Going up in the world: Brandon Mitchell comes to the podcast

This week I invited up and coming CGI artist Brandon Mitchell. He has quite an extensive portfolio: "CCDHS Donuts Rendering Project" and "Pizza Parlor of Your Dreams" are his two prestigious works. Brandon says he's dropping out of high school and heading to Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville. He's planning to start out picking up trash and then work up the ch to be the new head animator of Pixar replacing now-ousted sexual-harasser John Lasseter. He makes himself out to be a very busy person, but I am grateful that he made room in his day to come to my house and record the podcast with me. So here it is: Exclusive Interview with Brandon Mitchell I learned how to add sound effects with the normal podcast stuff much easier than my past method. Overall, it should have made a better podcast.

Above is Brandon's most recent exemplary work: Pizza Parlor of your Dreams. Posted with permission from Brandon Mitchell.
The cake Brandon mentions from the site Brandon mentions

Even though the main focus was on Brandon, there was enough snow last Monday for me to go on a cross-country skiing adventure. I made sure to take photos along the way.

Now some may ask, Alex why didn't you a timed loop?

To that I respond, it's a lot more fun when I just mess around while skiing.

Afterall, I've never approached running practices seriously. I might stop and do some Geocaching along the way or stop at a pond and slide around.

Even if it's reckless, I always feel like I got more out of it than if I were to do three miles at six-minute pace.

It was kind of windy out. This isn't a blurry image, that's snow blowing. It didn't bother me though, I feel invulnerable to all conditions in my layers.

One of the advantages of not trying to best my time is that I get to explore. So I saw this trail leading from the golf course and went down it.

It eventually led down to the Tongue River. I typically cross the river when it's frozen here, but as you can tell it wasn't even close to being frozen.

I plopped down here and chilled for a minute; thinking about podcasts, books, shorthand, life.

I then went on a deer trail requiring me to crouch fairly low to go under bramble.

I didn't know where it would take me, but I believe that's where most of the fun comes from cross-country skiing.

Eventually, I was led to a clearing. I didn't know where to go from there.

Trees in all directions surrounded me.

I decided to follow my sense of direction and not act lost. I found this case. I would sit there and contemplate what am I doing with my life.

It took me a while, but I found the original trail that got me there.

I then took this last photo with me beginning my trek home. Subsequently, the camera died after taking this last image. 

All in all, a good trek. I'm making progress on my shorthand. I've been applying some of the phonetics of shorthand to my interview, but not the characters yet. Next week should be a solo podcast and it should be of much higher quality. I've got a greater perspective on what I exactly should be doing.

Merriam-Webster defines a podcast as a digital file available on the internet -- I couldn't agree more

Here's what I want to do with my blog in tandem with my podcast. Essentially I want to create a media board and create something that doesn't distract from my podcast but gives some context to what I'm talking about. I'm going to be honest with you all, I miss my blog; it was a lot of fun for me, but I said that I would be doing podcasting. So, I can't really back down. Maybe I could podcast about books!

With this podcast, I mainly talk about shorthand, skiing, and speech and drama. I really need to sit down and reflect on how I'm going to do this project because this podcast did not reach my expectation. It's a lot easier writing than speaking for me, yet after all, that was the point, to obtain a sort of vocal eloquence. Next week I'm doing a blog with a special guest, Brandon Mitchell should be easier.

There is some difficulty converting this to MP3, but I should figure it out sooner or later.

It's done. I recommend doing other stuff while listening, after all, that's why podcasts have become so popular, their portability. You should be able to even download it if you want to.

I started practicing shorthand by applying it to written texts. I'm quite slow at the current moment, but the idea is that after I learn all of the below in addition to the shorthand, my speed will start picking up.

I don't know what the proper method is to learn the words and phrases of Teeline. I'm thinking it may be best to just crank these out with repetition.

I didn't take any pics when I went cross-country skiing last Monday, but I did force my mom to take some during Christmas break.

Near the end, I spent some time talking about this video. I didn't talk about it in full, but I still talked about.
MetaBlog: MetaPodcast soon . . . maybe? I really need to find my footing first though. I find myself disappointed with the current end product. Maybe I should listen to some monologue podcasts and see how they do it. Also, need to practice my general knowledge of how to utilize GarageBand effectively for podcasting.


I realize in the podcast I was going to talk about books, but then didn't, sorry. I know you must've been really hyped.

A New Dawn, a New Day, a New Genius Hour

I was sitting at my desk one day in English. Mrs. Crews was talking about something. I didn't know what, I find my mind likes to wander, perhaps that's how I permanently notched my pinky on the router in woodshop class. I tuned in when I found that we had something due. Oh, the question was being asked again: What are you doing for your next genius hour, Alex? Feelings of exasperation -- "Podcasting?" I say in the most quizzical manner possible. That didn't raise anybody's eyebrows too much, even when I came to school in a heavy coat and snow pants giving a perfunctory attempt of a presentation, so here I am.

Although not technically,  I am not podcasting this week. I wanted to use this is as an opportunity to be more explicit at what my standards are and get set up for my podcast such as creating my intro theme. It's pretty magnificent. Eat your heart out StevenJohnRayMusic, it only took me an hour and a half for this 30-second theme!

Podcast theme

When creating the theme, I really wanted it to represent what I plan to accomplish with the podcast. I wanted the theme to be a lighthearted romp that shows how the podcast is going to be constantly changing and trying new approaches to be better and better with each new podcast creating a sense of intrigue with what it's going to be about. Did it accomplish that? Well, I'll leave that up for you to decide.

Also, I don't have a mic yet, that also helps in me wanting to do just a blog this week.

So more into the actual content and style of my podcast and what standards I want to hold myself up to.

No dead air - There can't be umm's or pauses in this podcast. If I mess up I'll just restart or if there was a good stopping point I'll resume there and edit the clips together. Or I'll just do a radical *boom* sound effect to fill the dead air, either way.

Have fun - I kind of took my last blog in the same direction. I tried to not take it too seriously so that way it wouldn't feel as dry as the actual books I read. With a podcast, I believe that I'll need to put even more effort into that. So, I'll try to have a variety of guests (maybe I'll do Skype, but more than likely face-to-face) that will add some spice to the blog.

For instance, I was planning on doing one of my podcasts while cross-country skiing and make a whole story out of it maybe go on the river and act like I'm drowning. Any ideas that are given I'll probably do no matter how zany.

Professional quality - The reason why I'm getting a mic over just using the mic available on the Mac, is because everything should be top of the line. Podcasting is an auditory medium and to have terrible sound quality would be a severe constraint to the appeal of it to you the audience. In addition, having a high-quality blog gives me room to seem as I am really making an effort for this to be a stellar podcast, not just slapping it together in fifteen minutes . . . .

Entertain - I find my mind likes to fall into a melancholy state, perhaps that's why I try to go all out with Genius Hour. At one point in life, I had a pretty good sense of humor. I always loved to crack jokes in elementary. Fifth grade at Lincoln I remember being considered for an arbitrary class clown in Mrs. Mathison's against Garrett. I was ecstatic with joy. I don't think it developed into anything after that, but it reminds me that I was a different person then. I yearn to return to those days where I don't spend the majority of my time in a somber, reserved state. It's not a positive way to live the rest of my life. Hence, this podcast is a way to return to a more jubilant version of myself, where as much as I am trying to entertain you, I will be entertaining myself.

Maybe an oversentimental note, but I heard that part of podcasting is to be truly authentic, and there's the beginning for my podcast next week.

By the way guys, in case you don't know I'll be mainly talking about my projects in cross-country skiing (snow tonight!) and learning shorthand (harder than I thought actually).