Bulldogs and Beacons Phase 1 Ra'shaun

Thomas Ritter (00:02.506)
Here's a progress report on a project that I'm involved with. I'm proud to have been pulled into frankly, that is funded in part by the Cumberland County cultural and heritage commission through the Bridgeton Beacon podcast. The Bridgeton Beacon is a South Jersey nonprofit that shines a light on everything good in the community in the greater Bridgeton area, arts, culture, economic development, you name it. If it's good, they want to shine a light on it. So.

I was pulled in to be the instructor related to this program where you can sponsor a bulldog and that's essentially what the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission has done. They've written a check and

Thomas Ritter (00:49.684)
They've written a check and put their cards on the table and allow us to bring in some local youth who are interested in production, media, potentially careers in production or media, podcasting, YouTube, audio, engineering, all of the various components that make up all the types of production that the Bridgeton Beacon does. So I'm lucky enough to have the job of essentially being the instructor.

This is a progress report on project number one. We've got a great participant for this first project. He picked an awesome topic. His name is Rashaun. So Rashaun and I met last week. We went through a list of the approved topics related to culture and art in the greater Bridgeton area that makes sense to serve a stakeholder like the cultural and heritage commission. And that also fit in well with the overall mission of the Bridgeton Beacon.

And so those are the weird little things you have to check off in terms of boxes as a producer in the early goings. So these are the conversations we've had with Ra'shaun so far, which are topic selection and he nailed it. The Riverside Renaissance Center for the Arts in MIllville New Jersey was, was the topic he chose and it was a home run. I couldn't have come up with a better one as a producer for a small nonprofit because

the Riverside Renaissance Center has multiple galleries therein, which means Ra'shaun like he'd been doing this for years, said, hey, if we make one trip to that location, we can actually sort of produce multiple pieces for the Cultural and Heritage Commission in one effort.

Thomas Ritter (02:41.151)
Buenos dias.

Hello?

See?

Thomas Ritter (02:53.632)
Who you looking for, Steven?

Thomas Ritter (03:09.876)
The topic that Ra'shaun selected serves the stakeholders immensely well via just pure efficiency. I couldn't have planned it better. We get to do essentially multiple productions or multiple promotions of venues related to the arts in South Jersey, and we've only got to make one trip to one building to do it. So that right there, these are the conversations that

you keep notes on and you have a checklist for in the next instance so that Ra'shaun knows the next time he wants to choose a topic or produce a topic and he's working for somebody, that's one of the things that'll really make that person happy is if he can identify an opportunity like this where it's like, hey, absolutely, we'd love to promote culture and heritage. And it just so happens that in one trip, we're gonna be able to visit multiple galleries.

He hit it out of the park in our very first meeting just with topic selection. And that also dictates then what the production process is, the participants involved, and the tools and technology that you're gonna require to put it out in the end. So we know that this is gonna be an indoor location. We don't know if the light's gonna be the same in all of these galleries, but guess what? They're galleries. So the light's gonna be good in all of them.

we've got, had it been outside, then we'd be concerned about time of day, position of the sun, background noise. Where in this instance, we're talking about coordinating with somebody who can give us a walkthrough tour, or maybe multiple people for the multiple venues within the Renaissance Arts Center. And the tools we need to simply record that effectively and turn around a production efficiently

After the first meeting with Rashaun with topic selection and we went through just some of the basics of what the production will most likely look like. We then met with Meg McCormick Horner, the founder of the Bridgeton Beacon. She's essentially the on -camera talent for the beacon. She interviews the local luminaries and heads of the chambers and rotary and local businesses.

Thomas Ritter (05:36.21)
So I wanted to make sure that she and Ra'shaun get on the same page in terms of a production plan. So I've got Meg in line with the whole idea of producing it, Riverside Renaissance. Ra'shaun will take what is usually my role or the role of production assistant to Meg when she's on site, which will literally be following them around with a camera while they wear lapel mics and have a conversation on topic.

So that's what this particular project looks like. And we've had just phase one conversation so far. Topic, production implications, does this serve the stakeholders and how does it serve the stakeholders? Meaning, you know, obviously Cultural and Heritage Commission. Obviously we want the actual galleries in the Riverside Renaissance Center for the Arts to love this and it to represent them well.

but also the Bridgeton Beacon itself and the goals and mandates of the Bridgeton Beacon as a nonprofit, you know, to really shine a light on good things. And so all of those things are in line. The next steps with Ra'shaun are going to be setting the actual date and time with the participants from the Riverside Renaissance Center with Meg and with Ra'shaun on site.

where it will be his job to go through a checklist with Meg and whoever's participating just to make sure that she and the other person don't have to worry about their mics. They don't have to worry about their lighting. They don't have to worry about any of the nitty gritty that can really screw up a production. For example, like standing in front of a bright window. If we went into this.

And Meg's busy talking to the curator perhaps, and if Rashaun doesn't have a checklist, we might find the subjects of our video in front of maybe the front window of the gallery. And it might be a bright sunny day. And that's going to completely black them out in silhouette and make it very dark image. I know you've seen that, taking pictures just on your phone in the last five years. It's harder to take a picture of somebody with a light behind.

