Last Day

So today was my last day at the internship. Kind of sad, I wish I could have stayed a little while longer. It's unfortunate that I have to leave just as I'm beginning to really get into the groove of things here. I've learned a lot, though, and even managed to help out some, so I think it's been well worth it. Today was a good day to end on, doing some tough editing to wrap up my time here. We brought in the footage that we shot yesterday and managed to throw together a rough cut of the whole 30-second spot. It was tricky, because the vision for the commercial hadn't quite been refined enough to provide a solid shooting plan, so we were flying by the seat of our pants to some extent when we shot everything. But, we moved some stuff around, made some plans to cheat the audio a bit, and generally managed to get something worthwhile thrown together. I felt pretty good about it.

I got a DVD with all of the projects on it that I was a part of while I was here, including the two commercials that I edited almost entirely alone. That'll be a fun thing to include in my demo reel as I work on that this next year. I also got a really neat card singing goodbye card signed by all the people at the office. And a cool BBM Studios shirt, so I can show off the company a little. :-) I'll definitely miss the people here, especially the guys in the video department. Hopefully someday I'll be back to visit Rapid City and be able to drop by and say hi to them.

All in all, it's been a good time over here. I am excited to get back though. Not too excited about the 15+ hour trip ahead of me tomorrow morning, but it'll be worth it to get back to friends and family in Arkansas.

Last Weekend in Rapid City

So this was my last weekend here. I'll be sticking around for a few more days to cram in a bit more on-location experience with the internship, then I'll be heading back down to Arkansas for the rest of the summer. Tomorrow will be a commercial shoot, then we'll start editing on Tuesday. After that, the shooting schedule for the second commercial will determine if I stay or not. If we're able to schedule it fairly quickly, like for Wednesday or even maybe Thursday, I'll stay around for that one. Otherwise, I'll be one my way come Wednesday. Tomorrow should be fun. The basic idea for a series of three commercials is people who have the worst jobs in the world, and the commercials are advertising online business classes with a university in South Dakota, and the idea is that by taking online classes and getting a degree, you can get out of your terrible job. The one we're shooting tomorrow is basically a guy whose job is being a human piñata. So we're going to try and hang him from a swing in a backyard and have a bunch of little kids in birthday party hats run at him with wiffle bats. :-)

This weekend was fairly relaxing, and I also got in some solo shooting experience. There's a volunteer building project going on just outside of town. Basically, they're building a playground in seven days, using only volunteer workers and donated materials and equipment. Our company donated a website for the organization that's in charge of the whole thing, and they sent me over there Friday morning and Saturday afternoon to get some still images and some video footage of the ongoing construction work. So that was pretty fun. It was nice to be trusted with shooting something on my own, even if it's a relatively minor project, and one that's very easy to do.

In other news, I've been digging deeper into After Effects, doing some tutorials and things like that when I'm not busy with internship work. I'm loving this program more and more every time I learn something new. I'm at the point right now where I can do basic stuff relatively quickly and easily, and I sort of have a feel for how some of the more advanced things are done, but I'm still just barely scratching the surface. Hopefully next semester I'll be able to get my hands on some books and get some cool stuff done, maybe even YouTube or Vimeo-worthy, or, God willing, demo reel-worthy.

Almost Done

So I'm almost done with my internship. I'll have my hours officially completed before the week is out, in fact. It's too bad I can't stick around longer. I feel like I'm only just now starting to get into the groove of how things work around here. I'm definitely going to stay a little into next week, and hopefully be involved with one more video shoot before I head out.

The past couple of days have been fairly relaxed. The main thing that's going on is the scramble to get a script/talent/locations ready for the new commercials we're starting on next week. Other than that, I've been editing a 30-second spot for a local restaurant. That actually received official approval yesterday, so it'll be sent to the TV stations soon, and that'll hit local television this week I think. It's an exciting feeling, knowing that something you've worked on personally is out there like that. We also got approval on the other Reptile Gardens commercial, the one with all the crazy green-screening that had to be done. We were just a wee bit nervous about that one at first, because we knew that if they wanted any changes made to it before it went out, it would take us forever, because we only keyed out the footage that was being used in that particular edit. So that was a relief, getting approval for that one.

