Christine Tello-Lorenz founded HollywoodEastConnection.com in 2009.

When Amalia Thermopolis didn’t have her eyes glued to screens, she encountered high-profile celebrities and absorbed the extravagant atmosphere of the world-renowned Cannes Film Festival in southern France as part of a student program. She recalled getting miffed looks from Sean Penn and Bono for her excited behavior.

“They were staring at me because I was being so loud on my way to the ladies room from my seat,” said Thermopolis, a native of Gardner, Mass. The now-Emerson graduate parlayed that experience into a staff writing position with HollywoodEastConnection.com, a blog that delivers career and entertainment news and resources for the New England film and television industry.

“I found the job through Craigslist, and it was really the only position that was similar to what I actually enjoy,” said Thermopolis, 22.

Hollywood East Connection employs Thermopolis and several other staff writers, whose collective job is to keep us plugged into the entertainment industry, which in New England and particularly Boston has experienced significant growth in the past five years.

Founder Christine Tello-Lorenz created the website as a freelance project last year in an attempt to be the singular online voice of the New England film industry.

“I wanted to create an online community that offers stories about local creative individuals in film, TV and online, and the hard work they’re doing,” Tello-Lorenz said.

The Mass. State House is home to key legislation regarding tax credits to the local film industry.

Tello-Lorenz, a self-employed career coach with more than 15 years of experience, understands the difficulty of breaking into the entertainment industry, and prides herself on giving local filmmakers and actors the publicity they deserve.

“I’m proud to be able to promote these individuals who otherwise may not get enough exposure in the industry,” Tello-Lorenz said.

Despite its difficulty as a career path, film production in Massachusetts has grown rapidly in the early 21st century. According to a recent study by the University of Massachusetts in Boston, jobs in the Mass. motion picture industry rose sharply between 2005 and 2008.

Their study shows that of the 15 states with the most film and TV employees, Massachusetts’ total employment in those industries increased by 33 percent, the largest of all. Furthermore, production and post-production employees grew by 117 percent and 126 percent, respectively.

The study concluded with an economic impact analysis which calculated that for every new job in the Mass. film and television industry, another .79 jobs are created for the Commonwealth.

Despite the economic growth of film and TV production in Mass. and New England, state legislators still grapple over the tax credits given to producers and filmmakers. The House rejected a proposed cap on the tax credit just earlier this year.

Tello-Lorenz holds a BA from Boston University and MS in training and organizational development from Lesley University. She said she hopes the site will one day be profitable, but understands the hard work and patience required to achieve that.

A single visit to the website immerses viewers into Boston’s entertainment scene. The blog updates daily with stories featuring films both mainstream and independent, artists both world-famous and unknown, and events both low-key and high-profile. The most recent event covered was an annual conference for the National Association of Broadcasters.

One of the more comprehensive sections of the site is the “Film Festivals” section, which lists each and every film festival that takes place in New England each year. Many of the independent artists and filmmakers that have featured their work at these festivals have been profiled for the website, such as Conor Timmis, who recently filmed “The Silver Key” in Connecticut and submitted it to more than 30 festivals.

Another popular topic the site frequently covers is the filming of movies in the Boston area, which has obviously been in abundance to them since the site’s inception. Kevin James’ new movie The Zookeeper recently filmed a chase scene at the Boston Common. Staff writer Victoria Kichuk went to the site that day, and ended up getting even more than she expected.

“When I was taking some pictures of the equipment, some guy started talking to me telling jokes and I asked him what he does and he told me he was the caterer,” Kichuk, 25, said of her experience poking around the set. “I asked him about what Ben Affleck eats and how he is on set, and he totally spilled a few things, probably thinking I was just some ditzy girl fan of his when actually I was a working journalist looking for a scoop.”

What the caterer told Kichuk, a native of Wallingford, Conn., about Affleck remains off the record, but her story and photos of the upcoming Adam Sandler-produced film can be found here.

Wondering what other movies have been filmed around here and anywhere in New England? Whether it’s independent or mainstream, each and every film shot at least partially in New England going back to the silent movie era is listed on the website. And with the way the industry is growing around here, the list is following suit.

New England-born celebrities are another frequent topic on the site. It chronicled Conan O’Brien’s and Jay Leno’s recent saga with NBC, and also likes to let fans know when other New Englanders such as Steve Carrell, Uma Thurman or Matt Damon, are working on.

One would be hard-pressed to find a more all-inclusive resource on the film industry in New England. With the possibility of the building of Plymouth Rock Studios still looming, Hollywood East Connection may very well be ahead of its time.

The site only continues to grow and gain exposure, and Tello-Lorenz hopes they eventually become regarded as the leading voice for the New England film industry, summing it up by saying, “There aren’t many other websites that feature creative talent the way we do.”