Thomas Ritter (07:59.134)
Ra'shaun will have a checklist to make sure that there's no commercial music playing. Because if there's copyrighted music playing while he's walking through the gallery and they're doing this recording, as soon as that video hits YouTube, that video is going to be restricted in some ways. Most likely. You can't have Taylor Swift and Neil Diamond as the soundtrack for your nonprofit videos without the permission of Taylor Swift or Elton John or whoever's playing.

over the speakers in those galleries. So Rashaun will take the place of the usual producer. He and I, our next meeting is going to be to create that checklist based on what we know about the Riverside Renaissance Center for the Arts and the participants and the time of day and the conditions when we're recording. So he'll be there, clipboard in hand, check a couple boxes, and as long as we do that...

We know that 99 out of 100 times, we're not gonna have some crazy weird element pop up in production that adds three or four or 14 hours to the editing of the audio, to the editing of the video, or to the final production of the content. And these are all things that nobody would ordinarily think of if they just wanted to shoot a video.

But having gone through it just once with us, Ra'shaun can take that checklist with him and Ra'shaun can have the decision tree outlined from topic selection through production so that, you know, the next time there's an opportunity to produce something, he'll have the tools to at least address it from an intermediate standpoint and say, this is most likely what we need. This is most likely how we should do it.

and make sure it serves the stakeholders. But it's been a good deal of fun already. Rashaun's really, really interested in the project and we like to do this already. So that's just fun, you know, to have somebody who wants to hear about what you do and participate in it and learn about it. We couldn't be happier to absolutely answer all his questions and try and give him the skills that he could use to

Thomas Ritter (10:22.228)
have a freelance side gig going forward. There's nothing that stops any of the participants in this project from offering these services going forward to a local business on their own or on Fiverr or Upwork or any of those gig websites where they can sell, you know, if, if Rashaun loves audio editing and taking the background noise out, people will pay you to do that all day long.

Or maybe Rashaun gets really interested in like cutting the video into clips for social media and use across various venues. That right there is a skill set by itself that he could use as a job or side gig. And certainly all of these things are going to look good on his resume. And he's going to get a production credit on the Bridgeton Beacon that he should certainly include on his college application. You know, that's a great extracurricular.

He's an associate or assistant producer for a nonprofit that focuses on cultural and heritage and history and the arts. That's a good look. And so that's the gist of this whole project is sponsoring a bulldog, bringing them through this process. A bulldog is, that's Bridgeton, that's the mascot. If you play in Bridgeton, you're a bulldog.

You go to school in Bridgeton, you're a bulldog. So we're accepting children who don't live in Bridgeton, but when they're working with us, they're going to be bulldogs. And that's it. It's just a really good thing. I'm glad to have been pulled into it and involved. It'll be my pleasure to work with Ra'shaun. We have a couple other projects coming after this. We'll have more participants and more progress reports. But we're at the point with this project where we simply need to get

scheduled with the Riverside Renaissance Center. If you have any interest in donating, if you'd like to support the Bridgeton Beacon and this project that was kicked off with funding from the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission, you can jump right in and support it. It's at BridgetonBeacon.com / support. Let me double check that real quick.

Thomas Ritter (12:53.588)
Yes, bridgetonbeacon.com / support. And it's a real world production experience for participants in this project, from production planning to audio and video recording techniques to editing and post production processes. Touch on things like fair use and copyright laws, transcription and copywriting after the fact, art design and media kits to send to the participants like send the art gallery clips that they can share on their social.

promote themselves, also that looks good for the Beacon. So again, it's serving all the stakeholders and should look great for the participants as they get a production credit, a real production credit on a real media website. Should be wonderful resume enhancement for college or job applications. It should be really good networking. You know, these kids are going to be getting out and meeting the movers and shakers in the community in terms of who's running chambers and who's

who's involved with local projects like the Cultural and Heritage Commission. mean, just getting all this exposure to real world entities that matter in the region in which you live seems to me like a great investment for these kids too. So.

Without having planned any of this, I hope it wasn't too rambly. If you have any questions, you can reach out to editor @ bridgetonbeacon .com. If you'd like to support the program in any measure, you can go to bridgetonbeacon .com / support and click the little play button. It'll take you to our page where you can put a couple dollars behind our next project with our next bulldog and make sure that we can run kids through this program.

constantly and ongoing. This started as a, with a, you know, a finite project scope with the Cultural and Heritage Commission. And we're very excited to have, be progressing through that as we speak. But there's almost no scenario in which we don't have momentum to keep going afterwards. Like this is such a good feel so far that it's absolutely going to continue. We invite you to participate or sponsor.

Thomas Ritter (15:10.524)
or suggest topics, but the Bridgeton Beacon and the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission in partnership with Area Youth, this is a great program. I'm Tom the Producer Guy and that's my two cents. Thanks for giving me your ear.