We discussed a wide range of topics. Last night, while shopping, we’d discussed the design of intake systems for performance cars (the merits of hood scoops versus cold-air intakes). Today we talked of Facebook, parent-child relationships, and sexuality. In other words, just another typical conversation with one of my sons.

In the middle of his junior year of college and with his older brother married and living 90 miles East of us, you would think that I would be accustomed to my younger son being four hours-away. You would think that him being home for several weeks over the Christmas break wouldn’t create an intense sense of loss as I watched him drive away today. You would think I’d have seen this coming.

You would be wrong.

Mirror, mirror…

Both of my sons, for good or bad, look quite a bit like me. Just yesterday, when my younger son went to get his license renewed, someone who didn’t know him said, “Are you Tim’s son?” The family resemblance is strong enough that a friend of mine from high school, not having seen me for over twenty years, met my older son and immediately asked the same question. Both of my sons have heard “You look so much like your dad” that they’ve long since started to expect to hear it.

Today, as we sat and talked, I noticed that he was briefly distracted, watching someone intently as they walked from the drink dispenser back toward the counter. I turned to look. My son had been distracted by seeing a toddler step away from her mother at the drink dispenser, and wander off looking for her father.

I smiled to myself. The boys don’t just look like me.

“Pass the changing roles please…”

Several years ago, just prior to my father’s death, Dad came to live in our house. During those all-too-short months, some of the most remarkable experiences I had were our late-night conversations about theology. Dad, having been formally trained at a Southern Baptist Seminary, took great joy in wandering down lesser-travelled conversational paths in his search for the truth, and this became even more evident late at night when he would suddenly become unusually talkative.

During one of our more memorable conversations, we were discussing the Biblical story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Dad looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Did you ever wonder what Jesus wrote on the ground?” He was speaking of verse 8, where Jesus writes something in the dirt with his finger, prompting the religious leaders that were about to stone the woman to drop the stones and walk away. Dad continued by saying, “I wonder if he wrote the name of a mistress of one of the men about to stone her, or maybe some other shameful secret that all of them knew.” We never came to any solid conclusions, but I loved having this kind of conversation with him.

Today, sitting across the table from my son, I asked him for his opinion of a project that I was considering. I asked because the project might be considered controversial to some of my theologically conservative friends, and I was concerned about the potential reflection it might have on our church, and who people perceive me to be.

He looked at me and said, “Well, I don’t remember Jesus worrying about spending too much time around prostitutes and tax collectors. It seems to me that he hung around with all sorts of people, and not just the religious ones.” The people in question aren’t prostitutes or tax collectors, but they’re definitely a group that most Christians spend little time on or with. As of now, I haven’t yet decided whether or not to take on the project, but I found my son’s comments thought-provoking, to say the least.

Life Shared vs Barter-dom

As I sat in my car, watching him drive away, I suddenly realized why my own father took such joy in such conversations. It wasn’t because he wanted to pass along some grand theological truth to me. In fact, I doubt that it mattered too much to Dad what it was we talked about.

Dad knew, as I’m beginning to understand, that being intimately connected to someone has little to do with the exchange of favors. We don’t create intimacy and love by saying “If you’ll do ____ for me, I’ll do _____ for you.” Sadly, many relationships are built on such bartering. I know of at least one couple that treats sex this way: “We can have sex if you’ll take out the garbage this week and help me get the house clean.”

Last weekend, my younger son turned 21, and I joked that now my parenting duties were complete. My friends reminded me that there were many more things left for me to take care of, not the least of which would be grandchildren. Even so, him reaching this age does mark an important milestone, and it caught me a bit off guard. He’s on a different road now.

Perhaps it’s my own feelings of mortality, but I was struck by wondering how many more of his birthdays would I be blessed to enjoy? How many more casual lunches would we have where we could pick and choose the topics randomly, completely unconcerned with the need to discuss a particular subject? How much more life would we share?

Road Scholar

Just before I backed out of the parking space and started to drive home, I posted on Facebook, “And just like that, he’s gone again.” I don’t know, as my son officially gets on this particular road, what lies ahead of him, but I feel quite confident of his ability to navigate it well.

As I made my turn and went the other way, I did so with caution, blinking hard. For some reason, my vision had just become quite blurry.

This particular morning was different though. This morning, for the first time in twenty years, there were three people in the house on Christmas morning, and not four. Now the old question goes: when your son gets married, are you losing a son, or gaining a daughter? As I sat in the stillness of Christmas morning, it didn’t seem like a rhetorical question.

