From Passion to Audiovisual Profession

Lora Bucsis

Lora has always been a champion for forging one’s own path. A non-traditional, lifelong learner herself, Lora leads the team at SAIT responsible for educational products and learner success in Continuing Education and Professional Studies. Wildly curious about how jobs change over time, Lora believes that learning for 21st-century careers needs to come in several different forms from a number of different avenues. When she’s not binge-listening to podcasts or driving her teenagers around, you’ll find her hiking in Alberta’s backcountry — or falling off her bike.

Zachary Novak

Zachary is the Founder of Careers in Technology and Innovation (CITI), an online community that supports experienced professionals find and grow careers in technology. Through Careers in Technology and Innovation, Zachary has hosted over 150 events and has helped over 120 people land roles in tech.

Zachary is a community professional, also providing community consulting work through FML Studios Inc. Zachary was previously the Director of Community at RevvGo, Director of Product at Actionable.co, and spent seven years in investment banking. Zachary holds degrees in engineering, business administration, and is a software development bootcamp graduate.

Pat Hufnagel-Smith 

Pat Hufnagel-Smith, Managing Partner at Creative Links International Inc. since 2002, expanded the organization's services to include project management and labour market research. With a background in Human Resources, she's passionate about skilled worker transition and using labour market intelligence to develop evidence-based action plans. Pat holds a Masters Certificate in Project Management, a BA in Sociology and a Certificate in Adult Education and Facilitation.   

SAIT Podcast: From Passion to Audiovisual Profession

[00:00:00] Anncr: The Best Careers You Never Knew Existed Podcast, sparked by SAIT and co hosted by CITI, the podcast that helps you navigate jobs, learn about new careers and industries! 

[00:00:12] LORA: Thanks for joining us on the Best Careers You Never Knew Existed Podcast. I'd like to invite you to introduce yourself and share a fun fact with us. 

[00:00:22] Mike: My name is Mike Madison. I run my own company, MBM Productions, which does a lot of freelance work in audio and video production. I'm also an adjunct instructor here at SAIT. I've done a lot of different audio recordings. I think one of the wackiest one I ever did was I had to, record larva eating so a biologist could see their eating patterns, that was a challenge.  

[00:00:44] Franco: Hi, I'm Franco Mosca. I'm the production manager of the National Music Center here in Calgary. An interesting fact, I am a SAIT alumni from four different courses, ranging all the way from electrical to solar to having Mike as an instructor doing some digital audio, and various other media skill sets. Happy to be here, thanks.  

[00:01:05] Zach: How did you find your career path and what sets it apart from others?  

[00:01:08] Franco: That's a question that I probably didn't know the answer to when I started doing it. I knew that I was very passionate about music. And it led me in a completely different direction because I felt in order to balance the responsibilities of being an adult and pay your bills and make sure you're eating and doing all those things that your parents or caregivers are doing when you're growing up. 

[00:01:30] It's great to follow your dreams and I realized early on that the volunteer gigs weren't going to do that for me exactly. And it led me down a career in the trades. And I was amazed at how many parallels there were between the two. Which, over having a career in that field, it eventually brought me around to my original passion, and I guess that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing currently. 

[00:01:56] Mike: And for me, it really started with a passion for music and audio when I was in high school, and that led to a career for about 10 years as a professional musician and audio engineer. And a lot of happenstances along the way and having your eyes open at these opportunities that present themselves. I got a job at the University of Calgary recording the music department for CKUA radio broadcasts. 

[00:02:22] Which was challenging, and for anybody interested in audio, it was a lot of fun. I thought it would be great at a really rich research university. And my first recording with a symphony, and I had not one, but two microphones. S,o I learned really quickly about that. But that career, because of being at a university in an organization that worked with all faculties, I got to work on a lot of crazy projects, and really fascinating. 

[00:02:45] That evolved into video production, and video editing, and then multimedia. It's an interesting path and kind of eyes and ears open for opportunities and jumping at the chances when they're there.  

[00:02:58] Zach: It sounds like in both your stories that you're following your heart a little bit and your passion, but that through that curiosity and trying to actually build a career, opportunities may have presented themselves that you weren't expecting. Do you have any stories about how you were following your curiosity and that led you to a place that you didn't expect to go to?  

