Get a Mentor and Learn How to be a DJ

Many professionals have realized that the best way to learn is to learn by doing. For example, you could learn how to be a radio DJ or a sportscaster with on-the-job training via the Radio Connection program where you will get a mentor in the radio profession. The course teaches the skills required in a real radio station where you get actual on the job, and on air experience.

Best of all, you can do this in the town where you live with no relocation. Students can take classes part time, training around a job schedule.

The radio broadcasting school trains you to become a radio broadcaster, program director, voice-over artist, promotions director and more. In fact, some of the typical assignments include in-studio lab time training in an on-air radio station with state-of-the-art equipment. The radio program is taught one-on-one, in private sessions, in real radio stations with a real radio professional that takes each student through the course curriculum. No experience is necessary.

The 13 part course includes written curriculums and training guides. Some of the classes include:
Voice and Speech Development
Commercial Announcing and Copywriting
Voiceovers
Commercial Announcing
Sports Broadcasting and Writing
News Broadcasting
Disc Jockey or Talk Show Host
Weather Reporting
The Technical Stuff, and much more...

Howard Parker, (http://www.hpvo.com/) is now making millions as a voice-over artist. He started out working at Taco Bell, but it was the Radio Connection where he got his start.

He said, "This program works. It put me in front of real radio professionals, and I stuck to them like glue and learned all I could from them." Listen to the Howard Bell video here.

Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy

In case you haven't heard, the House of Blues has been sponsoring a very cool nationwide promotion called the "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp" -- as featured in this BusinessWeek video clip that talks about how the camp lets people live their fantasy of being a rock star -- while still keeping their day job. No matter what age.

As mentioned in Los Angeles Magazine's August issue, at the Los Angeles House of Blues, this August 26th, 2008 venue will feature Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke as a faculty member. History knows this controversial American hard rock band was formed in LA in 1985. Camp costs between $1,999 and 9,999. You can call 888-762-2263 if you want to sign up. or go to http://www.rocknrollfantasycamp.

By the way, Guns N' Roses has released five studio albums, two EPs, one live album, and three music video DVDs and the band is currently working on the infamous album Chinese Democracy. They have sold an estimated 90 million albums worldwide, including 39 million in the US.

Tremendously successful at every city nationwide where the venue takes place, this is just proof that programs like the Entertainment Career Connection's Recording Connection mentor programs work. Anyone looking to learn to be a recording engineer, would probably love to attend this camp!

Picture this ... lights are low, the crowd is screaming and the shaking. The opening act is about to take the stage…and the opening act is you! Many of us have dreamt about it and now it is a reality. Rock ‘n' Roll Fantasy Camp is a series of one-day camps that gives fans of all ages a chance to live their dream of being a Rock star. Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy, which has been critically acclaimed as the “Most Amazing Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle Experience” by The London Times and “Brilliant” by Good Morning America, gives happy campers a once in a lifetime chance to meet, greet and also jam with legendary rock stars. Then they get to perform live on stage at major concert venue at the House of Blues and The Fillmore as the opening act for Extreme & King’s X,. it doesn't get much better...

Counselors for the 2008 summer schedule include Gilby Clark (Guns N’ Roses), Elliot Easton (The Cars), Earl Slick (David Bowie/John Lennon), Dave Ellefson (former Megadeth bassist), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Chris Slade (AC/DC, The Firm with Jimmy Page), Mark Slaughter (Slaughter), Mark Hudson (Aerosmith, Grammy Award winning writer/producer), Kip Winger (Winger) and many more to be announced.

Where is the best place to go to film school?

Most film schools have one campus, a few have multiple campuses, and then apprentice schools like the entertainment industry's best kept secret - the film-connection - has schools that are located pretty much anywhere. There are pros and cons about working in the film industry in big cities like Los Angeles or New York.

It may be easier for film professionals in Los Angeles, because everyone knows it's the hub of Hollywood, and that people can get to work on bigger film projects. But people have to pay more in living expenses for larger metropolitan cities.

What's more, the many ancillary industries are also affected in many ways when a big film hits the box office. For example, the DVD rentals and sales of the "Batman Begins" film, were boosted by the latest movie "The Dark Knight's." It claimed a record-breaking non-holiday weekend box office revenues of $158.4M, according to Rentrak's Box Office Essentials. That was a 345 percent increase in estimated DVD units sold from the prior week! This may have been because of the limited edition DVD gift set that was released on July 8, 2008 and coincided with the July 18th release of "The Dark Knight."

