My Final Work Experience Task

Although I had already clocked up enough work experience days to meet the module requirements it was agreed I would continue to my role as editor on The Weston Hospice Care Project. I had agreed with Kim and the rest of the Hospice Care group I would only spend one day on the project as other deadlines were approaching fast!!! However when it actually came to the task I spent on average around 3 days on the final edit – this was due to a number of problems I encountered.

Ideally I would have liked to have completed the edit back in March / April time straight after the first filming day, however this was not possible as it had been agreed between Kate and The Hospice that another training day would be filmed and was required to be featured within the final edit.

At a later date Kate informed me that due to other commitments the group would not be attending the second training day, but the hospice would be arranging another filming day to record pieces to camera from Hospice staff members and volunteers. Although I found this straining on the time-schedule I thought it would be a great idea to include within the edit as I found the cut away shots very limited. (Originally further cut away shots had been planned to be filmed during the second training day, however this was later cancelled.)



Having waited a further few weeks and not heard anything I decided to approach Kate about getting day one’s tapes to begin the logging and capturing process using Final Cut Pro.

I found out that Katie had not heard any further news about the pieces to camera day and the work experience deadline was looming – so I decided to encourage her to contact the Hospice again to find out when we would likely to be filming. Finally we heard back from the Hospice and they agreed because of a tight deadline it would be best for us to just edit what we already had. So after logging and capturing 6 hours worth of footage I began trying to assemble together an edit. Then it dawned on me no one had told me the length of the edit requirement. I contacted Kate immediately, who also was unaware and contacted the Hospice who then agreed a thirty-minute edit would be fine.

THE EDIT

I found the edit a little more difficult than I initially imagined and came across a number of problems all very frustrating. But it provided me with a challenge and an opportunity to edit my first cooperate film.

One of the issues I found really frustrating was locating the highlights from each section of the day and cutting it down to two to three minutes. I found a lot of the information said very informative but some unusable because of ‘dodgy’ camera angles, or sound interference. The other issue I faced was trying to make sure none of the guest speakers refereed back to a previous guest speaker with content that I had not included within the edit. (This took a great deal of time.)





Eventually I managed to edit together a thirty-minute compilation of the highlights of day one. Then I faced the biggest problem trying to burn the edit to disk. For some reason I was unable to export the final edit into a QuickTime format. (Why? I don’t know – I think it was possible a technical fault with my laptop and the editing software.)
I spent the majority of Friday trying to figure out the problem without having much success until early evening when I finally managed to burn a copy of the edit to a disc. To be on the safe side I checked the disc in another computer and to my relief it was working. I then passed the disc onto Kate the following morning and I asked her if she could double check the disc before delivering it to The Hospice on Monday morning.

I later get a phone call Sunday evening to tell me the disc doesn’t work. Frustrated that it was left to the last minute I attempted burning another disc but was encountering the same problems. Kate and I agreed the best possible thing was for me to attend the meeting as well bringing my laptop along for the Hospice staff to preview the edit.
Thankfully they were understanding of the technical situation we were facing and were initially happy with the edit but suggested a few minor changes, which I was happy to make. (This included adding in a few power-point presentation slides and re-arranging some of the guest speakers within the edit.)

After the meeting I took onboard the feedback I had received and made the relevant changes. But my main problem was still unsolved. First thing on the Tuesday morning I went into college and asked the technician for his help with the situation – after a few failed attempts of attempting to get it onto a disc Kim made a very good suggestion of transferring my edit to another computer. (I was a little dubious of doing this to begin with incase I lost all my edits from other projects, but the technician ensured me this wasn’t possible.) Thankfully the edit exported and I was able to burn it to disc. Halleluiah!!!!






Kim kindly made some labels for the DVDs and I delivered the finished copy to The Hospice.

Now my work experience is completed !!!!