Surgical Sound Technicians

Did you hear that sound? Well, I did. The sound of a really cheesy opening line to a blog about sound effects. So, I am sitting here in my room watching King of the Hill (as my I.Q. of course increases) and I can't help but notice that, guess what, King of the Hill has sound. I hear Dale lighting up his cigarette and Hank meticulously mowing his front yard, as every good citizen should. Behind the scenes creative minds must have worked hard together to figure out the sound of bobby's lawnmower wreck or Josephs touchdown run. All this to say... wow, the coolest job ever, with the exception of maybe being a big cat veterinarian in Africa, must be working in sound effects on a movie or t.v. show. Watching the special on The Lord of the Rings and their production of sound proved that last sentence most definitely true. Smashing glass and dropping tons of rock over microphones with (who would have guessed a guy would remember this part) condoms as protectors sounds really cool. Not to mention working with Peter.

But the most incredible part of the film making process isn't so fun. It is called planning. Who likes planning? Not me. Planning out time for homework or planning a vacation just drives me nuts. I hate planning. Even writing essays, I usually do not have a planning stage. I call it a first draft. It costs me tons of time and frustrates me some but anything to get out of planning. In the movie making process 9/10's of the whole thing seems to be planning. From story boards to computer generated versions of the movie some movies take a year or more to plan before the first actor walks in the studio. Planning this big only happens at thanksgiving at my house. But that's beside the point.

Overall, my impression so far of the movie process is that with all the fun and laughter comes tons and tons of work. For every million dollars made comes a million hours of work. I think I will go to medical school and save myself all the movie making work. Maybe that's not such a good trade but hey I can still make sound effects as a doctor but I can't operate on someone as a sound technician.