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Issue #73

Weekly Newsletter

by L. Swift and Jeff McQ

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Student Successes


When RRFC gets you learning on the job, your passion and determination can turn into opportunities you never expected! Read below about a Recording Connection graduate who found himself out of his comfort zone in the studio, but met the challenge and ended up getting hired by his mentor!

Garrett Pace Student Successes
 

Recording Connection graduate Garrett Pace: Turning a challenge into a job!

   
RC Graduate Garrett Pace

RC Graduate Garrett Pace

From a certain point of view, Recording Connection graduate Garrett Pace might seem the least likely person to apprentice in a recording studio, let alone get hired by his mentor as a staff engineer. A classically trained singer and multi-instrumentalist with a bachelor’s degree in music from Western Carolina University, he seemed poised to go in a completely different career direction.   But Garrett wasn’t satisfied. Keenly interested in electronic music and dubstep, he wanted to be more on the industry side of things.   “Once I got done with college, I wanted to do something in this business,” he says. “I was inexperienced, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew that I wanted a job in that industry, for sure…I looked up online and I found Recording Connection. It was a good opportunity to continue my education because, to tell you the truth, even though I got my bachelor’s degree, I wanted to continue my education because I felt that I could learn more and be better at it myself.”   It turned out Garrett was in for a rude awakening. As he began apprenticing with Nick Chahwala of Bravo Ocean Studios in Atlanta, GA, Garrett quickly felt completely out of his comfort zone.  
Production Room in Bravo Ocean Studios

Production Room in Bravo Ocean Studios

“Before I went to the studio, I actually only produced dubstep and glitch hop, electronic music,” he says. “When I started working at the studio, of course all the coworkers were really into hip-hop and rap, and they were all rap artists or they produced rap. And then there’s little old me… I’ve never really worked with rap ever in my life. I came from a classically trained school.”   His mentor, Nick Chahwala, picked up on Garrett’s lack of confidence and decided the best thing to do was to stretch him even further, challenging him to stay as far out of his comfort zone as possible. It was a lot to handle, and Garrett almost lost heart at first—but then his determination kicked in.   His mentor took notice.   “He was like, ‘All right, I’m gonna get on this track, I’ve got to provide a hook. I gotta record hip hop, I gotta mix hip hop, I got to record R&B, I got to tune R&B vocals,’ says Nick. “It was really good for him.”   As it turned out, once Garrett got over the steep learning curve, his musical background ended up being an asset. Nick continues, “He can record, he can produce hip hop, he can do country, folk, he can play instruments and all that stuff. So he was the key to everyone trying to put their songs together, that’s what I liked about Garrett…Of all the students that we’ve had, he’s been like the best.”   In fact, by the time Garrett was approaching the end of his apprenticeship, he found himself being offered a job by his mentor! Garrett remembers the moment he realized what had happened, and the sense of achievement he felt.  
Control Room A in Bravo Ocean Studios

Control Room A in Bravo Ocean Studios

“At first, it was supposed to be more education, more learning to improve my skills,” he says, “and from there on it turned into a job opportunity, where [Nick] was like, ‘I actually enjoy your work. You’re doing quite a good job, and I like your creativity and everything, and you actually have a set of skills that we can use around the studio.’…When I shook his hand, it was truly an incredible feeling to have. I just wanted to tell everybody in my family.”   Now working as secondary engineer at Bravo Ocean, Garrett has found a career doing what he truly enjoys. His advice to others? “If you’re in the situation that I was in, I almost gave up…But I talked to Nick, and it turned out actually one of the greatest experiences besides college. So my word of advice would be, don’t give up. Ride it until the end.”   (You can check out one of Garrett’s tracks in the Apprentice Media section below!)    

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Announcement
Ti West

Ti West, Writer/Director

Film Connection friend Ti West has just wrapped production of his upcoming feature In a Valley of Violence, starring Ethan Hawke and John Travolta.   Written and directed by Ti, the film is set in the 1890s and tells the story of a man who comes into a small town seeking vengeance for his murdered friend.   We spent a full day talking filmmaking with Ti West. Watch the in-depth interviews here.   



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Apprentices in Action
Hakym Reagan and David Poland

Hakym Reagan and David Poland

Film Connection student Hakym Reagan was recently interviewed by David Poland on Portland Film Beat about The American Dream, a short film he directed and co-wrote with fellow FC apprentice Blake Laitner!   
Dillon Abell

Dillon Abell

Recording apprentice Dillon Abell of Tucson, AZ is getting hands-on at Allusion Studios, most recently by helping on a session with heavy rock band Wasted Youth. “Working in the studio and recording bands is definitely one of my favorite aspects of being in the music business,” he says.   
Seth Aiken

Seth Aiken

shootingFilm Connection apprentice Seth Aiken (Cayce, SC), got to do some bounce lighting on a commercial. Speaking of the experience, Seth says, “It was both intimidating and exciting working on something that you know is going to be seen by everybody here in the state capital.” Seth is impressed with the experience he’s having at Genesis Studios, where he’s doing his apprenticeship: “Working with these guys has definitely cemented my thoughts of working in the film industry…These guys are more than professionals at what they do. Watching them is like watching Odysseus shoot that arrow through the axe heads. Everything works and falls perfectly and I hope one day I’ll have the experience to be as good as the guys at Genesis.”   

