monday was a pretty crazy day

my alarm went off at 4:00am but i snoozed a few times; i rolled my eyes, i didn't want to start the day. my flight to jfk was scheduled at 6:59am and there were two airport shuttles from downtown montreal that i could take: 5:01am or 5:31am. i knew it'd be risky but i went with the 5:31am not truly knowing how much of a risk it'd actually be.  

along the way these were some of the challenges that i encountered:

the shuttle was 10 minutes late 

my metro card for some reason wasn't reading but by thee grace of God the driver let me on

by the time i got to the american airlines counter, i was late for international check-in

the check-in lady must've felt sorry for me because the next thing i know she hands me a boarding pass and tells me "give it a shot, but we will not wait for you" that was all i needed. i thanked her and bolted towards the gates. i thought i had things in the bag but i quickly realized that it wasn't going to be that easy.

US customs and immigration is done at montreal airport so when i got to security the line was out of control. i was about to throw the cards and give it up but then i realized that there must be a global entry line somewhere! or not. 

i frantically looked but nothing, no signage, nada. i approached a security agent and asked him if there was a global entry line, he paused, my sphincter tightened, and then he slowly pointed. directly behind me, a few yards away, right next to the crew-member & airport employee line there was a sign that read global entry

my heart lepped. and yet again global entry saves the day. i've had global entry for a little over a year now and its probably one of the best $100 dollars i've ever spent. seriously. seriously seriously.

it was 6:25am when i got my customs slip from the kiosk and it was 6:35am when i got past the CBP officer. i was greeted by the pre-boarding announcement when i reached my gate. it was a sweet sound. there were so many variables in play that had to go my way in order to get where i was at. not just at the boarding gate but in general. a few minutes later i was given my seat and a moments later i was sitting in 18a waiting for push back.

i wish i could say that that was it but my day had only just begun. from new york i flew to san francisco and from there finally to seattle. it was long long day but thats the kind of job and life i signed up for. wouldn't have it any other way. God bless!

montreal: leisure or work?

i've answered this question many times before but this time was different; still, i checked the box that said leisure and went with it. as we got through the customs line the agent looked at my sketchy and battered passport and asked why i was in montreal.

i didnt freeze but i will say that she caught me taking an extra second to answer, which then prompted her to send me to secondary questioning. i walked inside this office that kind of resembled a clean DMV - if there was ever one - and standing in front of the line there was this huge black guy. he didnt seem all that happy, which was cool because he caused a scene and began demanding an explanation of "why am i in this damn line for?!" the customs agent was having none of it and quickly put him in his place "sir, you can go back if you want." he changed his tone and then i was called.

the agent, a young dude, hipster looking, asked me why i was in montreal and i said primarily for work. he suspiciously looked at my customs form and asked for who and for how long. i answered and he flipped through my passport a few more times. i flipped my shit a few times being that i didnt have anymore room in my passport. he didnt seem to care though and stamped right on top of another country and said welcome to montreal.

michelle was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator and she couldnt have looked more beautiful. maybe it was the possibility being detained or deported back to the states, but it felt so great to see a good friend on the other side. we quickly figured out how to get into the city and found our hostel in minutes. the next 2 days were crammed with walking, climbing, laughing and eating. we had a great time exploring montreal and its definitely a city worth coming back to.

the sound of rubble & ash

its been a month since i woke up in the city of chicago. for some odd reason i was up way before my alarm went off. aron and brianne were still sleeping so i quietly packed my gear and stepped into the calm and breezy morning. it wouldve been a nice walk to the L but i hopped on an uber instead. halfway to o'hare was when it hit me that it was august 1st.

a day before chicago i was in the city of denver packing my gear and saying goodbye to the crew of the untitled denver project. we shot for nearly a month and through the course of some strange and unorthodox storytelling, i feel like we all made something very beautiful together. the wrap party really got going around midnight and after some tense moments and hearty goodbyes, i took off, picked up my gear, and went straight to the airport. it was 6am, i was exhausted but somehow managed to make it sort of on-time. tsa was crazy but after a few minutes in i completely zoned out. the next thing i remember is sitting in 12E getting ready to take off. as we climbed through the clouds i began to think of the last 12 months. 

a year ago i was in a similar situation. it was morning and i was headed to the airport. but instead of a calm breeze, i walked into the busy and sweltering morning of singapore.

i was a complete and utter mess. 

id just broken things off with my gf in the worst imaginable way. i paced back and forth outside her condo a few times torn at what i was about to do. as i made my way through the swarms of singaporeans riding the MRT, i began to feel invisible; kind of like marty in back to the future, you know, the part where he almost doesnt get his parents to kiss?

august 1st, 2014 mustve been the longest and most agonizing day of my life. longest because id spent that day in both changi and hong kong airports for almost 24 hours over some freaky weather delays. when i actually landed in lax it was morning and august 1st had just begun! it all felt like one huge cosmic joke. through the course of that long long day i also had to live with the fact that i just ended things with someone i loved, the girl i was going to marry and have bi-racial babies with.

i ultimately chose my career over amerie and even though she roams the halls of my heart, i knew i had to take care of myself first. there were and still are many aspects of who i am that need work and amerie pointed alot of this out to me. i owe her alot and for that i will always be indebted to her. during these 12 months ive given myself completely to my craft, which has challenged me in many ways to say the least. ive also become closer to my family, which was something that was lacking for a while. more importantly though my faith has been strengthened and the realization of how infinitely short i fall has renewed my spirit and strengthened my resolve to be better. 

