Welcome to Our New Intern!
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2012 - 17:36

Motionblur Media is pleased to announce the addition of a new member to the team, our intern Donna Won.

Donna comes from a background in electrical engineering and telecom. She's currently "taking a break from the corporate world to meet new people and learn about how awesome things are created". Part of this interest is inspired by Donna's role as a Community Animator at the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI). I first met Donna while telling a group of people at CSI about a poodle police dog. No, really.

Donna will be assisting with a variety of production tasks: doing research on show topics, crafting show notes, assisting with edits, selecting updates for social media and more. Welcome aboard Donna!

Don't Cross the Running Streams of Apple's Profits
Posted: Monday, July 30, 2012 - 09:40

What do the London 2012 Olympics, billions of dollars and Ghostbusters have in common?  The answer is this past week’s line-up of Motionblur Media podcast episodes!

The week got off to a running start on Step Ahead with hosts Carol Levesque and Alex Flint offering their insights and advice about how to start running, in the episode How to Start Running. Everybody who wants to try running will want to check out this episode! Carol and Alex also discuss some Olympic running news and the effects of running a full marathon. Did you know you lose up to two centimetres of height when you complete a marathon?

It seems Apple just can't be successful enough; earning a meger $8.8 billion in the Q3 timeframe! We discussed this and several other topics on A Paltry $8.8 Billion, the latest episode of our Sounds Legit technology podcast. Martin Kuplens-Ewart and myself discuss other technology stories of the week as well, including a review of Apple's new OS X Mountain Lion release, YouTube forcing users to switch to using their real names for usernames and the Parkinson's Voice Initiative, a research initiative aiming to detect Parkinson's disease through voice analysis.

Marc Lafreniere sat in at the last minute to co-host our photography podcast Picture This with me in place of a missing-in-action Ren Bostelaar.  On the episode, titled Don't Cross the Streams (in tribute to Ghostbusters), we discussed the negative aspects of using social media to promote your photography work. We also highlighted Christian Villacillo, a photographer and artist from Fort McMurray, Alberta.

That's all for this week! As always, don't forget to subscribe to Picture This, Sounds Legit and Step Ahead in iTunes!

Cheers,
Chris

Firefox, a Fox, and the Digital Box
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2012 - 15:00

It’s time for our weekly round up of everything happening at the Motionblur Media podcast network. It’s been a hot and busy week, so let’s get to it!

Our newest show, Sounds Legit, is already up to its third episode and has quickly attracted an audience hungry for some new insights into the world of technology. Thank you to everyone who has checked out the show! This week’s episode, The Non-Creepy Good Browser, found Martin Kuplens-Ewart and myself discussing the announcement of the Firefox OS and phone initiative, issues with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, the launch of Google Now and Google’s ongoing privacy missteps.

Step Ahead, our podcast about running hosted by Carol Levesque and Alex Flint, featured the story of Lanni Marchant not being allowed to run for Canada’s Olympic team and the van used by Terry Fox for his inspirational Marathon of Hope. Check out the episode, Terry Fox's Van of Hope, over on the Step Ahead show page.

Rounding out the week was the latest episode of Picture This, our photography podcast. The episode, Challenge Accepted, welcomed photographer Alex Boone of Ottawa as a guest alongside regular hosts Ren Bostelaar and myself. Alex was our second in-studio guest, following in the footsteps of Marc Lefreniere. We discussed how peer pressure affects the art of photography and we featured photographer Joel Zimmer. We also highlighted a hilarious clip from the show Veep of press photographers trying to one up each other with their Canon 1D and 5D cameras.

The network’s schedule has now stabilized, with our three shows fitting into a regular release schedule. Listeners can expect this schedule:

  • Step Ahead on Monday
  • Sounds Legit on Thursday
  • Picture This on Friday

We’re aiming to expand to a show for each day of the week by the end of the summer. Busy times are ahead for the network!

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. Don't forget to subscribe to Picture This, Sounds Legit and Step Ahead in iTunes!

Announcing a New Technology Podcast: "Sounds Legit"
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 16:50

Motionblur Media is pleased to announce the launch of our newest podcast, a technology show called Sounds Legit. The podcast is hosted by Martin Kuplens-Ewart and Chris Luckhardt.

Sounds Legit aims to be a different kind of technology podcast. Most technology podcasts focus on the latest technology news, gadgets and apps themselves. Rather, we want to discuss technology from the perspective of how it touches people's lives. How does the technology directly affect the user? This is our purpose with Sounds Legit.

Martin brings a vast knowledge and history of technology to the podcast. He has a fascination with service and product design that translates into creating rich interactive experiences.

Chris has his hands in a wide variety of technologies. He started with a Commodore 64 and a love of sci-fi as a child and has paved a strong digital path ever since that time.  At any given moment, he can be found working on a variety of digital media (photography, podcasting) and/or coding a Drupal website.

The first episode, No Skeuomorphism, covers a range of topics, including the death spiral of RIM, accessibility features of iOS, Microsoft's Surface tablet, Apple's patent moves, Martin's thoughts on reactive design and a quick look at a couple of helpful apps.  Check out the episode and let us know what you think in the comments!

Announcing a New Photography Podcast: "Picture This"
Posted: Sunday, February 26, 2012 - 18:29

Motionblur Media is very pleased to announce the launch of our newest podcast, Picture This, featuring hosts Ren Bostelaar and Chris Luckhardt.

The goal of Picture This is to have a weekly discussion about the ideas and concepts behind creating great photographic stories. While we feel it's easy to talk about photography gear and news, it can be more difficult to discuss the elements that go into creating photos that tell amazing stories.

Gear and photo news junkies need not worry - we certainly won't eschew those areas of focus in episodes of Picture This. On the contrary, we're aiming to use them as springboards to propel our discussions into areas of thought and theory that will hopefully help photographers of all skill ranges to improve their visual storytelling.

Picture This is launching in the audio format first, with video releases on the way very soon. The first episode, Japan: the Europe of Asia, is available for direct download now! We discuss the repercussions of Kodak's recent filing for bankruptcy and feature our first photographer highlight, Marc Lafreniere.

Check out the podcast and please give us your feedback!

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