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Mentor News
Think Dreamer ProductionsFilmmaker Joel Gonzales has an interesting history with the Film Connection. After graduating the program several years ago, he launched a successful career in the film industry, largely beginning with the connections he made during his on-set time as an apprentice, then continuing into jobs with known organizations like Summit Entertainment, Universal and Artists in Entertainment. But several years into his career, understanding the power of mentoring and on-the-job training, Joel reached out again to the Film Connection and asked to become a mentor!   Today, Joel mentors Film Connection students by involving them in film projects through his production company, Think Dreamer Productions based in the Los Angeles area. In a recent conversation with us, Joel weighed in with helpful insights he’s learned about having a common-sense approach to the film industry, as well as why he decided to become a mentor—and even taking a moment to talk about some of his current students. Below are some choice quotes from that conversation.     ON HOW WORKING ON-THE-JOB HELPED LAUNCH HIS CAREER:   “The mentor I had…it was like he threw me on set, and I just did what I did, which is connected with people. I networked, I hustled, and after my first movie that I worked on with him…I connected well with the AD on the project, and she liked me enough that she brought me on two more films with her as an AD trainee. And I just took that knowledge and I ran with it, and after I started booking my own features and music videos as an AD, I moved up to a line producer, and then I just started doing my own films.”   ON HOW HE CAME BACK TO THE FILM CONNECTION TO BE A MENTOR:   “I went back to Film Connection like a year ago, and I and I thought to myself, ‘Well I have experience that I could share.’ And I hounded them a little bit, and they finally came around to say, ‘Okay well we’ll give you a couple of mentees.’ And I think they liked my attitude with my students because I take it seriously…I have two mentees working right now…I took them on jobs right away.”   ON THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAYING TO YOUR STRENGTHS:   “When I started in film school, I wanted to be a director. I realized I don’t have the patience for it and I don’t have that kind of, that eye for it, and I decided, you know what? My strength is producing, so I stuck to producing.”   ON HOW HE PLAYS TO HIS STUDENTS’ STRENGTHS:  
Joel Gonzales and FC apprentice Mo Zhang

Joel Gonzales and FC apprentice Mo Zhang

“Well, Mo [Zhang] is a really good . . . her strength is she has a really great eye for editing. She is very driven in wanting to understand every aspect of becoming an editor. So that’s what I have her doing now. She’s cutting out some promos videos for me she is cutting highlight reels for my other company. So that’s the approach I’m taking with her. Daniel [Bernstein], he is a really good writer. Now he came in as a directing program, and obviously I kind of saw his personality skills, and a lot of times [when] I would talk to him, he was always telling me about these stories and this sci-fi genre that he was really into. So I started kind of guiding him more into writing, because he was already writing stuff like that. I said, ‘I think your strength is a writer, not as a director yet. So why don’t we focus on you writing your own stuff and then gradually we’ll move into you directing?’ So my approach with him has become more helping him develop his writing skills.”   ON HAVING A COMMON-SENSE APPROACH TO A FILM CAREER:   “I tell every film student [that] think’s they’re going to be the next break-out director or producer—I tell them stop focusing on that, just do the work. Just do good work, make projects you enjoy… I’m not Mr. Hollywood. I’m not going to promise to get you on a James Cameron film; you’re not going to be on Jurassic World. I’ll put you on set on my music videos, my features, either for hire or something I’m producing. I will put you in front of people that if you know how to network and if you’re really are serious about this, you can make a go of it.”   ON MAKING THE MOST OF A FILM CONNECTION APPRENTICESHIP:   “One thing my mentor told me: “You’re going to get out of it what you put into it.” And that’s one thing I continue to share with [my students]. If you want to be a director, directors find materials to direct. If you want to be a writer, writers find material to write about. If you want to be a cinematographer, then get with the director, get with the writer. Come up with a short film, come up with a music video, come up with a web series. I open up my resources to them that I have. I have two edit bays here in my office, I have one in Burbank. I have camera gear. I have some grip equipment, I have a lot of great contacts that give me stuff on discounts. So I [tell them], ‘If you’re really serious about doing it, then the tools are there.’… I went through the program, and here I am producing films for hire and producing my own films. I am a good example of you get out of it what you put into it.”   Learn more about Think Dreamer Productions on Facebook, Instagram and thinkdreamerproductions.com   

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Promo Alternate | Template
  Robert W. Phillips CEC, CCA, CFSP, CC, Director of Culinary & Nutrition, MCH Deanco“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   

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Announcement
MountainGate Country Club

MountainGate Country Club, Los Angeles, CA

Recording Connection is proud to be a sponsor of the 2015 Recording Industry Golf Tournament™ taking place on Monday, June 29th at the beautiful MountainGate Country Club in Los Angeles. The funds raised from this important event will help support the music program for A Place Called Home, a community center serving the youth of South Central Los Angeles, empowering youth and young adults to take ownership in the direction and quality of their lives through programs in the arts, education and wellbeing. Music and recording are key components of the APCH Program and we are proud to show our support for the program and its participants!   Recording industry giants Al Schmitt and Ed Cherney are serving as co-chairs. We are proud to join our fellow sponsors in support of our youth: the Audio Engineering Society (AES), Absolute Live Productions, Audio-Technica, Barefoot Sound, Bob Hodas Acoustic Analysis, Clyne Media, Guitar Center Professional, Hotel Angeleno, Hyundai, Icebox Water, JBL, NAMM, Record Plant, The Recording Studio Insurance Program, Sterling Audio, Slate Digital, studioexpresso.com, Transaudiogroup, Westlake Recording Studios, United Recording Studios, Vintage King and more.  



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Apprentice Media
   

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Quotes from Students:
   



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Announcement



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