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Issue #36
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
Film Connection apprentice Austin Brown, who apprentices at Radiant3 Productions in Atlanta, GA, recently had the opportunity to work on a feature film called Talbot County with Film Connection graduate (and studio owner) Steven Pitts! Austin started out as the second AC, but soon moved into the assistant camera position as he learned the ropes and proved himself.
Talbot County, which was shot on RED Epic cameras, is a horror-thriller film with an underlying werewolf theme being produced through Rite Media Group in Atlanta. The shoot, which lasted a total of three weeks, took place on location on a 1000-acre plantation, where the crew of 30 camped out in the woods for days!
Austin appreciated the opportunity to help out on the film and is continuing to pursue his own filmmaking passions during his apprenticeship.“For me, I’m pretty big on screenwriting,” he says. “Currently, I’m taking this idea I had for a book and turning it into a horror-romance: it’s kind of what I call a tragic romance.”
Congratulations, Austin, and great work!
When you’ve got all the heads in one room, great conversations take place. As Brian explained to Reid how Recording Connection is the only school that is positioned to break students into the real music business, thanks to the great pros we work with and our hands-on programs, Reid was obviously impressed. “Let the sheep go to SAE or Full Sail,” he said. “I will break people into this business if they are good through your program. No other school can claim that.”
Our longtime mentor Ryan Hewitt (Lady Gaga, Angus & Julia Stone, Red Hot Chili Peppers) added: “This is the program of the future. The old trade school model has been dead for years.”
So yes, we’re happy to announce — F. Reid Shippen is now a Recording Connection mentor!
Also present was Jeremy Ash of Capitol CMG Publishing. For ten years, Jeremy’s job has been to place the music artists make into film, TV, and other media for the world’s largest music publisher. Now he’s another friend of Recording Connection—proof positive that we’re connecting our students every single day!
“I believe highly in apprenticeship & mentorship as I am a result of this teaching environment. I understand a strong theoretical education works for a lot of students, but hands on experience and doing these tasks teaches hands on involvement that is hard to get. It is harder to build these bonds that are taught cooking together. This style builds confidence in the apprentice to achieve the goals to raise them above cook status into Sous Chef over a period of time through hard and smart working techniques that will empower the students to be performers, not guided by someone else’s success, but creating their own.”
— Robert W. Phillips CEC, CCA, CFSP, CC, Director of Culinary & Nutrition, MCH Deanco
Thanks to all who submitted entries into our INSTAGRAM CONTEST this month! We’ll be announcing a new winner soon.
Meanwhile, we’re having such a good time with this, we’re going to do it again in October! We’ve also INCREASED THE PRIZE VALUE! Submit your candid studio shots to RRF by tagging us in your Instagram photos, and you can WIN!
**If you’ve been following this contest, the rules have changed slightly—so please read carefully:
All disciplines included: Recording, Radio, and Film!
Share inspiring and unique candid photos on Instagram of you, your mentor, the studio, or people you’re working with. Anything fun and exciting!
To submit a contest entry, you need to include TWO TAGS on Instagram:
#recordingconnection, #filmconnection OR #radioconnection
Music producer and mentor Adam Moseley of Headroom for Days (whose credits include Beck, Nikka Costa/Lenny Kravitz, Spike Jonze, U2 and Wolfmother) has more than 35 years’ experience in the studio and making music. He’s also dedicated a whole lot of his time and energy into helping up-and-coming music producers and engineers learn what it takes to make music. Now he’s bringing that expertise to the Recording Connection, and we couldn’t be happier to have him.
In building tracks, Moseley starts with the big picture in ways that even the big audio guys sometimes miss. “The essence of music production is arrangement—musical and sonic,” he says. “You learn how to build a musical arrangement in awareness of your sonic field.”
