Fun?

I was at a women’s leadership conference this past weekend. Apparently since I’m a young female entrepreneur I’m supposed to be a role model or something. So they had me give a talk about what it was like to be an entrepreneur and why I decided to do what I do. It apparently turned out pretty great. Although I think that if I’m going to keep doing these things, I should probably have a video to bring with me. I felt a little weird because I guess I feel odd playing up my job when I make very little money and no one trusts me really because I”m so new in my field. Also running a small business is annoying, and hard, and boring. I hate the business part of it, I don’t have a business brain, I enjoy more the creative side, naturally. Also, there was a bit of a problem because a lot of the girls were too young to even know what the word entrepreneur means. Half of them were in kindergarten. A little crazy. Still, they asked me, I did it, and that’s that. Hopefully I inspired some girls to pursue a life of difficulty and poverty. Just kidding. I love my job, even if it does suck sometimes.

Wooo!

So I had an unfortunately new experience a few weeks ago. I wasn’t nervous when going to my job. Usually I’m a mess of nerves and stress, but not this time. It happened to be a job I’d done before with people I knew and “regularly” freelance with. The guy who hired me I consider a friend. But they like my work and honestly they try to get anyone to do it because it gets boring after a while. So I have to say it was nice not feeling awful before going to do my job. I suppose I get that way because I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I don’t believe in myself enough. Still, fun times abound. I’ve decided to start a new YouTube series which has already hit a roadblock seeing as apparently I’m too busy. More to come on that later.

So.

I think the hardest part of any project is just sitting down and actually starting it. At least that’s what it is for me. I get all of these great ideas for new projects or scenes I want to turn into short films and such, but the hardest part is to sit down and start fleshing it all out. Once I’ve made myself sit and actually do it, then it flows pretty easy from there (unless you get writer’s block). It could also be the fact that while I love filmmaking and telling stories through moving pictures, I hate writing. It’s one of my greatest stumbling blocks as a filmmaker. I wish I were better at being able to articulate the pictures I have in my head into words and then have them all form a coherent story. I find, though, that if you sit there long enough and just keep writing until it makes sense, it can work out pretty well. Then of course you have to go back and edit out the nonsense you thought was great at 3 am.

Recent New Learnings

So I’ve learned a few new things recently.  Firstly, if you promise your boyfriend that you’re going to do a creative video project for him, do it right away, because he will begin to gripe about every other creative project that you’re working on that isn’t his.  Also, I’ve learned that I need to bring my monopod for every project that I go to.  I have this giant 70-400 lens that is pretty heavy and it makes me nervous to just leave it hanging off my camera without any support.  It even has a place to attach a tripod, so I’ve decided that I need to bring one with me to support it as well as one for my camera.  

 

Oh, and I finally finished my cousin’s wedding that I hated so much.  I didn’t hate my cousin or the wedding.  I hated the filming job that I did with it because it was pretty terrible.  Also the sound was awful. And to top it all off it was in SD 4:3.  Yay.  Well, at least he’ll have it now.

STOP USING AUTO

Seriously guys.  If you’re serious about anything, STOP. USING. AUTO.  I’m done.

First Time by Myself

So I did my first job all by myself.  By that I mean I had no assistant, and my father wasn’t part of the program so he could follow me around and help me.  It wasn’t a very long job, but it was ok.  I realized that I like having an assistant.  Mostly it’s so that I don’t have to carry all of my equipment by myself.  The trouble is that if I were just bringing the equipment I actually use, it probably wouldn’t be so bad.  But I like to prepare for every scenario, so I bring all of my back up stuff, and it piles up.  Still, it wasn’t so bad, it was a short job and it was easy, so there was nothing surprising or annoying to deal with.  Every event I go to I become better and better prepared, and it shows in my work.  It makes me happy that I can still do a good job but at the same time, I’m still learning and can do an even better job later.

 

Now I’m super excited because I have a new job which I am super excited about and I can’t wait to get started on.  It’s a steady job which will give me work until April because it is for a class.  I can’t wait to get started on it because I really want to impress these people so they will hire me again.

Don’t EVER stop working

So I just got off winter break that I made for myself.  This was a mistake.  Don’t do it, because you will regret it later on.  Even if you just do a few things to keep up with your business.  Like for example going through footage.  It’s important.  Don’t stop working.  When you have your own business, technically you’re always working.  So yeah. Lesson of the day.

GAH

So you know that point where you’re in the middle of editing something you’ve shot, and suddenly you realize how much you hate yourself? Yeah, I’m at that point.  I mean, I got ok footage, but it’s not fantastic, and there’s no way to fix it.  I really wish sometimes I didn’t hate all of the footage I ever got for these events.  Pthththththth.

Just a Thought

In case everyone was wondering, creating a brochure is a pain.  At least I hate it.  I don’t know what to write! Here I am, I’m wonderful, here’s all of the stuff I haven’t done, but would love to try because there’s more of that than there is stuff that I HAVE done.  

Eh, whatever, I guess I should just get on with it.  

All I can say is Wow.

I have to say that this weekend has been quite an experience for me.  I’ve learned quite a lot of things.  Mostly that things are probably not going to be as bad as you think.  The work I did for UVa was not as nerve-wracking as I thought it was going to be, so that’s good.  I learned that apparently when a subject is standing annoyingly close to/in front of a window, you can see them better if you put an ND filter on and open your iris waaaay up.  Also, monopods are for the steady of hand and the strong of heart.  So if you have rathe low blood pressure like me, and standing still makes you pass out more often than not, use a tripod.  I also discovered that after a few hours of carrying around my large camera, that my large camera is in fact quite heavy.  I realized that having over-ear, outside noise-canceling headphones is a blessing from heaven.  I realized that I need a bag that I carry around with me that has all of my available lenses in it. And all of my audio equipment.  I learned that a good assistant is worth their weight in gold.

Now, the Scythian concert is another matter.  I learned a lot there as well, but I hade more fun doing it.  I learned that if you shoot a video for the main band, you get an all access pass and you get to sit in the VIP section while you wait for them to go on.  That was pretty awesome let me tell you.  I learned that I should check what lenses I have on what cameras before I start doing things.  I learned that probably for concerts, a telephoto lens is most likely they best bet. I learned that if I’m going to be in the crowd while I’m doing videography, I should  probably wear ear plugs.  Right now I’m fairly deaf.  It’s a good thing I’m young and I have young ears that will bounce back from this, but if I keep doing this (which wouldn’t be so bad) my ears aren’t always going to bounce back, so I”m going to need earplugs. Also, you should bring every available tripod that you have just in case.  Really, if possible, bring all of the equipment that you have no matter what, even if you think you won’t need it, you’ll have it there just in case.  Some other interesting things I learned is that even if you’re dressed like a videographer and carrying a camera, drunk guys will still try to hit on you, and that standing room only crowds aren’t the best place to try to shoot video from.  I think I have a few lumps on the back of my head from where people were hitting me.

Regardless of all of this, I had a blast.  When I was actually working, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I was super nervous before both projects, but I guess when I go into work mode, all of that just melts away and I focus on the task at hand. Like making sure no one spilled beer on my camera.  You know what would have been fantastic for the concert? A crane rig. I don’t think the club would have liked it though, it would probably mess with their aesthetic.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens when I try to edit all of this together, so far I’ve only imported all of the sound and video, now we’ll see if I can make something decent out of it. Until next time.