Olelo Community Television
Mapunapuna, Hawaii

I spent the past few days here at the Olelo Television Studios sequestered in an Edit Bay, becoming intimately familiar with Final Cut Pro 5 and having the time of my life editing footage from last Friday’s formal military retirement ceremony that I shot.

This ambitious endeavor is considered my “first works” — which is basically my required project to be recognized as a “certified producer” by Olelo. Mind you, the minimum runtime for a first works is 3 minutes. I only exceeded that by 72 minutes. You know me, always extreme.

As a perfectionist, I am not completely pleased with the end result. My inexperience with the camera is obvious and picking up a defective tripod didn’t help matters either. One of the locks on the tripod was stripped, so the camera kept drifting to one side. I ended up holding the camera in place for the entire 90 minutes of shooting which did not make me a happy camper. I also learned (after the fact) that when you are doing a LOT of zooming, it’s better to use the zoom rocker instead of the zoom ring: it’s a smooth “zooooooooooom” versus “zooom… zoooom…. zoooom.” Ugh.

Oh, and not to mention, I ran out of tape. The ceremony was supposed to be well under 75 minutes, so I had 80 minutes of tape. I should know never to cut it so close — and always prepare for the worst-case scenario, which in this case was a ceremony that ended up running close to 90-minutes. I ended up trying to preserve tape near the end, so I missed some important footage. Luckily, the second cam captured enough of the action, but the audio, of course, was not up to par on those segments. Another life lesson.

Of course, it’s all a learning experience. It’s just too bad that this particular project is my first. This video will undoubtedly be a keepsake for the retiree and his family, I just wish I could have done a more professional-looking job. But heck, it’s free — and you get what you pay for.

Olelo TV Edit Bay
Equipped with Power Mac G5

With all that said, I was very happy with the editing since I managed to integrate some footage from a second Mini-DV camera that took reaction shots, different camera angles, and closeups that I wasn’t able to get. The audio also seemed pretty decent, too. Using an audio set up that was a little more complicated than I had intended certainly paid off in the end. (We used a mixer, a 100-ft. cable to the sound board, a second 100-ft. cable connected to a shotgun mic for the band, and the on-board mic on the camera.)

For better or for worse, I submitted my show for airing on Olelo. I’m not sure how many people will actually sit around to watch all 75-minutes of it, but maybe it’s better if they don’t anyway — for my sake.

FOOTNOTE: This experience has piqued my interest and creativity and makes me want to attempt to write/direct/shoot/edit my own special. On what? I don’t know. Maybe a feature on “Hawaii’s Bloggers”? Share your ideas! Want to be on TV? Drop me a line! Come on, indulge your inner idol!

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