Guess where I was...

There aren't many places in the world that can make a 42 year old man feel like a nine year old boy again. But there is at least one.

I've been on the high desert of the Antelope Valley at dawn to shoot experimental space planes during test flights. I've been on the slopes of Tahoe for sunset more times than I can count. I've been on top of Half Dome, and I've traversed the desert southwest with my brother. I've done photoshoots with Starlets in Beverly Hills Mansions, and I've consulted for NASA, and Stanford, but there's always been one place that has seemed more distant and Magical than Shangrila. 

Well on thursday, I finally got to go there. I took advantage of an offer from one of my vendors to participate on a training at one of the worlds best sound studios, and since I'm not directly involved in the movie industry the chance to see "5858 Lucas Valley road" (Do a Google search) in person was too incredible an opportunity to pass up.

This place is a perfect example of synergy of design between landscape and housing.  The buildings are all beautiful and perfectly placed, with either Victorian influence as in the Main Residence (Which they didn't let us get near.)  or invocative of Frank Loydd Wright , as in the Restaurant/Health club/Gift Shop. Every building is placed in such a way as to not dominate the landscape so that as you drive up the main road, you wouldn't even notice that the structures, which are all quite substantial, are even there unless you knew to look for them.  And in an effort to keep them all as discreet as possible, almost all the parking for guests and "Visitors" is all underground. 

My visit to this place was arranged as part of a Studio Sound training seminar. So the whole of the day was spent in the largest, and most well respected sound recording studio in the country. (If not the world) I got to listen to the different results of various microphones used with different instruments and vocalists, and they taught us all how microphone placement is just as important as any tricks of studio mixing that you can do. As a matter of fact, thoughtful microphone placement can usually result in less TIME spent in post production.

All of that made me think about lighting. The arguments and techniques for both are all very similar. Both fields are concerned with proximity and shape, reflections and spill, color and tonal range. (That was a shocker for me. Thinking of sound as having color....)

I could go on for days about technical stuff, so I'll spare you.  Let's just say that I have no interest in disturbing the man from Modesto who built the place and just wants to raise his family in peace and quiet, I also have no bones to pick with him as a lot of his fans seem to have these days. He has built what is probably one of the most beautiful motion picture production facilities in the world, and I am very grateful for the opportunity to see the place and to take advantage of the learning experience it offered me.

Thank you George.