Media Chaos

Last Wednesday, my office phone rang. It was my wife. She sounded excited.. like she just had a big idea. Boy, was I right. Quickly, she started in.. "I want to do a video montage for Little Calvin's Pre-K class. I am going to ask all the parents for copies of their pictures they have taken this last year and for their video footage as well. Then we can put something together." Oh Boy.... Since this is the type of project I undertake on a regular basis both at my regular job and in my free time, I knew three things... 1. This was a huge undertaking, 2. My wife had no clue as to what she was getting into and 3. My upcoming calm, relaxing weekend was suddenly swamped.

But what she said next, surprised me.. "I know I tend to volunteer you for big projects, but I don't want to do that to you this time, so I am going to do the editing.." Whoa. So not only was she going to volunteer us for this, but she was going to actually DO it. Ok... She has watched me edit enough projects that I thought she would be fine with a few pointers. And so.. the media chaos began!

On Thursday, the files began to flood in... photos on CD's, photos in e-mail, photos to scan, and videos on 3 different camera formats. By Friday, the piles on the table were growing very large. Now it was time to go to work.

Although my wife mentioned that she was going to do the editing, I knew from the size of the project that I would still be hard at work. I was the "transfer guy". I took all the various photos, or videos and scanned, digitized, sorted, etc. to get everything on the computer for her to edit. In order to do this, we had to turn much of the kitchen into a media studio, at one time we had 4 computers up and running at once, the editing computer, 2 computers uploading footage and 1 surfing e-mail accounts online pulling in photos. We had 5 video cameras running and 2 digital cameras, and mountains of wires. Media Chaos.

What was really surreal during this whole process, was watching my wife latch onto what has been one of my main hobbies. She was suddenly doing it, and watching her succeed was very rewarding! At the same time, I had to agonize with her when she made all the normal "mistakes"... the ones that you never think to teach that all people make at one point in time, like saving often. After 3 solid hours of getting really into the edit, constantly forgetting to hit save, then POOF, the computer gets overloaded and crashes, and she goes pale. We all learn that lesson once.. and only once, and it was sad watching her learn it.

In the end, she learned a few things (besides to save often).. she learned that video editing is ALOT of work and it eats time like nothing else. Saturday night, I finished my work at midnight, and warned her to be careful.. that time flies while editing.. She figured that out finally looking at a clock at 3 AM.

She also learned how rewarding it can be, as she did a tremendous job for a first timer. Sure, it took many extremely late nights, and hours on end, but in the end, the final product was great. I gave her advice on pacing, did the graphic design for the covers and DVD labels, and authored the DVD, so both of us were busy!

Thursday was the big day of the preschool graduation. This is where the DVD would be shown. And this is where my wife learned how nerve racking it can be to watch a video you have done, shown to an audience for the first time. Speaking from experience, it is a crazy roller coaster of nerves, fear, anticipation, and joy. But she survived and then could receive the many accolades of parents and teachers, all astounded at what she pulled off for them.

So, it's a week of congratulations.. to Little Calvin... for graduating from preschool, and to my wife, for tackling a giant project and doing a great job!