The Island

The Island

This is my most recent edit.  I did some of the shooting, but various family members also got a hold of my camera and this is what I have edited together.

Hope you enjoy!

Goodwill Huntingg

Hey everyone!

I was really excited to be able to work with someone else for my first time on a video.

Stacey is a fashion school graduate from Kent State and writes for Examiner.com/Cleveland.  It was really great to collaborate with her after following her work for some time on her website GoodwillHuntingg.com. 

I actually made two different versions of this video.

I made two because we each had two different goals.  Stacey's goal was to enhance the authenticity and feeling of the clothing with a 70's vibe. 

My goal was to promote her work.

So I made a 70's-themed video that looks and sounds more authentic with music she picked and I made one that I feel promotes her website in a mysterious and intriguing fashion.

It was easy to edit with my own style so it only took about a day to produce something modern that I really liked.  The promotional version is below.  The authentic version is finished and I will post that soon as well.

Hope everyone likes it!  Especially you, Stacey!

Lost At Sea

Hey everyone!

I am really excited to show you this video for two reasons!  

First: This one comes with the production logo I attempted to design.  

It's still a work in progress, but I knew I had to start somewhere.  I plan on gradually improving it as I improve in editing and design.   I am getting a motion graphics program sometime in the near future, and once I get the hang of it, I plan to go crazy with it.  I think gradually improving it will be a good way to track my progression.  For anyone who might be making their own videos, I recommend designing one.  You can express your passion for your work as uniquely and creatively as you want to, as well as represent yourself and your videos.  I chose a line from Alice in Wonderland as my logo because I am a huge fan of the story.  What it means to me is having the strength to find your way no matter how lost you feel and how crazy the world around you can seem.  That is definitely something I can relate to, haha.  

The second reason I am excited for this video is that I got to show a side of me that I don't express very often.  I have a free spirit that is dying to be portrayed in my films.  This is only the beginning of my free spirit themed videos I want to do.  I wanted so badly to go all out with this one, but I decided to keep it simple, and save some ideas for the next ones.

This vid is totally up for interpretation, which is what I love about editing abstractly.  While I like that it leaves room for people to make up their own story,  I think it might help if I start giving an overview of my own interpretation so that you know what it means personally to me.

What I see in the character portrayed is that her spirit, while free, is entwined with the spirit of the water.  Clearly unsure of herself and where she is going, she watches the sunset on the lake as her way of praying, and gazes through the bouquet of flowers to see the world in her own light.  When the bright colors begin to emerge, she finds that her answer is to put trust in her own vision for her future, because she knows her dreams and passion are beautiful.   Totally channeling Eleanor Roosevelt right now! Hahaha.  

If you want, you can definitely let me know what you interpreted!  I think it's always really fun to share different perspectives because everyone is going through different things in their lives, and sometimes you can relate in a totally different way.  

I really hope you guys enjoy it. :)

I Released It Like a Bird.

Hey guys!

I hope you don't judge this vid too harshly.
I went out in 9 degree weather just because the sun made it super tempting.  I froze within five minutes and kind of regretted the decision altogether.  Then I hated the footage because it is, once again, myself with a lake backdrop.  As tired as I am of using the same atmosphere and self-portrait, I do need to keep myself busy while taking care of Gramma Linke.  I decided to consider the footage good practice for learning how to record some of my own audio.  I had a bit of trouble recording and I definitely need more practice with it.  If you have any tips, let me know.

The vocal track is meant to be my current point of view.  It represents my wishing I could create something beautiful for others to enjoy, but since I don't have any actors or models right now, it is extremely difficult to do that.  This results in the realization that I cannot always do this for other people.
Like anyone who enjoys doing something, sometimes you have to do it for yourself.
That is why I chose not to throw the footage away and do something with it.
I refuse to give up.
I have ideas and no matter how difficult it is, I am going to keep going.
Oh, and while I'm at it, if ANYONE wants to be in something, just let me know and we can figure something out!

Thank you Taylor Lee, for the fantastic track. 

The Grandmother

Hey guys!

I am so happy to be posting another video.  I know it has only been a few days, but to me, it felt like a month!  It took me a couple days to get a grasp on what I wanted to portray.  I knew that my number one goal was to back up from the dreamy theme, and move on to something real while maintaining my personal creative style.  So I went from there.  

I asked a friend for some much-needed advice, and without knowing how meaningful her advice was, she hit the nail on the head.  

Something very real to me is the relationship I have with my grandmother and the reason we became so close.  While tragic, I have grown and learned so much while spending time with her.

That is definitely something I felt strongly enough to make a video for, and I hope I portrayed it well.

I hope you enjoy the video.

The Dream

Hey Guys!

So this blog video is a bit different than my last ones.  

The goal was to recreate a dream I've had a few times.  

I got the atmosphere I wanted (story below), but this one was very difficult for me.

I had to work around some things like:

A.  No one at the association in Lakeside was available to take my calls about getting permission to do this.

B. Learning the hard way that it is absolutely just as cold in there as it is outside and I should have brought some boots, a sweatshirt, maybe a blanket... maybe an electric blanket, etcetera. 

