Wednesday, June 17, 2009

TV Pro


I’m a television professional with over twenty years of experience, so when my daughter said she had a school project to do on earthquakes I had what seemed at the time an amazing idea. I suggested to my eight year old daughter that she do an interview with her Uncle Mike who is a reporter for the 60minutes show and had gone to China to cover the 2008 earthquake.

This would be simple I thought, I’d film it, borrow a friends MAC Book and edit it on IMovie. How hard could it be, I am after all a TV Pro. Well as it turns out very hard, first up my friends shiny new MAC Book is so new it doesn’t have a fire-wire input. No problem I’ll just use my old PC Laptop.
Next what to use as an editing tool, after searching the net I discovered that Sony Vegas provides a free trail of their Movie Maker software .
Software downloaded I started editing away in the knowledge the project was due in two days time. I was once an editor however it was just starting to dawn on me that was over ten years ago…oops this might not be as easy as I first thought. Eventually I found my way around the editing tool and had a final product the night before it was to be handed in.

Next step transfer the project to DVD, oops I need to download some more software. New batch of software neatly installed I was ready to publish and be damned …. system crash …. try again …. system crash …. repeat this sequence many times over. It is now midnight and I suddenly remember how old my laptop is …. you fool it doesn’t have a DVD burner.

Due day arrives I explain to my girl I’ll take the Flintstone laptop to work make a file and use another computer to burn a DVD. I then write her a note for her teacher saying that I’ll bring the disk in at lunch time.

Disk in hand I race from the city to my daughters school, find her in the playground and hand it to her. Daddy she says to me, yes I say, we don’t need it until Friday now.

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