee.

Jacob: I love the Youtube Channel Kittisaurus. Watching the cats get up to shenanigans is always a good laugh.

 

Part One of this Blog was written by JEFF SHIFFMAN, CO-OWNER OF BOOM BOX POST

 

Finishing a Song and Workflow

What finishing a song a week taught me about workflow?

I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and for a long time, I thought this was a good thing. That was until I read a quote recently that stated:

Done is Better than Perfect

Initially, I was skeptical. When I applied it to music-making I thought to myself I would rather have things perfect than simply completed. Who wants a mediocre piece of work that is done over an intricately detailed piece that might not be completed?

I realised at this moment that I have hard drives full of unfinished work simply because I have deemed it ‘imperfect’.  Yet I have very few finished pieces of work in comparison.

So, I set myself a challenge to start writing and FINISHING a song a week. The rules were it didn’t have to be perfect, I didn’t have to like it, it just had to be DONE.

A month later and many songs completed I realised that I was wrong.

Before I would spend days EQ’ing a kick drum and weeks getting the perfect balance of reverb only to be exhausted with the song months later.

Writing and finishing a song in a week has given me the boundaries I need to prioritise what needs done and limited the amount of time I work on everything. Resulting in the feeling of accomplishment having seen something through to the end.

I ultimately have started liking my one-week songs over the ones I spent four months writing the verses for!

So, if you’re like me and spending an unhealthy amount of time trying to make something ‘perfect’ may I suggest putting a time limit on it and remember –  it doesn’t have to be polished, it just has to be done.

 

Skills College Can’t Teach You 

With graduation season upon us, the Class of 2020 is preparing for graduations in their homes. Through these difficult circumstances, graduating from college is an amazing accomplishment that deserves recognition. It has been a year since I have graduated from school, and through this year I have learned many skills college doesn’t teach you.

Here are a few things you will not learn in college

Networking and relationship building: “It’s not what you know but It’s who you know” is truer than you may think. Networking is meeting new people in a professional context, building those relationships over time, and providing value to each other. This skill is essential because a person’s main success is due to “human engineering”—your personality, communication ability, negotiation skills, and emotional intelligence.

Setting realistic career goals: Nine out of ten chances you aren’t going to land your dream job right out of college. I’ve been denied from Turner Broadcasting several times since I have moved to Atlanta. Setting goals, with realistic deadlines, is an important skill to have in any job where you don’t have someone explicitly telling you what to do. Goal-setting is also valuable for personal development and growth.

Work Hard. Hustle Harder: Good things come to those who hustle! How to sell your ideas and yourself is something not taught in college, but you’ll miss great opportunities if you lack the skills and confidence to put yourself out there. You get that dream job by selling yourself to a hiring manager. You get startup investors by selling your vision. You negotiate a raise by selling yourself to a higher-up.

It is so important to continue education and work on skills that college doesn’t teach you. These skills and many more will help you get a job and keep a job in the industry. Congratulations to the Class of 2020! Despite the circumstance, finishing school amazing. With hard work, determination, and drive anything you want to achieve can and will happen.

Striving for Excellence

 

I love to show this picture when people ask what my job is like, especially in tech. It’s from one of our first previews of the Miss Saigon National Tour: I’m at front of house (FOH) with Mick Potter and Adam Fisher, the sound designer, and the UK sound associate respectively, next to me on the console. The executive producer, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, watches the show on the end of the row, keeping a sharp eye out for any aspect that might need a bit of polish. On my other side is the US sound associate, Josh Hummel, who’s taking the picture, so it’s a full house in every sense of the phrase. There’s nothing like mixing a scene for maybe the third or fourth time with multiple people — all of whom have the ability to fire you — within a five-foot radius. And while you’re mixing, the producer is making suggestions to the designer who is making adjustments and talking with the associate, who is also making adjustments while giving you notes to help you refine your mix. Oh, and please, don’t miss any pick-ups.

It doesn’t stop once you leave tech. Granted, FOH becomes less crowded once the directors, producers, and designers are gone, but there are now thousands of people in the seats and they also expect perfection. They will happily be your harshest critics if they feel like the experience isn’t up to snuff, and you don’t have much of a safety net: actors can cover when they forget something, but there’s no way to ad-lib a fader up after you’ve missed the line.

Until you’ve done a few shows and learn to trust in your abilities as a mixer, it’s easy to let your nerves get the better of you. This is a common problem in many careers; a musician has to be “on” for an audition, an athlete has one chance to break a record or win a medal, a businesswoman has one meeting to nail a presentation. However, there is one major difference. Those jobs have one thing: one project, one match, one audition. As a mixer, it’s every day, 8 shows a week, week after week that you have to spend at a level of peak performance.

Mixing has and always will be a high-pressure job, but if you’re able to accept that and work with it instead of fighting it, you and your blood pressure will thank you. Sometimes it’s as easy as finding a scene or a song in the show that you can jam out to or get carried along with the sweep of the music. Other times it’s finding some way to let go of adrenaline or calm yourself down before your start. I know people who will take a walk around the theatre if they need to work off some nerves. Personally, I like a game or an easy crossword puzzle that keeps me occupied and gets my brain going, but I can put aside at a moment’s notice.