[00:03:21] Franco: I started working construction, as one of my serious jobs. My dad, he was ready for me to figure it out on my own and he did the good gracious fatherly thing and got me a job at one of the roughest underground construction companies in town and it really developed me as a gritty person and I think seeing the hard work level being in a cold ditch, on a day like today here in Calgary, that starts to show you that people live their whole lives living in that career, and there's absolutely no shame in that. 

[00:03:52] But it's hard work. It's not for everyone. And those motivations helped me realize that though I wasn't a good per say when I was going to school, junior high school, it wasn't my real passion. I was getting by, but I was certainly no straight A student. I Liked working with my hands, and a few years later, I found myself in a position where I was motivated enough to come back to an educational facility and hone up my skill sets. 

[00:04:18] I had a new drive. And that really led me to working on some projects that just popped up because I happened to be here studying, or working along and volunteering at places that I was just passionate about, because I liked the community, I liked music. So, the local scene was something I was supporting anyways, and I'd say, can I show up and help you carry your amps in the venue? Can I help you set up the microphones? Will you show me how that works? And that really led to just opportunities, and each one of those little skill sets turned into a job, so far, anyways.  

[00:04:50] Mike: Yeah, and for me, it's, uh, how to put this, expansion of curiosity. Uh, while I was working at the University of Calgary, they had a really, extensive electroacoustic lab, which had a wall of the synthesizer, and they got this new device at the time called the Fairlight, which was the first sampling synthesizer. 

[00:05:09] So, in my off hours, I would spend way too much time there, and there's this page called Page R in the Fairlight, which was the first sequencer, which would lay things out digitally, where you could lay the notes out and see how they worked. And I just got obsessed with that because it was quite a breakthrough. 

[00:05:27] And then at the same time I was being a video editor, and there was this program called Macromedia Director that came out, which was a visual sequencer. So, my obsession with the audio sequencer translated over into that. And I quite literally became the multimedia department for the U of C on that relationship between those sequencers. 

[00:05:48] And that grew and grew and, of course, I couldn't do everything, so I got really good people to come in and help me. They were way better than me. And I think that's one of the secrets of any of the things with these creative industries, is to surround yourself with people that are better than you. That's how you learn. 

[00:06:02] LORA: I'm curious. I'm going to deviate a little bit. What does a day in the life look like for your careers right now?  

[00:06:08] Franco: It's a lot of balancing of responsibility is really what it is, but it's scheduling. It's finding competent people to help you activate things that are much larger than what one person could manage. 

[00:06:21] So I'm very fortunate to work at the National Music Center. We have a very, uh, extensive, uh, list of things that we get involved with. Everything from school field trips and ensuring that our education programs are seeing a lot of students to hosting halls of fame productions and that type of thing. Our recording studios, the King Eddie as a venue is a rock and live music venue here. 

[00:06:45] So there's many different pieces of the puzzle that make it all work. I think I've learned that it's really a logistical job. Where if you can ensure that the right equipment is in the right place with the right people, you can experience some pretty magical times. And if you don't have all of those things lined up, then sometimes we're all looking at each other wondering what went wrong, and we talk about that later in a debrief, but yeah.  

[00:07:07] Mike: And a day in the life for me, it really depends on which hat I'm wearing. In my own company with MBM Productions, it really depends on the type of work I'm doing. One thing that's always there is a deadline when you're doing video editing and or when you're doing a shoot, there's always time restraints and constraints that you have on your day and I would say the one thing that I've really learned about all of that is grace under pressure you've got to be like the duck swimming across the lake, where to the client, to the audience, everything is perfect and smooth, and no one sees the little legs underneath the water that are just frantically paddling like crazy, and you never let anyone know that is going on. 

[00:07:47] And if people knew what was going on behind the scenes, they'd usually be pretty shocked, and so you have to keep that professional face with your clients and keep that moving, and then there's a lot of technical challenges that you have to overcome. And on the other hand, being an adjunct instructor here at SAIT, theory is a big part of what you have to understand with audio and events and video and all this stuff. 

[00:08:10] My angle for that is, the reason you learn that is so you can communicate with the other team members, but when you're in a difficult situation, you have to problem solve. You've got a scientific and rational approach for solving that problem.  

[00:08:23] Zach: I love that analogy and I think that's the most profound analogy that we've had on this show and that's really going to stick with me, so thanks for sharing that. 

[00:08:29] You're already mentioning some of this when you're describing your, a day in the life of your role, but what skills do you see are crucial or what characteristics Do you look for if someone is trying to enter the field?  

