Oct. 27, 2016 TV production: I went to Kijiji to look at some "TV, media, fashion" jobs. I see that iLink Media Group is looking for a salesperson. Here's an excerpt of the ad:
You will manage, maintain and cultivate a portfolio of high profile clients, agencies and top business leaders to foster future revenue. You will also develop, plan and execute successful advertising campaigns by determining the most appropriate sales approach and negotiating competitive advertising rates with clients/agencies.
Do you…
• have a post-secondary degree, diploma or equivalent in advertising, sales, business, marketing, or a related field? • have 2 to 5 yrs. of proven sales experience in media advertising sales? • have a passion to do a great job…at all times.
Dynacor Media: That reminds me that I met someone in the Filmmakers Group and he worked as a salesperson there. He dissed the company.
Studio Post: I did a job interview for them a few years ago and they were looking for a sales person.
Oct. 28, 2018 Dynacor Media job interview: This is an interview I went to back in 2008. I guess I can write about it now. You guys maybe like: "Why?"
I couldn't get an internship at CBC in 2003 because I wasn't in the NAIT's TV and Radio program.
I couldn't get into NAIT's TV program at 3 different intakes. (2004- 2006)
I couldn't get into NAIT's Radio program at 2 different intakes. (2006-2006)
I applied to CBC as an admin assistant in 2008, but I didn't get call backs.
I applied to some TV production companies in 2008, but not a lot. I didn't get call backs.
This Dynacor Media was the first time I ever got a call back to a TV production company. I was so excited. I have been wanting to be a TV writer and producer since I was 14 yrs old. Now I'm 22 and I have recently studied 2 yrs at Professional Writing at MacEwan.
I was pitching my script The Vertex Fighter to get produced since Jan. 2008.
It was a bright and sunny day. I called a taxi and the East Indian driver saw me. I was wearing a button down and dress pants.
Driver: Are you going to a job interview?
Tracy: Yeah.
Driver: You'll probably get the job.
The interview was with the 2 bosses. All I remember is that I told them about the college rejections and my script pitch.
They told me they did training videos and it was fun to produce. One of them thought I had more skills than being an administrative assistant there.
I did not get hired, which is fine.
I can write about it now because I'm not giving a lot of personal information about the company.
Dynacor Media criticism: The guy from the Filmmakers Meetup said this about the company:
1. They had a green room and it was very expensive and they hardly used it.
2. The bosses bugged me when I'm working and making sales calls.
3. They hired 2 graphic designers and there wasn't graphic design work for them.
There are 7 reviews on Glassdoor. 3 of them were positive and 4 of them were negative. I'm going to post the negative ones and there was comments from the Operations Manager about it:
"5 people left or got let go in 11 weeks."
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
I worked at Dynacor Media full-time
Pros
Good staff, nice Avid systems.
Cons
Owners living in the dark ages, medieocre business people.
Advice to Management
Don't hire people only to let them go or have them quit because there is no work.
"Good for launching or ending a career"
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
I worked at Dynacor Media full-time
Pros
Co-workers, higher end equipment, cross training to further expand skills.
Cons
Low wages, poor benefits, micro-managing, inconsistent management direction, high turnover, lacking employee respect.
Advice to Management
Let the workers do their jobs. Be open to new ideas and ways of thinking. Respect your employees and give them the freedom to perform and be creative.
"A Place to Maybe Start a Career"
StarStarStarStarStar
Former Employee - Anonymous Employee
Doesn't Recommend
Neutral Outlook
I worked at Dynacor Media full-time (More than a year)
Pros
- Fantastic Co-workers, they are knowledgeable and friendly
- Work load was not crushing, allowed for time to learn and experiment with new tools/techniques - Variety of projects meant that you were not doing the same types of projects over and over again
Cons
- Management gets angry if you are out of your seat.
- Frequent arguments between owners/managers (business and personal related) that are very awkward to be caught in the middle of. - Employees are generally treated as a disposable commodity and reminded constantly that they are replaceable. - Pay is low, raises were non existent (yet the owners always seemed to find money for new cars and other luxury … Show More
Advice to Management
Treat your employees better. They are your only talent. It takes a long time to get a good employee up to speed and yet you somehow think that you can just replace experience with a warm seat in a chair. Treat employees with respect, pay them a decent wage and focus on making your work place great and people will stick around.
"Keep on looking...."
