A Lesson in Frustration

So, today was a bunch of little puzzle things that just got frustrating, but in a good way. Not "fun" persay, but "challenging".

My first assignment wasn't a challenge at all, since it was simply to watch the full Chameleon Club documentary all the way through. It was a bit under an hour and it's not all finished yet, but I got to point out certain things to Allen that I may not have been able to otherwise, such as the flashing color bits in the last section to make it look more like old footage rather than new footage, but there was so much of it that it became a distraction.

There was an entire section that had one long clip that didn't need to be so long, and yet, didn't have any others, but needed some. My job was to cut down that one clip and try to find others to fit within that section. This included going through a whole bunch of extra footage looking for something that wasn't there. This was a little frustrating.

The next job I had was to find when interviewees first appeared, write down the time, their name, and their title. This was frustrating because I didn't know who most of these people were and half the clips didn't tell me who they were. Allen said that he was "testing my research skills" to which I replied, tounge-in-cheek, "Well, I was a soc research major for three years and I found that I try to find the easiest way of finding something out" and in this case, that was asking Allen. He laughed at that.

Finally, I had to find the name titles that Jason had made and make one for each of the interviewees. That took me mostly till the end. I came up with a color scheme for everyone. Regular employees get red, artists get orange, managers and owners get gree, Rich Ruoff got blue, since he founded it, and others outside the club scene got yellow. Rendered them all out and that was it.

Also, gave Allen the B-roll that we shot in DC. He found a stock site that has some footage for other places, so he may not use the stuff we shot, but he did say one of my shots looked like a good shot, so even if he doesn't use it, I know it's nice. So yea, that was basically it for today.

[Hours: 10-5]
[Total Hours: 133]

Bits of Everything

I forgot again to write about last Tuesday. Oops. I had to come in late anyway because Allen and Joe had some meeting that they can't tell me about yet. Hopefully I'll find out at somepoint, but not yet. Did 4 things on Tuesday:
1. Vecorized icons for Stabb Gunner
2. Researched hair salon web sites for Joe since they'll be making one for a new salon outside of Philly and they wanted to know what good sites were already out there.
3. Rearranging images for theFictory website. That took a bit, measuring out new columns and new rows and resizing images and such to already specified dimentions.
4. Shrunk down 3 new series of images for a new game Joe's working on.
Overall, it was a very relaxing day. I still amuse myself realizing when I'm "Joe's Intern" vs. "Allen's Intern". The assignments are always different. Both are nevery quite out of my ability, but just enough challenge to not be boring.

[Hours: 11.30-4.30]
[Total Hours: 126]

Interview and some Vectorizing

Got to tromp over to city hall today and help Allen interview the mayor of Lancaster. He was nice and said some good things about the Chameleon Club that they can use. I also had another adventure with Meridian figures, vectorizing them and their damn gradients. Slow, simple day, but still worth it. Also, Allen taught me how to customize my new video camera and what he needs from me in DC.

[Hours: 12-4]
[Total Hours: 121]

Looking for B-Roll

Worked on stuff for the Chameleon Club documentary's B-roll (i.e. the images shown overtop someone speaking about what the images are showing) I actually got to go in to AfterEffects and learn how to zoom in to an area from space. Then I highlighted the city areas of Lancaster, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Harrisburg, and NYC and had them fade in one at a time. It took me about an hour and a half, but it ended up looking pretty cool, simple, and exactly what Allen needed. Then, waited for Allen to get some other stuff done, we went over to Prince St Cafe where others got coffee and Allen got me a chocolate chip muffin for lunch (since I'd forgotten one). After that, waited around a bit for the camera to finish charging and then we left to go out hunting B-roll.

We had a number of stops to make, so we took Allen's Jeep. I'm glad I wasn't driving because we went to a few parts of the city I've never been to. Allen was looking for diversity shots, so we found an Asian market and a Mexican restaurant. We were looking for Puerto Rican flags, but that ended up being fruitless. Next we went in search of an Amish buggy. Not too hard in Lancaster, you think? Wrong. We had to go all the way out 30 to 896 and half way to Strasburg! Then we set up outside the Strasburg Creamery waiting for a buggy to go by so we could show a buggy in a more urban environment. But just our luck, there was one going by right as we parked, but none when we got out, set up and waited for 5 minutes in the cold wind. That's another thing, it was REALLY windy today. Next we headed back to Fruitville Pike and took some wide shots of the shopping center with the Weiss and the PepBoys. Then, Allen needed to go out and get some pictures at a pharmacy out off of Centerville Rd for an entirely different project, so we went all the way out there for that. I helped out by blocking out weird lighting from the windows. Finally, we headed back in to town to the train station (stopping by the comic shop first) for an incoming train and people getting on and off. Allen was scared that we'd be stopped and asked what we were doing and getting in trouble and such, but there was hardly anyone there at all! A needless worry in the end, but since the sun was beginning to set, it turned out to be a great shot! Lastly, we headed back in the city itself and got some shots of the roundabout on King and Queen streets. That turned out really nice too since the sunset made a nice color on the stone. Allen also got to take shots of museums around Market.