[00:08:45] Mike: Personality and people skills are really important, even though it's strongly technical. 

[00:08:51] And there's an assumption that those technical skills are there. But how you get along with the whole team in whatever situation is really important. On a video production side, that makes or breaks a shoot. On an event side, it's the same thing. That you're just a cohesive team, and you can use lots of sports analogies on that. 

[00:09:09] But how you have to function as a team, and as Franco mentioned with the debrief, if there's problems and people should have done something different, that's when you bring it up, not during the event, not when the client is around.  

[00:09:21] Franco: Yeah, absolutely. I think the technical skill sets are critical to the success of the operation. 

[00:09:27] The soft skills are what make people feel like you really invested everything you had into it. And that's what gives the opportunity to come away with an experience that is everlasting in their minds. So, it's really, I would say technically to get your foot in the door, learn the basics, learn how to be helpful. 

[00:09:45] I come from an apprenticeship background. I really like the approach of having the door open to let somebody come in who's interested. and not having any expectation for them to know what to do. But if they learn how to work, they can become productive. And very quickly you pick up very basic skill sets that something we refer to as tech sense. 

[00:10:06] It's almost something you develop over time that hopefully, most people learn how to roll a cable up properly. That will serve you for your whole life. Is it a fun job? It's sticky, it's dirty, it's gross, but, so necessary. If you learn how to do that properly, that is almost enough to make you helpful. 

[00:10:24] Then you just start hanging out with mentors that can show you all of the details. And you absorb it. You find yourself helping in a lot of ways that become critical to the success of the team. Even if they're not really sitting behind the board and pushing the faders and you're not feeling all of the pressure on you, those shoulders. 

[00:10:44] But there's a role for a lot of people that with a little hard work, reliability, I can't overstate how important reliability is. The best tecs that I've ever worked with. are always on time, they're generally early, the little things to set themselves up for success, and the only way to really learn how to do that is to be around the professionals, be mindful enough that they have a ton of information, and you can absorb it in the right amount of time and in the right place. 

[00:11:16] And if you do that, you just build up your own skills, find out what you need to start learning about and specializing in, and then you just dig in. Most of what you learn is, it's probably because somebody's just interested in, you want to know how a console works. Resources nowadays are incredible. We could bring up the manuals of any console in the world right now, and you could dig right into the nitty gritty, that won't happen on site, that'll happen in your own learning. 

[00:11:44] But those skills be helpful. Learn how to be helpful. And if you do that, the opportunities just keep presenting themselves and that's how you find yourself learning things that you didn't even know you had interest in. And maybe you still don't, but now you know how it works so you can help somebody. 

[00:11:57] Mike: I'd like to follow up on that. I think too, what I've seen, the absolute best skill you can have in this industry is learning how to learn, how to get just in time information. These. mixing consoles, lighting consoles, are complex pieces of equipment, and there's always new software updates, there's always changes, so being able to update your knowledge base very quickly is really important. 

[00:12:21] I would also like to, follow up with what Franco said too, is it's a fairly tight community. And everybody knows each other really quite well. The whole networking thing and how you present yourself is really crucial. And I've seen lots of people that are very courteous and respectful of everybody around them. 

[00:12:43] And they're the people that get hired on the next day and go, oh yeah, I remember them. They were pretty good at this. Yeah, I can work with them. And I think that phrase, I can work with them, is crucial.  

[00:12:52] LORA: Building on that, you both have Different careers, Mike, you're, you've got your own company that you're sole proprietor and [00:13:00] entrepreneur and Franco, you work for National Music Center. 

[00:13:02] If someone were to follow this career path, what are the other types of possible options for them that they could pursue with this kind of like event technician audio trajectory?  

[00:13:17] Mike: Yeah, it's pretty wide and pretty diverse, and I think one aspect of this too is the gig economy, where, yes, there are a lot of jobs you can apply for, but as we're doing this podcasting here, podcasting is increasing like crazy, so you can develop some skills and develop some following and prove that you know what you're doing. 

[00:13:37] There's a lot to do that way. But in terms of the event stuff, if I look at that, every hotel, convention center, you know, and that's just growing and growing, because that's, you know, with the development going on in Calgary in the next three to four years, there's going to be a lot of need for people. 

