There are a few things that immediately come to mind when I think about Tom Blakemore. 1) Walter Murch, the sound designer and film editor, author of In the Blink of an Eye. A few years ago we saw Murch speak at a Humanities Conference in Chicago. 2) The Drum and Bugle Corps. Tom was a member of one as a teenager, and then later in life became a manager of a corps of adult drummers and buglers. He and I had many discussions about following his group as they went to the nationals in Plymouth, MA. 3) An author. Tom worked long and hard on his book, Recording Voice Over: The Spoken Word in Media. We cover all of this and more on this week’s episode of Teaching in the Arts.
One of the things I really enjoy about hosting this podcast is getting to have conversations with folks I know (and many I have never met before) and diving deeper. For example, I never knew Tom had a career in radio before being a sound designer. When you hear his voice, it’s kind of obvious he should be behind the mic. I was pretty certain we would cover the three issues I mention above, but I didn’t foresee discussions about Jean Shepherd, Leonard Bernstein, and Touch of Evil.
It it always good seeing Tom be it at the pet store, the farmer’s market, in the classroom, or behind the mic. I hope you enjoy the chat.
AND, I need your help. The Lesson of the Day is actually a request to my listeners to help me out with the reading assignments for one of my fall courses. I begin teaching in a week, and in one of my courses I have eight chapters of reading I would like to assign. I also want to make sure they read the material, but I don’t have a ton of class time to go over the readings. So my solution is to have students write reading responses- critical, self-reflections to the reading, and turn those in. Each one is work 25 points (on a 1000 point scale.) Let me know your thoughts, and in the coming weeks I will let you know where I land.
Listen here:
Teacher Man
