Video StudentGuy

Vacation week coming up. That means time to edit my final project. Woo hoo

Since

I took off the last days of this class I got an F. But, but once I hand

in the assignments it will be turned into a pass. If I do a really good

I may get a high pass, or, gulp, a very high pass. Lots of motivation

there.

There's 4 weeks left to the end of class. I'm going to

miss it once it's gone. I am looking forward to finishing my film

without the distraction of class attendance and assignments. I guess

you could say I've already checked out.

Once again I'm talking about Podcasters Across Borders without providing any clips from the interviews I recorded. Coming up, I promise. Check out and sign up for Podcamp Boston 3 if you're in the area. Take a look at the sessions being offered. It's just a good, only different.

Speaking of good conversation in a hallway, I end the show with some perspective I got from Federico about the whole point of this filmmaking program, which is getting a job being a filmmaker.

This

was a familiar message, but I saw something new that I hadn't before. I

got it that I don't need to treat this like the last film I will ever

make. It won't be if I end up using it to get a job making the next

film. People are going to recognize, regardless how much time and

attention I lavish on this project, the essential value I add to the

filmmaking process. If they are professional they'll filter out the

flaws and see the potential. Its hard to have that much faith in

yourself, or other people.

But I don't want to leave you on a

downer man. Right now I'm excited about editing my film and I'll

probably be at school as often as I have been, so I can concentrate -

and knowledgeable people will be available to help me see a clear path

to the finish. Just like in production, you don't make a film with just

one person.

This is a very short show because I recorded it as I was exiting the

house on my way to Podcaster's Across Borders in Kingston, Ontario

Canada. It was a great weekend of of learning and conversations with a

lot of really interesting people. As I was getting the links for the

previous episode I noticed that Podcamp Boston 3

is in a few weeks. I was caught completely off guard. Last year it took

place at the end of December, so barely 6 months has passed. During

PAB, I was fortunate enough to interview Chris Brogan, one of the

cofounders of Podcamp and a key organizer of Podcamp Boston. Look for

the interview in an upcoming show and seriously consider attending the

event on July 19 and 20 (Saturday and Sunday).

Catching up with

past classes, this week is the 2nd week of the Post Audio module. With

a little help from instructor Doug Plante, I finally understand the

process of spotting and scoring.

Spotting

is the process of identifying the location of music along the timeline

that would help support or anticipate the mood you want a scene or

action to convey.

Scoring is using the spot marks and comments to place music along the timeline that fits the moods you want to support.

I'm

surprised how my view of the edit of the film I used changed as I went

through this process of spotting. Looking at the film, which I had

created in a previous module, I was surprised to discover the moods it

presented were not what I had originally intended. It's an interesting

way to look at familiar footage with more objective eyes.

Of

course, you don't make changes once someone begins scoring a film. You

score a film, that is it's locked down, editing is completed, so that

the editor won't make changes that would require the music director to

completely rewrite the score. After all, the score is tied directly to

the timeline.. Change the film - change the music.

Oh well.

Been at PAB, expected to have posted this and the next show before I left. No time, as usual.

This episode and the next was in the can and waiting for post before I

left for Canada last week. I thought about post dating these episodes,

but that seems a little dishonest.

Podcaster's Across Borders was a great event, met a bunch of people and

got a lot of ideas to chew on. It wasn't a technical conference, it was

more about networking and idea sharing. I've never been to the Portable

Media Expo, now called New Media Expo, which will be out in California later this summer, August 14, but I have been to Podcamp in Boston.

All three events are different in how they approach social media and

there's something valuable to be learned from attending all of them.

Podcamp and PAB are within driving distance, but California is too far

for me to travel this year. I would say that PAB was the most informal.

The schedule was packed though and most conversations I had were short

and had to be followed up at the end of the day's sessions.

Give me a few days and I'll have a post up for that, along with some brief interviews I recorded.

Talking about whining. What do you want from me? Well, that's the question this time around.

I would like to know how real I should be reporting the student

experience; it's not just the subject matter in class. I believe that

how you cope with the demands of school will tell you how you will deal

with the pressures of production work in the real world. Just another

undocumented learning opportunity in the curriculum of life.

I've reached the point where I have enough material to begin editing

and begin shaping the story of my film. I've got a lot of work ahead of

me with almost 300 gigs of video, about 12 hours of footage. Organizing

this much footage is going to be critical in order to meet the

September deadline for the final cut.

