Finally!! After 3 months of work... an insane amount of miles, 30 plus hours of footage shot and several all-nighters during the "final edit" stage... I'm DONE with my latest film. I'm exhausted... I'm ready to fall down.. At the moment, I never want to look at a computer again.. But the DVD's are done done DONE!!
Overall, I am pleased. I mean, I don't do this for the money.. ha... I wish... I do it for the over all creative challenge and because I really do think that, for the girls, these DVDs will be something unique that they'll never get anywhere else, or in any other activity. I mean, how many times has someone crafted a documentary style film about one of your activities? Either that or I am just plain bonkers... My wife actually found a quote by Dave Barry that has become my theme this year: "There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness." That so sums up this project! I even added that quote at the end of my end credits on the film.
All in all, while some things got a little out of hand, the film turned out as I had hoped and the DVDs... grew. Out of the two that I do each fall, one ended up having so much content, I had to turn it into a 2 DVD set, causing a last minute trek around the city, looking for the double disk DVD cases and disks. All together, between the three disks, I ended up with 5 hours of edited content. Ug. I am just getting more tired thinking of it...
But rather than dwelling on the exhausting aspect... Here are some of the highlights:
• It is easy to take for granted that everyone involved with these projects know me and what I do. This year, I discovered this is not always the case as new people join the teams. Early in the season, during a break in the first tournament, I followed the team out into the hallway to film their meeting in between games. By this time, I had been filming each day at practice and now, the first game of this tournament. One of the new players to the team, finally had enough. Just as the team discussion had begun, she said "Wait... ok... Who the heck is this guy, and why is he always following us around with a camera?!" thus causing the rest of the squad to fall down laughing. Having never experienced something like this, she assumed I was some kind of stalker and it freaked her out. Throughout the season this became our little joke, getting plenty of milage.
• Beating Junction City, one of our key rivals and an unbeaten team.. in their gym in front of packed stands... Always enjoyable...
• During the warmups for one game I was filming the team warming up out in the hallway just outside the gym. Some of the girls started to.. overdo their hitting, one accidently hitting a ball a little too hard, into the ceiling, breaking a light fixture, causing all the various pieces to rain down all over the floor, making a huge noise. Oops. Sadly, I was facing the opposite direction and only flipped around when I heard the huge crash, only getting the aftermath on film, instead of the actual hit. We got a lot of dirty looks from school officials that night.
• During interviews with the players, I asked the question "What inspires you as a volleyball player?" There was one answer I honestly didn't expect to get from a high school aged girl. She said "what really inspire me are my parents" and went on to talk about how much she enjoys doing well for them.. to make them proud, and the strength that pride gave to her. WAIT.. these are HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS... what happened to "my parents are stupid".. "I hate my family.." or DJ Jazzy Jeff aka Will Smith's "There's no need to argue.. parents just don't understand" comments. That comment took me by surprise, and just surmised why I enjoy working with this particular group of girls. And yes... I did pop that clip onto my video iPod to show her parents at the next game.. Some things are just good to hear.
• Towards the end of the season, as my editing time began to grow by leaps and bounds, I knew that my editing schedule would prevent me from spending as much time with Little Calvin as I would like. So I came up with an interesting idea, as he has his own laptop and is learning Apple's iMovie. I gave him one of my little cameras and the instructions to film a game.. not like I would, but to film whatever he found interesting. Then he would take the footage, edit it himself and create one of the DVD bonus features: Volleyball.. from a 7 year-olds perspective. This way, when I got stuck having to edit while he was still awake, he could just edit his own project and we could work on them together.
The night he was to film his game, by pure coincidence, we ended up in matching clothes... Jeans and our black volleyball team shirts. So there we were running around together.. me with the big camera and him with the little camera, filming the game in matching shirts.. We got a lot of smiles that night. And his little bonus feature turned out great.. even with his little tour of the concession stand and almost filming in the bathroom..
• Finally, I must admit, after imagining a film, working out each sequence, filming, editing, etc.. it is a very surreal experience to actually watch the film with an audience and see their reaction. What I discovered this year is that it is even more surreal to not only watch, but closely listen to people's reactions as it is discussed. Once the main film was done, I set up two recording sessions to record two audio commentary tracks for the DVD, one with the 4 seniors, and one with the coaches. The seniors thought this was great, being able to see the film before the rest of the team as well, as "force everyone to listen to our crazy stories". For me... it was just wacky to both watch and listen to each comment, each reaction to some of my favorite shots. While it was a lot of work to get the film to the point of recording those commentaries, it was very rewarding being able to do it.
There are so many more fun memories: long bus rides, our trip to State in Klamath Falls, and many gray hairs thanks to close games. But again.. it is now done, done DONE!! It's time to take some time off... finally watch my Netflix movie that has been sitting on my TV since the third week of August, and actually try to get back to normal sleep again. Then, once January hits.. my camera will start to roll again, with another film on tap to shoot.
That fine line between hobby and mental illness? I think I am waaaaay over into the mental illness side. I swear... I must be nuts...
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