Behind The Sound Cart

"I was tasked with designing the communication system for Brad Pitt's spacesuit in "Ad Astra". A Sound Mixer told me to sweep the gravel of Western Town for a walk-and-talk dolly shot between two cowboys because it made too much noise under their boots. Another Mixer asked me to walk up 78 stairs to the top of a stage at night to find a cricket that was chirping - and then spray him with hairspray so his legs would stick together and not chirp. When I was booming a scene of an actress milking a cow, the cow peed on camera - and me! And I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything, because I love making movies!" Patrushkha Mierzwa, authorThis book illustrates the job of The Utility Sound Technician (UST), a career almost invisible, yet extremely interesting and exciting - and paying a high five figures a year. Ms. Mierzwa's book creates a process that has heretofore been non-existent, relying upon on-the-job training. The book identifies traits and characteristics of successful USTs and details the myriad responsibilities in pre-production and production. Special features include standardized forms and addressing scene elements that could take a lifetime to experience and learn from. Ms. Mierzwa takes you from the first work call to the final wrap, explaining the order of the work and the details that experience can provide, so you don't make mistakes that can sabotage your career before it's even started. More than the tasks and importance of preparation, you'll learn about the social dynamics of a set and why you can know a lot about film but not be able to sustain a career.Target market: Film school students or graduates, people considering sound as a career in movies & television, any working professionals who are curious about how to get better at their jobs, people who enjoy an inside look at the practical business of movie-making.

"Behind the Sound Cart: A Veteran's Guide to Sound on the Set" details how the entire Sound team functions on today's movie and television sets, while illuminating the overall picture of life on a production. Patrushkha takes you from the first work call to the final wrap, explaining the order of the work and the details that her decades of experience provides, so you may avoid mistakes that may sabotage your career before it's even started. This book describes the job of the UST (Utility Sound Technician), a career almost invisible, yet extremely interesting, exciting-and paying up to six figures a year. This book details how to act, how to relate to the crew, how to deal with and solve problems that are not just about sound itself-things you don't learn at film school. Patrushkha Mierzwa, one of the first female boom operators in Hollywood, has worked on over 80 movies and television projects for major directors including Robert Rodriquez, Quentin Tarantino, James Gray, and Robert Altman. She has been a judge for the Emmys, an IATSE Sound Local 695 director, and given workshops globally over her long career in the industry.Her Sound Oscar-nominated shows include "Ad Astra" and "Once Upon a Time?in Hollywood". This book condenses 40 years of experience into a practical guide for you to be able to walk onto a film set with the confidence of a sound ninja. -Stuart Wilson, Sound Oscar winner, 1917 This is my go-to reference and should be in every film school on the globe.-Simon Clark, Head of Location Sound Recording, National Film & Television School, EnglandI think this is really going to help students, super down to earth, logical and clear. I knew that it'd be a great book after your visits and sessions with our students. You're a wonderful speaker and your voice comes right through clearly and concisely in this book.Congratulations again and I hope we get to invite you back to Greenwich again in the near future! -Dr Andrew Knight-Hill, University of Greenwich, London.

Finding Your Career in the Modern Audio Industry equips the reader with the skills they need to turn an interest in audio, sound, or music technology into a career. This book provides insight for aspiring professionals seeking audio-related opportunities in entertainment, technology, education, and more. In the audio industry, there is typically a gap between those in-training and those with professional (and financially sustainable) careers. This book bridges the information gap, offering practical and real-world advice to those in this volatile stage of their career. Including 70+ interviews with professionals from over 20 countries, Finding Your Career in the Modern Audio Industry offers insight into how others (across the industry and the world) have applied entrepreneurial thinking, problem-solving, and creative solutions to build their careers. Including international case studies and interviews with diverse professionals, Finding Your Career in the Modern Audio Industry is essential reading for anyone taking their first steps into an audio-related field.

