The “Save Stephenson Price” Campaign is a video submission portion of a job application to the Rocketboom Institute for Internet Studies – a daily video blog that investigates the latest and greatest of happenings in the world of science, technology, and the world of the internetz.
RI opened a casting call in the spring of 2009 for vlog anchor positions in both New York and Los Angeles, and while I was looking through the other video applications that had already been submitted I was trying to come up with a way to set myself apart from the competition (as the entire thing was an open casting call, so everyone can see everyone else’s video and resumé)
The purpose of my film was to demonstrate my familiarity with shooting video, non-linear editing and my way with words while adhering to a tight schedule, as I had scripted the whole thing mere minutes before I hopped on a city bus and started shooting around town……all this without physically saying “I CAN SHOOT AND EDIT VIDEO” within the construct of the video itself……because that’s just redundant.
It’d be sort of like saying “The purpose of this essay is to: ” within an essay……..you’d think that would be fairly obvious by reading the introduction; or at least it would be if the essay was well-written.
Though, while this was the main function of the video, I was also trying to show off my camera presence and quirky attitudes through my short little video that would showcase certain aspects of my personality – as I felt it was a much better way to approach a job at a quirky vlog then a simple demo reel.
I shot the film on a Sony Cybershot DSC-H1 – which records in .wmv format, and which apparently Adobe Premiere heartily dislikes (you’ll notice I didn’t use the word “hate”) as it took me about 50 tries to get the video to encode properly after I had finished editing the video.
The final version involved splicing together several different encodings of the film short in order to get all of the video to appear properly rendered – as the encoding process left the video blank in different portions of each copy of the video.
That being said, I was really happy with the way that it turned out….so even if I don’t end up getting the job at Rocketboom, the open casting call provided a great opportunity for exposure, so I’m optimistic that somebody somewhere will like what they see and hear.
…..if not….I suppose it also means I have a bright future as a low budget indie filmmaker
wait, I guess that’s what I already am…..
…….fate, you’ve foiled me again!!!
