Accent

I feel like a proud mama. After being one of the very few that did multimedia for Accent Newspaper, I was thrilled when other reporters showed interest producing more for Accent. Naturally, it's been a goal to produce more videos and slideshows for the website, but we just didn't have the manpower or knowledge to do it.

The original plan for this story was to have Era on camera while I filmed behind the camera. But when it came time to film, I handed it over to Edgar. How are they supposed to learn right? So I pretty much came for the ride (or should I say, walk), and guided them through the process as well as filmed with my new camera. Sadly, none of my footage made the cut, and that's because my schedule never lined with up Edgar's to give him the footage, but my photos were used instead.

Anyway, here's the footage all put together by Edgar. Usually I just post stuff I've created, but I was so impressed by the outcome, especially under the windy circumstances, that I wanted to share it here.



Read a little more about "Play Me, I'm Yours" here at Accent.

A side note: of course, everyone in Austin took advantage of the pianos downtown to create videos, myself included. Let's just say I have another video in the works. Can't wait to share!

The politics behind the music in the "live music capitol of the world" is something tourists rarely see.

A new documentary, Echotone, which opens April 24 through 27 at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz, sheds some light on how city ordinances and other decisions directly affect the Austin music scene.

Echotone's director, Nathan Christ, originally began the documentary to follow the synth-pop band Belaire. He was already in talks with the band when he realized there was something else brewing that needed to be seen.

Click here to read the rest at Accent.

I had a staff writer film interviews with various artists at STAPLE!, and I edited it into a short recap, and then wrote this little introduction. Music provided by Rally Rally.

Artists, graphic designers, and everything in between showcased their work at this year's STAPLE! Independent Media Expo on March 5 and 6 at Marchesa Hall.

This was the first year the annual event was held on two dates instead of one, giving the opportunity for more guest speakers and panels. Several events including a screening of the documentary The Comic Book Literacy which was followed with a Q&A with filmmaker Todd Kent and James O'Barr, the creator of The Crow comic book series.

Staff contributor Odin Amador interviewed several artists in attendance at STAPLE! Below is the video documented the event.

Originally posted here at Accent.

Ty Tyner was the guy in his high school class doodling in his notebook instead of taking notes. Now he gets paid to be a graphic designer and a comic book colorist.

Tyner currently works on EPIC comic about a teenager who gets superpowers. However, once he's around girls, he loses his cool and his superpowers.

"When I heard the pitch, I was like that's great. I want to be involved in this project. I ended up being the colorist for that book," said Tyner.

Click here to read the rest at Accent.

This double truck was my baby. I assigned writers to cover five bands that released albums in Feb and review the albums. I wrote about Mother Falcon on the right. Layout Editor Elizabeth put the page together. Good job team.

Originally posted at Accent.

Below are my contributions

Mother Falcon feature
Mother Falcon isn't the typical rock band. Instead of four members that each take on the role of guitarist, bassist, drummer and vocalist, the band members instead consist of a handful of classically-trained musicians playing classical instruments such as the violin, the cello, and the double bass.

However, recording a full-length album with the almost-20 members that form Mother Falcon can prove to be a challenge.

"Mixing was a challenge," said Matt Puckett, a member of Mother Falcon. Puckett plays the saxophone and glockenspiel as well as sings.

"You have to balance... There's 19 people playing, and there's more instruments. Then you have to balance all the vocals too. There's like 20 something tracks (per song)," said Yun Du, one of the violinists.

"Oh there's more than that," said Matt Puckett. "We're looking at some of the songs that probably had 34 tracks to mix together which is a lot."

With that many members in a band, there was careful planning on when was the right time to have everyone together for the recording process.

"There's always that sweet spot beginning of August, where people haven't left for school yet, but they just got back from summer vacation. That's where it has to be done," said Du.

Instead of recording each instrument one track at a time, the band decided to record each song live with everyone performing their parts at once. While it could have been easier with scheduling if they didn't go this route, Mother Falcon wanted to capture the ensemble feel that comes out during a live performance.