The above video features a few of Boston’s most famous landmarks, and their role in some of the newest Hollywood movies being produced around here. Boston has earned a well-deserved nickname of “Hollywood East” in recent years due to the sharp increase in film and TV productions happening around here as a result of generous tax breaks given to production companies.

Career coach Christine Tello-Lorenz founded HollywoodEastConnection.com back in 2009 as a reaction to Boston’s burgeoning entertainment industry. The website is primarily a blog, with an intensive focus on happenings in both mainstream and independent film production in Boston and the New England area. The site also functions as a one-stop resource for aspiring entertainment professionals to find a multitude of production companies, casting agencies, and other organizations on the site’s “career scene” page.

Many of the posts on HollywoodEastConnection have a magazine-style quality to them, such as this recent Q&A with local filmmaker Kathleen Fitzgerald. They also occasionally post an original video story, such as this exclusive profile piece on local media company Mass. Movie Mavens.

People who have a film to distribute- or just enjoy watching the work of local independent filmmakers- will find a comprehensive list of film festivals all over New England. Another comprehensive list is the one of every film ever shot at least partially in New England, which goes all the way back to the silent movie era.

An important question to ask about a site like this is: how journalistic is it? Entertainment-focused sites are usually either borderline journalism or pure entertainment. HollywoodEastConnection is more journalistic than, say, TMZ. It’s not a gossip site, although it does keep us updated with what’s going on in the lives and careers of New England-born celebrities such as Conan O’Brien and Matt Damon. But as far as pure news stories are concerned, they are relatively hard to find.

One big news story involving the entertainment industry is the state’s attempts to cut back on the tax breaks given to production companies, which would significantly reduce the amount of productions taking place in Mass. and all over New England. A rollback would also severely hurt the chances of a movie studio being built in Plymouth, Mass., a building whose construction has now been in limbo for years. They recently covered the ongoing story here.

Of the things HollywoodEastConnection can improve, its overall design is the most noticeable. It’s very blocky-looking, and not very streamlined. All the graphics seem sort of pasted on, rather than part of a whole seamless design. They have pages on Facebook and Twitter that they update frequently, but one wouldn’t know that from a visit to the main page. Scrolling down is required to find the links to their social networks on the right sidebar, when these links should be featured prominently somewhere near the top of the page. The whole site would definitely benefit from a complete design overhaul.

Ultimately, for entertainment news in New England, HollywoodEastConnection is ideal. They update the most important ongoing stories and give many local filmmakers the publicity they need. Though much of it is entertainment-driven, it would be hard to find a more comprehensive website on the New England entertainment industry.

Dan Gregory

Today I attended a presentation by Dan Gregory, Faculty Advisor for Northeastern University’s Inter-Disciplinary Entrepreneurship Accelerator (IDEA), a mostly student-created and run program dedicated to helping students accelerate their business ventures, whatever they may be. The organization is composed of not just business students, but people with a wide variety of majors and skills, including Journalism students. Each person has a specific skill set that they use to help people with ideas let their ventures come to fruition. Gregory challenged all of us in the audience to think about what specific skills we have to offer that we could use to help ourselves or someone else achieve their business goals.

If you ask me, a journalism major, I would start with my writing skills. I believe I have the acumen and pedigree to deliver compelling content for any organization, but in this blog’s case, a musical group. Whether it’s a tweet about an upcoming show, a press release announcing a new album, a CD or concert review, or any other kind of promotional material, I’d be able to write it.

I also like to consider myself a strong video editor. I have a good feel for editing and have intermediate skills in programs such as Avid and Final Cut Pro to back it up. I would not only be excited, but willing and able to create original video content for a band and promote it on sites like Youtube and DailyMotion. I have already done this for my own band that I am currently in and will continue to do so.

This is the biggest set of skills I can provide to an artist or group, in addition to web savvy and up-to-date knowledge on social media and new media technology. We are in a transition period for journalism and I feel it’s very important for myself and every other journalist or journalism student to keep up with the tidal wave. I believe any successful venture for a band looking to get noticed these days begins on the web. That’s where you can promote material all on your own, and from there you can get shows and/or record deals (best case scenario). I hope to someday prove these things with my own band.

This heavily implicated Saffold in the act, and she tried to pin it on her daughter so as to avoid further trouble. Now, the judge is suing the Plain Dealer for violating their privacy policy, which she assumed granted her total anonymity under any circumstance. What it actually means, is Saffold attempted to take advantage of her perceived total freedom by making attacks in her comments, and didn’t take the time to read the privacy policy before doing so.

The Plain Dealer’s privacy policy, like most other websites, is not completely private. Younger generations who have grown up with the internet may have an advantage in knowing this almost as common sense, but the internet is a public place. The Plain Dealer’s website has more happening on it than just a group of people delivering news stories. They allow third-party sites access to their database in order to provide them with services, like specialized search engines. This means that your information, once submitted to them, is not only in their hands but in the hands of several other sites that can freely use it. The current privacy policy for cleveland.com states:

“In addition, we reserve the right to use the information we collect about your computer, which may at times be able to identify you, for any lawful business purpose, including without limitation to help diagnose problems with our servers, to gather broad demographic information, and to otherwise administer our Website.”