[00:13:53] Another area is churches. I've helped out some of my friends where the churches have put in incredible, beautiful systems, and it's run by volunteers. And they don't have a strong technical background to follow through. And usually, they fall into two major groups. One that really respects everything and doesn't want to touch anything and leaves it just how it was first set up. And doesn't explore the equipment. And other people that just want to change everything. And so, you need a balance for that. You need some education on what you're doing. So, there's a myriad of these kinds of careers. Festivals, folk festivals are always looking for people to help out with audio and lighting and stage management and all of that stuff. 

[00:14:35] So that's a very good opportunity. Once you have some training and like we're doing at SAIT and then get your door, real world, but most importantly. Real world meeting of people in the industry.  

[00:14:45] Franco: There are so many career paths. There's so many skill sets, recording is becoming such a normal thing.Whether it's video, lighting, audio. 

[00:14:56] It can be everything from broadcasting. The opportunities are there for the right people when they specialize in what they are passionate about. And once you show your competency and you're good to work with, the opportunity is just, they really start coming to the point where you will start rejecting work and it might not always feel that way because you might be out there applying for jobs. 

[00:15:15] It's a really hard market right now, so I'm not suggesting that it's easy to just get started, but sometimes you have to take a whole different approach in getting in just so you can get in. It's that foot in the door. You've got to be ready for the opportunity when it's there and take it and it might be inconvenient. 

[00:15:30] It's going to be late nights. It's going to be doing things that you don't think you like doing, but you're building up the base so that you can create an opportunity for yourself for the next time somebody says, “hey, can you do this?” And then, yeah, you'll just start, maybe it's recording audio.  

[00:15:47] What's super cool about learning to learn and just embracing that whole idea is that you could spend your entire career just in recording studios. Never do anything else. You'd spend your whole lifetime learning about new techniques and new approaches and new equipment. You could do that within all of these different branches. 

[00:16:05] Running big shows at the Saddledome or even going on tour. Some of our techs have been on tour with musicians. They keep telling me that they'll be back in a year. I love this job. I'll be back in a year. I'm going back on the road and they've been around the states in Canada four times in just a few years. 

[00:16:20] So there's so many avenues. I would just say, be passionate about what you do, be professional, be kind and easy to work with and reliability, hard work, those things will get you a long way.  

[00:16:30] Zach: Can you share a little bit more about the relationship or collaborations you have with the musicians, the artists, the creators? 

[00:16:39] Franco: Sure, yeah. I feel incredibly fortunate because we see a lot of musicians and a lot of music. A lot of folks have gone through their entire careers being very successful AV technicians. and never had the chance to mix a band. It's a whole different approach. It's an amazing art. I get to work with people that are so inspiring sometimes. 

[00:17:01] And the moment, it's a situation where the audience feels that inspiration. And even as a technician, you get to be part of that ride too. So, it's really cool to meet these people as people, as they enter the loading dock or you get them oriented, get them set up, and you can almost see them transition into their performance type personality. 

[00:17:23] Not that it necessarily changes a lot, but they have to get into a headspace. It's the whole thing because they're trying to create this magical thing on command. That's a very challenging thing to do. You've got to be very good at it to make it look so easy that anyone can do it. Yeah. It's really cool to be able to talk about creative opportunities and what their vision and goal is. And other times they're just barely making it to the venue because they were driving from BC in a snowstorm and we're holding the doors and setting the band up as fast as we possibly can and starting the show with no line checks and you're, wow, we did it. 

[00:17:58] At the end, it was a show. You guys survived. Thanks for coming here. I hope you had a good time. Come back again on your next tour.  

[00:18:05] Mike: I'd like to add something to that too. In terms of working with musicians, doing a lot of work on that. National Music Center. I think as soon as you treat the musicians as just a musician, if you come in as a fanboy, fangirl, they just turn off. 

[00:18:19] They're just not into that at all. And there's another almost different aspect to this when you, when you're working a show, one show that really stands out to me is the Northern Cree Singers, who are an incredible band that I think is now nine Grammy nominations from Northern Alberta. Phenomenal band. 

[00:18:40] We were doing a live stream with, with them and when the technicians are in sync with the band, it's like their music comes through you. And we were streaming this out to the world. And we're on our social media feeds where, you know, Oh, where are you coming in from? There were people literally from Australia and from the North Pole. 

