In this show you can hear a recent screening of the film, Handmade in America at the Community School of the Arts in Mansfield CT.

Heather Bunnell, the Arts Coordinator of the school and Susan Gerr, one of the potters featured in my film, start off the show with introductions, as do I, to a crowd of of over 100 people.

I don't include the recording of people watching the film, but you can view the complete 20 minute film at Vimeo using the password: lorezfile.

The remainder of the show is a Q&A with the audience.

This show is a summing up of my recent experience interning at a documentary film production house as a production assistant. It was a good sized business, about 20 to 30 people, depending on the business climate. I didn't really comment about this in the show, but now, during this economic pit we're in, now has been a very good time to observe how a business like this functions.

Filmmaking may or may not be recession proof, but there's no question this time around a lot of money has dried up. I saw a lot of resourcefulness at work.

If you listen to this show I hope you'll get an idea of what an internship can offer you beyond your formal education. I also talk about some valuable lessons I learned and generalized how to go about getting what you want from this learning experience.

I have no doubts that internships aren't about the money, the time you spend or the sacrifices you make. In a nutshell about temporarily living the life you think you want. You can't see more than a small part of it, but it's a lot more than you see any other way. In the end the value you get out of it rests entirely on your effort to learn what you want.

Oh, an one correction, there is no such thing as JUST an assistant.

In the beginning of the show I mentioned I was interviewed by John Meadows for his show On the Log and we discussed the future of filmmaking. The show, Lights Camera and Interaction was broken into Part 1 and Part 2. 

And I'm serious about the offer of interviewing you over Skype. If you would like to be on this show and you think you have something interesting, even half interesting, to say about filmmaking, video production, editing, motion graphics, even internship, let me know by leaving a comment here on the blog or emailing me.

I've just finished a book by David Lynch, writer and directory of many movies, including Eraserhead, Dune and Twin Peaks.  Catching the Big Fish is a the author's reflections on how he has and others can find ideas, big ideas through TM, Transcendental Meditation.

But the book isn't about the workings of TM, it's about his experiences as a filmmaker trying to solve puzzles as he worked on his films.

It's a quick read and has a lot of interesting reflections in it. You won't find a lot of practical information, but you will get a glimpse of the man and the way he thinks, and what he thinks about storytelling.

I hadn't finished reading the book before I recorded this episode so I didn't get to mention that he spends a few pages talking about digital video and it's impact on him and the Hollywood film industry. I'm always interested to learn how established filmmakers view this new technology and his response is blunt and pragmatic.

Here are a few links to comments I made about another filmmaker who writes and is written about, Walter Murch. He wrote a great book about editing, In the Blink of an Eye. He was the subject of another book  I highly recommend called, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Finally, though I haven't read it yet, I would suggest you look at, Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema, it's a little dated, written in 2004, but between the history and biography I'm certain it's an interesting read.

Leave a me a comment or send me an an email

Towards the end of last year I had so many things to do I switched from a weekly to a bi-weekly show. I thought I could switch back, but I still don't have enough time, so for the foreseeable future I'll work hard to get one out every two weeks.

This week is kind of short, but a lot has been happening. Following a screening of my film a couple weeks ago I got an invite to a local radio to talk about the film and pottery. I was joined by Linda Gerr of Birch Mountain Pottery, who is one of the subjects in my documentary.

By the way, send me an email and ask me for a link to the full film and I'll be glad to send it to you.There's a link in the show a one or two episodes back if you thinking looking for it is easier.'

The radio call letters are WILI, you can find the link to the audio online here (posted April 23) or you can link directly to the audio file. Watch out, it's a Windows Media file.

Bill Meems left a comment on show #86, which was about the National Association of Broadcaster's show in Las Vega that I attended and commented on this time last year. Thanks Bill. I mentioned the Digital Production Buzz show as a source of news about industry announcements during the event. I've gone for the past two years and enjoyed it a great deal, but I'm glad for the chance to take a year off.

I wanted to spend time this show talking about why I want to be a filmmaker, really, why I feel compelled to make things. I know I've covered this ground before, but I'm talking specifically about my experience as a film maker producing Handmade in America, and what it's taught me.