Lost & Found

On Christmast Eve, as we exchanged gifts at my older son’s house, it seemed clear that I had gained a daughter. We had transparently added her to all of our traditions: we now had a stocking for her hanging from the mantle, we had shopped for presents for her with the same sense of joy that had filled us when shopping for the boys, and she now found herself the victim of the friendly razzing that goes on in a close-knit family.

However, the feeling on Christmas morning was more somber. With nobody else awake and stirring around, I was alone with my thoughts, and suddenly acutely aware of the change.

“This is how it begins, I suppose…” I mumbled to myself. Soon enough, everyone would be up, the traditional chocolate-chip pancakes would be cooking, and we would (since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year) get ready for church.

I stopped and thought about this. Since my older son wouldn’t be here to eat his share of the pancakes, there might be some extra for me. Rather than taking joy in this, I felt a twinge that accompanied the thought.

Christmas Passed

Thankfully, the melancholy didn’t last long. As I sat, I suddenly remembered a similar morning 28 years ago: my first Christmas morning away from Mom & Dad, celebrating it instead with my wife of (at that time) six months.

Suddenly, the melancholy was replaced with an onslaught of memories of the intervening years, and how traditions began in our house to replace and supplant the ones I’d shared with my parents. In a few years, my younger son would be following suit, celebrating Christmas in his home, and not mine.

Sooner than I’m probably prepared for, both of the boys may be blessed with children. If so, then the traditions they forge with their families will become something precious for them to enjoy, though for a shorter time than they expect, and then someday look back on as I do now.

If only they can be so lucky.

Merry Christmas!

However, there are situations where doing things exactly the same way, every time is absolutely essential, and potentially life-saving. Consider the longitivtiy-enhancement of putting on your seatbelt, washing your hands after going to the bathroom, or putting your foot on the brake before you putting an automatic transmission in Drive. (To be fair, the second one is a bit dated, since the “unintended acceleration” accidents that brought the demise of the Audi 5000 pressured most automakers to install shift interlocks that force this behavior.)

In less serious realms, this notion of boring repeatability can not only promote good habits, it can reduce stress on those you work with. This past week, I was reminded of this when I was thrust again into the team environment of a movie production crew.

“Roll sound…”

The movie in question is a smaller budget feature titled “Bad Blood: The Hatfields & McCoys,” directed by Fred Olen Ray. When Fred decided to shoot this in Kentucky, he brought along with him a core production staff that included: an Assistant Director (AD), the Cinematographer/Director of Photography (DP), the Production Coordinator, the Lead Makeup Artist, the Gaffer, and several others. Locally, he hired Location Sound (me), the First Assistant Camera (1st AC), the Key Grip, several Production Assistants (PA’s), an Assistant Makeup Artist, and several others. In other words, we had a small army of production people, many of whom had never met, much less worked together.

Now, if you haven’t been on a movie set before, calling it “controlled chaos” is a bit of an overstatement. It’s not nearly that controlled.

Any given scene in a movie is made up of numerous shots. Each of those shots is a combination of light and sound, all coordinated to communicate information and emotion. In addition to the actors, every person listed above has a role that plays into the generation of light (gaffers), the reflection of light (gaffers and makeup artists), the capturing and recording of that light (grips, camera assistants, and the cinematographer), the generation of sound (actors, production assistants, and foley artists), and the capturing and recording of those sounds (yours truly, and sometimes the cinematographer).

Left Brain vs Right Brain

The person unfamiliar with actual movie sets might think that all of the activities above are managed and coordinated by the Director. After all, isn’t “directing” people what he or she is supposed to do? Well, that’s true, but it rarely happens… directly. Usually, there is an intermediate involved, who is typically the 1st or 2nd AD.

The reason for having AD’s on the set is that the Director, being an artistic, frequently visual person, rarely exhibits the personality traits necessary to coax a team of people into coordinated activity. It’s been said that everyone on a movie set is supposed to hate the AD’s by the end of a movie shoot, because this person’s role is to demand adherence to process, with almost total disregard for whose feelings are hurt.

The HD AD: The Not-so-Benevolent, Hyperactive Dictator

While the Director is being warm and fuzzy with actors (who tend, by their nature, to have more sensitive egos) and Producers (who really shouldn’t appear on location, but sometimes do), the AD’s are busy making sure the trains run on time. The Director has the luxury of being warm and fuzzy–the AD’s do not. If, for whatever reason, someone does something that screws up a take, it wastes the time of every actor and every crew member.

