Interview with an Intern

All right. Although this is tardy, I'm putting it up anyway because I did do it (before class on Wednesday, for the record). Anyhow, in my characteristic way, I over-thought what turned out to be quite a simple exercise. Here I was, thinking that some sort of professional format or structure for the interview was required, when finally, as time pressed, I realized, "Oh, I should probably ask a few simple questions that ask for pertinent information in a short form." Don't want to overwhelm the gracious interviewee. Anyway, I conducted an email interview with Krickett King, who (I've come to find out) seemed to be a popular choice. So, here's what I asked her:

1. Whom are you currently an intern for? Where is the company/firm you are interning with based?
2. What sorts of tasks or opportunities are you given as an intern?
3. Can you provide a general description of the company's/firm's interface or atmosphere?
4. When your internship is over, do you think you'll be walking away with a good experience? Was it challenging enough? Was it rewarding? Did you gain any knowledge or experience that will ease your transition into the professional world?
5. If the company/firm that you interned with offered you a position upon your graduation, would you consider it as a valuable employment opportunity?

Her answers were:
1) She's an intern at IMC Studios, in Russellville, Arkansas.
2) She creates concept art for a series of fantasy novels.
3) Since she's working remotely, the interface with IMC is mostly through email correspondence and postal services.
4) She values the experience of working with clients. She says that getting feedback (on her designs I suppose) and being able to create a product that clients are happy with is a good skill, which this internship promotes.
5) When it's all said and done, Krickett says that she wouldn't pursue employment at IMC Studios because it's not an animation job (which is what she's in school for), but she enjoys the experience enough that she would like to continue working on this particular project.

And there you have it. I hope y'all like relish on your hotdogs, because I did a little bit of editing in the responses.

Write Up March 28th/After the Storm

Well, the overall experience of class that morning was harrowing, and the several days leading up to it were quite disastrous in outcome, to say the least. I grossly miscalculated the amount of time needed to complete a sufficient edit, as well as misunderstood exactly what was due. I knew we had to have the picture-lock done, but I, first of all, wasn't putting it all out on the timeline as I went, which caused problems; secondly, I thought the sound and the clips had to be matched perfectly, which ate lots of time; and on top of that I thought that a more finalized edit was due, as far as footage choice is concerned, which caused me to be over-analytical, anxious, and hesitant, causing yet more problems! Hence, the simple explanation is that I, against my better judgement, underestimated the difficulty of the task before me, waited too late to get started on the edit, and stressed out, slowing my performance

 Regardless, I do realize that despite the reasons the result is the same. I ended up doing something at the last minute, didn't have done on time and in a satisfactory manner, and despite my best efforts, fell asleep in class. I am embarrassed about that, and my grade will suffer; however, what's done is done, and I'm moving on. I know from the get-go to accept responsibility for poor decision-making and how to deal with the consequences.

Movie, movie, movie! I can't wait to see!

The cinematic experience! On a student level, that is. I imagine the professional world is both more difficult and much easier at the same time. I won't go into why I think it's harder, since we all probably have similar ideas of that, but I do think it's also easier because 1) that will likely be one's major professional obligation to begin with (no other classes, other jobs, few other projects), 2) one is likely to be more established in general (or so I assume), and 3) one, by that time, will have had plenty of experience on the student level and possibly through internships (so someone who does this for a living not only knows what to expect but can anticipate it emotionally as well).

So, to the real nitty-gritty... this shoot was hard. I'm aware that a few of my sentiments were a bit selfish; few people want to spend what should be vacation time doing something they've never done before for a grade. Unfortunately, I just happened to be too vocal about it; but after a couple of kerfuffles I learned to shut the **** up. Anyway, I was glad to get the hell out and even gladder that I happened to be there for the more difficult day of the shoot anyway. Our group managed to finish in two days, which is wonderful. The emotional stress on me is the main thing that got to me.

But enough about me. It seemed that the group's biggest difficulty was keeping track of the minor details.  I think the distress that was floating around and the time constraints imposed by the actors' schedule were the major contributing factors. And, in one case, Angelique noticed that the LED 900's reflection was visible in the bottom left corner of a picture across the room. That ended up in a shot; on top of that, when Yubu or Aminah had the camera, they didn't remember to check that the shot was level, but when we were doing the living room shots and Rah had the camera, and I was 'needed,' (the bedroom was too small for all of us) I was looking on the screen and reminding him to get the shot level and helping out with that. Consequently, since that didn't happen during all the shots, there were some shots that were slightly crooked. So, we had to redo what we could practically redo. At least, the second time around the setup was much quicker.

Lighting Exercise

Even though I had fun doing the lighting exercise, the quality of the shots in terms of the assignment criteria might not be so great. I still have trouble understanding how to manipulate the focus of the shot. I know how to get a shot in focus, but I'm not sure of how to play with things like the depth of field to field of view relationship, and then, there's the depth of focus to consider as well. Theory makes it seem simple enough, but messing with the camera itself it gets complicated because there's the lens type and menu settings and camera to subject distance.

Write-Up 2/29

I didn't have any true technical difficulties this past week, but meeting with the group was kind of stressful for me emotionally. But I acknowledge my own mistakes and that I overreacted somewhat; I got upset when we were doing the lighting exercise and left, but I felt guilty about it and I know not to do it again. I don't have much else to write about. Except I'd like to express my gratitude to Carolina and Tyler for letting me assist them with their lighting exercise, and especially, for helping me with mine; otherwise, I would have been screwed. Anyway, it was good equipment handling and technical experience. Were it not for time constraints and lack of notice and hands, I would have liked to play with the reflectors, but people have other obligations to meet, jobs, class, etc. Regardless, I'm happy with the results, and I had fun doing the exercise. Of course, Tyler's company made things much more enjoyable, but the mood among us was good too.

Shots in my Apartment to Inform the "Look"