ONE.
Sealed, the radio documentary I did on my family's elegant demise, was purchased by Public Radio Remix. Public Radio Remix is an experimental radio stream that airs on KPBZ 90.3 in Washington, WREM 88.7 in New York, XM 123 and via the stream made available by Public Radio Exchange.

TWO.
I am now the Copy Editor for Linescratchers (check out our Staff page to see a public admission of my raging OCD!). Our tagline: "LDS Musicians who don't write LDS music." Essentially, our contributors write about (and interview) all the Mormons in music who survive and thrive in the wider music industry. There is also an associated podcast done by Arthur Hatton, the founder and COO. Linescratchers is also working to launch a web portal to feature content from Mormon musicians and/or enthusiasts who operate outside the religious music sector. Like us on Facebook, yes?

For the production of Sealed, I had roughly twelve hours of source material. I recorded myself reading old love letters my parents had written, interviewed each of my siblings, interviewed my parents, digitized audio from old cassette tapes, recorded my random musings and narration ideas, etc. The release version of Sealed has a 22-minute running time. That leaves about 698 minutes of recorded material unheard by anyone but me.  

I love so much about that 698 minutes. Some of the best moments were recorded during a conversation with my siblings. We get passionate about every topic that ever comes up. Not an exaggeration. Some probably find that intense, but I am in love with our tendency. 

The context of today's sixty seconds: Dad says he'd had doubts all along about marrying Mom. But in reading all his letters and listening to his doting voice on cassette tapes he made for her, I just don't buy it. This spurred a conversation about owning up to doubt. 

(As a technical aside, I recorded this conversation between the four of us with an AKG 414 microphone set to a bidirectional pickup pattern. I set the mic on a tabletop stand. We sat two on each side. The levels of each of us recorded pretty evenly. I sound much louder in the track but that is only because I AM much louder. C'est la vie.)

THE SUNDAY SOUND: April 10, Immortalizing Doubt
For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece.

I don’t have the energy to describe everything that happened today in any sort of entertaining way. Long story short… things are very very very close to finalized. Today’s successes were sponsored by the letters M, J, and P. (Huge thank you to Mohijit, John, and Pierre.) We put some limiters on the tracks. Compression. Some noise reduction. Etc. I was almost forced to re-record my narration (for the THIRD time) but got it worked out. I got John and Pierre’s signatures (50% of the crew that needs to approve my master’s degree!) and will get Jan’s tomorrow (another 25%). I finalize my Production Book tomorrow (looks like it will end up around 190 pages… I’m at 179 at the moment and I’ve got my self-criticism, the end of this here production journal, acknowledgements, and final script/running time report to go). Then, I go to my Sound Design class. Wednesday morning is four more hours of studio time… doing the final mastering. Bouncing. Gain staging. Burning to disc. Heading back to my office where I will print two copies of this epic document (thank you, Journalism Department!) and heading back to Graduate Studies to TURN THIS THING IN. Then… there’s laundry (I only have two clean pairs of skivvies left). This American Life application (have to send by Friday). Getting the piece ready for my screening on May 6 (title cards / credits in Final Cut Pro). Apologies for the most boring entry to date.

One week from today, I will be submitting everything to the Graduate Studies office. One week from today. April 28th. Just a few months ago, I thought this day would never come and now I only have seven days to get there… crawling and dragging across the finish line… drenched in sweat and utterly parched. 

I have replaced the VO scratch tracks that were in my first and second rough cuts with the formal voiceover bits. Mooney added the cassette tape sounds I was looking for and adjusted some levels. He also recorded the formal voiceover and everything sounds great. All of this resulted in a fairly strong third rough cut that I am pretty pleased with. Things have come together. I am close to the final version of the piece.

But here’s the struggle. I am now in evaluation / outside review stages. I played the (almost) final piece for my sound design class last night. I had them fill out questionnaires and we followed that by talking about the piece for almost an hour. I also sent the third cut to my cousin Mike. He replied with four pages of thoughts (I appreciate that time investment so much, by the way. It makes me feel less alone with all of this business). Every bit of feedback has been so helpful, but SO MUCH OF IT is contradictory. Parts that some people love are deemed erasable by others. Parts that those people love seem superfluous to others. Other stuff is totally valid but I just don’t have the time to incorporate it. I am attempting to strike the delicate balance between listening to critique and being true to what I think serves the piece best. A friend reminded me of something Jack White said: “It’s safe to say somebody out there’s got a problem with almost anything you’ll do.” Thanks for the reminder. I plan on going through all the feedback I have received and methodically deciding what I can realistically work from and what I can’t. And trusting my gut with the rest of it.

