It's 6:30p on a Saturday and where am I? At the office. Cleaning up after these boys. I like to call it my stint in the frat house. Let me explain. This office is currently occupied by 5 people (including yours truly) and out of the 5, 4 are boys. Messy boys. Messy boys who can't clean up after themselves, put things away or replace things. It's like stepping into a frat house. I finally realized enough is enough when 3 of us were fighting over a ballpoint pen because that was the only one that could be found in this mess we call an office. I'm not a neat-freak, but I do like some order in my life. Besides, when the fight is over the only known writing utensil in existence, something's going to give. I'd like to take a blowtorch and incinerate everything to ashes. It would be easier starting over than trying to deal with this chaos.
Speaking of chaos, it's a mess downstairs in the lobby. It's NBA All-Star Weekend and all sorts of big names are in town. There have been VIP parties going on in the ballroom downstairs and security has been crazy. You'd have thought the Economic Summit was being conducted downstairs with all of the uniformed and plain-clothed security they have downstairs. At least it's just for the weekend.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
Moving Forward With Great Speed!
I landed yet another job! I am now an associate director for a non-profit cultural organization. It's a grandiose title for administrative assistant. So it's everything I've been doing for my friend, but now it has an official title and a paycheck. (Yay, paychecks!) It'll be a lot of fun and I'm excited.
Yesterday, we had a fund-raising kick-off for my show and the responses were great! We had some major players in the cultural charity scene and in the community there including the Consulate General from Japan and the Vice-Chair for the DNC who was there as a favor to my producer. I had 2 guys do a staged reading of one of the scenes in the play. The reading went very well (I think the audience was hooked) and then the congressman spoke. Originally, my producer asked if he could just speak briefly on his family's experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. I was sitting there listening to him and he starts off talking a bit about the play. I figured he would comment a bit on the show based on my description and the scene we performed and then launch into the camps. He just kept talking about the show and as he was talking, I was thinking, "he's talking like he's seen the show. Wait! He HAS seen the show!". One of the playwrights used to live in his district and the congressman saw the show about 5 years ago and was deeply moved and impressed with the story. He kept commenting on what an impressive story it was, how this was a story that needed to be told and the people there needed to fully support this production because it would make such an impact on the Asian/Pacific-American and Jewish-American communities here. It was the best endorsement we could have asked for and we had no idea he was even going to fully endorse the play like he did! We didn't even know he had seen the show before!
After the meeting, my producer and I met back at the office to celebrate and then met with the congressman's staffer who accompanied him and continued celebrating. The congressman called later and invited all of us up to his suite to hang out with him. He is such a laid-back, personable, down-to-earth guy - he was just cool! We finally called it a night 4 bottles of wine later. Definately a productive day!
Yesterday, we had a fund-raising kick-off for my show and the responses were great! We had some major players in the cultural charity scene and in the community there including the Consulate General from Japan and the Vice-Chair for the DNC who was there as a favor to my producer. I had 2 guys do a staged reading of one of the scenes in the play. The reading went very well (I think the audience was hooked) and then the congressman spoke. Originally, my producer asked if he could just speak briefly on his family's experiences in the Japanese-American internment camps. I was sitting there listening to him and he starts off talking a bit about the play. I figured he would comment a bit on the show based on my description and the scene we performed and then launch into the camps. He just kept talking about the show and as he was talking, I was thinking, "he's talking like he's seen the show. Wait! He HAS seen the show!". One of the playwrights used to live in his district and the congressman saw the show about 5 years ago and was deeply moved and impressed with the story. He kept commenting on what an impressive story it was, how this was a story that needed to be told and the people there needed to fully support this production because it would make such an impact on the Asian/Pacific-American and Jewish-American communities here. It was the best endorsement we could have asked for and we had no idea he was even going to fully endorse the play like he did! We didn't even know he had seen the show before!
After the meeting, my producer and I met back at the office to celebrate and then met with the congressman's staffer who accompanied him and continued celebrating. The congressman called later and invited all of us up to his suite to hang out with him. He is such a laid-back, personable, down-to-earth guy - he was just cool! We finally called it a night 4 bottles of wine later. Definately a productive day!
Friday, February 10, 2006
New Job!!!
Responses from others (upon hearing about my new job):
1) SH: So what's the new job?
Me: For all intents and purposes, I'm an executive assistant.
2) Mom: (after about 10 seconds of silence)
That's not nice. I don't think that's nice. Have you told you father?
3) Me: I'm not working at Rice. I am, however, downtown working out of The Rice.
SM: I thought The Rice was a classier hotel than that.
4) (After telling some friends about my mother's reaction.)
Me: She had that tone of voice that made it sound like I was only a step above being a hooker.
C: Now, maybe if you were a Republican hooker...
I just landed a new job working as an assistant for one of the leading political consultants here in town. This job just fell into my lap. I was helping out a friend (in dire need of an assistant, but doesn't have a enough of a budget for one at the moment) and I was telling him I was looking for a day job. He tells me the guy whose office he uses needs an assistant. It's mostly administrative stuff. Anyway, 30 minutes later, I find myself in a new job. Yay!!!
