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This article appears in Student Filmmakers Magazine (August 2018 UFVA issue)

STUDENT filmmaker, with the emphasis on “student”

By Fred Ginsburg CAS PhD

Most of the time, contributing authors such as myself focus on aspects of filmmaking and share technical knowledge with you, Hollywood’s next generation.  But this article addresses the “student” side of academic life; in other words, FILM SCHOOL.

As I write this, the Spring 2018 semester has just ended; and many of my current or former students walked proudly down the aisles, diplomas in hand, at my university’s commencement ceremony. That made me want to reflect on what advice I might have for our incoming crop of aspiring filmmakers, newly enrolled and about to embark on a long and demanding academic journey towards a degree in Cinema, Television, or Multi-Media.

Before you choose a college, there are a few important details to check out. Everyone assumes that a production degree from a (well publicized) film school will land you a Hollywood career. Not necessarily true.

Using your recording tracks strategically: a multi-track workflow for location sound recording

Today’s sound mixer or videographer has a choice of recording location audio to one or multiple recording tracks. In addition to being able to record sound “direct to video” -- it is pretty much the norm to also record simultaneously to a dedicated audio recorder (the process known as “double system sound”) and then to sync these tracks to the picture during the editing process.

The question that I get most often at seminars or from my college students is “What is the best way to effectively utilize multiple tracks in the field?”