Hella Solutions blog: "Document. Share. Inspire."

This Bay Area Women in Film & Media event sounds like it could be interesting. It appears to be geared to people newer to sound work but worth your time none-the-less.

THE MAGIC OF SOUND:
Creating & Using Sound for
Film, Video and All Other Media Projects

(THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO BOTH MEN & WOMEN)
A Rare Look at the Various
Elements of Sound

What technology and methods are involved in creating sound?
Why is audio such a key component to a great media project?
What technology is used in both major motion pictures and smaller projects?
What does it take to get any type of music (legally & in budget!) into your project?
What should media makers know about sound before they start shooting – the do’s and don’t’s of audio in filmmaking.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21st
at Z Space/Theater Artaud
450 Florida Street, San Francisco from 7 – 9:30 pm

Check it out HERE.

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There is a documentary training intensive coming up that is well-worth your time and money. If you’re looking to learn some very strong production techniques, story-telling techniques, connect with other producers in an intimate environment, and build on your networking circle then you should definitely consider taking this 2-day intensive offered by UC Berkeley School of Journalism lecturer. I took the course about a year ago and I not only came away with a great folder of notes and information that I consistently use in my production endeavors but I made some awesome connections with other producers. I feel like it is a rare occurrence that such a worth-while course is offered so when one does come along you know it’s a real treat. Note: this is not a ProTools or other type of technical course. It is more about how to construct, manage, and complete audio documentary stories and productions. But since this is such an intimate course you can easily ask others for more technical how-to’s.

Download the flier HERE (PDF).

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With all these electronic devices being such a central tool in media work how do we keep them charged?! Batteries are fairly toxic and using one-use types is a poor environmental choice for everyday use. Here’s a link to a site that has some good advice on recharging:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-21.htm

Happy Charging!

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I have to admit, I felt pretty bitter after not getting any favorable responses from a recent story pitch I sent to several radio programs. I know, I know, it’s all about ‘volumizing’ your pitching; that is, pitch lots of ideas and as often as possible because only a small percent will actually get picked up at any given time. I understand that and see the logic but that doesn’t take my bitterness away or answer the nagging question, is there a better way? Anyway, instead of dwelling on all that I just kept pushing with the story and now it’s taking on a new life. So, we’ll see what happens next in the process but it’s sounding good. The new wrinkle? I just got hired full-time for some rather mundane but good-paying, temporary, office work. The folks at the company are great so it’s a good thing…but now I ain’t got the time I had when I started this project. Oh life, you just love to be complicated don’t you?

Forward Ever!

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The Reynolds Center for Business Journalism once again proves that not all free online courses are created equal. A couple of months back I completed a course through them titled ‘How to be an Entrepreneur as a Business Journalist‘ and was impressed by how solid the series of courses was. Today I started another free course titled, ‘Investigative Business Journalism’ and it’s promising to be more of the same quality. My understanding is that the Center received some funding to conduct a series of free, on-going workshops to help further the professionalism of up-and-coming business journalists. It’s a wonderful idea that they have executed perfectly (imho); That is, they don’t appear to be holding anything back in order to hook you into buying “premium” content (the popular Freemium model). Rather, they honestly seem to be offering free, premium content and really want to better the field of business journalism. It is really surprising, at least to me, to see people acting so selflessly in the society we live in. The almighty dollar seems to consistently corrupt most any thought of furthering the human endeavor without a bottom line…but then comes courses like this.

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I’ve spent this week taking an online course called “How to be an Entrepreneur as a Business Journalist“. While I am not technically a business journalist, a significant project I am brewing here would definitely put me in that ballpark – but more on that at another time. More importantly I have learned a LOT and here a just a few of my learnings:

• Sometimes free content is actually amazing! As this whole week’s worth of classes was free AND amazing.
• It pays big time to be part of professional organizations (whether formally or informally organized). For example, I found out about this weeks class through an ad-hoc freelance group I belong to.
• Your goal is to work less trying to get work and spend more time working. So stop dawdling by thinking you don’t know enough to get started; but if you feel you really need to learn something you will find a way of getting that information (and sometimes for free).

Those are some of the thoughts that come to mind but of course, I have a whole lot more to process through before the day is over. Have a great weekend!

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