I want to go deeper into so much more of what is going on with me right now. I decided on a title. I have had 324324 eureka! moments. I am editing this piece down to the very second it is due. I have to be completely done with my production book by Monday at noon (gasp!). I want to go into all of this, but… well… I only have a week left to do everything. Time is precious.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is my recording session with Jared Mooney to re-record my voice-over sections. My Friday night will be re-writing my lines. I was hesitant to even involve myself in this piece at first (which must sound silly considering the project). As such, my initial narrations that I recorded were quite detached (as my Sound Design class pointed out). While my new narrations will still have a not-totally-emotionally-invested flavor, they’ll be just a titch more personal. I am so grateful to Mooney for his help—this piece will be infinitely better because of it. This was on my Facebook wall THE DAY AFTER I gave him my session:

Your levels are officially balanced out. I also recorded the cassette tape sound effects you need and did lots of fades and pacing. I busted some phone hiss and tape hiss and eq'd the snot out of your skype tracks. We should also find some space in your tape of the siblings together that is quiet enough to use for room tone/handles. And let's figure out a time when we can record ya lovely pipes bustin some narration up in the dirty dirty. (Meaning his recording studio.)

“Appreciative” is nowhere near an adequate word to describe how I feel on that front. We start work at 11a. I am somewhat nervous because I normally record my narrations alone. It is easier to feel silly when you know someone is listening. Also, I have come down with some sort of allergy attack and/or cold symptoms of doom. I sound nasal and my ears are clogged. Worst timing ever. I have 12 days to make everything happen, and I feel like my hearing is damaged. Whatever. Today is the first day that I actually feel really good about my piece and being able to finish it and get this production book completed. HUZZAH! I am so excited for April 28. I will actually be able to sleep! Even when I try to fall asleep (as opposed to my working-through-the-night habits), I wake up every 2 hours or so. So ready to be done with that. And I’m sure my friends and family will be pleased that I will be able to do something other than talk about my piece and complain about how stressed and busy I am all the time. 

When I’m not editing, I am absorbed in reading about children, siblings, divorce, and romantic and familial love. There is so much written on these topics that I couldn’t possibly be exhaustive, but I have done my best to read everything I can get my grubby little hands on. All sorts of things have been speaking to me lately. I thought I would share a few. The first was quoted a while back by my cousin Chanelle. I scribbled it on a piece of paper and shoved it in my master’s project notebook. The reasons why are obvious. The others are poetry that came up in my quest for titles and further inspiration.


From The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine
The point of looking back is not to observe that everything that happens is for the best. History is far too horrifying to support that point of view. What looking back does tell us is that all sorts of things can and do happen. It shows us that even the family, that institution we so often identify as the bedrock of human life, has changed significantly several times during the relatively short span of American history.


Driving by Dina Ben-Lev
1.
The summer our marriage failed
we picked sage to sweeten our hot dark car.
We sat in the yard with heavy glasses of iced tea,
talking about which seeds to sow
when the soil was cool. Praising our large, smooth spinach
leaves, free this year of Fusarium wilt,
downy mildew, blue mold. And then we spoke of flowers,
and there was a joke, you said, about old florists
who were forced to make other arrangements.
Delphiniums flared along the back fence.
All summer it hurt to look at you.

2.
I heard a woman on the bus say, "He and I were going
in different directions." As if it had something to do
with a latitude or a pole. Trying to write down
how love empties itself from a house, how a view
changes, how the sign for infinity turns into a noose
for a couple. Trying to say that weather weighed
down all the streets we traveled on, that if gravel sinks,
it keeps sinking. How can I blame you who kneeled day
after day in wet soil, pulling slugs from the seedlings?
You who built a ten-foot arch for the beans, who hated
a bird feeder left unfilled. You who gave
carrots to a gang of girls on bicycles.

