Video Editing Made Almost Bearable

In some ways, working on these video projects, I feel as if I am in Emeril's kitchen relegated to making grilled cheese, not because I'm not allowed to make something better, but because I only know how to use a spatula, and a skillet.

The actual shooting process was much quicker than i thought it would be. In my own mind and in pop culture it is easy snub actors for feeling tired when all they do (it often seems) is stand in front of a camera and talk. I quickly learned that standing and talking is rather wearisome work and i was not even the one talking. standing behind the camera for an hour or two at a time was bad enough. I find myself laughing to myself and my own naivete in this case.

Most of the shooting was done in two days, two days of what, in many ways, was a glorious upgrade to the project. instead of shooting with a consumer brand camcorder or laptop webcam we began using an HDV (that's code for "professional quality") camera. we had custom lighting, we shot in a green screen studio, Frank was microphoned for the first time in the short history of the project.

With great thanks to the UNM ARTSlab the project received a huge boost quality in the production regards. There were problems right off the bat however. the HDV camera we used had a broke fire wire port. when the gentlemen and the ARTSlab (hereafter "the lab") informed me of the problem my immediate reaction went something like, "oh . . . of course . . . the fire wire portal, yes, ehem, how shall we port the fire wires from here on out then?" what they were trying to tell me is that when i shot the footage it was going to be recorded on to an ol' fashion mini dv tape. I would not be able to digitally remove the footage from the camera i would need to find some one somewhere capable of taking the footage on tape and turn it into something digital for me to work with later. Let me warn anyone who is a first timer at a project like this whose budget is in the vicinity of $0 using university facilities. wait until fall! The university where i am currently enrolled does not easily offer it's media arts facilities to students during the summer. it took weeks of waiting for email and phone replies to find a way to do this. Perhaps i will recall that experience in another post but for now, i only wish to articulate the gravity of good and bad timing.

I am now and have been in the editing stages for a while. this where i feel like a i am making grilled cheese. Using final cut pro, CS aftereffects, and other pro media tools is VERY overwhelming at times. I may have the smallest simplest problem and no idea how to fix it. this project would be lost were it not for a knowledgeable friend or two who happens to work in the same room as i do on other media projects. If i weren't able to turn and ask for help from time to time this project would simply be a failure. there are many online tools that i've used to supplement my knowledge of video editing, but a google search for "so in final cut pro every time i want to cut a section out it sort of snaps the stuff in front of the stuff i cut out to the end of the stuff before the stuff i cut out. how do you fix that?" won't be of much help.

I'm slowly making progress. with every new technique i learn i feel like i've surmounted a great obstacle and am that much closer to finishing. the pieces are falling into place now and the faster they fall the closer i come to completion.