The film fest is tonight. I've blown up dozens of balloons and gotten paper cuts from selling tickets. All of my work is coming to fruition. No matter what, my relatives will pat me on the back and say it's the best movie they've ever seen. I don't mind; I'm just excited to see my project on the big screen. It will be nice to momentarily have the spotlight on my work after everything that I've put into it.

I've spent so much time staring at every shot in this short film, it's become like a child to me. I raised it from it's inception, from the point when it was only an idea. I fed it, clothed it, and taught it how to tie it's shoes. Now it's growing up; it will be a stand-alone entity pretty soon. Little SOLUS won't need me any more in a few weeks. Even if it isn't particularly good, I wouldn't be able to tell at this point. By virtue of existence, it is flourishing in my eyes. I feel like a proud mother

I've lined up all of the audio from external devices with the video. I had to find the correct audio recording and line it up to the right frame of a shot several times. The scene in the hospital that had audio from an iPhone actually turned out very well. No, Apple isn't paying me to say that, believe it or not. The timing from most of the scenes is complete, the shots are in order and are about the length that I want them.

I've sifted through all of my raw footage and have a pretty good idea how the entirety of the film will play out. I'm not sure how the pivotal car-crash scene will work; the audio is in and out, the framing is poor in some instances, and the boom mic is in the shot several times. The lighting is also funky, so I'll have to work with some filters to tone that down. The car crash itself will also be a bit of a challenge. I'll stitch some sound effects together to heavily imply that Hope 

At long last, I finally have all of my raw footage shot. Hours upon hours of writing dialogue, coordinating shooting dates and fidgeting with tripods has paid off with a massive aggregate of videos. My job is now to reduce this large lump of unrelated moving images down into a coherent 17-minute story. Though I'm tremendously satisfied with reaching a new phase in my project, my delight is speckled with concern. Did I get enough takes of the pivotal accident scene? Will the audio from the hallway scene be drowned out by the vending machines? Will the retakes of the classroom scene be able to mesh with the original shots from 4 months ago? I suppose that in the end, I can only do the best with what I have. And when that inevitably fails, I can count on Mr Goble to bail me out.

The seat of my pants has grown wings. After months of failed attempts, I finally secured a date and location to film the scenes that take place in a hospital room. Thinking that I would be able to use a friend's sound equipment, I didn't bother to take a microphone from the school before it locked up for the weekend. 75 minutes before the scheduled shoot, I learned that my friend, along with his sound equipment was in Los Angeles.

I frantically called everyone in my address book in a last-ditch effort to procure sound equipment, but no one was able to help me. 45 minutes before the shoot, I called Mr. Goble, ready to admit defeat. Calm as a monk, Goble told me to simply download a voice memo app onto my cell phone and use that to record sound. Renewed with hope that all was not lost, I sped to the sight of the shoot just in time, camera bag slapping against my side as I ran to the entrance of the hospital. To my surprise, Goble's cell phone idea worked. The audio from my actor's iPhone was of comparable quality to audio from a purpose-built microphone. At the end of the day, this shoot was a valuable lesson in making the best of limited resources. That, and calling Mr. Goble when you get in too deep. Goble knows all.

And the train keeps on rolling. I was able to secure the physical rehabilitation room at the school in order to film a scene. However, I'd neglected to scout the location before filming. There was a very loud ice machine that produced an incessant, deafening hum. I'd almost resigned myself to having poor quality audio, when immaculate intervention occurred and the ice machine became quite. I whispered a silent "thank you" before proceeding to film the scene.

Schedule conflicts with actors has became an increasingly big headache in the past week. I had a date scheduled to film a specific scene. I had the location set, all equipment needs taken care of and all schedules aligned. 48 hours before filming, I learned from another crew member that one of my actors would be out of town on that date and had not bothered to tell me. To say that I was frustrated would be an understatement. If anything, producing a short film has been a valuable experience in dealing with more right-brained actor types. The ability to tactfully over-communicate is a valuable skill.

For the last three months, I have been creating a script for a short film. Several late nights have been spent tweaking words and envisioning scenes. The basic plot of the movie involves a girl who is forced to question the nature of reality after an accident leaves her imprisoned inside of her own mind.

Production has gone smoothly so far. I was able to make arrangements to shoot video in a hospital, and with the exception of the actors not bringing in the correct clothing, filming has been just peachy. Casting went off without any trouble, and two scenes have already been filmed in entirety. We're right on schedule to be in post production by second semester.

Every year in Broadcast Technology 2, Mr Goble whips up a fresh idea for his final project. Apparently, it's always something completely out of the blue. This year, we had to make a 6-shot film that corresponds to a 6-word story about our lives.

Mirroring Hemmingway's famous challenge to write a story with only 6 words, we had to tell a story about our lives with only 6 shots. Luckily for me, I have a 6-word story on standby in case a teacher thinks hes clever and assigns me to write one. It's tried and true. "The Straight-A Student, Secretly Rebellious". The only chalenge now was to get this story onto the screen. A quick storyboarding later, and I was ready to go.

The only issue that I ran into was a glitch with the autocorret. The 4th shot, which is a super tight of my shoes as I walk in the door, caused the camera to absolutely freak out. The ground appeared that it was boiling, switching in and out of focus every frame. I had to reshoot, but luckily I was still able to wrap everything up with ample time remaining. Onwards and upwards.

I'd like to consider myself a somewhat outgoing person. I try not to let myslef be anhibited too much by unfirmiliar social situations. But let me tell you, being dropped in a room with a half dozen people twice my age with no introduction was AWKWARD. This wasn't helped by the fact that I was shoving a camera in their faces and demanding soundbites. To their credit, all of the HEC TV cast and crew did their best to humor me. They let my trapse around their setup, filming interesting bits and collecting interveiws. Perhaps I took advantage of this a little too much, I finished with hours of B roll and interveiws that needed to be edited.

It always seems that even when I have enough B roll to fill a small house, I still never have the right kind. Sometimes, I have to just get a little creative and pair a sound bite with some viduals that don't match. This lady is talking about how hard it is to market the TV station. I've got 7 medium shots of the two anchors at the desk, 5 shots of the meteorologist at the green screen, and a handful of shot with techies plugging in equipment. It's impossible to go out and collect more shots, HEC TV has packed up and left. Just gotta make do with what you have, I suppose.

Even with a few awkward silences and speedbumps in the editing room, I was still happy with my end product. The sound was bad at times, the framing wasn't perfect, but when it was all said in done, I think that I had a video that is both informative and (somewhat) entertaining. Solid B+ work.