C. Dreams are hard to recreate. Haha.

How did I get in here if I didn't have permission you might ask? 

(Well, maybe I just want to tell the story...)

After finding that no one was available when I made a few phone calls, I decided to stop in and give it another shot.  The secretary, as sweet as she is, clearly didn't expect me to make a face-to-face effort on asking to use the building.  A little taken aback, she told me that they still weren't back, but I definitely needed permission before doing this.  So I told her I would come back in about an hour, walked back to my car, and wondered how I can get what I want without waiting around for an entire hour.  I called Caleb, told him what was going on, and began driving aimlessly around Lakeside.  Aimlessly morphed into driving and parking outside of the building pretty quickly, but I didn't really expect anything out of it.

All of a sudden, the heavens opened up, and a construction worker pulled up in a van, got out, and walked up to the building and unlocked it.

Still on the phone with Caleb, I told him that someone was in there, and how I wish I could just skip the permission segment of this transaction.  

"Just go ask him!"

The moment it became something Caleb thought was a good idea was the moment I decided it wasn't that ridiculous after all.  He is always supportive of me and wouldn't tell me to go do something if he thought it would have a negative result.  

I ran up, talked to the man for five minutes about who I am and what I wanted to do, and he simply smiled and told me to go get my stuff.

Later, we got a phone call from the woman I was supposed to ask permission from, and she told us it was "perfectly fine" that I did that.

Lesson learned.

If you don't get what you want by asking and waiting around, park outside until you can coax a friendly gentleman into letting you do what you want to do.

Haha! 

That doesn't sound right.

Let's try it again.

Try every avenue.

Don't take "wait around" for an answer.

Go out and get what you want.

Any of those will work.

Hope you guys enjoy it! 

PS- I noticed I'm really only getting feedback if I beg for it.  So here's me begging:

 I'd love to hear your critiques! Likes AND dislikes.

I have taken all advice very seriously and tried to apply it to every video.

You can write them on my facebook wall or comment on blogger or even on the YouTube link if you have an account.

Oh, and thank you guys so much for reading/watching!

Ok enough talking.  Here goes...

You'll Find A Way

SO!

Haha.

This has been my baby for the past two days so I am kind of taking a deep breath writing this.

For the past... countless years... I have been trying so hard to express myself.

For the very first time,

I would say this video just about cuts it.

Something I found out while editing this:

I do not have attention deficit disorder.

I gotta admit, I had my suspicions. I haven't paid attention to just about anything for longer than a few minutes at a time the entire time I was a student.

So... sixteen and a half years.

(I know, I know, Mom. Grad school is different.)

But when I started editing this video, I felt more passionate...

than I can even explain.

My heart was racing.

The amount of focus I put into this proves that I, in fact, can no longer make the ADD excuse.

Even though I loved it so much when I put off studying.

I picked the theme of being lost.

Well, not just being lost.

Forcing myself to find my way.

I have no idea how to get the job I want.
But... I'm going do it.
I'll find a way.

Haha Okay now for the video.
Hope you guys like it as much as I do!

p.s. Gramma Linke loves it. ;)

The quality on here isn't quite as good as YouTube's.. Check it out here if you want to see it clearer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5mEjQXpPRM

The Pier

Hola,

I ran down to the pier today for a quick shoot... 

And by quick I mean I was so freezing that my hands could only take about ten minutes of the wind on the lake.  But I think that ten minutes was really worth the vid.

My vision for this was to have a reminiscent vibe.

To all the Lakesider youth out there, I know you can relate to this.
We have all been back here for a weekend, a holiday or even the entire winter, and the memories of summer come flooding back.  

The infamous pier.

Where I literally spent my entire childhood.
Going back and forth from the baby pool to the beach all day/every day, the metal ramp that's impossible not to run on because it burns, the weird warm section that dead fish always get stuck in but you play in it anyways because it feels like you're in a cave, 

& the obscene amount of seaweed that is, for some reason, irresistible to people... Haha.

Pier dives.

This ritual actually didn't happen to me until summer of '06.  The summer we all got our anchor tattoos.  One minute, you're hanging out with your friends, the next you're running barefoot through Lakeside in the middle of the night, pretending like the rocks don't hurt your feet.

Before you know it, you're holding hands with whoever you're with and jumping into blackness.
As you wait for the water to hit you,
you realize:
This is the best night of summer.
Then you have to spend like ten minutes taking turns trying to get up the ladder without laughing.  One thing makes you laugh and you're back where you started.  Slipping around on the first bar they put up way too high.  That thing is impossible.

Every time I come back in the winter, the pier is a wildly peaceful tundra,
silent and lonely as a ghost.

But... 

It's beautiful.  

So here is the video... I don't have much of a deep explanation for it... Other than it felt great to edit something that didn't have any boundaries.  I had so much fun doing this.

I am very pleased that there was a song that fit the feel of the footage and could actually double for the title. Haha.

Anyways,

I hope you like it!

"God is in the water of the lake; he is also in the cracked bed of the lake when the lake has dried up." -Mansur al-Hallaj 

(Thank you Megan Melville for sharing this quote with me.)