StarStarStarStarStar
Current Employee - Anonymous Employee
Doesn't Recommend
Neutral Outlook
I have been working at Dynacor Media full-time
Pros
Great talented Employees
Work to be done Nice looking office Good equipment for both freelancers hired and for the internal staff. Robust departments of talent: Multi Media, Tech, Producing, Marketing, Editing
Cons
Lack of departmental communication
Lack of organization Large sense of distrust Emotional Duress Extreme Stress Extremely High Turn Over Rate Lack of Pre-planning and realistic deadline scheduling
Nov. 29, 2016 "It's do or dye": Today I found this article by Melissa Hank in the Edmonton Journal:
The actors on the time-travelling series Timeless have donned their share of headgear — swarthy 10-galloners, demure cloches, silk stovepipes and the like. But you could say the woman who dresses them, costume designer Mari-An Ceo, wears even more hats on set.
She’s an amateur historian, a corset whisperer, actor collaborator and, given her job to transport viewers to a completely different era each week, a bona fide magician. Yet Ceo almost refused to lend her abracadabra to the Global and NBC freshman drama.
“There was no way I was going to say yes to this project — (I thought), it couldn’t be done!” she says with a laugh. A little persuading from show co-creator Eric Kripke, with whom she’d worked on the post-apocalyptic series Revolution, brought her around.
“I thought maybe I’d just make it to the first four episodes and then I’d quit. Or something’s just not going to work and then I’d be done. But somehow we’re doing it. It’s very difficult, though — it’s basically a mini-movie every episode, and we have to set up, make everything and break it back down every couple of weeks, which is kind of crazy.”
Starring Abigail Spencer, Matt Lanter and Malcolm Barrett, Timeless centres on a trio who zip through time to stop former NSA asset Garcia Flynn (Goran Visnjic), from changing the course of U.S history. So far, they’ve relived events surrounding the Hindenburg disaster, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the Battle of the Alamo and Watergate.
It’s Ceo’s mission to deliver hundreds of period-appropriate costumes for each episode on time and on budget — a TV budget at that, which is a fraction of what you’d have for a film. A hundred extras in a street scene could cost about $100 each, but putting them in costumes fitting the era could bump that to about $400 a head.
Add to that two outfits per episode for the four main actors, 20 or so day players and Kripke’s rule that the show can never return to a time it’s already been, and the budget is tighter than a pair of skinny jeans after a few too many chicken wings.
“You’re talking about corsets and hoopskirts, suspenders and ascots, and it’s just very elaborate. It’s a tall order to ask a crew to be an expert in every time period, to know what jewelry to pick, how to tie a corset and what kind of corset goes with what outfit,” says Ceo.
Working from the show’s set in Vancouver, Ceo sources outfits from the U.S., England and here in Canada. A wardrobe team in Los Angeles also helps pull together loose threads.
“Usually the further back the time period, you have to get costumes from more places because not much exists … and if we have to make it, we make it quickly and dye it and age it. I’ve never done anything quite this complicated in a short amount of time,” says Ceo, whose resume includes the films The Last Samurai, set in 19th-century Japan, and Alexander, about Alexander the Great.
“We look at museums, paintings and artists’ interpretations if we have an actual historical figure we have to match, like Abraham Lincoln. You really try to go back to what it was exactly. It seems like it would be easy, but today we’re trying to hunt down the braid for (Revolutionary War officer Charles), Cornwallis’s uniform coat. And it doesn’t exist — it was done by hand many years ago.”
Luckily the actors are up for whatever sartorial adventure Ceo and her team are planning.
“They’re always game, every single one of them. Whether it’s breaches or stockings on the guys, or a corset for Abigail. Many costumes aren’t that easy to move around in, yet they embrace it.”
As for her favourite era to work on so far? Ceo is diplomatic.
“They all are my favourites in one way or another. I love doing Bonnie and Clyde right now because it’s Bonnie and Clyde, and it’s cool,” she says, hinting at the Dec. 6 episode.
“We loved doing Las Vegas in the ’60s. We had hundreds of extras for that episode. And by the time we transformed the pool with the floating bar and dressed everybody in their vintage clothes around that, it was like we were in 1960s Las Vegas and I just wanted to order a martini and hang out by the pool.”
My week:
Sun. Nov. 4, 2018 Work: Last Sun. night I went to work. There are always desserts in the staffroom, but this time there was only 1 so I ate it. There was only 1 customer that night. This Sun. there were lots of desserts in the staffroom. There were also 16 customers so it was steady.
