Rachel's Viewfinder
One of my recent video projects was something that started a bit differently than most. For one, I didn’t shoot it. I was out sick. By the time I was given the project to finish, it was five weeks cold, and I’d only seen the footage once.
When the arrangements were first made for my sickness, I thought I had understood the video-grapher to be the one who was also going to handle the complete edit. I would only put on the finishing touches, and ship it off. I was surprised when I was handed a timeline with simply the interview cut together. No b-roll, no music, no nothing.
Back in April, I wrote about “Which Story?”. This project started as something very different than the story you see here. The shoot and the interview were done differently than how I conduct them. And I had a completely different set of expectations about how it would be finished. But when something like this is completed, I stand amazed. It’s because of the Lord, and how He guides every aspect of telling these stories, from interview to final edit. If it were up to me, I’d be frustrated and upset that things weren’t how I thought they’d be. But God in His grace gives the tools and abilities needed to complete the task how He wants it.
The past three weeks, I’ve done a heck of a lot of writing at work. Script-writing, letter writing, procedure re-writing. In a typical work-week, I write a handful of emails and messages a day. Churning out over 3000 words over the past few weeks has been daunting. But the exercise has proved useful. It’s helping me get my voice back.
The styles needed for my writing projects have ranged from formal to informal, and informational to quirky. As I worked on a script for a training video last Thursday, I found myself writing in a voice I haven’t used in years. I was writing in the voice I use when I’m bubbling over and excited by energetic friends.
As I’ve grown as a writer, had my work tweaked and edited by people with heavier grammar hands, grumbling-ly learned the appropriate voice for different pieces, my own voice became lost under the weight of it all. When making previous appearances, the enthusiastic voice from today’s script would be gently reprimanded for being too informal. I learned to scale back. But looking over the body of words I produced over the past few years, I can’t help but feel like my writing acquired this stiff feel. Rather like someone stuffing your shirttails into your pants when you really wanted to keep things loose around your waist.
There are times to stuff in shirttails, and there are times to leave them loose. The key is learning which time is which without losing your voice.
A month ago, I was in Las Vegas, NV, for NAB 2012. The video-geek in me was tickled. Camera rigs from Jag35. New EOS cinema cameras from Canon (*dies*). That incredible presentation at the Adobe booth from the guys at Cantina Creative on the special effects they created for the then-yet-released Avengers movie (*dies again*). Yet of all the goodies and new toys, the thing that impact me the most was from the NAB Bookstore.
When I picked up “So You’re a Creative Genius; Now What?” by Carl King, I knew I needed to read the book. It was the same feeling when I first picked up “What They Don’t Teach You In Film School,” by Camilla Landau. I bought a copy, and proceeded to stay up the entire red-eye home. Carl’s wisdom can be basically summed up like this: It’s okay to be brilliant, and here’s how to stay out of your own way. I won’t go into the details here, because Carl said it much better. But I do want to camp out on one point: It’s okay to be brilliant.
I say this because I have to remind myself of this. When I was a kid, I was the smart one. I had no problem lecturing adults on the adverse effects of non-organic peanut butter. At age eight, I played my parents and my uncles and aunts at Trivial Pursuit and held my own. I became a prolific writer and soon my bookshelf was lined with spiral bound notebooks filled with ideas and stories. But somewhere along the way, after hearing too many variations of the phrases, “You need to let others answer questions first” and “Don’t show off,” I began to shut up. And in the process I stopped trusting my ability.
I hit rock bottom at the age of twenty-one, unsure of what I wanted in life, not knowing what I liked or who I wanted to be. I was depressed for a year, the brunt of it culminating around Christmas when I dove headfirst into a world of 1930’s jazz music, Star Wars marathons (for the record, I can’t stand Star Wars) and no socializing. I know, weird mix.
The way out was slow. Over the past 6 years, I rediscovered who I was, and what I liked, and what I wanted to do with my life. But that rediscovery was not without learning to trust myself again. And regaining the confidence to be brilliant, just as God made me to be.
In his book, Carl talks about four archetypes: The Artist, The Businessman, The Magician and The Fool. We all start as The Fool. Somewhere, we may end up as The Artist or The Businessman. Both have their pros and cons. Both have bad habits and good habits. When most people arrive at either The Artist or The Businessman, they tend to stay put. But the real one to try to be is The Magician. These are the people who truly do something amazing.
Adobe just released the results of the “State of Create” Study, and the results are shocking. Paraphrased from the opening paragraph on Adobe’s release page:
Eight out of ten people believe that unlocking creative potential is critical to economic growth. Two thirds say creativity is valuable to society. Yet only one in four people believe they’re living up to their creative potential.
Did you read that? One in FOUR people feel like they’re creative enough.
How many times have you been told, “Give it a rest”? It’s okay to be brilliant. Ever been told, “You’ll just overshadow everybody else”? It’s okay to be brilliant. What about that line you whisper to yourself as you hover the results of your latest creative endeavor over the trash bin, “I’m not good enough”? It’s okay to be brilliant.
Everybody else may not know you’re brilliant. That’s okay. Believe it about yourself. Because one in four people in this world aren’t living up to their creative potential. Because we need more Magicians.
The first piece of handmade work I ever sold was a crochet beret. Friends of my parents owned a bed and breakfast. One weekend, they intended to have a mini-craft fair. Knowing my family was full of creative ideas, they asked us to submit some of our work. Mom sent in a couple of her braided rugs. My sister offered her needlepoint cases. I made some crochet hats based off of one I created for myself.
But…I didn’t have a lot of time to make them, so I hurried. It’s not that I cut corners on purpose. I just didn’t pay attention to detail like I did when I made mine. So my stitching wasn’t even. The band didn’t stretch properly. Still, I didn’t think too much of it. Until I saw my first buyer place his hat on his head. He thought it was great. But to my regret, I thought it looked like a limp pancake, barely covering his hair. I had eight bucks in my hand, and rock in my stomach.
Lesson learned: paying attention to your work, no matter what you create, is important. Craftsmanship is not just something valued by the new owner of your work. It’s also required by you.
Robo and I decided to add a new member to our family. A green, baby budgie we named Mackay. This is the day we brought him home, and made him a part of the family.
The editing structure behind this video is called a stredit, or straight edit. The idea is from Vimeo.com’s Andrea Allen, who came up with the idea after editing together all her clips from her recent trip to NAB. If you want to try making your own stredit, here’s the rules: use every clip you shot and place in chronological sequence. You’re encouraged to trim the clips to include only the best of the shot, but you must use every clip. Try to keep it around three minutes.
I enjoy creative video exercises like this for two reasons: 1). my creative skills are challenged and stretched without me having to come up with the whole idea, and 2). I end up with something documenting the special things in life when I finish the project.
