Strategic Volunteering

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I am officially done!  I have produced, shot, written, and edited an 8 1/2 minute long video for the Training Source.  And I am really, really pleased with it.  I turned it over Thursday afternoon.  A couple hours later, I got an email from executive director, Kim Rhim, that she was “too emotional” to call after watching it because it was exactly what she had hoped for.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I had challenges along the way, particularly with my camera and editing.  But I was able to meet them.

I wasn’t particularly happy with the audio quality I was getting, but after some troubleshooting, I got quality I could call pretty good.  My next step will be to invest in a good wireless mic, which should give me better quality and save my arms.  I also had a couple camera challenges, but when the online manuals for my camera proved useless, I shot off to the store where I bought it and brainstormed with a salesclerk until we figured them out.

Editing on Final Cut Pro was the biggest challenge by far.  But, Apple’s One to One was my savior.  I can’t sing the praises of this program enough.  For $100 a year (a year!) I can sign up for hour -long sessions with a pro.  You can only sign up for one session at a time, but that didn’t prove to be a problem.

Knowing that I was about to edit this piece, I immediately signed up for an hour and went in with a list of questions.  We worked through them methodically, I took copious notes, and at the end of the session, I immediately signed up for another with the belief that I was bound to have more questions as I got into the editing.  And I did.  I also signed up for a two-hour personal project session that ended up turning into five hours of editing my piece with a Final Cut Pro expert nearby.  After that, I sailed through the editing on my own.  A final session last Wednesday enabled me to finesse a few things and walk out of there feeling ready to turn my piece in.

The Training Source premiered the video at their gala last Friday, the 12th, and my friend Kim Moss, who gave me this job, told me Kim Rhim was beaming.

I have one final One to One session scheduled for Wednesday so that I can fix a few little things that are bugging the perfectionist in me.  Then I will post it to YouTube.

And Tuesday morning, I have a meeting with a friend who wants to talk to me about producing a video for a proposed Children’s Science Museum in Virginia…