To achieve this level of awareness, Moseley believes newcomers have to sharpen their listening skills, learn how to talk about the craft (i.e., build their terminology), learn the genres they want to record in and know how to get the best work from a band or a solo artist, even if that artist is yourself. So, is it all about sound waves, knowing the lingo and being able to manage people? Hardly. “It’s about creating emotion in music,” says Moseley. “That is the art and purpose of music production.” Word to the wise!
With more than 20 years of experience, John Greenham of Infrasonic Sound in Los Angeles, is a “master” at mastering, but still has trouble explaining what mastering is. For him, the best way to sum it up is “achieving closure.” Another way he describes the art of mastering is: “It’s like framing a piece of art. You’ve got a bunch of paintings lying around, but no one is going to be able to look at them, to appreciate them fully, until they’re hung and framed properly.”
With a client list as diverse as Ice Cube, Susana Baca, Omar Sosa, The Mantles, Queensrÿche, Mindless Behavior, Ae$op Rock, Kimya Dawson, American Royalty, The Locust and many others, for Greenham, mastering isn’t about putting your stamp on the work. The magic of mixing is taking that song and framing it so that is has the feel, sound and character the artist intended. “First and foremost, you’ve got to get behind the music and the artist’s vision,” says Greenham. “You have got to love it, to feel passionately about it—otherwise, it won’t work out very well. Ultimately, you’ve got to allow it to speak directly to the audience and get all the technical stuff out of the way.”
Eric Hoegemeyer (Tree Laboratory, Brooklyn, NY) is about as diverse within the industry as a person can be. A producer, composer, MIDI programmer, session musician, drummer and artist, he’s got his hands in multiple projects at once, even working live with punk icon Patti Smith and Tree Laboratory partner, Jesse Paris Smith. For Hoegemeyer, it isn’t a question of tech or organic: it’s whatever it needs to be, sometimes both. Speaking of his process, he says, “I try to find a really organic way to use technology and machines that provide interesting soundscapes.” As a producer, he believes it’s his responsibility to focus on what the artist wants to accomplish. “I try to bring out what they already have going rather than trying to put a footprint on it,” he says.
In his many years in the industry, Eric Hoegemeyer has engineered, produced, mixed, and/or performed on recordings for KRS-One, Reverend Run, Kid Cudi, Dennis Coffey, Patti Smith, Mayer Hawthorne, Belle Ghoul, Booker T. Jones, Kin Cayo, Black Eyed Peas, Don Was, Kevin Saunderson, Black Dahlia Murder, Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker, Sponge, After Dark Amusement Park, D12, and numerous underground artists. As a performing musician, he has appeared on stage with Inner City, Patti Smith, Kid Rock, MC Breed, and Tom Verlaine, among others.
Hoegemeyer is looking forward to mentorship as the ultimate payback for all the insight and experience he’s gained through working with artists back in his hometown of Detroit, including the pros at the legendary Rustbelt Studios, where Hoegemeyer first learned to engineer and produce. Now, he looks forward to extending the mantle by coaching a few select Recording Connection students. He’s also talking electronic music with our consultant Brian Kraft, exploring new possibilities where electronic and instrumentation meet.
Steve Catizone: We are currently having our students assist on voiceover sessions that we are doing, as well as sitting in on local production projects that have come through. Some of the higher profile sessions that they have sat in on were with B.O.B. and Justin Bieber. One of our students, Zach, has been an integral part of the assistance in these higher profile sessions. He is also looking to move to L.A. soon and I am trying to help him out with that.
RRF: What does the one-on-one mentoring approach look like at your studio? How do you keep the students engaged?
SC: We like to keep students engaged by implementing real-life examples of the material that apply to each student as an individual, we ask them to bring in examples of what they are currently working on and talk about how their work lays out in parallel to what the topic of the lesson is. When we have time left over, we dig into material or questions that they are passionate about. That keeps all of us engaged.
RRF: What are some of your social media links so we can connect and share with our student body?
SC: Our links are: www.sanctumsound.com | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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