"I really wanted everybody to able to play together at the same time because so much of our music is dynamic," said Puckett. "It involves watching cues from other people. When we recorded, it was just recorded in a church. We were in a circle just like we are in rehearsals. So we look at each other... Whereas when we're playing in the headphones to tracks that are already recorded, it's, I feel, like a less dynamic experience typically."

Now that the album is finished and ready for the masses, the band is preparing for their album release on Feb. 26 at the Central Presbyterian Church. This is the same church the album was recorded in.

"It should be pretty cool. It'll be a rare experience. I hope it'll be a rare experience for a lot of people, because it'll sound pretty much how it sounds on the record. That's the goal," said Puckett.

Alhambra album review
The moment the strings swell into the opening track of Mother Falcon's Alhambra, the listener is immediately swept away from the notorious rock scene. Rather than standing in a grungy, beer-smelling venue, the album's live recording brings people into the comfortable seats in an open auditorium.

Mother Falcon uses their classical music education to bring this genre into the ears of all music fans. It's high art for the common people. It merges traditional orchestra movements with today's indie rock music.

Instead of electric guitars and bass guitars, the band uses violas and stand-up basses as well as other instruments (including an accordion) to form the foundation of the music.

Nick Gregg and Claire Puckett take turns sharing vocal duties as their voices lightly float over the tunes stepping away from the spotlight. In Mother Falcon, every musician works as an ensemble letting the music be the main focus.

The album isn't perfect though. With about 20 members, the band is very limited in the amount of time allowed for rehearsing and recording the songs for the album. While the quality of music falls into an incredibly higher standard than most bands in Austin, there are several moments when just a little bit more time to get that note just right would really make Alhambra pretty close to perfection. However, it's those small imperfections that give this up-and-coming band character.

SXSW 2011 is almost here, and for the first time since the Accent has covered SXSW, we will be covering all three portions of the conference: music, film, and interactive.

All three editors will document their experiences with video cameras and update blogs on the Accent's website at theaccent.org. Make sure to bookmark it now. Also, add Accent on Twitter and Facebook for short updates throughout the festival.

Editor-in-Chief Karissa Rodriguez is going to learn about the newest innovations in technology at SXSW Interactive. She's going to liveblog the panels with Nerdist's Chris Hardwick and SXSW Keynote Speaker Felicia Day.

Assistant Editor Sarah Vasquez will stand on her feet for hours in the grungiest bars to bring back a glimpse of the newest bands people need to know about.

Campus Editor Natalee Blanchat will cover the film portion. She will stand in lines, sit in packed movie theaters to watch upcoming films and maybe, just maybe, catch a glimpse of Jake Gyllenhaal's swoon-worthy smile in person.

Originally posted here at Accent.

Tracy Bach has traveled around the world visiting places such as Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Costa Rica. Her family created a website called Kai Ohana to document their voyages of a circumnavigation while sailing on a boat of the same name.

To create the website and to prepare for the trip, she took classes at Austin Community College in 2004 and 2005 focusing on classes in design, multimedia, and languages.

"I took a variety of classes, which were taken for the purpose of using them toward this business plan I was working on with my family," said Bach. "So I was taking things like digital publishing, TV field production, photography, things that focus on media, marketing, and those sort of things."

Click here to read the rest at Accent.

South by Southwest Music seems to grow bigger every year with people from all over the world come to the city to get in on the action and the venues popping up all over the city.

"Every place that has electricity becomes a venue," said Taylor Muse, vocalist/keyboardist for the band Quiet Company. "It's like if you're anywhere near an eight mile radius of downtown, you just can't escape the festival. It's everywhere."

Click here to read the rest at Accent.

This is just one post in my wrap up of the year 2010. If you would like to read the rest, click here to the main post.

I was really surprised when I asked some of the editors back in October 2009 who was going to take over the Life & Arts Editor position when the then-editor was leaving. They suggested me. I never thought I had editorial qualities in me but I ended up having more than most so I got hired as the Campus Editor starting in January 2010. I'll spare the long story about how I ended up with that position instead but that position ended up working for me in the end.

