By 2007, I had become an integral part of the crew, earning the title of Production Manager. I began switching on the Newtek VT4 production system (a more advanced version of the Newtek Tricaster) and directing the four camera crew.

Dr. Leonard has since retired from his position at the college, but you can still visit AthleticBroadcasting.com to learn more about the technical aspects of the broadcasts.

Below is a highlight reel.

The first and highest budget film, “The Crazies,” is being produced by Rob Cowan and stars Timothy Olyphant, who played the bad guy in the most recent “Die Hard” film. The film is budgeted at $23 million and could have a $5 million impact on the midstate, according to Cowan in a Macon Telegraph article. Most of the production has taken place in Perry, GA, but the film has also shot some scenes at the Fountain Car Wash in Macon.

“The Hardest Hitter” is a smaller budget independent film that is being filmed in Macon. It is about Ricky Hill, who aspired to play in the MLB. More synopsis information available here. As a smaller independent movie, it is bringing less of its own people to Macon, and relying more on locals for talent and production work. Most production will take place at Luther Williams Field. Two local friends and associates of mine have already been hired on this project, Tabitha Walker in the art department, and another in the accounting department. Production is currently slated to begin late May.

The latest movie setting up shop in town is called “Stuck!” and is being directed by Steve Balderson. According to the film’s website, it is a “homage to film noir women-in-prison films.” Balderson’s “Firecracker,” starring Karen Black, was recently shown at the local MAGA Film Festival. According to Con Browning, Balderson’s assistant, Karen Black will also be in this film. The film is being co-produced by Elliott & Beth Dunwody of Bright Blue Sky Productions. Production on this film is set for some time this summer.

About “Hardest Hitter,” Mayor Reichert said that he was very excited to have such an uplifting movie being filmed here and that they would be working to attract more filmmakers to the city in the future (Macon.com). I’m also very excited about the future of the film industry in Macon and I’m definitely looking to get some work from the ones currently in production.

There are many options today for a content management system. They each have their pros and cons. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal– all free and open-source– are what I consider to be the best. I ran a Joomla site for MSC-TV. I haven’t had the best experience with it, though I understand that it is a very powerful CMS. I think that most of my problems with it have stemmed from the fact that the MSC website department didn’t install it correctly and I was unable to install any plugins. I have not used Drupal before. I understand that it is a powerful tool, but does not have a lot of support behind it. So, I chose WordPress for this portfolio site. I’ve been quite happy with it so far. I love the mass amounts of plug-ins and how easy it is to automatically install them from the backend. What I don’t like about it is how it is difficult to make the site, as a whole, NOT look like a blog. It is possible, and I think that I was somewhat successful in presenting a portfolio site and not a blog site, but it is difficult to do with most templates.

I’m particularly proud of my header image. It is intended to look like a bird’s eye view of a desk with polaroids from different projects that I have worked on. To do this, I took a background image of a desk WordPress template and used it for my background. Then, I took screencaps from my video projects using Quicktime. After converting those images to JPG, I put the images through the program Poladroid. Finally, I put those images on top of the desk image in Photoshop, made them look scattered, and that was it! I took a little bit of inspiration from the different desk themes for WordPress, but for the most part, I came up with this on my own. Feel free to take inspiration from my idea for your own site– just please make it your own in some sort of way!

For anyone who has or is thinking about making a site of their own, I’d like to point out the importance of having what is called a favicon. From Wikipedia, a favicon is, “a 16×16 pixel square icon associated with a particular website or webpage. Browsers that provide favicon support typically display a page’s favicon in the browser’s Address bar and next to the page’s name in a list of bookmarks.” Basically, it’s that little icon that shows up next to the URL or bookmark in a browser. I think that having a favicon really makes your site stand out. For those of you also making a portfolio site, it gives you a better branding. It can be difficult getting something that looks clear in a 16 x 16 image, but just having something there really makes a difference. “BT” was an easy choice for me.

Byron Pitts from CBS News was the opening keynote speaker. He told us about his journey in the industry and showed some of his stories. He was very humble, emphasizing that there was nothing special about how he got to where he is now. He said that most of us (the students attending) were much smarter than him. He said that he got to where he is with hard work and by claiming what he would do, which he noted was a part of the Christian faith. He said that he was not lucky, but blessed. Surprisingly, to me at least, Pitts gave his e-mail address and cell phone number to everyone in the room. He said that if there was ever anything that he could help us with, he would. This gesture, he said, was less for those in attendance or himself, but more for the people who helped him along the way.

I asked Pitts how, during an interview, he finds a balance between connecting with the person, but not getting too emotionally invested. He answered that he does not “interview” people, but rather, have a conversation with them. He added that he does not make the story about himself and tries to have minimal influence.

Charles Gibson from ABC World News was the closing keynote speaker. I was only able to make the last few mintues of his speech. He spoke a lot on the future of the industry and how the newspaper, as a medium, is changing.

I also had the honor of attending the Late Show with David Letterman. My friend Becca Edwards, who was also there with Macon State, was able to get tickets for the two of us from her friend, who is a writer on the show. Nicholas Cage and Rachel Maddow were the guests. The show itself was very fun, but I found seeing the behind-the-camera workings very exciting. I was surprised at how few people there actually were on set. The stage was also smaller than I thought it would be. And I love how much energy they put into prepping the audience. It was an awesome experience.

I also caught up with an old friend that I had met at the St. Louis convention, Lara Hanson. She now works at mtvU and College Media Network, managing their free CMS platform that now serves almost 600 college newspapers, including UGA’s Red & Black. I joined her, along with her coworkers at CMN, and the advisers of the conference, on a party bus tour of NYC. I was able to see many of the sites around NYC that I otherwise would have missed. It was a lot of fun. I just learned of an on-air job opportunity at mtvU from her and have applied for it! So, I’m waiting to see how that goes!

I had a great time in NYC and hope to be back again soon (maybe for an interview)!