In the past year at Lynn, I had the opportunity to work not only in front of the camera, but also behind the camera producing a few of my own segments. For one of my classes last semester, I had to produce several short pieces illustrating my command of camera techniques, and also editing techniques. I invested in a Macbook and also purchased Final Cut Pro, something I advise everyone else to do. It is costly, but it’s well worth it. For those of you who have spent those endless hours during crunch time (end of semester when your final projects are due) in the editing room (either waiting for someone to get off ‘your’ computer or figuring out where exactly you saved your project), you’ll truly appreciate how easy it is to edit on your own laptop. Things get done alot faster, and you learn so much more about editing. Actually final cut is rather addictive when you start playing around with it.

My first task was to produce some sort of piece that would show a POV (point of view) shot. I chose the infamous Requiem for a Dream soundtrack and really just let the music dictate the piece. I then booked out a camera from Bob and Andy (the two best guys in the communication dept. who are always there to lend a helping hand), and I convinced my poor boyfriend that he would be a fantastic actor (much to his misery) and then invited his mates around for a friendly poker evening. But much to their shock and horror, they were to be the extras in my segment (okay, so i had to bribe them with popcorn and drinks… but I got them to stay and partake).

The camera work wasn’t too hard, but i really had to think about how I was going to edit the piece before I shot it. Not all of it worked out as planned, so I had to improvise. So far, I have enjoyed editing this piece the most, I suppose it’s the most artistic piece I have done so far.

Thanks to Youtube, most of my work is posted on the internet:

The second piece i did wasn’t as impressive, but it was very cute. I had to choose a nursery rhymne and put video to it. I found this one more challenging… however, I came up with ‘Happy Birthday’(very original). I basically made it into a bit of a music video. I told the story of a guy (once again my poor boyfriend who gets dragged into all the tedious boring horrible tasks – he’ll kill me for posting all of these videos of him on my blog!) who thinks everyone has forgotten his birthday. He watches the time go by, then thinks he hears a knock at the door. He runs to the door only to see bubbles (he thinks he’s just seeing things). He closes the door and sulks back into his position, when…SURPRISE… no one forgot his birthday after all. As you’ll notice there are not that many extra’s in this piece. In fact, i had to double as camera man, producer, director and extra (I suppose you’d call that quadrooppling). I tried the same ploy as last time with my mates…but the friendly pocker evening was not that convincing this time.

Any how, you can view this video at:

I am going to be late for class if I don’t end this now… so, I’ll continue this in Part Two of ‘Lights…camera…action’.

It’s that time of year again: A new academic year, a new semester. It is my favorite time of year, I feel as though I’m at the starting line of a race. I have no idea what opportunities lie ahead of me, or what I may have achieved at the end of it; but I am excited to get on my jogging shoes and start running.

As most of you may know, the first week of classes are basically just going over the syllabus and learning the foundation of what your classes may entail. Some of my classes include Communication Law, Acting, Print, Senior Seminar, and German. So far, so good. My law class seems like a lot of work, and I do feel as though it is slightly daunting. As an International student, I have no prior knowledge of the US legal system, nor the constitution. I can tell you one thing, the execution of the legal system in South Africa is most definitely not a good comparison.

Anyhow, as this is my first post, I wanted it to mainly be an introductory piece for the semester. If there is one thing I can leave you with, it’s that time flies! I cannot believe that I am already a SENIOR! I feel extremely old and it doesn’t help that my birthday was last week! If I look at myself three years ago, I was just a shy little freshman, in a new world… a university slightly more advanced than my school of less than one hundred students in Africa! It took a little bit of adjusting to, but it was well worth the effort. As Winston Aarons said at our Honors Convocation last year,

‘we are all masterpieces in progress.’