3.
On our last trip we drove through rain
to a town lit with vacancies.
We'd come to watch whales. At the dock we met
five other couples—all of us fluorescent,
waterproof, ready for the pitch and frequency
of the motor that would lure these great mammals
near. The boat chugged forward—trailing a long,
creamy wake. The captain spoke from a loudspeaker:
In winter gray whales love Laguna Guerrero; it's warm
and calm, no killer whales gulp down their calves.
Today we'll see them on their way to Alaska. If we
get close enough, observe their eyes—they're bigger
than baseballs, but can only look down. Whales can
communicate at a distance of 300 miles—but it's
my guess they're all saying, Can you hear me?
His laughter crackled. When he told us Pink Floyd is slang
for a whale's two-foot penis, I stopped listening.
The boat rocked, and for two hours our eyes
were lost in the waves—but no whales surfaced, blowing
or breaching or expelling water through baleen plates.
Again and again you patiently wiped the spray
from your glasses. We smiled to each other, good
troopers used to disappointment. On the way back
you pointed at cormorants riding the waves--
you knew them by name: the Brants, the Pelagic,
the double-breasted. I only said, I'm sure
whales were swimming under us by the dozens.

4.
Trying to write that I loved the work of an argument,
the exhaustion of forgiving, the next morning,
washing our handprints off the wineglasses. How I loved
sitting with our friends under the plum trees,
in the white wire chairs, at the glass table. How you
stood by the grill, delicately broiling the fish. How
the dill grew tall by the window. Trying to explain
how camellias spoil and bloom at the same time,
how their perfume makes lovers ache. Trying
to describe the ways sex darkens
and dies, how two bodies can lie
together, entwined, out of habit.
Finding themselves later, tired, by a fire,
on an old couch that no longer reassures.
The night we eloped we drove to the rainforest
and found ourselves in fog so thick
our lights were useless. There's no choice,
you said, we must have faith in our blindness.
How I believed you. Trying to imagine
the road beneath us, we inched forward,
honking, gently, again and again.


Family Reunion by Jeredith Merrin
The divorced mother and her divorcing
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law
and the ex-husband's adopted son.
The divorcing daughter's child, who is

the step-nephew of the ex-husband's
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife
friendly to the first wife, warm

to the divorcing daughter's child's 
great-grandmother, who was herself
long ago divorced. Everyone
grown used to the idea of divorce

Almost everyone has separated
from the landscape of childhood.
Collections of people in cities 
are divorced from clean air and stars.

Toddlers in day care are parted 
from working parents, schoolchildren
from the assumption of unbloodied 
daylong safety. Old people die apart

from all they've gathered over time, 
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God
evidently divorced from history;

most are cut off from their own 
histories, each of which waits 
like a child left at day care.
What if you turned back for a moment

and put your arms around yours?
Yes, you might be late for work;
no, your history doesn't smell sweet
like a toddler's head. But look

at those small round wrists,
that short-legged, comical walk.
Caress your history—who else will?
Promise to come back later.

Pay attention when it asks you 
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can 
I have more now? Who is that?

Today is/was an epic day. I'm not entirely sure that today is a different day from yesterday... I'm not sure how long you have to sleep for a day to qualify as a new one.

People other than myself have now heard my piece. The first person--my roommate Rachel (who I guess now qualifies as my former roommate as I drove her to the airport for her move to Utah this morning at 5am). The piece is still in rough rough rough cut stages, but she seemed to emotionally connect. The real test came when I played it for my fellow graduate students in my Graduate Sound Design course. Some of my favorite feedback: 

• "I was emotionally invested so I couldn't really listen for technical issues. I can't really give you an adequate critique." 
• "You're all over the place with emotion. One second someone's crying, the next you're all cracking up."
• "That didn't feel like 27 minutes AT ALL."
• "So... what ended up happening with you?"

Yes, I would have liked more technical feedback as that is what I'm having major issues with right now, but I liked to hear that people were emotionally connecting. The negative feedback all centered on form... it doesn't quite gel as well as we would all like and there were some parts that people couldn't follow the narrative (i.e. my "creative way" of implying bouts of infidelity didn't really come off as I hoped, so I may have to be more explicit). I met with John today. He worked with me on the voice-over/narration parts (which, I agree, are totally lacking). I will be re-working all of those. ALL. OF. THOSE. Scary. We also talked about ideas for coming up with a title (which is always difficult for me):

• Sit in the most comfortable place in your house. The place where you do all your good thinking.
• Grab your favorite beverage. A pen. A notebook. 
• Write, write, write. You may write 14 titles that are totally kitschy, but you wouldn't have gotten to that wonderful 15th title without writing those 14. 
• Read poetry.