Over the past week I had the following shoots and classes:

I'm attending a new media conference called Podcasters Across Borders in Kingston, Ontario

Canada this weekend. There's going to be lots of interesting people to

meet and things to hear and learn. There's not much else in this show

except my expectations.

I created this episode so that I could

pare it down to under 3 minutes and submit it to the PAB site as a

teaser for this show. They're taking audio submissions from attendees

that represent

their own show. I figured I would just use the opportunity to talk

about my expectations of the event, how I feel about the potential of

new media and tie in what my show is about.

It is an interesting experience cutting down something to meet a another purpose - sort of like creating a trailer of a movie.

Take a look at the teaser

page and listen to my audio and compare it to this show. And listen to

the other shows, there's a lot of great entertainment and information

represented on that page.

I'll give you updates when I get back next week and hopefully include some interviews.

Continuing shooting.

A Raku firing class with Susan Gerr of Birch Mountain Pottery, Old Sturbridge Village, a recreation of a New England village in Sturbridge MA and another potter, Dot Burnworth at Sawmill Pottery. This puts me over the hump as far as enough video to begin editing.

Check out the Digital Production Buzz episode for May 22 and listen to the first interview of Norman Hollyn,

an editor and teacher at USC, he has a lot of interesting comments on

learning how to edit. At 11:50 or so into the podcast he makes a

comment that strikes me as both simple and profound when it comes to

summing up the message of a film when you begin editing.

I've updated the show listing on this show's duplicate blog,

[email protected] and I will continue to keep it updated

until I can wrestle RSS to the ground and combine both feeds into one.

Lots of shoots this week, follow the links below to see who I've been talking to.

Huntington Theater

Cornwall Bridge Pottery - Todd Piker

Paradise CIty Art Festival

Debbie Miller Designs

JAK Designs - Jennifer Armstrong / Tanya Alsberg at Paradise City

Kelly O'Briant at Paradise City

Linda Huey

Birch Mountain Pottery - Susan Gerr

Color Correction tips, SSNSC Practicum and shooting the She Loves You promo video at the Huntington Theater

List of links to subjects mentioned in this show:

South Shore Natural Science Center

Huntington Theater - She Loves Me

Links in this Show:

Birch Mountain Pottery - Mug Day

Old Sturbridge Village

Fort Point Art Walk

South Shore Natural Science Center

Huntington Theater

Huntington Theater - She Loves Me

Gabrielle Schaffner

Linda Huey

Avid ScriptSync

I'm discontinuing posting on the Blogger site. It's just a duplicate of the Libsyn site and that seems to have the most traffic. I'll leave a note with a link to the Libsyn site.

I lost data because of a damaged drive, which I hadn't backed up. Don't do this at home okay?

At the same time I was digesting this trauma I was conflicted over which camera I should use which CDIA loans out. You can try to follow my various colliding trains of thought that led to the ultimate decision. I did decide, but the real issue isn't the camera, so much as it is trying to grasp the phantom of security when it comes to assuring I will always have a camera to shoot with when I need it.

It appears that getting comfortable with insecurity is the lesson of the week.

Just to make sure I learned my lesson I had to shoot an open house at Birch Mountain Pottery and I hoped to interview some of the customers. It makes my stomach ache to have to ask complete strangers to sign a release form and talk to me on camera. I managed to walk through that fire, thanks to Susan, her family and everyone who attended. I don't see the fizzy feeling is going to go away over time. Man up, right?

Nikki Bramley is our instructor for this module. She was assistant editor on The Price of Sugar and has a lot of experience editing in both FCP and Avid.

I spent this week trying to nail down my workflow with Avid Media Composer and P2 media There was a problem bring in the media. It comes down to a very specific workflow.

I also had technical problems working with Avid due to the presence of the unsupported versions of QuickTime and the Mac OS. She provided me with a table that contains all the versions of Avid, Quicktime and the OS and what works with what.

When you're working on a production system don't update iTunes, it automatically loads the most current version of Quicktime.

You can find information on the Avid forums at Avid, Creative COW and the LA Final Cut Pro User Group

I'm behind on defining a narrative arc. Nikki gave me some suggestions such as creating little scenes or stories within your story. I mentioned that in a recent episode. She encouraged me to imagine and write down what they might be before I arrive at a location.

I took a day off of everything and joined my wife in seeing a knitting superstar speak at the Calvin Theater in Northahmpton MA. Her name is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, otherwise known at the Yarn Harlot. She was very funny and uplifting. Do a search for her name and Northampton and you'll find dozens of blogs that documented the experience.