As a result, the AD’s should make you feel bad for doing something stupid that wastes people’s time. You should learn quickly to not make that mistake again. The production schedule, which directly or indirectly affects the personal and professional lives of everyone involved, isn’t something anyone should trifle with, even on micro-budget productions. On larger productions, delays can become hideously expensive.

On our set, the AD had a nice balance of hyperactivity and obsessive-compulsive-disorder. Rarely, if ever, did he stop moving and conversing and listening and moving some more. He was always listening to a response, giving direction, asking questions, or looking for a reason that we weren’t rolling the camera RIGHT NOW.

Being predisposed toward action this way creates a wonderful tension between the creative types (typically the DP, but to some degree, the Director) and the demands of the shooting schedule. While the Director and the DP are aware of the schedule, the AD knows the schedule. Knowing the schedule backward, forward, and upside-down means that the AD can suggest changes to the shooting schedule based upon unexpected events, such as props not being available, actors not being in the right costume, and so on.

The OCD AD: Obsessed with Process

Because the AD is ultimately responsible for making the trains run on time, he/she is constantly pushing the metaphorical gas pedal to the floor, racing the production toward the next shot. In doing so, they create a sense of urgency that is contagious.

Being in charge of sound, I was toting around a battery-operated field recorder (Edirol R-44) to capture sound from the various microphones we were using. Since it ran on batteries, I was constantly in fear of losing power in the middle of a take. (Having the batteries die in mid-take would not have killed us for this production, because we had redundant systems in place, but I still didn’t want be a potential source of delays.)

To make sure I was never surprised by a lack of charge in the batteries, my pre-shot routine became:

1. Establish the audio connection to the camera
2. Set the recorder to the “paused but ready to record” mode
3. Confirm the levels on the meters are acceptable
4. Check the battery level
5. Determine the best location for the boom mic, and how it might have to move during the course of the shot

By doing this the exact same way, every time, I had to deal with dying batteries only once during the 8 days of shooting, and this was a situation where I had already replaced the batteries twice (we were quite a distance from the base camp, where the rest of my batteries were stored). Even then, I wasn’t surprised by the situation, and was able to warn the DP that we would not have a redundant recording of audio until I could get some fresh batteries brought in from the base camp.

Now, this might not sound unusual to you, especially if you are a detail or process-oriented person, or don’t know my proclivity for spontaneous and unpredictable behavior. I am the antithesis of a process-person, as the repetitive nature of such behavior bores me to tears.

Random Acts of Regularity

In spite of this tendency of mine toward randomness, I found that the regular routine of the AD inspired me to take on (and maintain) a perfectly repeatable routine within my responsibilities on-set. Not only did I accept the routine, but I found a strange form of comfort in it. Doing things exactly the same way, every time, gave me confidence that I wasn’t going to hear the dreaded “Waiting on Sound” call from the AD.

My son said, “Weirdos like my Dad,” with a laugh. While I appreciate the fact that not everyone has the desire to write a blog, I think everyone should. Here’s why:

1. Because it helps you verbalize/organize your thoughts/opinions
   a. Shape your opinions based on voices outside AND inside your own head, don’t be a “ditto-head”
   b. If you write for an audience that may not agree with you, you’ll make a more coherent argument
   c. In the process of organizing your thoughts, you’ll learn things you wouldn’t have otherwise
2. Because it contributes something
   a. Link to: http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html
   b. Contributing anything helps us move out of a “consumerism mode”
3. Because it makes you a better writer
   a. The only way to get better at something is to do it, and by blogging, you get to write about what YOU think is important
   b. Over time, readers will discover what you’ve written and will give you feedback
4. Because it’s “live”
   a. In sharp contrast to TV, and in much the same way as we find with live theater, feedback from an audience (even if you don’t engage them in extended conversations) adds depth to the experience
   b. As people respond, if you engage them in discussion, you have the opportunity to learn even more, or possibly just expand further on a topic than you had originally thought was appropriate.

That, my friends, is why you should blog.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I’m preaching about Joy at my church this Sunday, and this is an example that I extracted from a real-life conversation.)

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I’m sorry you have to be in this place at this time, but as Chauncy Gardiner said in the movie “Being There” (which I highly recommend):

In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.

Spring and then summer will arrive, soon enough.

Are you feeling the onset of Fall, or the harsh cold of Winter? Life has emotional seasons as well as physical ones.

Spring and then summer will arrive, soon enough.

No further comments from me are necessary.