Unfortunately I got lost talking about the ideas behind the movie and had to stop in the middle. And I didn't intend to give a review of a The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett, but that's what I ended up doing. It's a great book for anyone who struggles with the reasons why we like to making things with our hands and served as a rudder for my vision while I worked on the film.

Most of the show is leading to a showdown between the concepts of Craft and Art.. There's a recorded conversation online with Richard Sennett and Eva Hoffman discussing how the romanticization of Art, and Craft blunts the impact of these things in our lives. It's a great discussion, but I bring it up  because it refers to John Carey's book, What Good are the Arts. Although I mention it only in passing, I promise to elaborate further in the next episode and where I will in fact bring the dynamic of Craft and Art into harmony.

I have certainly been very busy, and certainly not with preparing podcasts, but that's about to change soon.

I have finally put up a gallery page on the website with production stills. The interface still needs a little neatening up, but it's working. I also found IE on PCs don't work well with the copy of the trailer that I had linked it to (it wasn't playing, it would load, but it wouldn't play.!) Rather than figure it out I loaded a new one and it seems to work. Let me know if I'm still wrong.

This show is a 15 minute ramble about things I'm doing as an intern. As you know I'm working as a production assistant at a documentary production company for a few months and I'm trying to make sense of the experience.

I think part of the problem is that I've worked in the same company for 10 years and I'm being throttled by change, down to the elementary level. That changes how you look at and think about everything. But I'm getting better. That or I'm numb.

I also have a screening at a local community center Friday April 10th. Here's a copy of the announcement (warning, it's a PDF) and if you're in the area and would like to come by - do so. And come up and talk to me to let  me know you did.

For everyone else, I am ready to release the film, at least in a limited way. You can find the film here and the password is lorezfile. It's twenty minutes long and may take a while to load depending on your connection. If I already have your email address I'll be sending you an email with the same information.

If you have any feedback, good or bad, leave a comment here or on the Vimeo site.

Finally, there's going to be a local screening of the film at the Community School for the Arts on April 10. This is on the old UConn campus in Storrs Connecticut at 7:30. There is no charge, but if you can bring a baked food item that would be great. Download the flyer, which is a pdf file.

I am starting a 3 month internship this week. I'll be a production assistant at a production company in Boston, so there'll be a lot to say about that in the next few months.

The big news is that I finally have enough of a website of the film to put online. Still rough and incomplete, it felt good to put it out there, sort of draw a line in the sand.

You can find it at handmadeinamerida.us, there were no more.com's available. Send me any suggestions, really, I'm not looking for congrats here, I think it's very rough and really only in phase one. Still I would like to know if there are things I can do to make it easier to use, or I've overlooked some content I should be displaying.

It's tricky because it's not just a website, it's a website for a movie, so if it doesn't pique your interest, or satisfy it, it's not working.

There's a trailer you can watch on the Trailer page. If you're really fast it will load slowly. I'm going to be recompressing the file and uploading it to Vimeo, the hosting site I"m using, then updating the link in the next few days.

By the way, if you're curious about that process, let me know, I can spend a show talking about that too.

In this week's show I talk with Jamie Meltzer, filmmaking instructor at Stanford University. Stanford has a separate film program for documentary filmmaking and Jamie was generous with his time to tell all about it.

Stanford University Documentary Film Program

I'm still in a bunker state of mind.

This show a little catch up on the state of the film.

• How I approached creating the trailer
• Vimeo vs YouTube
• Compression artifacts, Macroblocks, compression noise
• Building a website for the film and I'm using Blue Host

I leave you with a  little ramble about being done vs being finished.

Hi there, Happy New Year.

I've been hunkering down in the editing bunker through the holidays and came up long enough to leave you this note and the latest show.

My film is done. It's called Handmade in America. I'll be posting it online later this month and when I do I'll let you know now you can watch it.

I was thinking about the nature of social media and spoke about that a little bit in the show. I also wanted to let you know about a website and a podcast you should check out if you're interested learning how to make money through online distribution of your media, specifically audio and video podcasts.

Here's the links for things I mentioned in the show.

• Episode 119 of This Week in Media
• Susan Bratton - DishyMix
• Association for Downloadable Media
• Pairing Sponsors with Podcasts
• Podcast Standards for Advertisers
• Keith Burtis Interview on Social Media CPB # 125