Congratulations to ME!

At 7:22 PM last night, an American Idol fan from Wichita, Kansas became the 10,000th visitor to my blog. His visit may have lasted less than a second, but it still counts!

I started this blog a year and a half ago as a way to communicate with students. It didn't work; instead I get baseball fans. Oh, well, it still works out to about 20 visits a day, and even excluding immediate family, that means I'm popular. Not enough to sell ads, but popular enough that I continue to write baseball updates.

Mixer Training

I will be hosting 310/508 mixer training sessions for the next two Friday afternoons. USC students in any sound classes are welcome to sit in on them. These are particularly useful for people who hope to be employed in the department as a mixer on 310/508 projects.

The material is as follows:

Friday 2/29 2-5 PM Dub A Euphonix Training
Friday 3/ 2-5 PM Dub B Icon Training

Please contact me if you are interested in attending.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A year ago, I wrote one of my most popular postings about all the things I have to be thankful for.

This year I have all the same things to appreciate, and one thing more... our dog Riley. My wife Rachel found Riley for us last January, and he has been a hugely positive influence in our lives. Dogs are wonderful. He is a pisher at times, but more often than not, he is a bundle of undying love. I always feel better when I get home and see him jumping for joy (literally). I think everyone should have a dog.

This year we celebrated with a fantastic dinner, and then watching USC beat Arizona State, which brings USC one step closer to the Rose Bowl. They still have to beat UCLA next week as their final regular game of the season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Office Hours

My final regular office hours this semester will be this Thursday (11/29) from 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM.

However, I will be around campus quite a bit for 546 Mixes. You can see that schedule on my iCal here. During those hours you can probably find me in Dub A (G-100) or in my office.

Office Hours Revised Again

Revised Office Hours

Thurs 11/15 3:30 - 4:30 PM

Thurs 11/29 3:30 - 4:30 PM

Likely to be it for the semester. However, I will be around a LOT for 546 mixes, so contact me if you need to meet at another time.

499 Mix Schedule

499 Mix Schedule:

Friday
Dub B
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM BOB
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM ANDREW

Dub C
10:00 AM - NOON ABEDES



Sunday
Dub B
10:00 AM - Noon KYLE

1:00 PM - 3:00 PM JOHANNES
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM KELLI

Dub C
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM KHA

1:30 PM -3:30 PM JULIANA
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM MAX

Hearing Loss Update

The correct numbers for what I quoted off my head in class:


Noise Exposure
Level - Time
90 dB - 8 hours
95 dB - 4 hours
100 dB - 2 hour
105 dB - 1 hour
110 dB - 30 min
120 dB- 7.5 min
130 dB - potentially instantaneous

Hearnet.com
HEI.org

499 Mid-Semester Evalations

499 students who are taking the class for a grade should expect an e-mail from me with your personal evaluation. Here are general comments:

The quiz averages are low because there have only been 4 so far. There is plenty of time still to raise them. If you have missed a quiz, please make an appointment with the SA to make it up. All quiz and assignment grades are scaled up at the end of the semester. Generally, I drop the lowest quiz score and the lowest assignment grade for each student. Remember that your final project is 40% of your grade.

There WILL be a quiz this week, covering the Objective Sound material (Acoustics) from Chapter 1 of the reading material, so PLEASE be on time. This is one of the most difficult quizzes of the semester, so please spend some time reviewing the material, and take time to ask questions at the start of class if there is anything you do not understand.

Also, we will be looking at your continuing work on your projects, this week specifically at the sound effects editing. You have only two weeks left. Several of you had almost nothing done for our meetings last week. Remember, I am grading you each week on your progress. Please have some more work done this week. Remember that after the mixes are done in two weeks, there are no more assignments and the class workload drops to almost nothing.

This week we will also determine mix times for the whole class. Another reason to show up on time!


Thank you all for your recommendations in your evaluations of my teaching this week. Unfortunately, opinions were completely divergent on almost every question. This leads me to believe that the basic structure of the class cannot accommodate the wishes of all students, so I am re-evaluating on a more basic level.

Instead of doing one major project throughout the semester that requires a lot of outside work, would you prefer a series of in-class exercises in which everyone participates? (This is how many of the other non-major classes are taught.) For example, one week, you would be taught how to use the PMDs, then sent out to record material, and at the end of class, we would listen to what you have done. Another week would be in the Foley room, and another week would be in the ADR room. This would require a lot less outside work. It would also leave me a lot more time to cover lecture material from the book.

Another option is that for a project, I choose a small set of scenes (maybe 6-10) for you to choose from, and pre-import a number of effects for you to edit from. This would lessen the outside workload as well.

MPSE Sound Show!