1) SH: So what's the new job?
Me: For all intents and purposes, I'm an executive assistant.
pause
SH: WHAT?!?!?! How did you get that???2) Mom: (after about 10 seconds of silence)
That's not nice. I don't think that's nice. Have you told you father?
(He is one of the leading Democratic political consultants in town, in the state, actually. My parents are hard-line Republicans.)
3) Me: I'm not working at Rice. I am, however, downtown working out of The Rice.
(The Rice was one of Houston's grand, landmark hotels.)
SM: I thought The Rice was a classier hotel than that.
(I'll give you a minute to figure that one out.)
4) (After telling some friends about my mother's reaction.)
Me: She had that tone of voice that made it sound like I was only a step above being a hooker.
C: Now, maybe if you were a Republican hooker...
I just landed a new job working as an assistant for one of the leading political consultants here in town. This job just fell into my lap. I was helping out a friend (in dire need of an assistant, but doesn't have a enough of a budget for one at the moment) and I was telling him I was looking for a day job. He tells me the guy whose office he uses needs an assistant. It's mostly administrative stuff. Anyway, 30 minutes later, I find myself in a new job. Yay!!!
Thursday, February 02, 2006
DONE!!!
My show is DONE! I finished my work 4 hours ago and it's OVER!!!!!! No more fixes, tweaks or additions. I've handed the show over to my stage manager and sound board operator. I'M DONE!!!!
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
All The World's A Stage
I just realized it's been almost a month since my last post. My friend finally made it to Saudi Arabia and we've been IMing each other on a regular basis. I've been working on a new show as the sound designer. I've also secured a venue for the show I'm planning to direct this summer.
This show that I'm sound designing is such an emotional rollercoaster! It's a play that's written by a local actor and it deals with a couple and their child who's in neonatal ICU. It's loosely based on the experiences the playwright went through when his daughter was born. It's a good show, but this definitely not a fuzzy, feel-good comedy. I've now seen it at least 10 times and I still boo-hoo through the show. This show has definitely not been the easiest, but it's been the most fulfilling show I've designed in awhile. I actually got to work as a designer as opposed to working as just a sound editor. Let me explain. The past few shows I've worked on as a sound designer has been mostly taking the music the director has picked and burning them in order onto 1 or 2 CD's. At most, it's been hunting down instrumental music from the period. Easy (most of the time) and very little creativity going on. This show, however, is about an hour of background sounds - no music until the very end. 1 hour of beeping hospital monitors and hospital hallway noises. That's means building it all from scratch. While the monitors weren't as hard as I thought they'd be, the hospital bustle has been eating my lunch. They can't sound too sparse, too noisy, too jarring, too quiet, and I have to keep it from sounding like white noise. It has to sound like we're in a nurse's unit in a hospital. That means that my sounds have to have some sort of logic to them. Phones that ring need to be answered, so the footsteps have to sound like they're going to the phones, other footsteps need to sound like they're passing through the hallway, etc. I know that's a long, overly detailed way of saying that I actually get to design on this show. It's been a lot of work (many days that would start at 9am and end at 4am) but a great experience and it's a show I'm proud to have my name attached to. Not to mention working with a great director, cast and crew.
And now you know more than you'd every want to know about my life as a sound designer. Wait till I start directing.
This show that I'm sound designing is such an emotional rollercoaster! It's a play that's written by a local actor and it deals with a couple and their child who's in neonatal ICU. It's loosely based on the experiences the playwright went through when his daughter was born. It's a good show, but this definitely not a fuzzy, feel-good comedy. I've now seen it at least 10 times and I still boo-hoo through the show. This show has definitely not been the easiest, but it's been the most fulfilling show I've designed in awhile. I actually got to work as a designer as opposed to working as just a sound editor. Let me explain. The past few shows I've worked on as a sound designer has been mostly taking the music the director has picked and burning them in order onto 1 or 2 CD's. At most, it's been hunting down instrumental music from the period. Easy (most of the time) and very little creativity going on. This show, however, is about an hour of background sounds - no music until the very end. 1 hour of beeping hospital monitors and hospital hallway noises. That's means building it all from scratch. While the monitors weren't as hard as I thought they'd be, the hospital bustle has been eating my lunch. They can't sound too sparse, too noisy, too jarring, too quiet, and I have to keep it from sounding like white noise. It has to sound like we're in a nurse's unit in a hospital. That means that my sounds have to have some sort of logic to them. Phones that ring need to be answered, so the footsteps have to sound like they're going to the phones, other footsteps need to sound like they're passing through the hallway, etc. I know that's a long, overly detailed way of saying that I actually get to design on this show. It's been a lot of work (many days that would start at 9am and end at 4am) but a great experience and it's a show I'm proud to have my name attached to. Not to mention working with a great director, cast and crew.
And now you know more than you'd every want to know about my life as a sound designer. Wait till I start directing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
