News & Whatever

Before becoming a sound mixer and before becoming a professor — I was a student. Some of the best advice my professor (Ray Fielding) imparted was to always try and widen the scope of my education and learn areas outside of filmmaking, yet useful to a career in filmmaking.

In keeping with this vein of thought, I present my new website, http://www.offroading.info which is a non-commercial, educational site for people who want to learn about 4x4 offroading and Jeeping. (Yes, that is my hobby now that I am retired from Hollywood and academia.)

But the reason that I mention it here is that there are a lot of useful skills applicable to filmmaking. For example, learn about portable radio communications. GMRS handhelds cost less to purchase than most professional walkies cost to rent for two days!

GPS navigation software, such as onX Offroad, will guide you (and your crew) safely through wilderness locations and get everyone to the remote meeting points that have no street addresses. Comes in super handy if you have a location outside of the city. I wrote a free users guide for the website about how to use that program.

Offroad driving techniques may not be needed around the city, but if you have to trek out into the boonies for some special shots — there are good lessons to be learned.

For example, you are doing some shots on the beach or coastline. Do you know how to drive on sand, or how to get a stuck vehicle unstuck? (And no, calling AAA will not help. They do not recover vehicles that are off highway.)

Best news… my new site is completely free and non-commercial. It was written as a labor of love; not as a business venture. Please feel free to share with your students.

http://www.offroading.info

I would like to introduce our new website, www.Offroading.info

Offroading.info was created as a free, educational resource for those thinking about joining or new to our offroading community.

This new website functions on a national level to provide tutorials, articles, and links to resources for anyone, anywhere, who wants to get started in offroading.

It is a labor of love; not a commercial venture.

We are not your competition. We are not here to poach subscribers, followers, or members. Quite the contrary… we want to steer new people to your local sites.

No sign-ups, no memberships, no fees. We don’t collect or sell data. There are no sales carts here. No one is trying to sell anything.

Offroading.info is not a jeep or 4wd club. We don’t host trail runs.

We’re happy to promote your club or organization with our readers.

Use the contact forms on our site to add your links (at no charge) to our free Directory, and to share your informative articles & videos. We are happy to post your content, with full author credit and links back to your site.

Our mission is to provide fellow SUV enthusiasts — who may be new to offroading or jeeping — with access to free tutorials and resources to learn what to expect and what to prepare for their first trail runs.

Topics include: Basics, GPS Navigation (including how to use onX), Comms, Recovery, Organizing Trail Runs, Upgrades & Accessories, Finding a Club, and Links within the Offroad Community.

Feel free to share with members, friends, family, and anyone with an interest in 4x4 offroading.

As you may (or may not know), Fred Ginsburg CAS retired from the sound biz (including teaching) in 2021. So we haven't added many new articles about audio. However, a lot of material about the basics of production sound recording is still relevant, even though the makes and models of some of the equipment has changed over the years.

Because of the new trend of copyright trolling in order to extort fees,  we have chosen to delete many of the generic illustrations (clip art, stock shots, general industry news) just to be safe. In years past, none of that would have been a problem, especially since this is a non-commercial educational resource. But it wasn't worth taking the risk.