When we voice slate, you should always use a phonetic alphabet rather than just saying, "aye, bee, see, dee, eee". Many of our letters sound similar and rhyme; which could make them harder to hear, what with the noise on the set and a local accent!
NATO and the military have developed a standardized list of words/names to represent letters. See the attached chart.
Being a professional sound mixer entails more than just mixing audio; you also have to maintain a business! Keeping good financial records is a must, and many of us utilize either Quicken or QuickBooks -- depending on the size and complexity of our company. These days, I mostly just teach and consult, so Quicken works just fine for me and my CPA.
However, every now and then Quicken gets stubborn and no longer functions as it is supposed to. (Maybe it went to the same school as Pro Tools?) The latest malfunction was that, after an internal software version update, Quicken would no longer download individual account transactions from my bank. Their website just kept saying, Quicken server error -- try again later. Later came and went, but Quicken still was not able to sucessfully connect and download my data.
Our webmaster also uses Quicken, and kept getting the same error message with his accounts. But he was eventually able to find a solution and it worked for both of us!
Here’s what we did:
Everyone is this business knows that Hollywood is fueled by coffee.
Google recently released an updated version of their (free) smartphone app, "Google Translate". This app is perfect for filmmakers!
Welcome to FilmTVsound.com, the successor to our old site, EquipmentEmporium.com
Fred Ginsburg CAS, Ph.D., MBKS is a highly experienced professional sound mixer, professor, workshop instructor, and corporate consultant. Published and written in many trade magazines, he is also president of the EQE Media & Consulting Group.
