I have had a busy week...but I'd say a productive one.  Just about every night was filled.  Monday night was freelance.  Tuesday was touring the local cable access channel.  Wednesday was electrolysis and Thursday...today...was a drama filled night.  Let me 'splain....no....there is too much.  Let me sum up.

We'll start with Tuesday.  Tuesday was a 12 hour work day.  I got to work at 9:30 and I got home at 9:30.  Work was work, but after work was interesting.  The artists co-op non-profit that I'm now working with is interested in producing a children's television program.  They also want to do a bit more video which involves finding equipment.  We have nothing right now.  So we went looking for places to get gear from.  The cable access station was a good option because they charge one flat fee for a year.  With that fee, we can take out the gear as much as we'd like.  Unfortunately they have restrictions too.  So we're working on that.

The tour reminded me of working at TV10.  For those of you reading that don't know what TV10 is, it's the campus cable station at UW Eau Claire...my alma mater.  I ran that station for a year and was involved with it for over three.  Anyway, the capacity of this cable access station was similar.  The biggest difference was that TV10 had slightly newer broadcast gear.  The cameras were XL series and GL series from Canon.  Good cameras.  We'll have no trouble with those.

Unfortunately they require people to go to training sessions, and that includes three nights of equipment training.  They will not waive the training session for me despite me knowing more about video than the person running Channel 14.  That was recognized by David and Mark, the two artists.  Mark even pointed out that Mary, the person running Channel 14, seemed to be aware of it too.  I could teach the training course, and I have to go to it.  Very patronizing... I'll do what I have to though.

I think there's a lot of potential with the children's program, especially if we find funding.  I think I can help with that too.  I know of educational organizations that might fund a program like that. Here's hoping.

My electro appointment went well, and I brought my camera.  So I'm all set for my next podcast.  I just need some supplemental shots to wrap around my "remote shoot" footage.  I'll probably shoot that Saturday.  So watch for the new podcast soon.

The only other thing that happened Wednesday was related to another Children's project I'm working on.  It's an educational set of videos to help supplement education.  It's a great idea and has potential to go a long way.  The problem, as I mentioned in a previous post, was that the shoot was conducted with cameras that were...sub par at best.  The image quality was terrible.  Wednesday I took a look at the footage and my worst fears were realized.  The footage is completely useless.

One of the cameras has backfocusing issues.  So that means the characters are in and out of focus.  The colors are badly muted, which removes all the vibrance and character of the puppets.  There's no lighting control.  The nat lighting was a wall of windows and direct afternoon sunlight.  So, areas of the shot were totally blown out, while others were in shadow.  The optics of the cameras were so bad that the image looked totally flat.  Not to mention the cameras themselves are old Hi-8 cameras with an effective resolution of smaller than standard def.  The guy had the cameras set up at three angles, all of which were two shots.  So there's no way to creatively cut them.  They were shot too high, so you can see behind the stage. To top it all off...he had them all set to full auto.  So any time the colors changed on screen, the iris auto adjusted.  To put it simply...the footage is total crap.  I cannot use it at all.

So...I had to do something.  I couldn't just leave it at that.  I didn't know how to tell John, the creator of the project, how things looked.  I decided on sending him an e-mail and just being straight forward about it.  I told him flat out that I didn't want to offend or step on toes.  I just wanted to make the project the best it could be.  It was hard, but I spelled it all out, and I hoped for the best.

Today I got a response, and thankfully, he took it well.  It gave me a huge sigh of relief.  Then later, I got home and saw that my office phone had a voice mail.  I checked, and it was the camera guy saying he wanted to move forward anyway.  He wanted to take what we had and put it on youtube.  I didn't know what to do because...I didn't mention earlier...this guy has no concept of how to communicate visually.  None of the footage that was handed to me was coherent or communicated any sort of message.  Even John told me he was confused by it.

I got really tense and at first attempted to e-mail the guy back.  I stopped mid composition and called Chris for advice.  He told me to call John and talk it over.  I did, and John and I had a good long talk.  Turns out John and I are on the same page.  So we're going to work it out.  I'm glad, because I would like to see this project happen and really make a difference for kids.  I didn't want to have to back out due to quality issues.  I truly am starting to feel like a video tech advisor and a producer.

I'm definitely feeling high strung and stressed of late.  So much so that I'm getting a canker sore.  That happens any time my stress levels get high.  Must be my body's natural pH level changing.  Anyway, I'm pushing forward with the flash site.  I decided to get a book on Actionscript, which is the programming language behind Adobe flash.  It's a powerful language, and it'll help me get this project done.  Turns out...I already know most of the syntax.  For the project I am doing at work, I mastered Javascript.  Actionscript is based on the same structure.  So it'll be a breeze for me.  I'm excited about that.  Plus, this will really help my marketability for getting a new job.  To have not only javascript, asp, ajax, xml, html, css, and sql, but also the standard programming  language for adobe flash, flex, and air....that's fantastic.  I think I'll delve into ruby next.

Funny thing is...I'm enjoying the reading.  Who'da thunk I'd be reading text books for fun after college? I must really be a nerd! Either that or I just miss learning...or I suppose the writing is good too. Crazy though.

So yeah...it's been a dramatic week.  I'm glad tomorrow is Friday.  Tonight...I'm going to bed early.  I'm Tired!!! I went to sleep at 2:15 last night.  I don't know if that's when I fell asleep, but I didn't sleep well.  So, hopefully tonight will be a better rest. Sweet dreams all!