This was a film I had made for my final project in a Media Studies class back when I was in 11th grade. It's definitely amateurish, what with the poor blocking and framing, and I guess I needed to re-edit one piece of text near the beginning of the video.

          I filmed this with my best friend, Thomas, and a then-senior, Graham. We filmed the entire thing in less than a day, and I edited it all either within that same day or the following one. We filmed on the Siedlung, an apartment complex in Frankfurt am Main where both Graham and I lived. If I recall correctly, it was a very sunny day, though with some very light precipitation despite the lack of cloud coverage.

          We shot on an old camcorder my family had that I don't think wouldn't take memory cards and required software (which we didn't have) in order to import any footage directly from the camera to a computer, but you could record footage to mini-discs, which I then had to rip to my computer using old software we did have, but which barely worked right. The battery for the camcorder also would barely hold a charge, and we only had the one, so, at one point, the three of us had to sit and wait for the battery to charge. At one point, as I was editing, I noticed that the video suddenly turned green for a moment during the hallway scene. Fortunately, that didn't matter, since I was already putting the footage in grayscale, and so it ended up just looking a glitch you'd see in really early film. It being silent was solely so we didn't have to deal with audio, and I used songs from a CD of Scott Joplin songs I have. Although, when we were filming the ending, where Thomas and I were sitting on the steps drinking cola, one of the guards on the Siedlung had come over to make sure of what we were filming, for safety concerns. Thomas looked up towards him to explain what we were doing, whereas I, likely because of the limitations we had with the camera, answered while trying to remain in-character for the scene. Thankfully, I realized that I could turn that into the dialogue between the two of us about the weather. Also, there was the awkward part where, after I took a pole from Thomas, he got hit by another one, and I make absolutely no reaction to him moving until he grabs another pole and I pivot awkwardly.

          Overall, while it was definitely an amateurish project, and one that I should probably be ashamed of, I really can't bring myself to feel that way, as I at least had fun making it. Although, I'd still like to possibly remake it, if I can, to improve upon it (and there's lots of room for that!), but we, unfortunately, would not be able to use the Siedlung again. This wasn't the first project I had filmed, but it was the first major one, and one that I feel really fond towards, despite how I feel it turned out.

​​​​​​​          An editing project I had to do for the first of my editing classes. "O, Death" was a student short film project shot on location at Hinds Community College, Rankin Campus (before I started there), in Pearl, MS. Things went as well as you'd expect.

          If I recall, from what I heard, the girl who played the character of Moira in here was the writer and I believe director of the short film. I'd say it was definitely a passion project. Anyways, the guy playing the main character was apparently forced into the role because every other role, whether as cast or crew, had already been filled, which definitely explains some things.

          From the considerably subpar acting, to me apparently missing files (the male lead has an inner monologue as he's trying to escape the building, which some of my classmates had while I didn't. It...MAY have worked out for the best...?), this was definitely not a fun project to work on, especially since we took most of the semester working on this. Also, there was the annoying part of the crunching of leaves being picked up by the lavalier on the one girl in the scene where she gets the phone call from the manager of where she rents her storage space from (shot on one side of the building that most of the film & video tech classes were held in). Fun fact: the guy who played the manager of said storage rentals was one of my bosses at Pearl Municipal Broadcasting!

          My joke edit of "O, Death", which I had made to cope with the horrors of editing it. It went about as well as you'd expect.

          I had actually started working on this edit before we were actually supposed to start editing, and, initially, I was intending to turn this in as my sole edit. Instead, I got both done, although I was having some problems exporting either both of them or just this one. Some of the video splicing I did here I actually copy/pasted it into the 'serious' edit because I felt I had done a good job on it and didn't want to bother re-splicing shots together.

          While I worked on the serious edit during class, I spent a lot more time working on this joke edit. It was definitely a lot more entertaining that the real thing, and I also felt that making this edit was much better practice than the serious one, which felt overly simple. At least doing this one, I cut out audio from other things, messed around with the video, and even spliced in video from completely different things in here. Also, there was my attempted Ghostbusters thing during all this.

          Actually, that, specifically, gave me some trouble when exporting, as most of the options ended up having the stillframes fade into one another instead of cut between each other like I intended. I felt like a complete and utter fool when I realized that the fix was as simple as checking a box.

          This was just a short scene from the movie "Seven" that we shot for one of our camera classes, and then we each cobbled together an edit of it. I also took it upon myself to try (and fail) to Photoshop a poster with the faces of the two guys playing Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman's characters. By the way, I'm the sleazy guy who comes in and throws one of their hot dog books on the ground; a role I was born for!

          My edit of the fourth episode of a web series called "Sweethearts of the Galaxy", about a comic book fangirl who suffers severe mental trauma and has delusions that she's her favorite superheroine.

