Besides the wonderful networking, reconnecting with media friends and In-N-Out Burger stop, the 2014 National Native Media Conference in Santa Clara, California, was a great place to recharge my media batteries. This year’s conference was hosted by Native American Journalist Association (NAJA), Vision Maker Media, and Native Public Media the premier national media organizations out there.

I was specially invited to participate on Thursday, with Vision Maker Media filmmaker training; a workshop for funded and emerging filmmakers. My favorite part was the filmmaker presentations with Dan Golding (Quechan), Pierre Barrera (Klamath/Lakota), and Gary Robinson (Choctaw/Cherokee). Each of us were able to talk and present short video clips of our works and works in progress. It felt like a Native film class. The whole workshop felt like a film and production class, which is exactly what a film nerd like myself lives for.

At last year’s conference I attended as a student of the college Native Voices program and received a scholarship. I had a wonderfully painful time co-anchoring a student-produced newscast and being on-air producer talent for a video story I worked on. Great experience. This year the student-training program tried a creative approach to funding their student training. The 2015 Native American Journalism Fellowship with college and high school students experimented with a 30-day online fundraising campaign to fund the fellowship prior to this year’s National Native Media conference. Their goal $10,000,they raised $10,225. True grass roots style. Filmmakers are doing it successfully, why not journalists training programs? That is truly going ‘Tra-Digital’.

The students produced Native Voice newspaper in print and online. This edition includes articles by students on issues of sex trafficking, Stanford’s Indian mascot (which was mentioned by author Lori Alvord in her book The Scalpel and the Silver Bear), and Apple brand innovations including Cherokee language and technology role model Matthew Yazzie who is working on Navajo language in digital format--truly propelling the culture into the here and now.

The Hyatt Regency Santa Clara was a nice enough hotel. On Friday, the hotel sidewalk was filled with largely Latino community protestors and ex-employees of the hotel who were complaining about the hotel’s personnel issues. I thought it would have made a good story for the student workers.

On Saturday night, next door to the jamming nerd party, Vision Maker Media screened Winter in the Blood, an screen adaptation to the book by James Welch. The New York Times wrote a positive review about it when the film was officially released in August 2014. I felt honored to be watching this work by Alex and Andrew Smith. Starring Chase Spencer in the lead role and set in beautiful blue sky Montana. The story is as complex and creative as life itself dealing with issues of alcoholism, Native American historical trauma effects passed down and most importantly; redemption a will to live. I would highly recommend--5 fry breads.

Georgiana Lee’s workshop "Show Me the Money: Things to Know Before You Sign" was helpful and straightforward. Do the math. Play scenarios out and do the math again. For me, it was similar to choosing which type of medical insurance to pick; low, basic or high? Take command know your personal finances, know your films finances. Set DVD sales goals with your distributor, negotiate and compare, ask for a license fee. These are the notes I took and need to research more on it when the appropriate time comes. Bottom line: Take control of your finances.

Attorney Isaac Hager the Director of Business Affairs at Independent Television Service (ITVS) presented "Copyright and Fair Use," which brought flashbacks to my media law course in grad school. There was great advice and thought provoking going on in regards to what is and what is not legal filmmaking, by far the most beneficial/practical workshop offered (just like my media law course in school). Since I am in no way a lawyer or can precisely write clearly about what was said in this workshop, the information from this workshop will stay with this workshop.

How can reading this blog help you in your career? Take on one or more of these I’ve mentioned and incorporate into your life, do the research, do the math and take control of your story. Explore more at: http://www.naja.com/conference.