The Leap

Hey guys.

I really want to give you all the details about the contract I signed yesterday.
First, I'm going to explain the video I made tonight.  

So, as you all know, I am currently trying to find my way after graduation.

  I got all of this great advice from amazingly intelligent people, and I wrote it all down and I read and reread all of the notes of names and places they told me to look.  

For some reason, I keep holding myself back from actually making those phone calls. 

To put it bluntly, I'm scared to make those calls.

I'm scared to put myself in a vulnerable position.  I'm scared to get shut down... several times.  I'm scared that I will never find my place.  I'm scared that I'm not good enough, smart enough, passionate enough... I'm scared I won't get there.  I'm just scared.

To my friends who graduated before me and already have these great full-time jobs... I gotta hand it to ya, I am so proud of you guys.

It takes a lot of courage to make that leap.  

I see how brave you all are, and the only thought in my head is, "It has to be my turn next."

The contract I signed is for a beta testing job. It can be done from home and allows me to get paid to sit on my laptop all day, which I do anyways.  The company is called FilmFolk, and I'm actually not at liberty to tell you much more than that. (I know right?  Crazy.)

But I am really excited!  It makes me feel like I will have one of those jobs where you get to test video games all day, but instead of video games, it's something I can actually do.

Thank goodness because I can't even play Mario Cart to save my life.

So there you have it everyone! It's a job.

An experience.

A responsibility.

 A step towards learning how to make that leap into the working world.
I'm starting to get that:

You never know where those steps in the dark will lead you,
you just have to have the courage to find out.
I hope that will help you understand the thought behind my video. 

Hope you enjoy it!

The Contract

Bonjourno!

(I know, I say it Inglourious Basterds-style in my head, too.)

I had a Skype interview last week with an Australian (yes, I had to mention that...) and it went pretty great.

I got to go on and on about the things I've done in my field and how much I love working in film.  

The great thing about interviews is that it's basically a freebie when it comes to bragging about yourself.  A whole thirty minutes dedicated to you talking about the fantastic things you've done.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's a pretty great way to think of it.  

So that's what I did and I guess it worked out because guess what!

He sent me a contract yesterday.

So I read over my very first contract outside of college and I was really super excited about it.

I had a lot of thinking to do afterwards and I actually documented my brainstorm session and made a very short and extremely normal video to show you. 

This one is just for fun guys.

Find out if I signed the contract by watching below.

                              

The Lake

Bonjour! 

I found some news out yesterday that is a little tiny setback with my job search.
As said in the vid, I'm not considering it the end of the world.  

If anything, I will have some quality time in the place that inspires me the most.  

Well, don't want to ruin it... 

So I hope you like the edit! 

Simple, but I think it tells the story.

Thanks for watching!
p.s. I let the song run because it's one of my favorites...

Ma Belle Famille

Hey guys!

I have finally gotten the courage to make my plunge into virtual vulnerability, and I am extremely excited to get into the blogging community.  I have always admired the amount of creativity that can be expressed and shared in it and I hope to branch out, become involved, and grow to eventually have a place and a voice.

My ultimate method of voicing my own creativity has always been through editing film.  Essentially, it doesn't matter whose footage it is.  Whether it's my own, something my mom has taped on a family vacation, or something that just needs edited,

I love finding the good stuff, chopping it up, and piecing together a story that can be portrayed with beauty and grace.  

I mean, I could sit at my computer for hours, forget to eat, and edit a video that may last all of three minutes. 

But for those three minutes...

Someone will have seen a part of my heart poured out in a sequence.  

My one problem?  

I have no footage.

The moment I opened up my HD Flip Cam my mom's boyfriend Tom gave me for Christmas, I knew I had my chance to get the footage I need so that I could practice editing. 

 A camera ready to film anytime, anywhere?  

Dream come true. 

I might be a total amateur, but if I could just get that practice I need to be able to express myself and show people that I do have a passion for the film world, maybe I can get a job 

and ultimately...

 be a part of something.

Now that it was Christmas vacation, my entire extended family was traveling across the country to come spend time with us. I thought of it as the perfect opportunity to get footage of some of the people who have created my life to be full of beautiful memories with moments that I will never forget.  I was extremely happy to be able to put this together and share with them how I view our family when we all get together.

And to whoever else sees this,  

Thanks for watching!

(p.s. I apologize for the lack of quality... I WILL figure this thing out... but after hours of trying to post this video, I'm going to have to take what I can get.  & if anyone has any tips on uploading good quality videos, please let me know. Thanks!)

Music: 

Frank Sinatra - Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Michael Buble - I'll Be Home For Christmas

Mumford & Sons - Awake My Soul

The Beginning

I have now been a college graduate for over a month, 

and to put it bluntly, I am failing at finding a career.  

I keep asking myself, "Will I find my place in the film industry?  

Is this ever going to work out for me?" 

Immediate answer: 

"Not like this. 

Not at this standstill."  

So I'm creating this blog... 

To discover, to relate, to get inspired, to share...

Next to come: A video I edited of my family and I... just to give you a small dose of who I am.