[00:19:00] And I didn't realize that the First Nation people around the globe are as connected as they are. And they were playing a drummer as well. And sometimes the drumming can sound kind of simplistic. It's not, but to untrained ears, it can. But it was just emotional. And we've got the cameras on one of these performers and he's just crying. 

[00:19:24] There's so much emotion in their music and it was just coming through us. And the little hairs on our arms were standing up because we were, we got to be part of that experience as a technicians. It was just remarkable. And I was driving home and I think it was like, with them, we turned the globe into a big drum at that moment, and we got to be part of that, like it was absolute magic. 

[00:19:48] And then I was thinking, this global thing that we're able to connect to with streaming, with podcasting, all that, is amazing. And I was thinking, geez, I wonder when that first satellite broadcast was that brought the world together. And it would have been The Beatles, All You Need Is Love, was the first global satellite broadcast. 

[00:20:04] And we were able to feel a bit of that emotion and a bit of that connectivity through the music. Like it was an honor to be part of it. And it was also really an honor that we didn't screw anything up. It didn't get in the way of that magic.  

[00:20:19] Franco: Just to add to that though, it's not always magic, and, it's not always as inspiring as it sounds. 

[00:20:26] Sometimes working with musicians is challenging in ways, and I mean that very respectfully to all musicians out there. The creative minds, sometimes, they don't work within the, the strict structures that we require on a production side, we need everything laid out down to every single channel so that you're set up for success. 

[00:20:47] You have lots of musicians that you might be hounding them for months and you are not going to get any information until they walk in the door, and you have to embrace that. You have to just roll with it and realize that if you want to be in a creative industry, then you have to work with all kinds of different people. 

[00:21:04] They work differently. They think differently. And that's, what's really cool is some people, they just love the gear so much that they know every single possible thing you can do with it. They might not necessarily be the best person to present with a lot of creative changes right before we're about to start the show. 

[00:21:23] But at the end of the day, if that's what the artist wants to do, you have to make that work. So, you just embrace that there's going to be change, you're trying to accommodate, It's a service industry, ultimately. It's, you get into it because we're interested in tech. We're serving people all the time, and when they have a good experience, they're very prone to refer to you, or use you again, or just have an experience. 

[00:21:48] I've had some great folks reach out to me months later, just saying, “hey, I was just thinking about our gig at the NMC the other day, and thanks for helping us carry our drums out, we still haven't had anyone else do that on this tour”. And just small things, so yeah.  

[00:22:03] LORA: On that note, what do you think is the hardest thing about what you do? 

[00:22:08] Mike: I would say getting a clear picture from your client of what they want.  

[00:22:12] Franco: Yeah, that's a good point. Trying to build that plan. And often it's just that there's a lot of creative decision making happening, and until you get the right people in the right room at the right time, sometimes those decisions don't get made. 

[00:22:24] You might have an idea as to what they could look like, but they aren't necessarily set in stone. That's probably the hardest part. The other portions of it, they can be tricky too. But, if you've got a good plan, you've got good people lined up and you've got the right equipment, you just got to trust in the team to work together to make it work and then it happens. 

[00:22:44] Sometimes you just hold on for dear life and say, Oh no. And then at the end we go, I'm sorry. What do you do?  

[00:22:50] LORA: Both of you have taken nontraditional career paths. A lot of folks go to university, and they get a degree and then they, but I'm getting the sense that when it comes to audio slash event technician folks, there's a lot of options that maybe are open to people that don't necessarily take a more traditional career path through education, so can you speak to that a little bit?  

[00:23:18] Mike: Yeah, because a lot of it comes out of a passion of wanting to do something, and I think that carries over to most of the arts. There's the economic reality that Frank mentioned at the beginning, and just doing that. For my career, I've been really lucky. I've been able to do this since high school. 

[00:23:37] And not many people have that opportunity, but I think there's a huge satisfaction in following your instincts on this. And will it be successful for everybody? Maybe not. It depends on your definition of success. Sometimes that's monetary, sometimes that's creative, and sometimes it's just being able to work with interesting people. 

[00:23:57] Franco: I feel like building your skill sets is just a really critical procedure that you might not even realize is happening as it's happening, but following your passion is really important. When I got into electrical, it was much better than digging a ditch. Did I really love every aspect of that? No. 

[00:24:14] Reflecting upon it, the experience of learning and challenging myself to get to a level where I could speak with professionals, and we could converse about things. I didn't know that I would be as excited as I was when I could do that. It gave me this value where I felt like I could go anywhere in Canada and work as a journeyman electrician. 

