Set in stone

This week has been hectic. I needed to get an HDCAM copy of my movie printed. There's only one HDCAM deck around that's accessible to me without having to drive to Atlanta. That deck is back in Cullowhee, at the college. I returned to my alma mater and encountered extreme difficulty in trying to make the print. After hours of unplugging and replugging miles of cable, I finally got it to work, with the great help of John Wells. I also stopped by the motion picture stage so that I could give a recorded interview about the details of the festival, as well as the benefits given to me by my time in the department. My performance was less than graceful. I can talk casually to large groups of people with ease, but put me in front of a camera, or make me do a stately presentation and I lose my edge.

I would like to stress something to any young filmmakers reading this. When you have your movie finished, immediately make high quality media backups, so as to not have to deal with it at the last minute and encounter huge problems. For a little while, I thought I wouldn't get my film turned in, simply because I couldn't figure out the deck I was using.

Also, take advantage of any equipment your school has. I contacted Crawford Communications in Atlanta to see if they could do the transfer for me. They would have charged me $450 an hour.

The HDCAM tape was sent of through DHL this morning. It should arrive to the festival in a few days. So now I play the waiting game.

Until we meet again.