          Ultimately, I think this series would have worked better as an animated series, with the "real life" bits maybe done in a simplistic, cartoony style, perhaps with some modern anime influence, and then shifted to a stylized, more detailed art style when seeing things from the main character's perspective (post brain injury). Of course, that would have required a lot more time and effort than what we got, but I just remember having to read the script of the first episode for another class, and it really felt like it was meant to be an anime with an over-the-top genki girl, maybe taking some inspiration, character-wise, from Usagi Tsukino.

          I remember, quite a few of us complained about the shot where the girls walk in to their catering gig, because in every shot, you could hear the director saying "Girls walk". Had to cover that up. Although, that wasn't nearly as bad as the audio troubles in the opening scene, where the main girl and her roommate are at an ATM, and the sound levels within the same shots vary greatly. I tried my best to get it level as possible, but the echo in the room didn't help at all. Then there was the ending scene where, if I recall, the only shot we had that was in front of the girls got corrupted, and no one was able to use it because the audio kept looping when the one girl laughs. Finally, of course, there's the awkwardness of the shot where the characters are talking to each other and the camera tracks like a typewriter; there was no good way to edit that shot, and it kind of felt like there were four different conversations by the end of it. Though maybe that was only because I had to watch it so many times…

          My edit of a short film called "One Week Vacation", which my classmates and I each had to edit as an assignment for an editing class.

          This is definitely one I had a lot of fun with, from some of the intentional (I presume) awkwardness of some of the actors, to editing the soundtrack in (I learned to do some basic extending of the audio to better fill out scenes), and even the animated cropping for the opening credits (which I did several times until I was ultimately satisfied with it). Although, I really should have done an alternate edit of the scene where the guy breaks into the other guy's house, although I don't remember what audio, if any, there was when they filmed him sneaking around. Ultimately, the way I did it may have been the better choice.

          So, across the hall from us at Hinds was where the advertising students had their class. They were assigned to make commercials, and, of course, being right across the hall, we were asked to actually produce said commercials. Unfortunately, I was busy editing a project for class, so I was unable to help film this, but, being the most enthusiastic in my class to operate the audio recording equipment, I helped record the narration, provided by one of my classmates, and I also edited the ad. Thankfully, I was able to keep it within the specified time.

          My edit of a short film called "Stranger At the Door" (the name on the script was different, but I can't quite remember what it was... "Bundle of Nerves", or something? I may still have my copy around somewhere).

          I don't think my classmates enjoyed this one much, but I certainly did. Maybe it was the tentacles. Anyhoo, I do recall that in many shots, you could see the wire being used to operate the tentacles, and so that was a bit annoying to cut around, but, ultimately, I think it turned out well. The opening shot was also somewhat problematic, as I recall that when the door on the opposite side of the statue opened and the two cops ran in, you could clearly see some of what they had set up. The following semester, last spring, when I was learning to use After Effects, I realized that, had I known how to use AE when editing this, I probably could have used rotoscoping to edit in a stormy sky. Or Cthulhu. Everyone loves Cthulhu.

          Overall, it was a fun project, in my eyes, although I wish I had done a better job on the shot where they're firing their guns.

​​​​​​​          My edit of a short film called "Bingo Night", which was our final for our Editing II course. It was a decently funny little film, although the granny on the cart wasn't quite as funny as I was expecting after reading through a copy of the script. Also, after watching "The Goldbergs", I think the lady who plays Mrs. Schwartz is one of the ladies in here, but I'm not the best at recognizing faces.

          Anyways, much like with "One Week Vacation", I had some fun doing some basic extending of the soundtrack that whoever actually made this chose, and trying to sync the cuts for one scene at the end was a self-imposed challenge. I'd say I failed it, but I don't think it was really filmed to be that way anyhoo, soo...

          Unfortunately, the scene where the two ladies start off waiting in their car for the granny-on-wheels to arrive had some audio issues. There was some crunching noise picked up by the mics, and there were also some varying levels in the audio that required me to try and even them out, but it ultimately didn't quite work.

          Also, the scene in the dojo had numerous different takes, but only one that was pure gold, which I chose. I remember I couldn't find a close-up of the instructor's assistant saying that one word differently from the instructor, which I was bummed about because it didn't quite mesh with what I wanted. I also should not have used "True Survivor" by David Hasselhoff, because, when I had uploaded this to YouTube to have that act as my portfolio, I got hit with a copyright notice for it and ads were put on the video, I believe, despite me expressly making sure that the video would NOT have them when I uploaded it. However, I had recently heard the song, and thought it fit really well into the scene, and it certainly wasn't the first time I had used copyrighted music in one of my edits.

          Anyways, I had fun editing this one, just like with "One Week Vacation" and "Stranger At the Door", and, hell, even "Sweethearts". But not "O, Death". The only thing that got me through that was my joke edit, which was another one I enjoyed.