When you can honestly carry a business card that states, “Putting the ‘free’ in ‘freelance’,” it’s probably time to back off the freelance work. Which, back in 2005, I largely did. Before that, though, I carved a reasonably broad swath of experience for myself, doing odd jobs in a number of fields.
My writing has been published in media both print and Internet, including pieces in Birmimgham Weekly, Private Air and Mental_floss magazines, and online for RevolutionSF.com and Spin. I’m an award-winning screenwriter (Muckfuppet, winner of the 2005 Sidewalk SideWrite short screenplay award). I also carry in my bag of tools a painful amount of experience writing and editing white papers, technical essays, and how-to guides — all information technology related. Please don’t ask for my prices on those — I’ve set rates so ridiculous that I can’t possibly ever have to do that again.
I have a limited experience with design for print, having worked for a short time for Birmingham Weekly, and with designer Jessica Grant on odds and ends for some print advertising. I also spent a few years back in the nineties (back when PhotoShop was still identified with numbers, and Quark XPress was a known quantity) designing CD and cassette (remember those?) packages for local bands as part of my work with TapeSouth.
Much more extensive is my work designing and developing for the Web. I try desperately to avoid designing for Internet sites, though a year spent doing nothing but CSS and learning architecture theory at the side of Dimitri Glazkov has given me a solid footing in the arena. My strength lies in developing for the web, with an emphasis on scalability, user-friendliness, and other best-practices. Since 1997, I’ve worked on sites for major universities (including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the UAB Health System, Clarion University, and the University of New Haven), as well as numerous smaller sites for photographers Beth Maynor Young and Robert Farley, Birmingham Weekly (notice a common thread?), rap label Greenhill Dynasty and local musicians like Stuart McNair and the Exhibit(s). I’ve also served as a consultant for countless (okay, only countless if you’re lazy or looking to sound important) bloggers and first-time web designers.
As a sidenote, I’ve not linked to any of my work, because large chunks of it are no longer actively online; due to the nature of the web, by the time you read this, the rest of it will probably be gone. In fact, my blog will probably be self-aware and hiring Martha Stewart to give it a new look. Ingrate.
All right. Fine. Extant work on the web includes: Stillwater Pub, Kingfisher Editions, The Exhibit(s), and this here blog (though that doesn’t really count, since styling a WordPress set-up doesn’t make one a web designer).
I’ve spent the past mumble-mumble years playing guitar, piano, and anything else I can drown in the mix so people don’t realize how not-so-great I am. I’ve played with Eric McGinty, Chance Shirley, and Carlos Pino in the Exhibit(s) since 2003. Prior to that, I played with other local acts like Lunasect and Full Moon Blanket, and recorded my own precursor to emo. I’ve also worked on scores and soundtracks to independent films (Seven Year Switch, Hide & Creep), and even got myself on a nationally released disc (Anyone Can Play Radiohead, which inspired one reviewer to write, “…it takes the soul out of the songs that are the soundtrack to my life…”; my only response is muffled guffawing).
And then there’s the film work — I’ve written a number of short- and feature-length screenplays, including The Beauty of Distance (which was a finalist in the 2000 Sidewalk screenplay competition) and Muckfuppet (winner of the 2005 Sidewalk short screenplay competition). I’ve done the aforementioned scoring. I’ve worked with Chance Shirley on Hide and Creep (mostly audio work, though all of us involved in that movie did a little of everything) and Interplanetary. I’ve done 48 hour “scramble” shorts, and shorts with human amounts of production time.
Most aren’t worth mentioning. But the experience, that’s what counts, right?
I no longer put the free in freelance. Rates are nogotiable, including barter. If you need references or samples of my work, email me at visionsound atat gmail. Eat that, stupid spambots.
Have a swarthy day!