It's not any surprise that the U.S. motion picture industry produces most of the world’s feature films as well as most of the recorded TV shows. Dominated by six large studios based in Hollywood, over the years, things have started to change. With the increasing popularity and global availability of the Internet, cable television, digital video recorders, editing software and computer graphics there are more and more small to medium-sized independent filmmaking companies filling a growing demand, and they are located here and there across the country.

So if you want to learn how to be a film director, or go to a
film school in Los Angeles, odds are that you can get a job almost
anywhere in the U.S. For example, in 2006, there were 357,000 wage and salary jobs in the film and video industries - mostly produciton jobs such as casting, acting, directing, editing, motion picture and videotape reproduction and film processing. Ten percent of those in the film industry were self-employed. They sell services to anyone who needs them, working for multiple productions throughout a year. Here's a chart that details the jobs.


Oh and in case you've wondered -- what is the most expensive city in the world? This year, Moscow is the the world's most expensive city for the second year in a row. London is in second place, climbing up three spots since the year 2006, while Seoul moves down a place in the ranks, taking third place. Tokyo is number four, while Asuncion in Paraguay remains the least expensive city, according to the source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting. New York was the base city, scoring 100 points, Moscow scores 134.4, London 126.3 and Seoul 122.4.

Roots of the Music Recording Industry

It is hard to believe that it was only 130 years ago when the music recording industry began. In 1878 Thomas Edison invented a machine called the phonograph that could record sound. He planned on using it to relay telegraph messages, and also for automated speech via the telephone which he had already invented a year and a half prior. He figured out that the needle could prick a paper tape and record a message, which led to a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his great surprise, played back the short message he recorded, "Mary had a little lamb." The phonograph machine was a tinfoil wrapped cylinder on which sound vibrations could be engraved and then played back.

By the early 1900s, many recordings were being produced by musicians worldwide. The recording industry became a serious business by 1910 for anyone who had the money. Over the next 90 years, the recording, editing and distribution of music was only available to those who had money and could afford expensive recording equipment and big recording studios.

It wasn’t until the late1980s when people began to experiment with digital audio processing. Sound vibrations were converted to binary words by the computer. Greater bit depths were available in the ‘90s, so audio could be better represented digitally, but it took computers with high processing power and big caches of memory and ram. Once again, like the old days of the recording industry, it took lots of money.

Today, personal computers have become accessible and less expensive, so memory and fast processing speeds that are needed for digital audio are available on nearly all computers. Sound cards and audio interfaces have also become easier to use and less expensive. Software like Digidesign, Garage Band, Reason, Logic Pro or Audacity, programs for digital audio recording, are now available for free so almost anyone can play around with recording their own music.

At the Recording Connection, Pro Tools software is the favorite go-to tool. These days more and more students who are interested in a career in the music recording industry already have experience with audio recording on their computers, so in order for the students to excel in the industry we encourage mentor courses where students can learn the business from a working professional.

Reasonably priced at around $7,450, students get a classroom that is a real recording studio in the town or city where they live. This is a school that trains people for a job in the music recording industry, because a classroom is not the best way to learn this business.

Check out our video here. This is an accredited apprenticeship, where you learn a structured course that has been written by audio professionals, and you are also working with a mentor, one-on-one, the basics and advanced. There are over 5,000 recording engineers have endorsed the Entertainment Connection course.

Uber.com for Entertainment Careers

Sometimes it's the right thing to do to pass along interesting information. If you have not checked out a website known as http://www.uber.com/, which is for artists, writers and musicians, then you may want to, or at least read Dennis Nishi's article in his How I Got Here column in the Wall Street Journal. (A hat tip to Dennis.) Uber is a social networking site that has grown to over 500,000 unique visits monthly, according to Nielson Online.

Maybe you are taking courses at the Entertainment Career Connection's Recording Connection school, and you are looking for information about the music industry, or you are an aspiring director who might even be looking for a career in the entertainment industry, Uber is a great website to check out.

Nishi interviewed the website's Founder Glenn Kaino, an artist and technologist, about competing in the social-networking space. Apparently Kaino initially wanted to work with artists that didn't have any access to the Web so he and his team contacted thousands of artists including Masami Teraoka and Edgar Heap of Birds and put up Web sites for them in order to document their projects.

