To Die For, One Airline Ticket, And 400 Pounds of Baggage

Oh my how things have changed…

In 1995 I was the Supervising Sound Editor on a film called, To Die For. Back then we were still working with 35mm magnetic film so the audio reels were large and heavy. This was the first studio film I had ever done as far as being in charge and it was a big deal.

L-R - Me, Concha Solano, Parker Logan, Mary Bauer, Peter Appleton

We did almost all of our sound editing on 35mm upright Moviolas and a flatbed in Portland, Oregon. We had one computer work station, but we still needed to export everything out of it to 35mm magnetic film as well. Mixes were still being mostly done in 35mm magnetic film.

It was time for our first temp mix and a preview screening for the studio and I was nervous as all hell. Everything was taking longer than it should have because it was such a huge thing to prepare for. We were doing our sound work in Portland but mixing in Los Angeles.

The plan was to ship all our completed audio reels to LA a day a head of time via Fed Ex.

Things didn’t go according to plan, of course, and we shipped out half the reels for the temp mix. We worked like crazy and got the rest of them done just in time for me to fly out.

This was years before 9/11 when security at airports was nowhere near the levels it is now.

Film crews always had excess baggage and the way to get around extra charges by the airlines was to check all of our gear with the sky caps and then tip heavily. They made sure all of the gear got on the right flight. It was a lot less stressful then.

We pulled up to the airport in an old station wagon loaded down with 14 boxes of cut 35mm sound reels. There were 10 reels in each box and they weighed 40-60 pounds each. I have one first class airline ticket, all of these boxes, and one small overnight bag as a carry on.

The Sky Caps saw us coming as the back bumper of the car was practically dragging on the ground. One guy came running up with his hand truck asking if we needed help. I already had a huge wad of cash in my hand that he could see. We were not subtle when it came getting our tuff onto the plane.

I gave him $150 and he got all of those boxes on the plane and I was not charged a dime for extra baggage. I’m sure the studios would have paid for the extra baggage but that would have been less cash in my pocket.

A guy hired by Columbia Pictures met me at LAX that evening with his little sign that said “Baker” on it.

“Mr. Baker, I have a rental car waiting for you at the curb outside. Do you have any checked luggage?

“Oh yeah!”

We stacked everything onto two carts and hauled it curbside where another guy was waiting with my rental car idling. We crammed the boxes into the rental car and with it’s suspension sagging, I headed for the hotel.

In my mind, the first day of any feature film mix in a new place is always stressful. You don’t know who you’ll be working with and what kind of attitude they’re bringing.

The following day was the first day of the temp mix at the studio and I was so fucking nervous. I didn’t sleep at all the night before, I was literally sweating on the air conditioned mix stage. I was sure stuff would be out of sync, or not there, or whatever, and I’d be fired on the spot and never work at this level again.

As I’ve written before, LA crews can be brutal if they don’t know or respect you. All they knew was some clown from Portland, Oregon was coming down to supervise this feature.

How could anyone from Portland know what they were doing when it came to a big Hollywood film? These guys were the pros and I was probably just a friend of the directors, some amateur. They would put me in my place in no time.

Those were the thoughts running through my head.

It’s like a first day at a new school and the local kids are just waiting to beat me up.

The first mix day went perfectly and even though there were a few problems on the second day, I had proved to the crew on the mix stage that even though I lived in Portland, Oregon, my crew and I were absolutely pros. They had no idea that most of the guys on my crew used to live and work in LA and had moved up to Portland for a better life style.

After the mix the guys at the studio packed up all the boxes (including the ones that had come down earlier), and arranged shipping them all by truck back up to Portland. I don’t remember what it cost but it was not cheap.

Doing all of the sound design and editing in Portland, then mixing in either Berkeley, or Los Angeles was never cheap especially when you included airfare, rental cars, and hotels. There were times when myself and a couple of my crew would live at a nice hotel for six-eight weeks as that was how long it took to mix the film and all of it’s various versions. We did the theatrical release for theaters, then there were different versions for television, foreign markets, airlines, home video, it felt like it went on and on.

A lot of my friends that weren’t in the business thought that it was so cool that I would live in these nice hotels for weeks at a time. When you’re working eleven hours a day, six days a week, it was great to have a nice place to sleep. But after a while it was a real pain. There were times when all I wanted to do was go home and make a sandwich. When you eat all of your meals in restaurants or food brought in from restaurants, you get tired of it. It never mattered what type of food it was, after a few weeks it all tasted the same, like restaurant food.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I had a great time doing all of this. I loved the work and was paid well. It’s just a really different kind of life with it’s own stresses.

One of the last LA films I did was not at a major studio, but on an independent mixing stage. The attitude of those people sucked. My assistant went into the machine room at one point and saw that someone had spilled some kind of soda onto one of our hard drives. When she pointed it out and asked if someone was going to clean it up they ignored her. That place was really unprofessional as far as I was concerned.

Not to get down on LA crews. I have worked with some amazing people that I’m still friends with today. And then there are others whose paths I hope never to cross again.

This was just one of many crazy adventures I have had during my career. I’ll post more from time to time as long as you all are enjoying them.

Thanks for reading.