Necessary Distractions

Distraction is sometimes a necessary thing to bring about productivity. I would love to work in an environment that appreciates peoples' need for a change in scenery or time out of the office but of course still have it limits [it's unrealistic to expect your employer to allow you to hop a plane and fly to the Swiss Alps just because you need to stretch your legs, as awesome as that may be].

Last week was a wonderful example of this idea. At lunch time nearly the entire office went out to lunch. It was more like a mass wave since I was almost literally pulled out of the door, not even knowing exactly what for or where I was being taken. We went to the Breakfast Factory [located next to Jesus' mailbox and office, no joke] and it was so nice to have lunch with co-workers, not have to check our watches for when we needed to be back and have fun conversations. We also got to see two US Navy jets take off from the Rolls Royce building next door. The break in the norm brought about great conversations and was refreshing to the mental and physical state of many if not all in the office.

With only one week left, I look back and am grateful to have found this internship. I've learned a lot about how a non-profit organization runs [and in some cases doesn't run], the differences between creating narrative film and corporate video and how to interact and meet new people [never been great at it]. I've been pulled out of my comfort zone and have been forced to find myself work to do at times. From these experiences I have changed some of my previous notions as to what I wanted or didn't want to do in my future. I have also come to see how even when one does not openly profess their faith, I can still be a witness to those around me by my actions.

Got the Go

Last Thursday I got the green light for the promo video series for the festival. Me and Jeff had a meeting to discuss the specifics and whatnot and I'm really excited to see this finally come together. There is four videos and I'm really hoping to get all of them dome but both Jeff and Katie don't think that will be possible since one of the videos is going to be a compilation of clips from past filmmakers and to make that we have to wait to get clips from them which might not happen till after I leave.

Also was given another quick project where I'll actually be working with Jeff Sparks which should be fun. It's a personal invitation from Jeff Sparks to past filmmakers to attend the festival this fall. He is currently out of town so when he comes back next week I'm gonna film it, edit it and turn it around for them in a couple of days.

These past few weeks a lot of things have been happening/changing in the office and while I'm obviously not in the loop with hardly any of it, I've been observing reactions of the people in the office. If any truth has been proved from interning at Heartland it's that communication is very key in any organization. Miscommunication brings confusion, frustration and unnecessary amounts of stress on all parties.

Only Me and Bob

Me and Bob were the only ones at the office today. Tim was there for maybe 20 minutes but he had to go to some film screening.

I try to learn something every day. I don't always succeed or rather I don't always realize that I've learned something, but today I got smacked in the face with a lesson: if you are ever a supervisor, someone's boss or in charge of a group of people, always, always be kind and grateful and let your employees [and even co-workers] know how you are thankful for their work.

Bob was going through his email and leans over to me and says, "Rikki, I've been worked into the ground recently [some changes have happened with positions, etc] and this is why I love Jeff [the President and CEO of HTMP]...." and he proceeds to read me an email that Jeff had sent him explaining how grateful he was for Bob's hard work in the midst of stressful time.

That's how you are to treat your employees.

I Never Liked Playing Limbo

I've been kind of in a limbo between projects and it's been difficult to find things to do when in all reality there isn't. I hope that I get to green light soon for my next project so I can work.

Stupidity Has Slowed Me Down

So today was a little slow at the offices because of my stupidity. I showed Jeff and Katie the One Film Can video and tweaked it a bit and then set about exporting the video. After an hour of waiting [during which I had lunch] I came back and reviewed it just to make sure....the audio ended before the video did. Such an amateur mistake, I nearly hit myself for it! I fixed it and decided to edit a few very minor things while I was at it. Here we go again, another hour wait. But after it was done I showed it again to Katie and Allison and they loved it. I got swarmed after the staff meeting by people who wanted to see it and it was kinda overwhelming....

I also was able to get a hold of Heartland's external hard-drive that they lent out over the weekend. For the past week and a half my computer's disk space has been full which doesn't allow me to save files or receive emails while in the office through Entourage, so I've been using my personal external which also was about to be full [since it's only 320GB]. Thankfully, the one I was just given is 1TB which is AWESOME! Don't have to worry about running out of space ever again [or at least here at my time with Heartland]. So now with this new room I am setting about cleaning up my computer and organizing files and what-not.

That is probably my biggest complaint as of right now [I don't like using "complaint" since it's more of just a nuisance then a real issue]. The company's MacBook Pro desktop is a mess and the hard-drive is just as bad if not worse. I really would love to go through and clean out unnecessary files and then organize the relevant ones into folders that are easily findable. But we shall see if that happens since I don't know which files/folders are to keep etc or if there is a certain way of organizing things [which I doubt since it isn't very organized in the first place].

Success! [well, almost]

Yesterday at the office I finished up a nearly complete [but still rough] One Film Can video and showed it to Katie, Allison and Jeff. They gave me great feedback - Katie and Allison gave me tips concerning the marketing aspect and Jeff gave me production tips. It's so nice having someone who understands production there to help and give advice [and to talk geek with while no one else understands a word you are saying. Always fun]. So, This weekend is my fix and finish weekend with this video and then on Tuesday I can say I have given Heartland my first completed project of the summer [not included archived workshop videos but I don't really count those].

It was nice to see the above three excited about the video. I can say I'm pretty happy with the [almost] final outcome of the video considering the equipment provided. I wish I could have kept the video quality consistent throughout the project but I guess we gotta do what we can with what we are given.

From Three To Five Pee Em

Work has been kind of slow since I'm waiting to go to Chicago [in about 20 minutes] to get more footage while I'm visiting some friends out there. Hoping I get more useful and diverse answers this time then in Indy [that was horrid].

Thankfully I was given another project and a second one is pending. HTMP had another workshop about scriptwriting with Andie Redwine a few weekends ago and so I've log and captured and have been putting that footage together and adding in her slides and such. The audio was painful to listen to, so much buzz and hum you could barely hear Redwine talk at times. I cleaned it up as best as I could in Soundtrack Pro [which took FOREVER it seemed] and I'm somewhat proud of the outcome figuring I've never really done audio sweetening before to any major extent.

I've realized that knowing people who know more then you in this industry is not only useful but very important. I've already contact some of my friends back from school to help out with issues with software or to bounce ideas off of them and it has proved most helpful. I know I wouldn't have been able to work through some of the Soundtrack Pro edits if I didn't have friends who knew A LOT more then I. And Jeff LeFores from work has been a great help as well [he graduated with a Media Production degree from Butler]. It's also nice to be able to talk to him about films/editing programs and he actually understands what I am talking about. Not many people know that the best time to shoot is from 3-5pm.