At mobygratis.com, he has uploaded almost a hundred tracks available free for noncommercial use, a lot of it unreleased music you haven’t heard before.

If you want to use the music for a commercial, short, or other profitable application, he’s got an easy way to request licenses, which he promises are cheap. Very cool.

For the record, I wish all musicians would make sure to get instrumental versions of their tracks. Even if I want to use your vocals for part of a scene, the chances are I’m going to need more of the track to underscore other parts with dialogue. So all you musicians out there, please keep that in mind! And if you want your music used (with credits) by The Rex & Bella Show, click on ‘Use My Music’ at the top of the site, and let us take a listen!

Bella learned the six different punches and couple of kicks pretty quickly, but may have met her match in the double-end bag.

We stopped by Lance’s studio in Algiers to see what he’d been working on and how he goes about it. He made us some hot toddys, talked to us about folk art, and then started playing with power tools.

The Draw-A-Thon only happens once a year, but The Green Project has other awesome events throughout the year, so check the schedule on their website.

He says that if we only see the public figure of our interview subjects, we have failed, and that it is our job as interviewers to allow or draw out the subject to show something deeper. That happened to me recently and unexpectedly when I was interviewing Drew Ramsey, the Operations Manager at New Orleans’ favorite pie company, Hubig’s:

That experience taught me a lot, and I have since done a lot of thinking about my role as an interviewer for LPTV and the kinds of interviews we should be doing on The Rex & Bella Show. One of my goals for Rex & Bella has always been for the show to be a character study of New Orleans, and I think we can get continue to dive deeper into that realm.

A perfect example is the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Steadycam. If you don’t have the most stable hands in the world and aren’t shooting under controlled conditions where you can set up each shot, it’s worth the time and the $14 to build one of these babies. I also think it’s a good habit to build, embracing the whole DIY movement and finding solutions to problems yourself.

Mainly you just want to build something with extra weight at the bottom, as that’s easier to hold steady and eliminates up-and-down shake. It also reduces side-to-side wobble, though doesn’t get rid of that completely. Here’s some example video comparing with-and-without the steadycam:

Here’s where you can get some great instructions on how to build one, but feel free to modify it yourself. I added a pole to mine to tuck in to my shoulder like the butt of a rifle, which adds an extra point of contact and therefore a little more stability.

If you’re interested in delving further into the world of custom-built rigs, also check out the DIY Snorricam. This beast opens up possibilities for some really quirky, awesome-looking shots, like this:

Rex Dingler has been a United States Marine, a boat captain, a traveler, and more, but throughout it all he has been drawing and painting. Rex has had artwork on public display in the streets of over 30 countries and 100 cities and his gallery showings have spanned New Orleans, New York, Miami and Tel Aviv. He is the founder of NoLA Rising, a street art-based grassroots organization that has become an internationally recognized arts activism group currently working to paint the world’s largest sanctioned mural on the Lower 9th Ward levee wall. From New Orleans, Rex has learned to share the message that “art can heal the wounded soul” on the streets of every city he visits. Believing that arts and activism can actively work together, Rex encourages artists to take an active role in their communities and paint the change they wish to see.

Andrew Larimer is the producer, cameraman, editor, and webguy behind The Rex & Bella Show and its parent company, FatHappy Media. He is the Digital Media Institute Manager for NOVAC, the New Orleans Video Access Center, for which he develops curriculum to train New Orleanians for jobs in the digital media industry. Andrew was also the founding artistic director of The NOLA Project theatre company and has written, directed, performed, and designed for award-winning theatrical productions in many venues around town. Andrew is also a co-organizer of Net Squared New Orleans, the catch-all tech meetup group in New Orleans, and a producer & reporter for Launch Pad TV.