Secondary Mentors

Prior to this class, I honestly hadn't really considered the idea of a secondary mentor. I do, however, see the benefit of it. I see a secondary mentor as someone who adds something that the student needs or could use and that is different from what is brought to the table by the primary mentor. The secondary mentor would not be someone who has similar expertise as the primary mentor, but covers some other areas. This could be someone from the school, potentially in another department other than MAS, or an industry person.

I interviewed two people (again, without mentioning the specifics of my project) to profile them as possible secondary mentors.

1. Mark Pfaff - One thing I want to do with my documentary is make it sound good. I see a lot of documentaries that look great but, because the student making it and his/her mentor both focus mostly on video, it doesn't sound great. I actually mostly work with sound outside of school, but I considered Mark Pfaff in the event that I need help with the audio side of things. He said that he would be willing to work as a secondary mentor on the sound side of a video project, but he also said he had limited availability next semester. If I do get a secondary mentor, it will probably be him.
2. Steve Mannheimer - I also interviewed him as a primary mentor, but I think if I were to work with him at all it would be as a secondary mentor. He said that the biggest area he could be of help would be in the generation of ideas, so if my project were to need more fine-tuning on the idea side of things for any reason, this might be who I would go to.