I had to learn pretty quickly how to plan and deal with reporters for each issue. And what I learned from that experience is that no matter how much coffee you drink or how much sleep you sacrifice, something is inevitably going to go wrong. A flakey writer forgetting deadline, a difficult writer submitting an article a day before deadline that require a long editing session, a photo that doesn't relate to the story, or a space that needs to be fill in the layout due to bad planning on my end. The possibilities are endless.

This year brought on more stress than anything I have ever done in my life, but I can honestly say I enjoyed it. The fact that I came back every week to put myself back in that situation tells me this is what I want to do. Whenever our adviser Matt would tell us the issue is done at the end of the night and to go home, I left with a worn smile on my face, ready to climb into bed, only to sleep in until 11 a.m. the next morning, and head to Rio Grande Campus to start planning for the next issue. Seeing the final product in newsstands and in people's hands around campus is what made it worth it.

While having an editor's position makes me miss being just a freelancer sometimes, I do enjoy the perks of being an editor. You get first dibs on the cool stories. No more news briefs or rehash of press releases for me! Sometimes the perks were forced on me, but I did get to cover some assignments that were outside my usual comfort level. And you know what, it was awesome.

In 2009, I got a SXSW wristband for Accent Newspaper and in 2010, I was rewarded with an actual badge (which got me on the cover of the newspaper). Sweet. Granted I didn't do as much as I would have liked, but if I get another badge this year, I'm taking full advantage.

Then for the first issue as Life & Arts Editor in the Fall 2010, I applied to cover Fantastic Fest for another writer, but I was rewarded the badge instead. Yay? Not at first. I didnt want to cover the festival, but I had no choice.

It was a fustrating learning experience because I didn't like the way the tickets were handled. How it works is that you have to show up when the Alamo Drafthouse opens the day of the movie to grab your tickets. The place usually opens at 10 a.m., but the seats are first come, first serve. So people were waiting in line as early as 7 or 8 in the morning every day. That's dedication. Unfortunately, I didn't have that dedication because of work and school so I missed out on a lot of movies because I didn't camp out at the Drafthouse.

But I did interview some cool people involved at the festival. The one interview that made me extremely nervous but was actually one of the highlights of my life (which also includes Ryan Reynolds making eye contact with me) was interviewing the cast and director of Hatchet 2. I saw the first Hatchet during one of my horror movie marathons and loved it. It's a hilarious throwback to those '80s slasher films so getting to interview the director was a treat. Kane Hodder plays the killer and also sat in the interview, and even though he is like 10 feet tall and could crush my skull with his weak hand, he was really nice.

Meeting Danielle Harris, though, was a dream come true. It's no secret that I love horror films and the Halloween series is my all-time favorite in horror films. So meeting Jamie Lloyd and Annie in the Rob Zombie remake was crazy. That only happened because of my job.

Of course, I got the fangirl comment out of the way before we started the interview and I think that helped set the mood of the interview. It was basically 20 minutes with the four of us geeking out on horror films and what it was like making Hatchet 2.

By the way, that movie is awesome. Definitely watch it if you're a big horror movie buff or you just like blood and guts thrown everywhere. There's plenty of it.

The same badge situation happened with the Austin Film Festival. I honestly didn't want to do the assignment because it was too time consuming, but I made do with what I could. I ended up seeing great films from independent filmmakers that ooze with potential and sat down with some of them for interviews.

One of my favorite parts of the film festival was sitting in some panels with big names in film like Robert Rodriguez. I learned a lot on story telling which is all very helpful in my career. Because that's what journalists do, we tell stories.

After covering these two film festivals, I realized that those were the break I needed from music and I learned that film publicists stick to their schedules. I got a call from one publicist 10 minutes before our scheduled interview to make sure I could still meet at the designated time we had set. That's impressive. That never happens in the music world. I'm happy if the band shows up.