Universities began linking to the site since it was not only cool, but a reference for original material. This is the genesis for Kaino's suggestions for other artists today.

In the Journal article he said, "Adjust to the market as opposed to the other way around... Emphasize your unique abilities so you can bring something different to projects. Have a good idea and a willingness to execute it. For me it's always been about creating personal networks. What I've learned in the new media realm and the art world is to keep things ad hoc and on the fly."

Today Uber is a compilation of everything from comedy blogs, and even a contingent of video gamers. The company's goal is "to be a publisher of world ideas online ... to facilitate an audience by allowing people to use our tools to express themselves."

There's a cool piece about Robert Price’s new gallery of tattoo work, (LEFT) including dogs, and Yoda.

Or, from Uber's music blogs, there's Dana's gallery of Motley Crue images from the Uber Crue Fest Photo Contest.

The Business of Concerts: Rock or Not, Concerts Offer Audio Engineering Jobs

One Wall Street Journal reporter named Mark Gongloff, of the MarketBeat section, did a story and a blog on the fact that since the economy and stock market are in despair, that must mean it's time for some heavy-metal thunder like back in the 1960's with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Historically, any time the economy is in trouble, the one thing that remains strong are the entertainment industries. Seems people like to drown their woes in music. However, some others are concerned that gas prices could put a damper on the concert business. Nonetheless, now that high school is out, there seems to be an increase in the number of people who want to learn how to be a recording engineer.

Baby boomers have been paying more than $60 plus per seat to catch their favorite acts in recent years. At Clapton’s June 2nd date in Uncasville, Connecticut, tickets were for $125 to $195, compared to $85 to $150 at the same venue in 2006. The Eagles’ at Madison Square Garden in May went for $50 to $190, compared to $25 to $180 when they played there in 2005. According to the 2007 Pollstar's list , the 20 top-grossing tours—which were led by the Police's reunion concert tour and grossed $131.9 million—made a total of $996 million, a number that's down 15 percent from the top 20 list last year. By comparison, number 20 was Maná who came in at $33.9 million.

The fact is - concerts are big business. There is a dispute in the industry right now about how because of declines in CD sales artists are making up the income through aggressive touring. But many managers dispute this idea. What is new is that festivals are giving artists a new touring vehicle where top acts can plan summer tours around festivals -- like Pearl Jam, who booked a short summer tour after deciding to play Bonnaroo, and the Flaming Lips are doing nine festivals.

But here's another interesting factoid. Those of us following the Recording Connection have noticed a pick up in the number of people who want to learn how to be a recording engineer and are signing up for the Los Angeles music recording school course. Now that many high school graduates are looking for the next step in their life, it seems some have decided to become audio recording engineers.

It is a good plan, because the Entertainment Career Connection's Recording Connection course is reasonably priced. The jobs can include: recording engineer, music producer or mixer, and the engineering program qualifies students for positions in the audio recording field. Known for its mentor programs, all Entertainment Connection programs include hands-on lab drills in the actual local recording studio where training is conducted by the mentor. The cost is at about $7,450 as compared to $140,000 at one recording school! And programs are available nationwide.

Check out Eric Hunslinger's video about the music recording school. He graduated from a big recording school then realized he wasn't prepared for the music business, so, he applied to the Recording Connection Audio School. He could not be happier with what he learned.

How Students can Qualify for Sallie Mae Loans

We offer certificate programs in all aspects of filmmaking, radio broadcasting and audio engineering, but the really good news is that our Sallie Mae financial aid package more students have been able to get a start toward their career dreams with the Recording Connection, Radio Connection, and the Film Connection. Sallie Mae is the nation's leading provider of student loans. It is a free service, that comes with a Sallie Mae specialist who prepares student applications, which makes it ten times more likely for students to qualify for their loan.

What is covered by Sallie Mae student loans is the entire tuition costs and up to 60 percent in additional funds for living expenses and equipment purchases. Students who are 18 years of age or older with good credit may qualify for a zero down, low interest loan, starting at Prime Rate + 0%. Students can take up to 15 years to pay back the loan.

Entertainment Career Connection also provides other funding choices for those who don't qualify for Sallie Mae. Not only will Sallie Mae cover the entire tuition cost of $7450, but also loan up to 60% additional, or $4470, for living expenses and purchases.

CEO James Petulla said, “We started the new Sallie Mae student loan program in April of this year, and the program has financed about 84 students since then.”