Written by a seasoned professional, Viers explains how to achieve Hollywood-quality sound that will make productions stand out from the rest.

Do you enjoy listening to music while driving? Do you find radio traffic information indispensable? Do you appreciate the moments of your drive in which you can listen to or sing along with whatever you like? This book shows how we created auditory privacy in cars, making them feel sound and safe, even though automobiles were highly noisy things at the beginning of the twentieth century. It explains how engineers in the automotive industry found pride in making car engines quieter once they realized that noise stood for inefficiency. It follows them as they struggle against sounds audible within the car after the automobile had become a closed vehicle. It tells how noise-induced fatigue became an issue once the car became a mass means for touring across the country. It unravels the initial societal concerns about the dangers of car radio and what it did to drivers' attention span. It explores how car drivers listened to their cars' engines to diagnose car problems, and appreciated radio traffic information for avoiding traffic jams. And it suggests that their disdain for the ever-expanding number of roadside noise barriers made them long for new forms of in-car audio entertainment. This book also allows you to peep behind the scenes of international standardization committees and automotive test benches. What did and does the automotive industry to secure the sounds characteristic for their makes? Drawing on archives, interviews, beautiful automotive ads, and literature from the fields of cultural history, science and technology studies, sound and sensory studies, this book unveils the history of an everyday phenomenon. It is about the sounds of car engines, tires, wipers, blinkers, warning signals, in-car audio systems and, ultimately, about how we became used to listen while driving.

Book Four in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles—the Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure of All Time Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world’s savior, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, is still alive but far from human. To preserve humanity’s future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years. Leto’s rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot’s rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto’s vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted—or could possibly conceive....

The latest hot camera is pretty irrelevant if one can't understand what's happening on screen. The key to any narrative is in the dialogue and voice over, but if this is unintelligible or difficult to hear, viewers will soon lose interest. With real world applications and a narrative to keep the reader's interest, Production Sound Mixing is the indispensable guide for film and video audio recording. Written by veteran sound mixer John J. Murphy, the book offers a step by step collaborative journey through the basic physics of sound, concluding with a practical guide of the latest techniques and equipment available to all who are interested in the best audio for their projects. Structured to mimic a 14-week semester, each chapter begins with an audio problem to be solved and ends with a solution drawn from information gleaned from past chapters. Suggested movie scenes that demonstrate the relevant audio techniques will also be included. Equally applicable to studio and location recording, the book is oriented toward commonly accessible environments such as conference rooms, hallways, beaches, car interiors, bathrooms, and so on. The intent is to allow the student to make the best of a location no matter how challenging it might be. Most importantly, this book will make one aware of the potential of sound on screen, for it is truly 50% of the viewing experience.

From an NPR veteran, a “comprehensive and lucid” guide to “the values and practices that yield stellar audio journalism” (Booklist). Maybe you’re thinking about starting a podcast, and want some tips from the pros. Or perhaps storytelling has always been a passion of yours, and you want to learn to do it more effectively. Whatever the case—whether you’re an avid NPR listener or you aspire to create your own audio, or both—Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production will give you a rare tour of the world of a professional broadcaster. Jonathan Kern, a former executive producer of All Things Considered who has trained NPR’s on-air staff for years, is a gifted guide, able to narrate a day in the life of a host and lay out the nuts and bolts of production with both wit and warmth. Along the way, he explains the importance of writing the way you speak, reveals how NPR books guests ranging from world leaders to neighborhood newsmakers, and gives sage advice on everything from proposing stories to editors to maintaining balance and objectivity. Best of all—because NPR wouldn’t be NPR without its array of distinctive voices—lively examples from popular shows and colorful anecdotes from favorite personalities animate each chapter. As public radio’s audience of millions can attest, NPR’s unique guiding principles and technical expertise combine to connect with listeners like no other medium can. With today’s technologies allowing more people to turn their home computers into broadcast studios, Sound Reporting is a valuable guide that reveals the secrets behind NPR’s success.