Today I'll be working on a digital billboard in After Effects. In addittion to TV commercials, that's another thing that my supervisor does a lot of work on. Basically, instead of just a static image to be put on a billboard, it's an 8-second animation to be placed on a digital motion billboard. Pretty fun stuff, I get to put my graphic design into action as well as learn some After Effects animation. I know the basics of key-framing, but it takes a heck of a lot of work to actually get something looking nice!

More Editing

So today I didn't do much, but I did get to do some editing. Before I left for Germany, we did a shoot for a local restaurant, and because of a bunch of other high-priority stuff that came up while I was gone, the footage was still ready to be edited after I got back. So I worked on that today. It was a fairly quick edit, much quicker than I was expecting. One of the other video guys looked it over after I did my first rough cut, and he only had one or two small changes to make, so I guess I did a good job. I finished up a first version right before I left this afternoon, and it'll be ready to be sent off for approval as soon as we can get around to it.

I basically have about a week left before I'll have officially completed enough hours to get credit for my internship. I'd like to stick around and get some more experience, but since I wasn't able to get a paying job on the side, I'll probably end up heading back down to Arkansas once I have my hours done.

Green-Screen Magic

So my supervisor and I are pretty happy with ourselves after the results of yesterday's work. Neither of us has hardly any experience keying green-screen footage, and the footage we were working with was especially bad, since he also doesn't have much experience shooting green-screen. Anyway, we slaved over each little clip, spending sometimes up to 45 minutes trying to get rid of one little problem area. Somehow or other, we came out on the other side with one or two really solid techniques for achieving a decent key on what was otherwise a terrible shot.

I now have a lot more experience with After Effects, which is quite exciting. I did a whole lot of rotoscoping yesterday, to clean up some of the areas of the clips that just would not fix themselves through normal keying techniques. Today, I'll be putting the last touches on a clip that I didn't have time to finish yesterday. After that, probably not much will be going on till next week. I think I've been requested by some of the people downstairs, since they need some extra help doing some Photoshop work today, and we don't have much else going on with video for now.

Took a Trip

So, I just recently got back from a wonderful trip back to Europe for a few days. I headed over there to see my little sister graduate high school. Ridiculous! There's no way she's old enough to graduate! Craziness... anyways, the weather for grad was fabulous. It rained a little before and a little after grad day, but the day itself was just about perfect. So that was cool. I got to see all the people there who still remember me, which was fun. Took pictures with people whenever I got the chance. In a couple years, there won't be anyone there except teachers who remember me! That's a bit of a crazy thought... Hopefully I'll be heading back there in about three years, though, to see my little brother graduate as well. That's a hopefully at this point, since I have absolutely no idea where I'll be and what I'll be doing in three years!

Good trip. Now I'm back, and being assaulted by jet lag. Which is weird, since I almost never get major jet lag coming back this way. For whatever reason, I was dead tired when I got back, fell asleep on the couch, woke up at 1 in the morning and completely threw off my internal clock. I think I'm almost back to normal, though, which is nice.

We're doing some green-screen keying at work now. My first day back, I worked on a couple shots for a commercial we're editing. It's difficult work. The guys there really aren't set up for green-screen. We have limited equipment, and nobody there really has any experience doing it, so this is a learning experience for me and for them. Needless to say, the footage is really, really difficult to key, and we're spending an average of about 30-45 minutes per 5-second shot to get it looking decent. The commercial's still going to be obviously green-screened, which is unfortunate, but we'll be coming out the other side with a whole lot more experience in what the problems are for green-screen shooting, and what the solutions are for keying bad footage. Woot!

Ow... in a good way

So today I finally went hiking. It was great fun. I think we got to the start of the trail around 11:30 or so. Took us a little under 2 hours to get to the top. Took some pictures, ate lunch, climbed around on the rocks for a while. Then back down in about an hour. Very tiring, but very enjoyable and well worth it. I've got a monster of a sunburn now, but I'm sure it'll be gone in a day or two. Just in time to get to Germany! Which I'm quite excited about. I'll fly out very early Monday morning. Right now, though, I'm off to nurse my wounds, and be a bum in front of the TV while my arms recuperate...