[00:24:35] What a great opportunity. My passion, was it building giant buildings? No, but I found the camaraderie with the, the people that. I bonded with, really held it all together and I had a great experience in, in some cases. Once I started getting to the point where I saw that what is what I could be doing for the rest of my life, I think the passion came calling back and said, there’s that nice new building, they're saving the King Eddie if you can believe it. 

[00:25:01] And at the time, I thought the only chance I'd have in working in that is if I was ushered in with the building. I thought if I built it, if I could get it with the company that was working on building the National Music Center, maybe I could get on as a maintenance electrician. Honestly, at that period of my life, I thought that was the only avenue I had. 

[00:25:19] I started volunteering and reigniting a passion for music again. And I found that I really liked the customer service part. I really liked working in an environment where we're hosting the world in some cases. So, I would say there's a lot of good opportunities out there. Be passionate, be nice, find good people to work around. 

[00:25:40] And I think nontraditional, I'm using quotations, I guess you can't hear that, lines of becoming a professional. Sometimes are the best way to go. I'm really glad I didn't go to university. It wouldn't have been a good path for me, going to SAIT was really good for me because it was hands on learning experience, matched with a period of time where I just needed to learn the theory and the studies of it. And that break was so good because you got to put it into practice and then see it work. I think that really clicked for me. Build your skill sets, you'll use all of them.  

[00:26:12] Mike: Yeah, and I think with that is you can't have too many skills. There'll be a passion that you have. My passion was audio and music. I ended up being a video editor, and I can edit on the beat pretty well, and that helped a lot. 

[00:26:24] But I think I should mention the really deep tie ins that SAIT and National Music Center have. I think it's important on this. When I was still working at the University of Calgary, I was part of one of the SAIT's advisor councils with the new media productions designed, and there was this young fellow, a guy named Andrew Mosker, who was there. 

[00:26:42] And he really recommended that we have, that SAIT have an audio program, because there's no one who was getting training for that part. And it turned out it would take 5 7 years to go through the traditional Alberta learning approval process, which is due diligence on their part, they have to do that. 

[00:26:59] But if we could do it in kind ed, we could do that really quickly. And we did. That was a meeting in the spring, and in the fall, we were developing the curriculum. It was great that SAIT could be so proactive and listening to industry of what needs to happen. With the Event Tech program, it came the other way. 

[00:27:16] Both Juan Herdado and myself was working at the National Music Center, and we were saying, it's really hard to find people that are trained in this industry. So, we proposed, through content, some of the contacts we'd worked with on the audio program, they said that's not a, that's a good idea, that's an industry need, so put forward to the Alberta government, and they came up with this, they approved it, and what's nice about it, it's a micro credential, so it's the complete polar opposite of a four year university degree. 

[00:27:47] Where you can, you get a credential for each course that you, you get and through the whole program, and you can use that credential and your LinkedIn profile or wherever you're looking for jobs. So, it's very good just in time education where you can get these skill sets to get your foot in the door. So, it's a real sim symbiotic relationship with the NMC and SAIT, and it's been a really fruitful relationship for both organizations.  

[00:28:13] Zach: Many of our listeners are new to Alberta and Calgary. Can you just share a little bit of what the National Music Center is?  

[00:28:21] Franco: We're a not-for-profit organization here in Calgary, Alberta. We've been open since 2016. It has much deeper roots than that. It is a museum, an event space, an educational resource. There's a restaurant and bar and live music venue, as the King Eddie is home to the Rolling Stone Mobile, which, if any of you music fans out there, Led Zeppelin's 3 and 4. This is when the music passion really starts coming out and we can, really? 

[00:28:54] That happened there? Yeah, so it's a very unique place. It's a tourist destination. It's many different things depending on the day, which is really cool because it allows for the opportunity for almost everything included in audio and video to have some place in it at some point in time. So that's a little bit about what we do. 

[00:29:16] Mike: Yeah. And I think another thing that's really unique about the National Music Center, it's a living museum. It's the instruments are meant to be played and there's a very, very methodical approach to how these instruments are used and preserved, but to give people access to be able to record in somewhere like the Rolling Stones Recording Studio, which is iconic, or the original New Timbrel Orchestra, the Tonto, which Stevie Wonder did all of his most important work on, like the, it's just incredible. 