Nov. 5, 2018 Fridge Detective: I was reading "Icebox a window into your life" in the Edmonton Journal. It's where you look at a picture of someone's fridge contents and try to guess the person's age, job, and other details about them.
Now. 6, 2018 Lowe's Canada closing 31 stores: I read this:
American Apparel returning to Canada:
American Apparel will return to the Canadian market with an online store on Nov. 1., a year after its bankruptcy and closure.
This time the brand will be Canadian-owned and, for now, won't have any physical stores in the country, said American Apparel's brand marketing director Sabina Weber, who indicated the company was taking a careful approach to its relaunch as it measured how its customers have changed.
Montreal's Gildan Activewear won an auction for the company after it went into bankruptcy and now is testing the market for its line of popular unisex hoodies, bodysuits, tights and leggings.
American Apparel was founded in 1989 with a "Made in America" ethos and a proclivity for using its clothing to champion immigration, LGBT rights and diversity — values that are sticking around. It was known for selling basics, but caught criticism with its provocative advertising that often featured scantily clad women in suggestive poses.
Much of the controversy around the company centred on its founder Dov Charney who faced allegations of sexual misconduct.
Montreal-born Charney was ousted from his president-CEO role in 2014 amid "an investigation into alleged misconduct" and a series of lawsuits alleging his misbehaviour. He has denied many of the allegations, but admitted to having sexual relations with some employees, though he said they were consensual. He has not rejoined the brand, American Apparel confirmed.
My opinion: Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the boss facing sexual misconduct. Maybe this company will go well now that it's online.
Deluxe Burger Bar: I went to the West Ed mall location in 2013. It has closed down. There are 4 locations in Edmonton (if you count the St. Albert one).
Shakira breaks ground on school:
Pop superstar Shakira has celebrated her return to her native Colombia by breaking ground on two new schools. The Hips Don’t Lie hitmaker took her El Dorado World Tour back to her roots as she prepared to wrap up the trek, and used the trip to lay the first bricks in the facilities in Cartegena and her hometown of Barranquilla on Friday (02Nov18). Shakira has been focused on increasing access to education for underprivileged children worldwide ever since launching her Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation in 1997, through which she has established a number of schools to date.
“Investing in education and offering equal opportunities to our boys and girls is the way to continue paving the way for peace,” the singer and philanthropist shared in a statement addressing the new constructions. “Building a school is a way to change the world.”
"A heartfelt thank you": Today I found this article by Jill Lawless in the Edmonton Journal:
Bono has a message for the U.S. Congress: Thanks for ignoring President Donald Trump.
Trump has sought to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. funding for AIDS programs at home and abroad, but the U2 frontman says members of Congress "have so far turned down this president's request to cut AIDS funding — right and left in lockstep together on this."
His message to them? "Thank you for your leadership."
Bono is caught between hope and frustration as — for the third time in a decade — he organizes an auction to raise money for the fight against HIV/AIDS. Sotheby's announced details Monday of the Dec. 5 sale in Miami to benefit (RED), the charity founded by Bono in 2006.
Two previous sales, in 2008 and 2013, raised $68 million. Five years on from the last, Bono says big strides in prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS are threatened by a slackening of global resolve.
"We could be at the dumbest moment ever, which is we're almost at the moon and we turn back," Bono told The Associated Press by phone from Dublin.
Almost 37 million people worldwide have HIV, with nearly 22 million of them receiving antiretroviral therapy, the most effective form of treatment, according to UNAIDS. The number of annual infections has fallen by almost half since 1996, to 1.8 million, and the number of deaths has halved since 2004.
Then I was waiting for the bus and met this woman Allana. She went into the NAIT's TV program and she told me about it. I wrote down notes.
Nov. 8, 2018 Be Confident online conference: I've been listening to this on how to gain and maintain confidence. Right now I'm listening to Chris Cade and he said he was in the Nintendo World Championships.
Linked In writing groups: Today I did something outside-the- box. I went through my old emails and read those from the Linked In writing groups like Two Bits. I was then inspired to look for a writing job or at least a job with writing in it.
Facebook writing groups: There are some here too. |
I'm Tracy Au and I have a 2 year diploma in Professional Communication from MacEwan University. I'm an aspiring screenwriter. This blog is used to promote this TV movie The Vertex Fighter. If the ratings are good, it could be turned into a back door pilot. It's used to attract producers, directors, investors, cast, and crew who want to be part of this project. It’s also to attract the same people who will hire me to write for your TV/ movie. I have another blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Dynacor Media job interview/ "It's do or dye" (Timeless)
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