The last round-up!

This weekend was it! I was self deteremined to completely and utterly finish the documentary with all credits, clean sound, and final editing decisions. I started my editing routine with my cup of joe and sat in front of the computer, now running Adobe Creative Suite 3 (Premiere Pro CS3) with Soundbooth for audio clean-up. The documentary is broken down into 4 parts - 20 minutes for each part (and if you're down with your Asian math stereotype, yes, it does equal 80 minutes). I started from Part 1 - frame by frame, segment by segment.

Cleaning up sound where it needed to be cleaned. Correcting editing sizes and installing video effects where needed. I had to also insert interview credentials and any subtitles of what was going on within the film.

I worked from 9 a.m. till 3 p.m. and then broke for lunch. Starvin' like marvin - I had some good Japanese food to hush my talking tummy. Then back to work!

From 5 p.m. till midnight, I was steaming through each shot. This is when I put in the pizza order in and let an hour pass till I had my next break. With pizza in one hand, my cpu mouse in the other, and caffiene to my sleepy aid, I had my second wind. Just the right timing too because staring at a computer for so long really does get your eyes droopy. Not to mention looking at footage that you've seen over and over and over again....

No offense to my interviewees or their performances, but I can literally mimick what they said or sing words from their song word for word. I know it so well, that I wrote out the credits at the end of the film from the top of my head. I know when each person shows up in my documentary and what they were talking about. It's sort of like a sick gift that demonstrates how involved I was in the editing process.

Continuing on, I hit a bad sleepy moment around 3 or 4 a.m. and couldn't really tell you how I got through 10 minutes of footage. But when I watched it over again, I did it right. It's a bad sign when you're moving your mouse and clicking at things you don't know your clicking at until you finally snap out of your bobbing head. You know - the sleepy bobbing head that we all know so well from college lecture.

Anyhoo - I stood up and went to the restroom to freshen up. Cold splashes of water, brush to the teeth (there's my dental endorsement!), and some water down the dry canal helped me get a 3rd wind going. It helped me last to completely finishing up. HOWEVER - after review of the dvd around 8 a.m. - I noticed that footage that I took with the digital camera (.mpeg files) were acting all jerky and being terrible. Upset that this was running fine in my old Premiere Pro 2 but now acting dumb in the upgraded Premiere Pro CS3, I did a google search = "jerky .mpg premiere pro cs3." WELL - sure enough - I was not the only one that had this problem in novice filmmaking world. ERRRR!!!

I was really, truly, undeniably, unmistakenly upset, uphauled, and annoyed. 24 hours had gone by and I was not "complete" in all fashions of the word, done with this documentary. So, after more research and heavy consideration to the footage captured in .mpeg format, I've decided to do a little filming tomorrow. Thank god, it's nothing big. But still upsetting to say the least.

PRIVATE SCREENING

With this completion right around the corner, I've stirred up a little hype within my own personal contact goup in Chicago. I've taken the liberty of renting out a theater and inviting all the Asian American artists, crew, and my friends & family to watch the film. Although a bit of a bite in the wallet, I think it's worth it and am convincing myself that it's my late birthday/early Christmas present to myself. I've gotten a lot of congrats from my emails and would like to say this to all the people involved in my film:

For as much as I say thank you, there can't be any form of understanding to the gratitude I have in making this smidget of an idea come to life. Your talent, insight, assistance, and thoughtfulness has put me in debt and I hope your own dreams in life come true. This is my stepping stone to future projects and has been the best form of experience education that I've had in my life. You've given this to me, whether you think so or not. So please, take a bow because it's me applauding you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!