After that, we dropped the camera and tripod off at Postage and Allen was nice enough to give me a ride back to the Parking garage. Today was a good day. I don't feel like I did too much, but I feel like I learned a bit. Also, I get to go back on Friday and help Allen get some more footage. This time interviewing the mayor of Lancaster. Should be fun. Joe also has some stuff for me to do, so Friday will be fun like today. Plus, Allen needs more footage not just of Lancaster, but also of DC, Philly, and New York. I told him we were going to DC this weekend and he asked me to get a good 10 second shot of people walking around a metropolitan area of DC. Not too hard, I think, so I even get to help them out when I'm on vacation!

[Hours: 10-5]
[Total Hours: 117]

Some People Just Can't Talk on Camera

As promised, I got an editing job today. Allen had taken a bunch of footage for the Rumschpringe Film Festival Promo video and it was my job to create a rough cut of it. Time limit was 60 seconds, 120 was the longest. My end time was 3 min 08 sec when I'd left.

This project was actually really frustrating for me. The main person (IMO) wasn't very good at talking naturally on camera. He would take long pauses and seemingly not think about what he was trying to say before saying it, so alot of it came out somewhat opposite of stuttered. It was very annoying to watch the same line over and over again prompted by Allen and still having it get messed up and befuddled. So half my time was actually spent taking out the "ums" and the pauses. This was true for the other people who were speaking, but none were as frustrating as the person who was giving the primary information.

Also, because of all the cutting of pauses, when the video itself was viewed, the people jump a little since the cuts are sometimes only a second apart so a hand vanishes or a mouth opens or something little that just BUGS me! I know I did somewhat okay with the audio, but when things didn't line up on those layers either I also got frustrated. I think that has something to do with the fact that I'm an auditory learner and I was in Speech and Debate for 3 1/2 years (and even more if you count judging after I graduated). I'm very conscious of the flow of words and those tiny little jumps that most people would ignore jump out to me like a bright red splinter in my thumb.

Now, I know, because Allen told me, that this is only a rough cut and that he himself will go back in and polish it up, but I still help but be frustrated with the fact that I feel like the video and audio is messy and unprofessionally edited.

Random aside: Allen and Joe took me out to Isaac's for lunch as thanks for all the work I've done for them. It was a nice lunch, tasty as all Isaac's meals are, and I told them they need to come over to our place so Caleb can cook them his famous fish curry. They'll like it cause it's spicy and Allen seems to want to put spicy into most things (at least that I've seen him eat).

[Hours: 9.45-5.45]
[Total Hours: 110] (I'm leaving out the hour for lunch)

A Little bit of That

I was Joe's intern on Tuesday. I started out by finishing the vectorizing of the gobos. I also did a bit of photoshopping for Allen of a picture for the Chameleon Club documentary. Then Joe had me rearrange some promo posters for "Atomic Robo" and "Stabb Gunner" to 20x30 so they could print and sell them. All this didn't actually take me the whole time, but I did get some of my homework for Wednesday done.

I think that was really about all. I still find it interesting the difference in tasks I get when I'm Joe's intern vs. Allen's intern.

Also, I am now more than halfway done my internship!

[Hours: 9.30-4.30]
[Total Hours: 103]

Slow and Quiet Day

Not alot to do at Postage today. Joe was out, and Allen had a project from Saubles foisted off on him at the last minute, so I mostly worked on the gobos that Joe had given me last week. I only got one done total, but it was a complicated tree. I did get most of the wedding proposal done that we'd started last week since the guy sent in music track. Final Cut also for some reason didn't want to play back my color correction, so that sent me through a loop for a few minutes. Allen had also done his own bit of editing for the "All Shook Up" piece for Dutch Apple and I have no idea what else I could possible do to it, so I went back to the gobo.

So yea, that was really about it today. I asked to leave early because Caleb got out at 2 and if I wasn't going to be doing anything that required Allen's attention at some later point, it was probably best to just go home (and do homework for tomorrow's class too)

[Hours: 10-2]
[Total Hours: 96]