Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1179544
anything. I've also taught at USC, Art Center of Design, LACC, and many other venues. But my mentoring is not completely altruistic—I learn from my students as well. Many years ago, I got a panicked call from a newbie on a ShotMaker camera car who was having a mysterious static problem. After half an hour of remote investigating and experimenting over the phone, we found the trouble was caused by the truck's electronics package located behind the passenger seat, where the excess mike cable had been coiled on its way to the towed picture car. The very next week, I found myself in exactly the same situation, thanks to my crew who had rigged the cables via the same route. I took me only ten seconds to correct the problem. There are many other advantages to disseminating knowledge. In 1984, when Nagra released their first timecode recorder, the IV-STC, the manual that came with it was primitive and not particularly useful, especially to a user that had no familiarity with timecode. When I complained, I was told: "If you don't like our manual, write one yourself." With the help of the late Manfred Klemme, the Hollywood Nagra rep, we produced a thin tome that I titled Using Timecode in the Reel World. It was an instant hit (not in the least because it was free), but the IV-STC customers wanted even more information, particularly about timecode in general. I did most of the work on the Second Edition of UTCitRW, with Manfred providing the printing and distribution. At that point, he had no more time to spare for this enterprise, so I took over completely with the vastly-enlarged Third Edition, and sold it for $29.95. The cost didn't discourage the purchasers, and I netted over $5,000 in the following years, until timecode was so well- known that the book was no longer needed. I also wrote articles for Mix magazine. Now that I was a "published author," as well as a "university professor," new doors opened for me, and in 1995 I was invited to Japan to present a technical paper at an international symposium on production recording (InterBEE95). More recently, in 2010 and 2011, I was sent to China to sell American-made sound gear to Chinese mixers, and since I had worked on the last three years of Avatar, I was a celebrity, as well as an authority. Everywhere I went, women wanted to have their picture taken with me. (And other things, but I'm monogamous.) Da Nang classroom Helping to reduce our trade deficit with China