unfinished business: cuba

6 months and a new year later and i'm back in miami international getting ready to board a flight to the island. there's unfinished business for the amigo skate crew and for the next two weeks we're going to try and unravel what the impact of the lifting of the us cuba embargo has done to the local skate scene and in a greater scheme the people. i'm excited to sweat & break bread with my good cuban kin. 

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!

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