[00:29:46] And the biggest shock that everybody says is, in Calgary? Yes, it's in Calgary and it's thriving and it's a fantastic facility with absolutely amazing people that are really pushing the envelope of what museums can do and what organizations can do.  

[00:30:04] LORA: Have you been, Zach?  

[00:30:05] Zach: I have, both to the museum and lucky enough to the production studio as well, and that was really, impressed. 

[00:30:11] A friend of mine produced his most recent album at the National Music Center and his partner was actually in London, so they did this production between Calgary and London, and I was just blown away. So, if anyone, definitely go check out the National Music Center. I think it's every odd weekend where they go into the production studio as well. 

[00:30:30] Franco: Yeah, there's, we have various tours and programs running at any given time. Honestly, just have a look at our website to see what's up and coming for the following weeks. It can change a lot. We're always updating galleries. We're the host of the halls of fame, the Canadian music halls of fame, which is amazing because we have these artists that put so much of their life into their craft and have inspired so many people coming and putting their names up on the wall, their plaques, and just even being around those experiences with their friends and family is, it's just such an honor to work in an environment like that. 

[00:31:06] But yeah, please come check it out. Um, I'm always excited because almost every day I, there's another Calgarian I get to meet who hasn't been there yet. The downtown core is going through a bit of a transitionary stage right now, but with that being said, I think it's really important that as our city keeps growing, we just really support these institutions that are offering opportunities in the nontraditional types of work and really support them because every ticket counts. If you're really helping a band, maybe just fill up their tank. Everything's getting more expensive and they're all feeling it. I encourage all Calgarians and all folks outside of Calgary, whether you're traveling internationally or visiting. Come check it out. 

[00:31:47] It's a great place to even wander around. The architecture is very unique, amazing. You can spend your whole day just taking photographs if you wanted to. So yeah, please come check us out. Appreciate all the nice words you said about the organization.  

[00:32:00] Zach: Where do you see the future of the industry going?  

[00:32:04] Franco: I think that the technology and the people are going to make things that were very difficult to ever have as an experience, very common. 

[00:32:16] Technology is changing so fast. We were talking about the Zoom streaming, live broadcasting. That used to be a thing that you needed millions of dollars to set up and do, and almost everyone can do it on their phone. It's insane, which means that there's so much opportunity out there for creating things. 

[00:32:40] We're in a really fortunate position that there's always going to be the need for video, for audio, for lighting. People are always going to want to either celebrate, commiserate, and go through all the other emotions of, of the human condition together. And that's how we tie into it. There's yeah, tons of opportunity, I think. 

[00:33:00] Mike: Yeah. I think too, on the content creation side, which is underneath all of this, for all of these events, somebody has created content for it. I think those opportunities are greater. And one of the philosophies that we've had in developing the event program is to use the broadcast model that has always been there, the broadcast standards and broadcast process, which is, it's very well-developed smartphones. So, if people can go out, capture footage, see what it looks like on their computer screen, edit it, go back, so you have that cycle that's going on. I think the unknown aspect of where all this industry is going, and many industries, is what's the effect of AI. And I think successful people in the future are going to be the ones that harness the potential with AI. 

[00:33:53] What that is, I don't think anybody really knows right now. A lot of it is just branding and putting those two initials on everything that goes on, but there's a lot of opportunities. I was just reading Adobe has a new research project coming out that's going to use text prompts to generate music. How good is it going to be? 

[00:34:11] We'll see. But is it going to find its way into people doing podcasts, people doing videos? It's going to be part of it. Is it going to be as good as the Hall of Fame people? I don't think so, but it's going to be part of the creative process, and I guess for me, being a drummer, I had to deal with drum machines early on in my career, and I was one of the guys that took the approach, it's not going to take my job, it's going to create my job. 

[00:34:35] With that, my own music production company, there's a point in time where we're a wonderful radio station, In Alberta, CKUA was um, merged with an educational television station, AXS, and became the AXS Network, and they needed theme music for the station, so my production company at that time, Matrix. We were using the technology, and we knew that we could generate much, much more music than the traditional ways, still at a high quality. And so, we won the contract over people that are Juno and Gemini, uh, winning composers, because we saw the opportunity. And we got kickback on that, where people say, you're putting musicians out of work. 

[00:35:15] And our response was, we're musicians, we're working, and I think that attitude has to continue with whatever the new technologies are. Use it. It's absolutely wonderful.  

