Lights, Action, Camera: a key to survival, let alone success. 

Something stays on my mind a lot. As radio companies continue to cut personnel to minimize overhead, what can I do to make myself that much harder to let go of?

It almost seems impossible.

We’re in a day and age where it seems it doesn’t matter how hard or smart you work, it’s easy to be deemed expendable.

In my case, I’ve decided it’s time to grow some additional skills. As social media and all-things digital have become everyday life here in radio, I’ve felt it wise to expand my skillset. The challenge; how can I take the skills that I have and morph them into the digital world in a way that doesn’t conflict with what I do in radio, but enhances it.

The answer: video production, writing, filming, directing, and producing.

We all have smartphones that now tout pro photo and video capabilities. There’s editing software galore. And there’s a seemingly endless number of platforms to distribute these productions.

To attain these skills, I’m embarking on a project that is something very personal to me.

My motivations un creating this film are more than just career survival. There’s part regret and the other is somewhat of a moral imperative.

The regret part comes from the fact that I had always wanted to capture video of my late father sharing his oral histories of what all he went through to become a pilot and why our family home got turned into an airplane factory. I grew up in a small tract house in suburban Detroit that contained almost all the major components for three airplanes. There was one in the garage. There were two in the basement. There was a lower right wing for a small biplane suspended from my bedroom ceiling. And its propeller was under my bed. It would have been fun to hear Dad recollect that. However, between the geographical distance between Birmingham, Alabama and Detroit, Michigan and the fact that by the time we knew he had Alzheimer’s, it was way too late.

That makes this endeavor a moral imperative. My Dad’s “little brother,” is 82 now. Jimmy Mac McKenzie is, to say the least, the most eccentric human being you’ll ever meet. Aside from the fact he hoards old junk cars, the last I counted was just over 300, he maintains a seething hatred of fire ants. To get his revenge, he uses welding gas to blow up their mounds. But, back in the early-to-mid 1960’s Jimmy was well-known on the south Alabama drag racing circuit. Where his competitors spent big budgets to stay in the game, he safety-wired and duct taped his way all the way to the finish line. He was also famous for working around the rules by doing things like showing up for pre-race weigh in with tires filled with water and a trunk full of scrap iron. That way, he’d be registered in a heavier weight class. Before the race, he switched to his air-filled tires and emptied his trunk. As a mechanic, he became well known as someone who doesn’t need to buy auto parts. He is famous for taking people’s discarded junk and transforming them into mechanical components.

Over the next few months, I’m going to learn (the hard way) the basics of good cinematography, lighting, recording audio, editing, and post production by letting the world hear from him.

Just yesterday, I acquired Wondershare Filmora 12 editing software. It was $67 buyout, said and done. I wanted Adobe Creative Cloud since I’m fluent in Adobe Audition. But, heck, I don’t have $58 a month, let alone $600 a year.

This also requires other digital skills. I’m learning those by trial and error.

To promote my production, I invested some money in acquiring a domain and am learning to build a web site. If you’re curious to see the progress of my fat-fingering, it’s 

 https://www.macsrepairshop.com/

There, I’m also doing some fundraising to offset my overhead by selling t-shirts and coffee mugs emblazed with a logo I designed for my uncle’s auto repair business, Mac’s Repair Shop.

I’ve also built a Facebook page to help promote the website and tease the upcoming homemade documentary:  https://www.facebook.com/jimmymacratrodking

Everything about this endeavor is a work in progress. It's all trial-and-error. I remind myself, that's how I learned radio. But, the ultimate goal is to attain additional skills that will only enhance my ability to be a more useful creative strategist. I can help advise digital clients as well as those on our terrestrial radio outlets. And it’s all for the sake to make SummitMedia more than just a company of radio stations, but a one-source for effective marketing campaigns.

Over the next few blogs, I’ll keep you posted on my progress and share what all I’ve learned.

Sincerely

Mike –The Reel Architect.