First Glimpse

Hello friends and viewing public!

A bunch has happened since my last post. I got a very severe "allergic reaction" which was diagnosed as Scrombroid fish poisoning or something like that and after the initial hives and feverish feelings, I woke up to swollen and red everything, and then vomitting, and the next day after that I couldn't walk my feet were so swollen and in pain. So I missed the meeting with Bridget and TJ, much to my sadness, as I really really wanted to meet Bridget in person.

So uh, word of advice: No matter how much you really love sushi and no matter how hungry you are it is no excuse to forget everything you know about safety and health concerns regarding raw fish. Do not let it sit around for 2 or 3 hours unrefrigerated before you finally get a chance to eat it. XD Goodbye spicy tuna roll, and all meat for a long time. I guess I'm going back to 95% veganism until I stop getting sick all the time.

Anyway, I currently (finally) have in my possession the mass amount of footage for The Artist Formerly Known As Trina as I met up with TJ on Thursday and got it. Woo!

As soon as I got the footage I went into Staples and grabbed some notebooks and pens and highlighters, because I recognized that there's a looooot of footage and I would need to take some pretty intense notes. While I could do this on the computer, I feel it will be much easier for me to write the notes about each clip in a notebook. So far this has proven true, and I won't lose the information in the notebook if I switch programs or anything.

What amuses me is that I started my viewing party with  footage that from what I can tell was not intended to be recorded (Bridget says at some point in the recording that she is not recording) - it's TJ in a class, giving a very illuminating lecture on a research paper she wrote (and won money and awards for I think). It's very interesting to watch TJ teach; she's very charismatic and deeply interesting to hear present information, and usually cracks a joke every other sentence to keep her class engaged, which they VERY much are. Her class is less a lecture and more like a delightful conversation which makes it very easy to learn. I once read or heard somewhere that when you laugh, when you're amused, you learn much faster.

I've also watched a few interviews with people, a show she performed at, and all the blooper footage from the Kickstarter video they did. What's fun for me is trying to figure out how I can use everything, even the stuff that wasn't necessarily intended for the final cut. Sometimes that means showing B-roll (that's the kind of footage that you cut to when someone else is talking) for a good quote when the footage doesn't look good, and sometimes it just means getting VERY creative with how I cut things together. A lot of what I'm doing is listening for sound bytes - good things that will help move the film along and present information in a nice, clean way without too much extraneous verbage. I'll put time codes for anything I find really interesting and want to go back to, especially when the clip is longer than 3 minutes.

In my notebook I write down any sound bytes I hear, I write down a summary of what each clip is (even if it's throwaway footage), I'll put a note about the quality and cinematography, and I have three degrees of highlight - yellow means I know I can use it, orange means I'll use it if I can find a spot for it but I think it would be fun to use or maybe I just found it really funny, and blue means I wrote a production note and need to make sure I re-read it. I don't know that any sane person would use my organizational systems, but they work for me, I promise.

Anyways, I have a horrible condition and it's called insomnia. I have work at 8 AM (it is now 3:15AM) and I only ever feel truly productive between the hours of 10PM and 6AM. And once I start being productive I hate to stop. But I must. I have gotten 1-5 hours of sleep every night since Monday this week. Sleep is such a waste of time. ;)

Goodnight everyone. Here's one-of-if-not-my-favorite-comedian, Kyle Kinane, talking about insomnia and being the midnight scientist that he is to lull those of you crazy enough to be awake at this hour to sleep. And for those of you sane enough to be reading this in the morning, or better yet the afternoon (why would you wake up before noon unless you have to? You guys are the truly sane ones), may it delight your day further.

- Kristy