Week two

Week, two of my internship is done. Thats a full 52 hours of work at Duart now! It really doesn't feel that long. I know I am in a good place and I have picked the right career because the days at Duart go by so fast! I work from 9am-5:30pm. I usually arrive a bit early, and leave a little late. But still the day seems to fly by! I start working and before I know it, its lunch time. I end up going to lunch late a lot, like 2pm, just because I'm having fun and don't want to stop.

Recently I have started working on editing together reels of previous work that Duart has done. This involves capturing footage from previous work, editing it together, adding copy (text) describing what work they did, setting up and recording shots around the studio of work actually happening, and putting all this together to make a one minute piece. To do this work I am given use of a Final Cut room. This is a pretty large office room, that has everything you could want to edit. An extremely powerful Mac Pro, with unbelievable RAM and a special drive to increase its processing speed. A (roughly) 40in LCD to screen tapes (played back through a different room), dual large LCD screens connected to the computer (this gives a massive amount of real-estate to view and have all of the windows and what not that I need to use during editing)  another TV monitor that shows the preview that Final Cut produces of the project I am working on. Also, the room comes equipped with a Final Cut specific keyboard, one that has all of the short cuts for editing printed on the keys. It is so useful! I'm learning so many more short cuts by using it.

Using this room may be spoiling me, but I'm loving every second of it! Another great part of doing this project is the people checking my work. Two of the high ranking people at Duart (guys who have been around this stuff for their whole careers) are critiquing my work. I created a first rough rough cut that I thought was pretty good. They came over, gave me their notes, and I basically started over. What I came up with after that is way better! I never would have gotten there without their critical evaluation. By the time I finish editing, this could end up being one of the best edited things I have ever created!

Yesterday I was pulled for this reel project to help put the ceiling up in a new sound proof recording studio that is being built at Duart. Without the ceiling I could see the outer part of the room that really makes it sound proof. There were hanging sheets of a thick, soft board stuff that must deaden any outside sound. The ceiling we put up was made out of a special paneling that does not reflect sound. When this room is done it will add another studio for Duart to record audiobooks in. It will be larger and more comfortable then other recording rooms in the building, so actors and engineers doing audio books will not get claustrophobic during the long hours involved in recording audio books.

In other related news, I am am a PA for a shoot coming up next weekend! I met an actor at Duart who asked if I was interested in being a PA for her shoot. She is creating a pilot for a TV show called "Dreamwalkers" which, I believe, she hopes to sell to one of the big studios! She said I will be a grip, and we will (hopefully) be using the RED camera! I can't wait for this experience and all of the contacts it will bring for later on!