I highly recommend the MPSE Sound Show for people interesting in learning more about the sound editing process. Click on the image below for more info:

Office Hours

In addition to my normal Thursday office hours (3:30 PM - 4:30 PM) I will be adding office hours on Friday afternoons as well. For at least the next three weeks these hours will be 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM. (After 10/19 they may change.)

In addition, I will also be around briefly tomorrow (Tuesday). Please be sure to contact me for an appointment if you need to see me.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

The actual official first anniversary of this Blog was back in August, but I thought I'd take a moment now to celebrate, what with the lack of recent posts.

I started this Blog as a way to communicate with my students about classes, movies, music and other things that interest me. Looking at the "Labels" I use to categorize each post, you'll see over 130 posts about movies, most of them reviews of films I have seen. I see about 60 movies a year in the theater, but I see the vast majority of them during "Awards Season," which starts around November and ends with the Oscars. So this time of year is very slow for movie posts.

The next-highest number of posts is for baseball. Last year I wrote so much about baseball that students stopped coming to the Blog, so this year I promised I would only write about events I had personally attended. This year I saw 40 baseball games in person. With post-season coming up and the Dodgers out of it, I'll probably write a little about some of the other teams I follow (the Angels and the Red Sox in particular) even if I don't make it to any more games in person (although I certainly hope to!).

I've been to 2 USC football games so far this year. With baseball dwindling, I'll probably start posting more about football. I've been a Patriots fan my whole life, and even with the cheating incident, I'll probably continue to follow them. I also follow the Bills because the head coach is a friend of my family, but they are off to a weak start, are decimated by injuries, and are in the toughest division.

So don't stop reading just because it's been slow lately, it will definitely pick up as we get later in the year.

Korngold Event/Concert

There will be a reception at 5:30 tonight at Doheny, followed by a 7:30 concert featuring the music of film composer Erich Wolgang Korngold at the Newman Recital Hall.

If you are on campus, this should be a treat.

499 Assignment 1

499 Students:
Assignment 1

All students should have received an e-mail from me.
If you have not, please contact me .

Please post a proposal for your final project here NO LATER THAN 8PM WEDNESDAY NIGHT, including a brief description of your proposed sound design.

Remember that the scene should be 3-4 minutes long and include DIA, MX, FX, BG, and Foley. If you choose an already existing scene, you should not attempt to reproduce the sound design of the scene exactly as in the film. The point of the assignment is to be creative and create an entirely new sound design. Consider it a blank slate.

If you are in doubt about your choice, you should list more than one possibility and I will try to guide you towards a good choice. If you choose something obscure or if you choose one of your own films, you must bring in a copy of the scene to the next class so that I can look at it before I approve it.

Click on “Post a Comment” immediately below to post your assignment. If you do not see it, try clicking here.

70mm Festival at Aero

Coincidentally in reference to my comments about seeing movies on the big screen, there is a 70mm Festival at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.

Fall Office Hours

My office hours this semester will be Thursdays, 3:30 - 4:30 PM. I will also have office hours on Fridays starting October 5th, and on some Wednesdays later in the semester.

499 Notes

Some important updates/reminders/fixes for 499 students:

If you plan on dropping the class, please let me know by contacting me .

Today's lecture is available on iTunes U. The sound quality is terrible, sorry, I'll try to do better next week. The radio mike was loose because there was not a tie clip included. The lecture is also on my iDisk as an .mp4 file.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

To access iTunes U go to:

https://itunes.usc.edu/

Click University Access
Enter your login (same as university e-mail) and iTunes will launch
Click on the class link (my photo)
Click on Lecture Podcasts
Click on Bondelevitch Lecture 01
Click SUBSCRIBE (at the top) if you always want all lectures on your iPod
or click GET if you want only this Lecture
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Don't forget to post your Assignment 1 on my blog by 8PM Wednesday night. To access that Blog post, click here:

http://bondelev.blogspot.com/2007/08/499-assignment-1.html
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Here are the correct instructions for accessing my iDisk:
There are two options:

If you are on a Mac, in the Finder, choose the GO menu -> iDisk -> Other User's Public Folder

Enter "Bondelev" (without the quotes).

You will then be asked for a user name and password. Leave the user name "public" (without the quotes). The password was distributed in class. If you need it again, please contact me.


If you are not on a Mac, you can go to:

http://iDisk.Mac.com/Bondelev-Public

You will then be asked for a user name and password. Leave the user name "public" (without the quotes). The password was distributed in class. If you need it again, please contact me.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, if you are going to join the MPSE, remember to mail in 3 things:

1) Your signed application
2) Photocopy of ID or some other proof of student status
3) Check for $35

It may take up to 2 months to get your card, so the sooner, the better if you want to start attending screenings, which may start as early as October, and are in full swing in November. When you get your membership card, you can start looking for screenings at the MPSE web site:

http://mpse.org/membership/screenings.html

You'll want to bookmark that page.

See you next week!