Create an Imaging Double or how life gets better having…

Odysseus has been a carpenter and powerful warrior, who changed and influenced the world with his journey, story and cleverness. In ancient greece the carpender was a creative, artful and even spiritual man, creating beautyfull and functional pieces of wood. Can a carpenter become a great Imaging director? Can a carpenter become a proTools pro in 1.5 years? YES, he can.

Why I am asking you this ?

Today I was thrilled after listening to a production of my assistant producer here at benztown, Fabi. Decide on your own how far he got after 1.5 years, while listening to the Audio and reading the story. As you can assume : He was a carpenter, skater and drum player, before he decided to call us and ask for a volunteership.

[soundcloud width=”100%” height=”81″ params=”secret_url=false” url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/7754209″] Promo Shell Compilation by Benztown Branding Blog

After interviewing him we agreed on a 6 month volunteership. This was in April 2009. Fabi’s willing to learn was massive and his rhythmic and musical talent was easy to engage, having the drum player background. But how to handle a guy never worked on a production software and never seen a radio station as an internal. Well we started from zero. Fabi’s first duties here at benztown have been easy cutting jobs for VO and musical elements. He was extremly motivated and got to know more and more functions on proTools soon, by watching us, reading manuals and watching online tutorials. Oli and I also printed him radio wisedom from all kind of scouces and sent him over to a lot of talented producers we know. The results after half a year were massive. In his free evenings Fabi learned to program drum beats, create drones and started on easy sweeper and promo work, which was pretty basic after 6 month, but I could feel the passion and the motivation to get better and improve each day. After 6 month (in October 2010) the Benztown crew decided to make Fabi participate at an offical education program here in Germany an the results have been amazing and getting better each day.

Let me explain the HOW!

1. Fabi got introduced to a professional production environment with defined rules, jobs and workflow.

2. Fabi learned (and still does) how we produce, cut VO, build our sessions, what plugIN combos we use, how we create powerful VO chains….

3. Fabi got introduced (and still gets) to theoretic background considering radio imaging, radio in general and production (technical) by a lot of talented guys here at benztown, friends in the industry and clients.

4. Fabi learns how to use great gear, how to service and update it

5. Fabi is always motivated and his passion is massive

6. Fabi learned to produce and cut music in the GRID Mode from day one

7. Fabi gets trained from Oli and me on a daily basis, because his more complex productions are always double checked and improvements get explained.

8. Fabi gets trained to work on his own, decide things on his own and grows personally handling his own responsibilities and guiding the new volunteers.

9. Fabi gets influenced and inspired by checking the work of the benztown Imaging Directors Ryan, Harry etc., production icons and helps of benztown branding clients sending great demos.

10. Fabi gets introduced to a multi station background by working on several formats.

Let me explain WHAT DOES HAVING THE PERFECT ASSISTANT means to me or changed my workflow.

It makes my day so much easier having someone knowing what I am up to, how I work and produce –> I don’t have to explain easy day to day businesses a thousand times, I can rely that production and imaging style is covered the way I would do it on my own and I can concentrate more on strategic important business. I have more output and more time to improve myself, learn new stuff and run this blog f.e.:).

+ It is great fun to see Fabi’s massive development (btw. I love to train and educate young industry talent and Fabi definetely is one of the most promising in my opinion).

It might need time to train someone a guy like Fabi than hire an average guy right away, it might be more stress at the beginning, but it is key to success and giving back wisdom and knowledge to the industry.