Most of the time, the stress comes from falling into the trap of expecting perfection. Achieving a “perfect” show depends on millions of variables and is therefore close to impossible. I was listening to a podcast called “How To! with Charles Duhigg” where he had Dr. Green, a peak performance psychologist, talk about dealing with stress, specifically related to performance. Green said at one point, “There’s a difference between perfectionism and striving for excellence.” That phrase resonated with me and my approach to mixing. Mixers rely on a unique ability: they have to constantly strive and expect nothing less than complete accuracy, but if they do make a mistake, they must also have the capability to forgive themselves and move past it almost immediately, otherwise, it can derail the rest of the show. “Striving for excellence” is exactly what we do. You walk up to the board with the commitment to do you very best every single time, but allow yourself enough grace to acknowledge your mistakes if they happen and move on.

Sometimes that commitment is your best defense against nerves. If you bring that mindset of striving for excellence every time you step up to the console, it’s just another show. It doesn’t matter if a producer with a net worth of upwards of a billion is pacing around FOH, or if it’s just you left to do your thing: you always mix the same show. I’ve seen the opposite with the actors a lot. There are always a few that consistently do warm-ups, but when a creative or someone important comes to the show, suddenly the dressing room hallways are filled with a cacophony of vocal exercises. Backstage you can see the ones that have been doing the show they’re supposed to the entire time: they’re calm and collected; conditioned by weeks of practice. Those who choose to mark their singing for most shows, then decide to go all out for this show are the ones huffing and puffing; they didn’t realize that it was so much work to dance and sing like they’re supposed to. (Plus it’s an absolute treat for the mixer to have to play “Guess the Level” when actors decide to actually sing out for the part they never do, or option up an octave instead of the normal note.)

When mistakes happen—whether due to surprises or not—one of the biggest, and least productive, traps a mixer can fall into is dwelling on that mistake. Your brain only has so much bandwidth to devote to a task at hand and, as soon as you start using up processing power to berate yourself over a missed pick up, you limit what ability your brain has left to focus on the show. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to beat yourself up when the show is done if you want to.

The best method I’ve found is to acknowledge it. My involuntary reaction ends up being a sharp head jerk and a pissed off grunt, but then I put myself right back in the show. Take a moment, but only that, then focus on the next line, the next band move, the next scene. Don’t give yourself an opportunity to linger. It’s not easy at first, because that’s exactly what you’ll want to do, but with enough repetition, it will become a habit.

Once the show is over, then you can do a replay of what you missed. It shouldn’t be to blame yourself but to do a technical analysis and take stock of what happened in the moment. Did you grab the wrong fader? Were you focusing on something or someone else? Did you lose your place and fumbled while getting back on track? When you know what caused the mistake, you can take steps to help yourself the next time.

One of my more glaring mistakes was the press opening of the tour for Miss Saigon. It was a tense, quiet scene between Chris and his wife, Ellen, and I grabbed the wrong fader and, instead of Ellen comforting Chris, another woman was loud and proud talking offstage about her dress for the opening party. Again, mentally curse, and move on. After the show, I highlighted that line and made sure I absolutely could NOT miss the fader number was in my script. That served as a reminder for me every time to make sure I threw the right fader.

On a less obvious note, in Mean Girls, one of the lines changed from when I first learned the show, and “I noticed you failed your last few quizzes. Is everything okay?” became just, “I noticed you failed your last few quizzes.” For some reason that the last sentence was so ingrained in my head, that there were multiple times where I forgot it was cut and had to scramble to get the next fader up in time. To solve that, I made a concentrated effort to consciously remind myself to bring up the next fader on the word “few” and, with show after show of that constant thought, it eventually became habit.

In both cases, the mistakes (or close calls) were singular events, blips that didn’t snowball into larger catastrophes, but being able to keep your cool under pressure can help you have less of those blips in the first place. When Les Mis had the official press opening for the tour, it was just like the Saigon preview at FOH, only more people. Designers from every department, directors, production management, producers, you name it, if there was an open space, it wasn’t empty long. And despite their best efforts, they’re never completely quiet: pencils scratching on notepads, fingers tapping notes on tablets, whispers back and forth. Even with all the distractions, I focused on the job at hand and had a solid, clean show. Afterward, one of the production managers told me a few people had mentioned to him that they were impressed that I could be so calm with so many eyes peering over my shoulder. You don’t always get the feedback, but people are watching and they’ll notice how you handle yourself in a stressful situation.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to walk into every show with clean feet, or “leave your baggage at the door.” Did you miss a line or two in the last show? Were the dynamics not what you know they should have been? Did you have an absolutely flawless performance? Great. That was the last show. This is a new day and a new show. Come to it without resting on your laurels or harping on yourself for the mistakes of yesterday; each new show is another chance to get it right, another chance to feel that satisfying rush as everything comes together. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes the stress of our jobs can discourage aspiring mixers before they even have the chance to learn how to master it. Remember to be patient and show yourself some grace, especially when you’re learning. Good things take time.

 

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