Needless to say, an investigative report falls under the category of “lawful business purpose.” And this is a story that I am glad came to fruition. Saffold made herself and all judges look bad by abusing her power- or, her power that she believed she had. She didn’t. And now she’s trying to sue the Plain Dealer and someone ought to tell her and her legal team soon that it’s a lost cause.

The situation brings up a debate that is beginning to heat up around the web. Should people be allowed to post comments without giving their real name? Howard Owens of the Batavian wrote an interesting piece about the issue last week, imploring all news websites to begin a new policy that requires real names with comments that are posted. He believes that every reader has a right to know who is saying what about everything.

To an extent, I agree with Mr. Owens. But if everyone began posting with their real name, would we ever get comments from public figures? It makes me question whether there’s even a point to it. Personally, I don’t take comments like the ones Saffold made if they came from an anonymous source. If they are racist, bigoted or simply inappropriate in any way, then the website should simply remove them. If there is a repeated offender, ban the user’s IP address.

That’s not to say those methods would completely eliminate inappropriate comments, but requiring real names might make the well of comments dry up. I’ve always treated the comments section as a form of entertainment, nothing to be taken as serious commentary. Maybe we should call it the “rant and rave” section instead? Either way, eliminating anonymous comments may stop people like Saffold from abusing their preconceived freedoms, but people who already understand their lack of privacy on the internet likely wouldn’t change their behavior.

I think this is a great tool for people who want to find new sources of news and/or websites to follow. It may be harder to discover a new website with content you can trust and appreciate than to simply find out what everyone thinks about it on NewsTrust. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem like too useful of a tool for those who already know which sources they do and do not trust. For example, if someone already doesn’t trust the Boston Globe for its content, reading a few glowing reviews likely won’t change his or her mind.

I posted three reviews today on NewsTrust; the first one was for a nice piece on internet bullying by Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times. I thought the piece was very well-written and well-sourced, and managed to obtain a few quotes from the kids themselves, which I thought was very important to the piece.

My second review was for a TechCrunch article on the initial reviews for the Apple iPad. I felt the review was fine for what it was, but could have been better had they waited a few more days to give us a better idea of how the general public feels about the new device, as well as the consensus from reviewers rather than a small sampling.

My third review was for a Boston Globe opinion piece by Alex Beam on Twitter, and why he doesn’t do it. Beam comes off as an old man who is behind on the times and probably thought television was the death of news. His reasoning for not “tweeting” doesn’t do much more than dip a toe into the waters of the site and its myriad possibilities. He complains about low-rent politicians and celebrities updating us on their lives, and conveniently side-steps the advantages Twitter could provide him. But it seems more as if he’s oblivious to them rather than ignoring them.

I believe I will keep using NewsTrust in the future. I would like to see more arts & entertainment-related stories posted to the site; it is very much geared toward U.S. and World issues, as well as general politics. It would be interesting to see how music and movie reviews get rated compared to each other, and it may help me find new reviews to possibly trust in the future.

For my Google map project, I spotlighted the Musical Instrument Service Center, which is the building located under the blue awning in the above photo. The map “Newcomer’s Guide to Northeastern (NU) can be viewed here.

Google Maps can be a very useful tool for subjects just like this one. If you’re new to a city like Boston and/or the Northeastern area and need a one-stop source to find all your dining, entertainment, recreation and general service needs, a tool like the map I linked to above would be perfect. This isn’t the only potential use for a custom-made Google map. Areas where majors crimes have been committed could be plotted to give research ideas to journalists, among others.

If you would like to donate money to support groups raising disaster relief funds, how convenient would it be to find a Google map with several locations plotted in one place? The map for the Global Heritage Fund is, well, global, rather than local, but it’s a perfect example of using Google Maps in the way that I’m describing.

BradHatfieldMusic.com

Please check out my article for this week’s issue of Northeastern’s Huntington News as a guest correspondent. The article is a profile piece on one of NU’s own part-time professors, Brad Hatfield. His career as a musician spans over 20 years and dozens of movies and television shows that have featured his work, including the Academy Award-winning Mystic River.

Hatfield has a passion for teaching music as well as creating and performing it. In addition to teaching several music-related courses here at NU- including film music- he has taught classes at the Berklee College of Music right here in Boston as well, providing a tremendous amount of skill and real world experience to aspiring musicians.

Hatfield has a lot of useful things to say about his profession, and it would apply to anyone entering the real world and not just musicians. Needless to say, the man is an unsung Boston hero. For those of you who weren’t aware of who he is, I’m glad to shed some light on his quietly remarkable career.