STORY 6. SOUND AND DIVAS. I was just starting out as a director. Feeling hot and important and Hollywoodish. That day in particular was one of those set days, you know, weh!. Those days where a producer is on set demanding things to be finished and everyone else is nasty and hot tempered because things are just going badly and everyone is in a rush and hell just seems to have migrated to your set. Suddenly the sound man called for a halt. there is a strange noise he said, handing me his cans. what noise everyone yelled back at him. To our bare ears, there was no noise. Indeed, there was a slight buzz in his headphones. He said some electric current was interfering. After hours trying to sort it out, we decided he was playing diva and bullied him to shoot. (er...producer was saying no going home till we finish and as a new director you feel you cant argue with the producer, they say shoot you shoot. )Darkness flew in, and again he halted things. if this scene is a daytime scene, it wont work. Now we had had it with him. We forced him to record sound as it is since we could not hear the crickets with our bare ears. The cameraman decided to be a spoil sport and said the gels were not enough for a day scene being shot at night. (we had not planned to shoot night for day so the equip wasnt adequate) Light is light, producer shouted, and we shall sort these things in post. He said we need an extra light outside for he could see darkness at the edge of windows and under doors. He was quickly bullied down. Sleepy heads wanted to go home and one light would not be allowed to spoil the desire. In the edit room, I realised saying things will be sorted in post is easy. Doing it is hell. Those were Z7 days which doesnt have a high dynamic range as these 5D et al EOSes. And the producer who said things will be sorted in post did not have the budget to hire post guys to clean sound and picture, and was the first to complain we had ruined his programme when he saw the final product! The soundman refused to have his name in the credits, the prog aired and audiences complained, and I swore never to be bullied with that famous shout tu shoot tu twende home! . I was,gladly, a diva from then. several years later, i.e last year, I was called for a job. The boss asked me some directing credits and I mentioned the above project. that project! I saw just one episode. Bad sound. Bad picture. Bored sleepy looking cast! A daytime scene and there were crickets all over! I never watched it again. No. I do not want that quality here, thanks for coming but we will get another director! I look at some progs today and I see that me in them. If only they had listened to the sound guy we would not have these horrible sound on screens today. Every crew knows their job. If they say not good, listen, instead of calling them divas. In the meantime, enjoy bad sound kwa local progs. By Director Simiyu Barasa
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 08:00:01 +0000
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