Final Cut, No

A still from the footage of Ann Glavan that I got following her show in Lake St. Louis, Mo. on Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. I spent a lot of time Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014 looking over the large amounts of video I shot that day. Luckily, I had been able to organize the footage before editing all the videos I made.

Final Cut Pro has been giving me a huge headache. When I was purchasing materials and computer programs for J2150, I bought Premiere Elements to edit video. I have no idea why. When I started to work on my first round of videos, it only took me about a half an hour to realize that Premiere and I were never going to get along. The free trial of Final Cut was my saving grace, but now my trial has expired and Final Cut has forsaken me. I set my due date for the video component of the final project for Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014, so I didn’t have much time and I did not have an extra $300 lying around to purchase the actual program. I was desperate to find an alternate route to Final Cut.

I tried convincing the free trial website that I wasn’t Jacquelyn Olson, no, I had never even heard of that person. I was a newcomer to the free trial and I deserved a month of free video editing. Clearly, Steve Jobs’ intellect and security programs were superior to my  false identities (aka, my roommate’s name and email address). Then, I tried installing the free version on a friend’s computer, but our schedules never lined up enough for me to get any real work done. I even tried installing it on my sorority’s desktop computers, but they were too old to accept the program. Finally, I realized that (duh) the J-school computers ALL have Final Cut Pro installed! Come on, Jackie.

The problem was that the J-school computers do not allow you to save anything locally to be worked on later. I had one shot to edit all of my videos. So, I spent my 20th birthday in the basement of Walter Williams Hall, creating three beautiful videos:

I got the job done, but I think Final Cut bested me in the end. It’s crappy to work on a tight deadline for hours at a time. After going to lab, I went home, consumed an impressive amount of birthday cake, and passed out. Only one more day until Thanksgiving break…

On the Go

 

I covered the qTpoc meeting in the LGBTQ Resource Center in Columbia, Mo. on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014. The talk was interesting, but I spent way too much time on interviews while covering the event.

So mobile assignments on deadline are pretty stressful. My last post, significantly different in layout from my usual posts, was published entirely from my phone. All of the content was gathered and posted in under two hours.

Going in, I thought it would be a piece of cake. I’ve written on deadline before, and covered topics that are way more stressful than an LGBTQ discussion group. What I forgot was that I’m a perfectionist. I always feel like I need more background information before I can publish anything, lest I misunderstand something fundamental about the story and have it show in my writing. For an in-depth piece, this is a blessing. For an under 200-word blog post, this is a curse. I interviewed more than one person at the event, which was completely unnecessary. I also tried to talk to the speaker, which I had no time for because I’d already interviewed two people who attended the event. My biggest mistake came from asking a person who worked at the LGBTQ Resource Center a couple questions for clarification. Never engage someone who is passionate about a cause unless you want to be lectured for a while. Most of the information he gave me was helpful, but a solid seven minutes out of the ten minute lecture were really irrelevant to what I was doing. But I couldn’t cut him off, because he was talking to me as a favor. And because he didn’t breathe between sentences.

By the time I’d blundered through my interviews and gotten a lecture from Resource Center personnel, I had about 20 minutes to get my content online. Fine. I know how to write a lead and add a quote. But no matter what I did, the WordPress app refused to let me caption my photos. I pressed every damn button in the thing, and it gave me no other options but to post photos without captions. So I cut the deadline pretty close and had to omit photo explanations, and to top it off I totally forgot to tweet my post out for extra points. Come on, Jackie.

qTpoc Talk

The University of Missouri Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Resource Center in Columbia, Mo. hosted an event for Queer People of Color on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014 that aimed to foster open discussion about the issues plaguing the transgender community.

The event is titled ‘qTpoc,’ adding a ‘T’ for ‘transgender’ to the Queer People of Color acronym ‘QPOC.’ Though QPOC meets weekly, the MU LGBTQ Resource Center planned and advertised qTpoc as an event in an attempt to spread the word about QPOC meetings and give students a chance to discuss issues specific to the transgender community.

Remi Rocha is a student who identifies as a queer person of color and describes herself as a QPOC regular.

“I’m still educating myself about trans issues, so I like to go to as many events like this as I can to further educate myself,” said Rocha.

Getting Back in the Saddle

I had a really good time making friends at the barn, like Chester, a Thoroughbred owned by one of Ann’s friends who also competed on Friday, Nov. 7, 2014. Chester entertained me at the Lake St. Louis, Mo. show by sticking out his tongue to try and get attention, but once the camera came out he got a little shy.

I’ve started my final project relatively early and have already collected all the content I need for the video. I drove out to tape Ann training for her show at the Lake St. Louis Hunter/Jumper Horse Show on Thursday night and caught her preparation and showing on Friday morning. She performed very well and got third place overall in the Younger Adult Hunter Class. I got to interview her and her trainer before and after her performance, and I’m excited to see how the video turns out!

It was really nice to be able to walk in to the excitement of the show atmosphere and be confident in my ability to take video. Before taking J2150, I would have had no idea what kind of content to look for or how to approach the video-making process. Now, I’m able to waltz in, quickly make adjustments to my equipment, and take quality video that conveys the feel of the environment well. I was able to gather several five-shot sequences as well as good action shots of Ann warming up and taking jumps during her competition. My confidence allowed me to be much more relaxed during this portion of the class than the last, and I was able to make a connection with my subject so that she felt comfortable with me as well. It also allowed me to have a pretty good time during the entire filming process.

As I said in my last post, I do love horses. This, combined with the relative ease with which I was able to take video, made me a pretty happy camper at the show. Despite the fact that I had to drive an hour and a half to the barn and back each day, I was very excited to be there both times. There were plenty of horses and dogs to play with during down time between shots, and the mannerisms and vocabulary I learned when I was younger started to come back to me. I’ll have to be careful not to use equestrian terms in the final project so that all audiences can understand the video, but I think I’m going to continue to have a fantastic time working on the project. I hope I can translate my passion for the subject into the final product!