About a month ago Mrs. Lindsey came down to the HTV room to talk to Coach Davis about a possible story idea. She was determined to have one of us report on it, and I liked the story so I said Id take it. I told Marlee about it and she loved it as well. We were really excited to get started. The first thing we had to do was get ahold of our key interview. She wasn’t at school very much so it was a challenge. Finally, Mrs. Lindsey told us she was at school so we went up to her class to talk with her and find out a good time to interview her. She said later that day would be the best time for her and we weren’t about to say no. We told coach and he said we could use the HTV room and he’d help us set it up during last block. We finished the interview and it couldn’t have GONE went better. She said exactly what we needed her to say and more. We went back to her class with her to shoot some b-roll and everything was going according to plan. I would capture on Friday during my lunch that way we’d be ahead of the game.
The dreaded day of the blood drive was approaching fast and I was already looking forward to it being over. Because Im campus commissioner, the blood drive is my biggest job on Cabinet. I got to school at 6:15 am and was praying everything would run smoothly and I’d get through the day with out problems or complications. Little did I know, this day would be one of the worst days of my life.
I was finishing writing all of the first block passes and I look up to see Marlee coming over to me with out without her usual smile on. I knew something was up. She told me I captured with no audio (which I didnt know was even possible.)Apparently one of the STUPID IDIOTIC. (That might have been a little strong¦) broadcast one students had went into the settings on Final Cut and clicked random buttons probably just for the fun of it. Buttons that I didn’t even know existed. So obviously with it being the day of the blood drive I couldn’t do much about what had just happened. It wouldn’t be a big deal, all I had to do was get the tape and go capture again real fast, right? Wrong. Thinking because I already captured it I wouldn’t need it anymore, I used the same tape to shoot two other interviews. Genius I know. So around 7:45 after I told Marlee this, Coach paid me a little visit. This visit involved him storming up to the front table looking like a volcano about to burst. The lava was oozing out his ears. He had begun yelling. Screaming at me for what I had done. I deserved it I know. But him yelling at me that day was not what I needed.
The next day every time Coach saw me he just glared. Marlee and I knew we were going to have to shoot our key interview along with both the counselors interviews not only again but even better. Coach, so nicely would remind us that no interview is ever as good the second time. And as much as I hate to admit it. He was right. This time Marlee captured and I learned how to check to make sure the audio was on every time. It was all getting better and we were ready to go to City Utilities and shoot another interview with the head of transit. We told ourselves nothing else could possibly get worse, but once again, we were wrong. As I was walking out of school that day, my phone rings and its Marlee. She told me we forgot to turn our mic on in our interview from City Utilities. There was no way we were going back to re shoot, and luckily,(which is a word I don’t use very often when describing this story) she didnt sound all that bad.
By this time Coach was actually talking to us again, and sent us to CU to shoot a stand-up and some b-roll with the buses. When we arrive at CU the bus is there waiting for us and we’re ready to go. Marlee is setting up the camera, while I’m trying to remember what I’m saying in the stand-up. While she’s doing a sound check with the head phones, something was weird. She told me she couldn’t hear me. So we check to see if the mic was on, cord was plugged in etc.. and everything was fine. So I call Coach and he’s going to have to send someone to bring us another camera because of course, ours isn’t working. At this point all I could do is laugh at everything thats gone wrong. But I learned not so say nothing could get worse because at that exact time Marlee just HAPPEN to be bored and started looking at the footage we had already shot. Sure enough we have a dirty head. I call the person who’s bringing us the camera and ask her to turn around and get a dirty head cleaner. When we get back to school and go capture Coach is in there with us (probably to make sure we don’t screw anything else up) and just starts laughing when we soon find our our mannual MANUAL audio was on. At this point I was just used to things not going right, so we called CU AGAIN and ask them if we can come shoot ANOTHER stand up inside one of their buses. They said yes and we went and got it. The funny thing was, in the end we didnt even end up using the impossible stand-up from inside the bus.
After we’d almost finished editing, we only needed one more thing to complete our story from h***. We needed to get some b-roll of our main interview. So I go to the attendence office to see what class she was in. The attendence lady told me that she had moved to Rogersville. STORY OF MY LIFE.
In the end, our story turned out ok. I guess it could have been a lot worse. No one can ever say we don’t learn anything in HTV. Its safe to say, Marlee and I, and probably the rest of HTV staff learned a lot from our mistakes!