I'm damn near done with a feature. I had 19 notes to execute across 110 minutes.

I'm totally done with a short film. I had 7 1/2 pages of notes (single spaced) to execute across 15.

The short film was not worse than the feature. It was actually a much better mix. But the director is an asshole. He gave me those notes last Monday and he had assets last Friday. My buddy, the one who dragged me into this miasma, was instructed to inform him that he was getting no more work. Keep in mind, though, that he gave me 7 1/2 pages of notes and I executed... let's say six pages of them. Across 15 minutes of content.

Thursday night I observed that four of his notes were related to the fact that his composer didn't give me what I asked for. I pointed this out to the composer. The composer told me he did it the way he wanted to, not the way I wanted him to. Friday morning, the director stepped in to forbid me from asking for anything more from the composer. I was to complete my task as instructed "in the interests of saving time." So I synthesized my own bits of score to match what the composer hadn't provided and uploaded everything by Friday noon. Friday night, he thanked me for my participation and then asked me to hand over all my work product.

This is a major faux pas - among post production sound mixers, when someone asks you for your session files you inform them that nobody gets session files for the friend rate. Major studios get session files because they pay the daily and the rental. That's $1600 a day to me, and I'm a good month into the project. I chuckled to myself, observed that the director is the kind of guy who will demand session files before he attempts to patch up the catastrophe he made of the work environment and moved on, particularly knowing as I do how much he hates to be ignored. It took me the better part of a day to realize that he demanded my work product less than twelve hours after refusing to give me anything to make my job easier on his film.

Two days pass, during which he gets no response. He writes to me again Monday night explaining how he and the other editor think they're almost there, there isn't a whole lot left to be done, could I please "stop holding the project hostage" and upload my OMFs.

This is beyond a faux pas - this is like asking for session files without any of the stuff that makes it work. It's the equivalent of asking for an Adobe Illustrator file with no fonts or media. Like asking for a report executed in Word to be converted to rich text so someone else can fix the formatting. In a way, it's both less of an insult than the session files and more at the same time; there is zero probability of success in going from a 5.1 pro tools session with 150 tracks and two dozen instances of Altiverb with proprietary IRs. But the director isn't even interested in understanding the difference. It's also worth noting that I executed 6 pages of notes in four days, and that I don't have so much as a handshake on this, let alone money.

I was watching the credits roll by as I printed work product. They put all the post people at the front of the movie, ahead of the actors, which is a major no-no. All the post people except me, of course - me, they put after the PAs. They spelled my name wrong, too. And then I realized that they put the compositor behind me. A guy I've never met, but my first interaction with this product was going to dinner with my buddy and having to drive his car so that he could attempt to browbeat the compositor into reissuing assets on a Friday night because the director lacked the competence to integrate good assets into the project ahead of a Sundance submission deadline that had snuck up on nobody. Friday night. Stomping and screaming and wheedling and cajoling to deal with the incompetence and hubris of the director. There he was, name after mine (who knows if they spelled it right or not).

Maya Angelou said to believe people when they tell you who they are the first time. I really could have seen this coming from a long way off. Problem is, I like my buddy. And I'm going to have to explain to him that when he uses his goodwill to do the bidding of an asshole with none, he just becomes a hostage of the asshole. I'm having a much easier time dealing with the project now that I no longer have to put up with my buddy's feelings. Not that it's been fun. Not that I like being reminded that it exists.

Got the music for the feature yesterday. Also not to my specs. Also not useful. Also only gotten to me after the director begged the composer to finish the job he was paid handsomely for. It's a clusterfuck. It sounds like ass. And it's going to take everything I have to make it sound not like ass.

That composer? Also a recommendation from my buddy.

So I'm kind of grappling with the realization that for my own mental health, I should never work with my best buddy again.

Now I gotta make stuffing.

andthetablecame