I just finished this exercise (with a couple departures... I am actually in my office at Emerson. Most professors/students are gone by now [7:15p] and it makes for a nice distraction-less space. I don't have my favorite beverage...). No titles/phrases came to me, so I just started brainstorming words that resonated with me and the piece for different reasons (family, blood, progeny, heirs, inheritance, alliance, lineage, seal, undone, cancellation, defeated, lineage, etc.). Then, I followed John's advice and did the poetry thing. I read at least thirty poems on family and love lost. This all led to a title that really resonates with me, but I am waiting to announce it until I am 100% decided. 

I chatted with Pierre for a bit today, too. We talked about the drama at the audio suites (read previous post) and ways to make my piece gel a bit more. We talked about the sound design in No Country for Old Men and how, like the film, I could potentially come up with something that is just barely audible that operates as a bed throughout the whole piece. I needed to do something like that or record a 30-minute track of room tone to make it possible for poetic silences. So, I am doing the former. I am excited about my idea and I REALLY hope it works. Again, I'll report when things are 100% decided.

There is so much snowballing going on right now (this project and my production book is due to Graduate Studies in TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY), but one of the MOST EXCITING parts of the day... Jared Mooney of Dirty Water Sound & Music agreed to help me with my mastering!!!!!! THIS IS A PRAYER ANSWERED. He is also a Broadcast Recording Technician at WBUR, and his job there is to do just this... help pathetic producers who are great at content but suck at EQ, gain staging, and mastering. I cannot explain the joy this brings to my heart and he deserves some sort of mega-prize. Mooney, my family, and the transcription brigade... I could not have done it without you.

So, like I mentioned. TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY. Voice-over re-write. Voice-over re-record. Start (!!) work on production book. Get session data from Mooney and import into my session. Edit. Add voice-overs to my session. Edit. Final mastering in audio suites at Emerson. Finish production book (this is budgets, reflections, production journal, production schedules, etc.). Get all that crap printed on the special paper with the special margins that Emerson requires. Master some more. Edit some more. Hold on to my piece until the very last moment I can... working on it until the very last moment I can... then turn it in on April 28. Crash.

If you got through all this, you're a champ.

I had a major meltdown tonight at the Emerson audio suites. I booked a suite to record my voiceover parts, and when I got there to record, ALL YOU COULD HEAR is the freaking air conditioner. I ask them if we can turn it off. No. If there is a suite in which you hear it less. No. Can I check out an AKG 414 and 722 and record at home? No. Is there another mic that I CAN take home that will work decently? No. Etc. Etc. Finally, in complete frustration, I just completely start bawling and starting with (seriously, as embarrassing as it is to admit) "NO ONE IS WILLING TO HELP ME!!!!!!!" drama. That's finally what did it. After an hour of everyone shifting me to someone else to solve the issue (seriously? the recording booths don't have proper recording conditions?), I am set up in a classroom. I haven't edited my voiceover yet (so I don't know if they're a completely clean recording), but from the titch that I did hear while monitoring... I think it turned out well. Somewhat sad that I had to freak out for this all to come together, but you know. After said major meltdown, my feelings on my project are still a bit tender.

Enter the loving grace of John Gianvito. 

I checked my email again (at the "only 16 days until I have to turn this sucker in" point, I should be ignoring my email, but you know), and this is what awaited me:

Greetings Colleen,
I wanted to let you know I have listened to your rough edit and even in this long unmixed form I found myself genuinely moved many times over. I have a variety of small comments that would be easiest delivered in person than via email. Wondered if you had time to drop by on Wednesday at either 1:30 or 2:30pm?  If not we'll figure out another time.  I do think you have a very strong in the making.  John

I'll be going by his office on my lunch break on Wednesday. I'll have my second rough cut done by then if it kills me (which it might). 

I am happy to report that I am now on the other side of the intensity that was getting my first rough cut to Pierre and John (the extremely talented members of my master’s committee). I am currently taking Graduate Sound Design with Pierre and I committed to bring my working post script and the corresponding AIFF to class last night. Class starts at 6pm. I arrived at 6:20p, entirely out of breath but attempting to look nonchalant. I say it still counts.

My first rough cut is about 43 minutes long (22 pages written). This cut includes only the sound bites that I want to use… all arranged in the order that I want to use them. To make this happen, I used the efforts of my transcription brigade to do a paper edit of my entire piece (see the photo of my [extremely literal] cutting room floor). I did the paper edit section by section—arranging the order and cutting lines of a master document then editing the audio in my Pro Tools session to reflect that edit. (Fellow producers: This is an excellent way to do it—takes incredibly less time than an edit using audio cues only.) 

