Giving a Talk

So we, meaning myself and Melissa, were invited to speak on Thursday (August 27, 2009) for a small group of media students at the Art Institute here in Tucson. My experience with students is a bit jaded, having been one myself several times, and the desire to show as much as humanly possible is there. We had typical students and somewhat atypical students so it all seemed to play out nicely. So now what?

Well, the class didn't turn out to be media students per se, but, rather, art and culinary students taking a sort of introductory media or some kind of media overview class. Not sure if this was revealed to anyone - I didn't know until the day of the class. Regardless, a web series is pretty much the newest of the new medias out there, so we're pretty well covered.

The class was initially a little rude; interruptions, chatter, texting. All pretty much what I would expect from a modern student. I remember we got yelled at and occasionally "tapped" on the head for such behavior, but now we don't get that luxury. It's all strong words and idle threats. So much for capital punishment.

Melissa started the game out by talking about the set up, writing, and pre-production aspect of the show, then led into formal production. Jonathan Northover was there to discuss things from an actor's perspective. Then, that's where I came into play. I talked about audio. I talked about our little Zoom device, boom mics, a good set of headphones, and the importance of getting everything together in one sort of package. I talked about tape-hiss and pointing the boom and other things. The students seemed to glaze over at this.

Back to Melissa to talk about post-production and marketing. We screwed the pooch on marketing didn't we. yes we did.

I remember a bit at the end where I gave an impassioned plea to just get out there and shoot. Get the practice, learn as much as you can, and then dive straight in again and again. I enjoyed it, it was fun. :)