my twenties were mostly all about experiencing and seeing new places, things i read about in my social studies class and it was all fun. but fun only got me so far and if thats all youre looking for then youre probably going to hurt someone you love and live a lonely life looking at your instagram pictures. im looking forward to changing gears and seeing were these thirties lead me to. God bless!

untitled denver project: week 3

things got dark on week 3. somewhere in-between, reality got muddled and the line between whats real and what isnt had been crossed; im perosnally finding it difficult to pinpoint when we actually crossed it. a big part of my job is to objectively listen between tracks and channels in order to make sure i get clean dialogue and proper levels but this production has been strange in the sense that since we really don't have a script, the majority of what we get has been dependent on what is currently hapenning; life is basically shaping this film. our directors, nathan and mike, have had the crazy task to lasso these crazy situations that they're placing our main character not fully knowing how he'll react and trying to piece the story together.

as the sound mixer/one-man-band, i usually dont get too attached to the actors but in this case i have but the twisted part about week 3 is that i dont even know who that is anymore. all i know is that this doc/narrative feature will be one big mind f#%k and im very excited in how our directors and editor will piece it all together. we have 2 more days of production and something tells me that this rabbit hole goes a bit futher and possibly darker.

stand by.

 

untitled denver project: week 2

it was a thrilling week 2 for the crew of the untitled denver project; specifically for sound. we filmed at this dive bar called the nobb hill inn right on the footsteps of denver's main drag: colfax ave. it was a big challenge trying to record clean audio being that the bar's front door, which leads directly into busy colfax had to be open. this among other factors had me rubbing my eyeballs deep into the farthest corners of my skull. it was a constant battle between myself and noisy colfax but in the end i was able to pick up decent dialogue from the lavs and make it work.

recording location sound in denver right now is a pain in the ass in general though. i've been out here for 2 weeks and this whole city is pretty much under construction, which means noise, lots of it. but thats the job we sound mixers signed up for and even though we can't control all of these external forces, sometimes we can work around them and if we're lucky we get great sound.

we filmed at nobb for 2 days, then we moved and filmed at l'eagle, a marijuana dispensary and grow room in the outskirts of denver. the location was also a bit of a challenge but nothing compared to nobb hill. the a/c was turned off but the fan would not stop...i got room tone and made sure i pointed my shotgun away from the vents and pressed record. 

after the shoot, the owner of l'eagle gave us a tour of her garden. she was lovely and spoke with a true passion about her bussiness and to break it down, l'eagle would be pretty much the pavillions or trader joes of weed; everything is organic and takes longer to grow in order to get the best out of the plant. she showed us the baby buds and the process of placing rfd chips on every plant to mark them as inventory for the goverment; crazy stuff. the whole time i felt like we were going to get raided by either the goverment or the cartels hahaa

the story itself also took a turn, which was a good thing for the movie. our main character was becoming somewhat predictable/stagnant and our directors were having none of it. things got dark and uncomfortable on-set and as i watched the action unfold in the monitor and while i heard my raw mix of the arthur, mike and nathan, i knew that we had captured something magnificent. these 2 guys are really something, they're amazing to work with and im so blessed to have been given this chance.

i'm excited and nervous about week 3. the story is about to change and i honestly dont know in which direction. 

well, here's to making movies and storytelling! 

untitled denver project: week 1

denver, colorado has been home for the past week and itll remain this way for the next few. ive been out here working on a experimental doc/indie feature and its been pretty insane. till this point ive never worked on a production that had no script or any kind of shot list, which for a sound mixer can be challenging, especially when you're also booming

    

 but luckily we have a pair of crazy/brilliant directors in nathan silver and mike ott who are steering this ship that for now is being called "the untitled denver project"

so now that week 1 of shooting is wrapped, we get a day off to chill and explore beautiful sunny denver

thirty in cuba

i didn't lose my phone 2 nights ago so ill take it that my 30th went well although my body would like to tell a different story. a few days ago I got hit by denge again, which brings the count to two, possibly three cases in the past year. i wrote about the agony of the first encounter last july; it knocked me out for a whole week. this time it had me out for 2 days.

i never imagined spending my 30th in havana but here i am. it didn't dawn on me till a few days later after i agreed to do this doc that i'd be spending it away from family and friends. for the past 3 years i've had to make these kind of decisions and it seems to be point to a scary realization that i may not be sticking around for too long. who knows
these are the kind of thoughts you get when you're glued to a bed and toilet.

by thee grace of God i was given control of my bowels again and was able to get up and not feel like my bones and neck were about to snap. i took a morning stroll through havana and was finally able to go online and not check facebook (5 months facebook clean).
after 2 week's worth of emails, instragram updates, and whatsapp convos i made my way back to the casa particular.

later in the evening we were invited to an electronic dj set not far from our casa. a few hours later it really got going and we somehow made our way up the roof. as i looked at the crowd i began to think about my twenties and the half-hour or so that were left.
melancholy mixed with havana club began to creep. i thought about my little sister priscilla who just graduated high school, my pops probably watering the grass and yelling at the dog, i thought about amerie's beautiful smile, i thought about all of the great friendships i've made in the past decade and also the ones that don't exist anymore. all the toil, sacrifice, and the pain

a quick jab to the side and suddenly i was back. vanesa, my director/producer wrapped her arms around me just like my sisters would and yelled "you're 30!"
then came chris and albert, my brothers for the past 3 weeks, the cuban skating crew, and others ive met along my cuban experience.

in short the only thing i can truly say is that the only reason why i'm still alive and healthy, and have the ability to do and be where i'm at is only by the grace of God. He's been the only thing that's been constant in my life.

i'm excited to see what my thirties have in store, a new passport perhaps?