My weekend includes cutting the sound bite collection down to roughly 20 minutes, writing drafts of my vocal part and working on my transition pieces (short little blips of music/effects/titles/etc. to cue a topical change and/or timeline shift). I met with Pierre for an hour or so after class last night and he gave a host of wonderful suggestions; all of which overwhelm me but have the potential to make the piece really wonderful. I meet with John tomorrow at 5:15p… I’m sure I’ll get another host of overwhelmingly brilliant directional ideas. I wanted to have an even tighter second rough cut for him, but that’s not gonna happen (I have tickets to the Red Sox vs. Yankees game at Fenway tonight!).

GOAL: Final cut by April 21. Gives me exactly one week to master it and fix any random unexpected issues before due date. Friends and family— I guess we’ll talk on April 29?

Well, it is Friday night at 10:13pm and I am still in my office. This is a wonderful thing. It means I am actually doing what I need to do in order to get this piece done (or at least done enough to obtain approval from my master's committee). I have every single bit of audio I collected for this piece all snuggled up in my Pro Tools session. Everything is in its section: courtship, before, cracks, divorce, post, now. Using the transcription done by my amazing Transcription Brigade, I have everything in the audio session reflected in one fat Word document. Twenty-six pages. Over the weekend, I am going to (literally) cut up that Word doc and do a paper edit. I'm sure chunks of paper will be all over my floor. Then, I will organize everything into that order in a new Word doc. Then, I will make my Pro Tools session reflect that Word doc... resulting in my first official rough cut. Oh, and I have to give this to my master's committee by Tuesday. I can do this. Right? (I feel like I've been asking that question a lot lately.)

I finally digitized the tapes I found of my Dad talking to my Mom from his mission in the '70s. I have come up with some really awesome ways to use this archival sound, and I REALLY hope it works. I'm thinking some of this would be amazing as the connective tissue / transitional material between sections... kind of a my-father-as-a-twenty-something commenting on the lives of his future family. This might not make sense on paper, but I think it could be amazing. I'll try it.

Backed up my work on Dropbox, on an external hard drive, and on DVD. I'm not messing around. 

It is March 28. Exactly one month before I must march to the Graduate Studies office at Emerson College and turn in my Master's Project. 

I am petrified.

It isn't like I haven't been doing anything, but I definitely haven't been doing enough. I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I ONLY HAVE ONE MONTH TO FINISH THIS DOCUMENTARY. I think I am officially entering freak-out zone as I type this post. 

Things I have done towards completion of the piece: purchased a widescreen monitor to maximize productivity / enhance my working space, was the lucky recipient of a full Apple keyboard (thank you Seth--this helps so much), cut the full length interviews into seven subjects/sections and placed in Pro Tools timeline (Courtship, Before, Cracks, Divorce, Post, Now, Siblings), edited the Courtship and Before sections into rough cuts (just need to do that five more times, sigh), paper edited four of the remaining five sections (haven't quite gotten up the courage to tackle the epic Divorce section yet), and, finally, sat in my chair with every intent to work about 9238749238747 times. 

Things I have done that have kept me from completion of the piece: started work with a personal trainer and lowered my BMI by a few points, went through all my clothes and got rid of everything I don't wear or is now too big, impulsively purchased an iPod Touch, spent an entire day playing on said iPod Touch, visited Rachel in Burlington, Vermont, started a relationship with a sensational man, continued and strengthened a relationship with an even sensationaler Man, had long conversations face-to-face/on the phone/on Google Talk/through texts/on Facebook, started the search for a new roommate (started dreading the move of my current roommate), worked a full-time job (almost forgot about that!), nearly broke my ankle in a mildly embarrassing Zumba misstep, took on all sorts of projects that were decidedly not the one project I needed to be working on, and, finally, talked about how far behind I am on this project about 9238749238747 times. I'm pretty sure I did some other stuff in the past few weeks, too, but I am spending way too much of my now ludicrously precious, quickly diminishing time on this post.

My insanely industrious goal (that I really have to meet or I'll be totally and utterly screwed): Get a rough cut together by Monday, April 5. That is a week from tomorrow. I can do about two months worth of work in one week. Right?