A lot of work went into this one. Admitably, I picked this story because I figured that it would be easier to cover a story within walking distance of my editing chair. The memory of navigating Kingshighway traffic was still fresh in my mind, and I opted for something less challenging. But was I so wrong.


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Before the show
When I went to interview Ms. Goldstien, the brains behind the Mr. Ladue operation, i committed my first mistake. The shot was woefully overexposed. Irreconcilably so; a century's worth of film technology was simply no match for this blunder. Goldstien would have to air looking as though she'd fallen asleep in a tanning booth. Oh well, at least the SD card was in the camera this time.


The night of the event came, and I was optimistic that I could easily patch together a good short story. However, I was ill-prepared for the reality of the situation. The lighting in the auditorium was nothing short of treacherous. Well lit areas were immediately juxtaposed to areas with no light. This made it necessary to manually adjust the apature of my camera every time I got a new shot. My thumb was soon sore from adjustment knob.

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Backstage with the contestants
I was able, after much trial and error, to become proficient at apature adjustment. But this was just half of the battle. Figuring out where to set the camera, and where to point it, is difficult when so much is going on. Between dance numbers, speeches, talents, improvised scenes, and crowd reactions, capturing everything with one lens proved to be a challenge. However, this lead to a fun scenario in which I was able to walk around the stage at my discretion. I suppose everyone just assumed that I had the authority to do so, and no one questioned me. The power quickly went to my head. I felt like a god, answering to no man (except mr. Goble), able to transcend space and time to 

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The contest heads into the final round
The biggest challenge of the entire ordeal, however, was editing. By the end of the night, I had enough B-roll to feed a small horse for a month. It all needed to be clipped, sequenced, and color corrected. Once again, it was a race against time to meet the deadline. The editing room became my shrine, the Apple computer my alter, and Final Cut Pro my deity. I poured the time in, and I was satisfied with the result. Even if mr. Goble feels that it's only worth an A-.