Shooting Tone (2018)

Written and directed by Margaret Reid. With Susan Burzynski, Montana Rosalle, and Michelle Walker. Comedy, 2018, 06:00, colour.

An on-set Sound Mixer tries to get room tone, but the space is restless . . .

IMDb   •   Watch on Vimeo

By DTL
Posted March 16, 2018
Updated June 10, 2018

Recently, I was location Sound Recordist for Tone, a short movie written and directed by Margaret Reid.

I didn’t know Maggie at all. She got my name from a mutual friend of ours in Vancouver’s improv-theatre scene who knew Maggie was looking for a location Sound Recordist and knew I did that sort of thing.

Lesson 1: When it comes to getting gigs, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. Your network is not the people you exchange business cards with; it’s the people who will put your name forward when they hear about a gig.

I always seek opportunities to practice my existing skills, learn new ones, and help other indie creators bring their movies to the screen. The likely path to success — artistic, financial, and career-wise — is not to bank on being that freak viral hit; it’s to produce a body of work. So my provisional answer is always, “Yes, I’ll help if I can.”

Lesson 2: Be open to opportunities. Always say yes if you can.

A great early sign in favour of a project’s success is the quality of the script. Indie creators can’t compete with Hollywood for big-name stars, globe-spanning exotic locations, or mind-stunning special effects, but we can absolutely write a script that’s as good as anything that ever won an Oscar.

Happily, I thought the script was funny, and the audio challenges it presented within my abilities. And it certainly struck home: it concerns the difficulties a Sound Recordist faces on a small movie set while trying to record room-tone. As the old joke goes: Take two hours to light a scene, nobody bats an eye; take 90 seconds to record room-tone, and everybody loses their minds.

And with our mutual friend vouching for us to each other, I believed that Maggie could produce a movie from that script; and I hoped she believed that I could carry out the dialogue-recording duties. So I signed on enthusiastically.

Lesson 3: Have high standards for the gigs you accept. Don’t be afraid to turn down opportunities. But say yes if you can! Make that your default, like in improv!

We were shooting in rented space: the black-box theatre at Cineworks in Vancouver’s city centre. This is a nice place to shoot. The walls and floor are painted black, and there’s a black curtain at one end covering a greenscreen curtain. The room is fairly soundproof, so even though it is right downtown it’s nice and quiet to shoot in.

Dressing the set took little time, as it was supposed to be a movie set. We shoved some visible gear into frame, and pulled back the black curtain to expose the greenscreen.

Lighting also took little time, as it was supposed to be a movie set. We put on the studio’s overhead lights to play the part of a studio’s overhead lights. We had the practicals — the visible lighting instruments on stands that we’d placed in the frame. And we had a couple of extra instruments that we could deploy to tweak the lighting in specific shots.

The actors wore either their own clothes or clothes selected with Maggie; I think there may have been a buying trip to Value Village, but I don’t know for sure. Michelle Walker, playing the on-screen Makeup Artist, had a makeup kit. Montana Rosalle, playing the on-screen Sound Recordist, had a shotgun mic and boompole.

Even the lowest of micro-budget productions is well-advised to retain the services of a Makeup Artist. They make the actors look better — and, just as importantly, they make the actors look the same from shot to shot. Jeanette Karleen ably filled the position here. She made the regular characters look good — and the one mystery character look . . . appropriate.

With just a few details added, I totally bought that the performers and setting were the cast and crew on a movie shoot.

Lesson 4: Use makeup, costuming, and set dressing to convey information about the world your movie takes place in.

For audio recording, I brought my basic kit of one boom-mounted mic and four wireless lavalier mics. I find that this is sufficient to cover most situations; if the gig requires more gear than this, I’ll rent it. Having read the script, I knew my basic kit would be good.

As it happened, I didn’t need to break out the lavs at all. We recorded all audio with just the boom mic. This method allowed me to be very quick and flexible — repositioning myself for a new take or shot, and monitoring only a single track. And Director Maggie shot enough coverage that I was able to close-mic all the actors and lines in at least one shot, so we didn’t make any compromises in audio quality that might require ADR later.

I was already familiar with the room we’d be shooting in. Maggie was very responsive to all questions in advance, and welcomed input (including new gags) on the day. The couple of times I thought I could do better with another take, she agreed to do one. She took my advice to record wild lines and sound effects then and there, something I always like to do. Perhaps her background in improv encouraged her to be a generous collaborator with us all; improv’ers learn to always say, “Yes.”

Lesson 5: Include your Sound Recordist in your pre-production and production processes.

As for the shooting itself, there’s not much to tell that won’t spoil the movie. The actors knew their lines, and both improvised around them and tried suggested gags in later takes. The appearance and entrance of the mystery character was very . . . appropriate.

Cinematographer Manovigianek Jehman transitioned from shooting on a tripod to mostly hand-held as the shoot progressed — enhancing the feeling of reality becoming untethered.

Maggie supervised, getting all the shots she thought she needed and trying new ones that people suggested.

Halfway through, we stopped for lunch. The production provided sandwiches (including vegetarian), fruit & veggie platters, chips, candy, water, coffee, and pop. Everything was fresh and tasty (well, except the packaged stuff; that was packaged and tasty). Making movies is hard, physical work, so your collaborators need fuel!

Lesson 6: Feed your people.

In short, everyone was professional and friendly, generous and helpful. There was always time for a joke, but we never fell behind schedule. We were done right on time. The shoot was truly a pleasure.

As we packed away our gear at the end of the day, Maggie made the rounds. She made a point of coming up to all of us individually, giving us a hug, and thanking us for our work and contribution to the project.

And she gave us surprise thank-you cards. That was an unexpected but nice touch.

Lesson 7: Thank your collaborators! The personal touch is really kind of . . . touching.

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The finished movie

Update by DTL
Posted June 10, 2018

Thanks to Director Maggie, we can watch the movie:

Watch on Vimeo

As she says on the Vimeo page, “Also please note that I was unable to get this properly sound-mixed, so I did a quick cleanup. I apologizes for any sound blips!”

So this is probably closer to what I recorded on set than you usually get to hear after all the postproduction mixing and sweetening and soundscaping. Interesting!