Bud Light Film Crew #10

I was in Madison for work again last week, which kept me from posting a blog entry (sorry, diehard readers) and made it more difficult to finish this month's video in time. But it did get done and posted: http://www.budlightfilmcrew.com/

This one is notable for bringing Kim back as a host. You may remember her as the extremely intoxicated girl from our St. Patrick's day video, who showed up again briefly, and even more funnily, in last month's outtakes reel. I hardly recognized her when we met for the latest shoot. She was completely sober this time and determined to redeem herself in the eyes of the friends who discovered video #4 online and gave her a hard time about it. In all honesty, the drunk Kim brought more humor and playfulness to the job than the sober one. But no offense to her; she did some fine, if more conventional, work here.

It's funny--the film "crew" seems to be shrinking. For this video, it consisted of me and the two hosts. Don't get me wrong, I like having the freedom to do what I want with the video, but I do miss having somebody there to help line up interviews, corral our very social hosts, and generate ideas for questions and lines. I usually keep my eye in the camera's viewfinder the whole time, and that takes up enough of my attention to not be able to prepare the content, especially since we make it up as we go. The raw footage for this month's video was lacking in both content and technical accomplishment as a result of trying to focus on both (or neither). Some months we have a surplus of good stuff to use in the final cut; this time I had to stretch what we had and hide some of the problems behind the editing. In the end, the video turned out better than I expected, but it's not our finest work.

I've been questioning the future of the BLFC lately. We'll definitely finish out the year, but is the magazine going to want to continue these into 2008? In some ways it would be a relief to be done with them. I would appreciate the extra time to work on my own personal projects (I still want to make that one web video that changes the world of web video forever). But I also hate to close the door on such a fun gig, especially when I'm on the verge of buying a new video camera and will want the chance to show off what it can do. Maybe I should lobby to replace the Bud Light work with CityLife News Team videos. I put one of those together earlier this year but was unable to commit to doing them regularly. Agreeing to a year of these videos would be a good opportunity to gain more professional experience. Then there's always the possibility of me giving full-time videography a shot, in which case I would want all the work I could get. I'd probably need a video gig for every day of the month. We'll have to see what transpires in the coming months.