End of School Year Madness

Kevin Brislin and his TV Production III and IV students are to be featured in a program on Educational Channel 20 in Sarasota, Florida, concerning their efforts in producing "The Horror Movie!". The movie is an original video that they have worked on since last August as a large-form school project. The video is in post-production now as they work on audio, foley, sound effects, and the score. It will premier on May 20.

The Recording Engineering class is finishing tracking the four songs for their EP and the live performance on May 20. The photo is a shot of one of the vocal sessions completed at North Port High. Mixing and mastering will occur within the next two weeks.

Paradox Recording Studio

From Kevin Brislin:

I had the opportunity to visit Paradox Recording Studio in North Port, FL, a fantastic space owned by Rick Duncan. Rick is the producer/songwriter/drummer for the group Cryptic Vision, a progressive rock ensemble based here in Florida. I've been aware of Cryptic Vision for a few years now due to a mutual friend and was even invited to attend their last CD release party in 2006 when "In A World" was released.

Rick's studio is a stunning space and I would highly recommend it to any artist or group that is looking for a larger studio in which to work. I was at his studio to interview him for a possible article in TapeOp magazine (another "must have" in the world of audio, in my opinion.) Who knows if that will pan out, but I did want to let people know that there is a(nother) great studio in the country.

NPHS Musical

The NPHS Musical for 2009 has just finished its run. This year, the Drama Dept. chose "Little Shop of Horrors" as the musical and, as usual, the Drama students delivered a great set of fine performances.

For the past five years or so, Kevin Brislin has been the audio supervisor for the musicals, a fact of which few people have been aware. The job usually consists of training his audio production students to run sound for a live performance, which may mean that up to 12 mics are running at a time, along with sound effects. It is a stressful job for the students, but one that is vastly different than the experiences they have in a recording situation. Since musicals are so script-oriented, the students learn to follow along closely to know what mics have to be open at any particular time, when sound cues are to be played, and how to balance the sound in a live hall between a non-mic'ed orchestra and the actors.

Brislin considers this experience a make-or-break for anyone who is considering doing this for a living. Many of his students believe that running sound for the musicial is one of the highlights of their audio production education.