B Knight Productions

Week 5 EOC: Progress on business contacts and progress on networking.

2012-02-21T21:12:00.000-08:00

For progress on my four professional contacts and progresson networking, I have attained all four of the business contacts. For thelawyer contact, I just bought a car from a young lady that works for a law firmand collected a business card from the firm.

For the accountant contact I Googled accountant in theSummerlin area of Las Vegas due to me being in that area waiting on my son toget his hair cut. I found a firm not too far from the salon and ran over to getsome business cards. As it was 5 minutes before closing time, I didn’t have anopportunity to speak with the accountants. I do however have an accountant thatI’ve used for years that not only set up my real estate business for me, butalso did the taxes for that business for four years in a row. I just didn’thappen to have his business card handy.

For the insurance contact, there was an insurance companynext door to the salon that I was waiting at and I ran in and was actually ableto have a quick conversation with the insurance agent on duty about what I wasdoing for this class. At the end of the conversation, I collected his businesscard for any future insurance needs.

The business banker contact came from a local Well Fargobranch. I went in to the branch and spoke with a teller and told her that Ineeded business cards for the business banker. The branch manager overheard myrequest and stepped in offering not only the business banker’s card, but alsohis card for contact if I needed any further assistance.

I was able to get all of my contact taken care of in oneday. I found this assignment to be both fun and interesting.

Bryan Knight

Week 6 EOC: What does my role look like starting off in the industry?

2012-02-15T11:57:00.001-08:00

My ultimate goal in the audio industry is to become atop-notch music-mixing engineer. I’m a believer in paying my dues and I knowthat upon graduation, the chances of landing a music mixing engineer job isslim to none. I do know however that I can get a position in a mixing studio aseither a runner or assistant engineer to a mixing engineer. This would bepreferable as it would be an awesome opportunity to learn the tips and tricksof the trade from a more experienced mixing engineer.

I’m under no illusions that to be in the mixing engineergame, it would most likely take my moving out of the Las Vegas area to a placesuch as Los Angles. Vegas simply don’t have the number of recording studios tosupport a large number of competing engineers. There are only two big playersin town; Odds On Recording Studio and The Studio at the Palms.

As a runner, you are asked to do any number of tasks forclientele and workers in the studio. You could be getting food and coffee,dropping off or picking up paperwork, cleaning bathrooms, or even walking dogs.However you could also find yourself in a mixing session covering for anotherassistant engineer.

As an assistant engineer, you are the right hand to themixing engineer. You could be responsible for setting up sessions for mixing,changing files to proper formats, retrieving missing files from clientele,hooking up and tearing down equipment and any number of task that the mixingengineer or clientele requires to get the job done.

I have heard many a story of a runner orassistant engineer being the right place at the right time and ending uprunning a session for a recording that became a hit record and that launchedtheir career as a mixing engineer.

Week 2 Photo Challenge

2012-01-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

In this photo I was in the middle of recording session whereI was recording a band for a project that I was working on. That day we had adrummer, a guitar player and an electric bass player in the live room. Thesetup was pretty standard. The drum kit was recorded by using microphones onthe kick drum, the snare drum, a single microphone for the toms, a microphoneon the hit hat and a pair of overhead microphones to help fill out the sound ofthe drum kit.

The guitar player used an effects pedal board, so we gotfeed pre-effects board for a clean tone to re-amplify and effect if necessaryand put a microphone on the guitar cabinet as well. The bassist took a directfeed as well as microphone on the bass cabinet. We ran everything straight intoPro Tools 8 HD through the SSL Duality console.

Instructor Nik Hotchkiss is to my right showing me the insand outs of the SSL Duality console. In the background is one of vocalist thatwe recorded after we laid down the music. That session followed directly afterthe session during which this picture was taken. The following sessionconsisted of two vocalists and an acoustic guitar. Both vocalist were miced upas well as the acoustic guitar. There was also a stereo room microphone thatused to capture some of the room tone to add into the recording during themixing stage.

This recording project was necessary to facilitate the trueproject of performing the best mix possible for a given sound to test ourmixing abilities at that time. In order to do that, we needed a live recordedsong to actually mix. This is where the session pictured came into play.

Week 2 BOC: Intelectual Property

2012-01-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

So, after trying to access Wikipedia this morning I found out that it is blacked out today in protest to two bills that it views will threaten the livelihood of a free and open internet. The bills are PIPA (currently in the House) and SOPA (currently in the Senate). I can see their point. While it’s claimed that this is not a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, I can’t help but to see those dynamics in the arguments being presented. Should these bills pass in their current forms, they could greatly inhibit the ability of the small scale, freelance media producer to get his products out to the public. If sites that currently host small-scale media for independent producers have to jump through more hoops to insure their compliance with the new laws, this could discourage them from hosting media from small-scale producers. Larger production houses have the money and the budgets to have staff on site to handle these new challenges while the small-scale producer simply does not. This could cause the gap standing between independent smaller scale production houses and large production houses that much wider in the days to come.

Week 1 BOC: Film Festivel

2012-01-17T23:28:00.000-08:00

In this film, Jim and Jessica have a discussion about the Federal Reserve System in America. Jim explains that he has had an accident the night before while listening to an audio book because he was so taken aback about how the Federal Reserve was set up. He found that the Fed was set up by the wealthiest families in America at the time. Obviously the bill that they drafted was written in their own favor. They then sold the American people on the idea even though it didn't necessarily favor the common mans' interest. Jim also questions what the American dollar is backed by. Jessica ends the conversation after becoming overwhelmed and suggested that Jim have drink.

Making this movie was surprisingly rather easy. Even though I had never worked with the software before visiting the site, the software was really intuitive to grasp and I found the process enjoyable to complete. I think I'll play around with this more and have some fun making some interesting content to share with the world.

B Knight

Week 1 EOC: What sacrifices are you willing to make for your career?

2012-01-11T10:50:00.001-08:00

Sacrifices can bring life changing decisions in a person’slife. Do you go from full time to part time at you job to keep your grades upin school? Or do you quit your job altogether if you can’t go part time inorder to stay in school? How about dropping down to part time in school in orderto keep you job and pay the bills even though you’ll be extending your time inschool? The decisions that you make can end up having a drastic effect on bothyour current and future life and career. I know that when staying in Las Vegaswith the desire to be mixing engineer will be a much tougher road than packingup and heading out to Los Angeles where the number of studios is tenfold thenumber here in Las Vegas. But the steep raise in cost of living from Vegas toL.A. would make for a be sacrifice in living conditions should I choose tomove. Not to mention that I have a son here in Las Vegas that I would have tosacrifice being his life on a daily basis in order to make the move to L.A.Would you be willing to make these sacrifices to follow your dreams?