When Fun Fun Fun Fest came around, I was starting to feel exhausted from covering a festival every weekend and I got sick more often than usual because my body was so worn out. So when I got the email during the Saturday of the festival that I was approved to cover the upcoming Comic Con, I was a little annoyed. I started ranting in the photo pit about how all I wanted to do was relax. I didn't want to cover another assignment.

But one of my reporter friends brought it to both our attention that we are at a great music festival for free, hanging out in the media area with the bands and fellow journalists, and taking photos in the photo pit, and yet we're bitching about how we have to cover Comic Con for free the next weekend with some great celebrities in attendance because we're tired. World first problems.

So I laughed and realized that should be grateful that this is my job, even though it meant I was giving up my social life and sleep and developing a major coffee addiction.

So all in all, I love working for a newspaper. Even though it's a student-run newspaper, it still feels like a professional newspaper (we do win awards after all) and gives me great practice for whenever I enter the "real world." I can't stress enough how important it is, especially if you're a journalism major, to get involved in your school paper.

I took a copy editing class in the Spring 2010 semester and I made an A because everything I needed to know to pass my tests was learned in the newsroom, not a textbook. Journalism isn't taught in the classroom. It's taught through actual experience.

Memorable stories I've did with Accent (in no order):

1. Free Speech Zones

This story gave me a crash course in public relations politics. Yuck.

2. Riverbat coverage

ACC got a mascot this year. I was on the skeptic side asking why on earth does this school need a mascot? We're already having a hard time being taking seriously as a community college. "Go to a real school." You don't know how many times I've heard that out of people's mouth. Joking or not, it's offensive.

But the mascot happened and I was one the lucky journalists to cover the last of the revealing process. I filmed the event when the actual mascot made his first appearance. After editing the video, I'm so sick of looking at anything in purple.

3. Aeropress

I got an email trying to convince me to review this simple coffee maker that is supposed to be great for students. I didn't have to hear more. They had me at "coffee." The company shipped a machine and I got to review it. Another perk of the job.

4. Comic Con

I covered the first Comic Con in Austin. I have to say, it was kind of depressing. ...at first. I got there early on Friday and the moment I walked in, all the celebrities were just sitting there looking bored behind their booth staring at their cell phones. Yikes.

But everyone was approachable and once you mentioned you were press, they let you take photos of them for free (they were charging for photos otherwise). I ended up meeting a lot of celebrities like Ernie Hudson! and that guy who plays Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Actually when the actor Nicholas Brendon introduced himself as Nicky, I got really confused because I was honestly expecting him to introduce himself as Xander.

And when I mean I met these celebrities, I mean I geeked out on them.

5. Fun Fun Fun Fest

6. College Sound

As Life & Arts Editor, I wanted to feature musicians and bands that were also students at ACC. With the 44,000+ students enrolled, you would think it would be easy, right? Nope. That's disappointing. It's free press, people. I know what I'm doing as a journalist (or I like to think). If you're an ACC student and play music, contact me.

Anyway, I did fulfill in finding someone to interview for each issue. I'm relieved that I didn't cover the same type of band. Each College Sound article featured someone in different genres, and two of them aren't musicians but they so involved in the music somehow that it was hard to deny them.

The Steps
Ross DuBois
Avy Gonzalez
Rally Rally
Zoe Cordes Selbin
Pro-Gres

7. We Are The Lottery League

8. SPEAK

2010 was definitely a step up from last year. This was the year when I quit my day job as a secretary and became an editor for Accent Newspaper. I worked at the ACC bookstore during rush for extra cash, but for the most part, I could actually say I was a writer for a living. I did struggle financially but it was the first time I was happy to wake up and head to work every morning. That's what counts right?

And also this year, I participated in some great assignments.

I consider 2010 a success.

So instead of writing one massive post like I did last year, I've broken them down into separate ones. You're welcome.

I'll add the links to this post as I post them on the blog.

SPEAK
High School Reunion
Podcasts
Favorite Albums
Favorite posts from each month
Quote of the Day
Accent Newspaper
Favorite Movies
Memorable Interviews
Memorable Shows
Year of Local Music
Glee
Intergalactic Nemesis