More than 6,000 students have graduated from Entertainment Career Connection programs over the last 25 years, creating a vast alumni network. The company provides educational apprentice programs for the entertainment arts including the film, radio, television and music recording industries.

This is a fully accredited academic institution, and the Entertainment Career Connection programs are certified by the National Private Schools Accreditation Alliance with mentor programs in more than 100 U.S. cities in all fifty states. With corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, California and New York City, the Entertainment Career Connection schools are unlike any others, as students learn from successful mentors in real world situations in real studio and film sets.

Recently, nearly two dozen student loan lenders nationally have announced they are restricting, suspending or terminating new loans to students through the Federal Family Education Loan Program, or FFEL, the federally-guaranteed, low-cost initiative that provided college financing last year to 7 million students around the country.

Copyright Laws for Recording Promotional CDs

On June 11, a federal district court ruled that sales of promotional CDs did not constitute a copyright violation. Record labels have typically always tagged promotional copies of recordings "promotional use—not for resale." Often times promo copies have bonus tracks that are not on retail recordings, and they might use different art, etc. Interestingly enough, these promo CDs are considered hot collectibles by some people. This is something that anyone looking for a job in the music recording industry might want to understand.

One collector, named Troy Augusto, looked for these precious promo copies in flea markets and offbeat retail stores, then started to offer them for sale on eBay. But the Universal Music Group (UMG) copyright cops found out, then tried to have his auctions de-listed by using what is known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and when that didn't work, they sued him in federal court.

The music industry believes that the "not for resale" stickers means that UMG owns the CDs, which makes it unlawful for them to be sold. At first they argued that the doctrine of first sale could not be voided by adding a label to the merchandise. The court rejected UMG's argument that the label constituted a "license." Licensing means the owner can regain possession, which does not exist in the mass distribution of promotional copies.

The court ruled that promotional CDs were gifts, and since they were distributed without requiring any recurring action—they were sent in hopes of coverage, with no guarantees.

Meanwhile, a law called the Postal Reorganization Act prohibits mailing unordered merchandise without the prior concent of the recipient, and once received, merchandise "may be treated as a gift by the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without obligation whatsoever to the sender."

So in the end, the court rejected Augusto's contention that UMG had "abandoned" the promo CDs, but it also upheld his first sale doctrine rights to possess and resell the CDs. The bottom line is that the California court rejected the music industry's promo CD copyright claim.

The bottom line is that if you have always wanted a job as a music producer or a recording studio engineer, now you know that if you get a promotional CD, it's yours to do with as you wish. This could also mean that if you have a band and want to make a demo CD and give it away... you can.

By the way, our Recording Connection school prepares you like no other music or recording school. You will learn more - like the above laws being decided in the music industry - while you apprentice under the direct supervision of a music industry professional in a real recording studio.

Recording Studio Quality Sound in Digital Power Station Car

Along with a career in the music recording business, there are some fun perks. For example, at this last year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, one company unveiled some pretty amazing stuff.

Listen to the Revolutionary Bongiovi Acoustics Digital Power Station Technology is a patented and unique digital signal processing method that substantially enhances sound quality in playback devices by compensating for deficiencies in usable frequencies, audio components, environments and room acoustics.

This Digital Power Station, embedded in a computer chip, is the
first of a new generation of digital audio signal processors that can be programmed to reproduce studio-quality sound in virtually any audio device. Using a combination of filters, EQ and gain amplification, it achieves total linear control over the entire audio spectrum. What this means is that it allows frequency-specific amplification for the desired results in a playback environment, and it does a great job maximizing the potential of speakers that are factory made.

Using a chip called the Digital Power Station, the KD-S100 scans and extends the frequency response and audio spectrum of various kinds of audio recordings.

This is the kind of cool stuff you learn about when you work with a mentor at the Entertainment Career Connection's New York Music Recording School. When you are learning from someone who is actually in a professional environment, you get to go to all kinds of trade shows, because professionals get invited - and they usually bring you, their student, along.

"While I was looking for the right environment to study the music recording business, I found turn and burn schools that didn't seem real," said Tommy in his Recording Connection video. "They want $40k and promised a magical career, but it wasn't real. The Recording Connection is real because it is reasonably priced and it offers one-on-one quality programs to teach you everything you need to know from studio sets ups to the most advanced technology that is out there."