[00:35:27] LORA: If you had to give one piece of advice to someone who's considering a career path, what would you say?  

[00:35:32] Franco: Make sure you really want to do it, and if you do and you're really passionate about it, then spend your time researching it. 

[00:35:39] The doom scrolling that you can get caught into, every minute of that, every hour of that could be researching a manual. And if you do dig into those things, you will have the information required to operate the equipment that you think you want to run, and then you'll be able to do it. Work hard at it, be reliable. Study on your all the time. Just keep learning.  

[00:36:02] Mike: and my advice is to be curious.  

[00:36:04] Franco: When you follow your passion you find people that have similar passions and It's so amazing to work alongside people that get excited about similar things as you, we had a moment today where in our office and there was a major concert announcement today And, the org you could almost feel the excitement of everyone in the room, because we were all, Is this really that's happening? No way! And that kind of excitement, I think, feeds into passion of what you do. Surround yourself with good people.  

[00:36:34] Mike: The passion is rewarded. You get to find yourself in wonderful situations. A little anecdotal story here. Corb Lund was recording at the King Eddie, and we were interviewing him in the Rolling Stones mobile studio. 

[00:36:48] So it's a little surreal to start with. And Corb is a wonderful man. And there was a moment where we had Neil Young's acoustic guitar, and we brought it in the Rolling Stones mobile, and Corb sang Four Strong Winds. I said, this is by my good friend Ian Tyson, wrote this song, and Neil Young had this big hit. 

[00:37:12] That passion of throughout my career, and Chad S. G. is a videographer on there. That led us to that point, and we were able to enjoy that and have that private concert. And it was just another one of those tingly moments. Like, all of the stuff is not like that, but you get those opportunities, and if you keep your eyes and ears open, you can really enjoy them. 

[00:37:34] LORA: Amazing. That's so cool.  

[00:37:36] Zach: Yeah, I think do interesting work to meet interesting people. It's really great to see these career paths for people. Yeah, follow your curiosity and learn together.  

[00:37:46] Franco: Strip back the ego as well. When you become a team player, the good of the team is what's good for the production. 

[00:37:53] It's good for the event when you can do that and everyone's working with the same intent, the same purpose. It's a really bonding experience too. When it falls apart, if you fall apart together, I think it actually brings you together stronger and you find out just what you're made out of and then you just bounce back and you learn a lot from those lessons. That makes you a better individual, a better technician. Maybe you reflect upon it. But yeah. 

[00:38:20] LORA: Very cool. Thank you so much.  

[00:38:22] Anncr: The Best Careers You Never Knew Existed Podcast, sparked by SAIT and CITI funded by the government of Alberta. Have a career suggestion or want to appear as a guest, get in touch SAIT.ca/careerspodcast. Rate and review this podcast and you might find your review on a future episode. Please subscribe to the Best Careers You Never Knew Existed, wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. With Lora Bucsis and Zach Novak. Produced by Terran Anthony Allen and Jenna Smith. Executive produced by Lora Bucsis. 

[00:38:59] Voice over by me, dun dun dun. Special thanks to SAIT Radio for their support and the use of their studios. And most of all, thank you for listening. 

SAIT’s Continuing Education and Professional Studies offers hands-on, immersive courses to infuse your career with the latest skills that employers are looking for. 

Event Technician Certificate of Achievement

SAIT’s Event Technician Certificate of Achievement provides comprehensive real-world training in sound, lighting and video.

This 168-hour program is perfect for kick-starting your career in live event production, including theatre, television and corporate events. Gain hands-on experience in our state-of-the-art theatre lab with guidance from industry professionals. Learn effective communication with a live event crew, operate lighting systems, capture professional-quality footage, and create the perfect listening experience. Whether you're an aspiring social media content creator or looking to upgrade your skills, this program will set you up for success.

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Digital Audio Certificate of Achievement

Do you love music and are fascinated by the technical aspects of sound? SAIT’s Digital Audio Certificate of Achievement will prepare you for work as a technician in live-event settings.

In this 150-hour Digital Audio certificate program you'll gain comprehensive training in sound theory and work with digital audio hardware and software to learn the necessary competencies to succeed in a variety of in-demand audio production and engineering occupations. This certificate is a great complement to our Event Technician Certificate of Achievement, preparing you for work as a technician in live-event settings or to enhance your technical skills as a content creator.

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