John McKain: Alone in Romania

I was nervous leading up to the shooting of Alone in Romania; it would be the first time I had worked with some of the sound recording equipment. I had worked as a sound recordist on a proof of concept short where I operated a sound mixer and boom mic, Alone in Romania would be the first time that I had used the MixPre-10 II (more complex than the mixer I had used previously), more dauntingly it would be the first time that I had used wireless lavaliere microphones and timecode kits.

I made sure to familiarize myself with each by both getting hands-on experience operating them and by researching online (mainly video demonstrations), I made sure to look for any known oddities or common failures/issues people have run into when using them (not something I wanted to be aware of for the first time on set). The interfaces for both the lavaliere microphones and timecode kits were easy enough to understand and I got the hang of them quickly enough.

The more difficult thing was learning how to position the lavaliere microphone so that there wouldn't be any rustling or anything else that would cause trouble for the sound editor down the line. It remained an issue on set however I always made sure to fix it.

This was the first time that I solely operated the mixer; previously I had operated both the boom and the mixer, for this shoot, we had a dedicated boom operator; Dinah Adriana who was a first-timer, I didn't manage to convene with her before the shoot so I had to give her a crash course in boom operating on the first day, she was an exceptionally fast learner and excelled at her role, not once did we need to do another take because she had made a mistake using the boom.

The most important thing I learnt is the importance of speaking up when something isn't going right. When things are going wrong with lighting, camera, set, acting or many of the other components that make up a set it is plain to see for the entire crew, Sound recordists are in their own world, headphones on focusing, and only you know whether the sound was clean or if a kid was screaming two doors down that got picked up by the boom.

It isn't easy to tell a crew that has been slaving away trying to get a shot to work for hours, who think they've just nailed it that the sound is unusable, and you have to do it again. It isn't easy, in that moment they don't like you, and you've just ruined everything, but they hate you a lot more when the sound is awful, you can't hear the dialogue, and the sound editor is going crazy trying to EQ out an air conditioner. You have to do your job regardless of how much you might think some people dislike it or you, and besides most of that is in your head anyway. Just do your job and have a clear conscious that nothing was left undone and unsaid.

It's an lesson that I'm glad I learnt and will be important going forward in my career.