Avid Media Composer v5.5.2

It's been 15 months since I last posted.

Well the big news is after 3 1/2 years of using the same operating system in my iMac, I have upgraded my Mac OS to Snow Leopard, upgraded my Avid Media Composer editing system to v5.5.2 and upgraded to Microsoft Office 2011. Can you believe I was stuck with Tiger for the last three and a half years? I never upgraded to Leopard. What set off the chain of events was when the Hewlett-Packard printer I had used for the last four years suffered a serious paper jam in early April. A small piece of paper was stuck in an area of the printer I could not fish out. It was also jamming up the ink carriage. I decided to get a new printer, but the new printer I wanted required that I upgrade my Mac OS to either Leopard or Snow Leopard. It would not work on Tiger. That meant I had to upgrade my Avid Media Composer editing system to work with a version that would work on Snow Leopard. The one I had only worked on Tiger. Plus I also had to buy a new LaCie Firewire Hard Disk because my old one was formatted on Tiger and I needed an extra hard disk to empty out the contents so that I could reformat my old hard disk to Snow Leopard. Someone told me if you open a video-editing file on your hard disk formatted for an OS that is older than the OS in your computer, it would mess up your file and cause it to crash. I couldn't just pass the contents to my iMac because it only had 120GB of available hard disk space and the contents in my old LaCie hard disk took up 110GB. So I bought a new hard disk that had 1TB of disk space, transferred everything from the old to the new and reformatted my old hard disk drive. Plus I also transferred all my JPEG and video files in my iMac to my new hard disk drive to free up space, so now my iMac has 200GB of available disk space.

Plus my new printer can also scan documents and make copies like a copier.

It's now three months since I relocated to Orange County after 14 years of Phoenix ...

Just this past November after 14 years of living in Phoenix, I relocated to Costa Mesa in Orange County, California, about an hour’s drive south of Los Angeles.

Something very bizarre occurred with me when I made what was supposed to be my last drive from Phoenix to L.A. Apparently, my rear trunk got loose during the drive and some very important papers, such as my birth certificate and my car title fell out. I didn’t know about it until I check my E-mail on my Verizon Droid (my computer and other items such as my HDTV and furniture were still in transit with North American Van Lines) and discovered an E-mail from an employee of the City of Phoenix Parks Department informing me that my important paperwork was recovered by Parks employees that morning and was being held by the Department in three garbage bags. Having them mail my belongings was not an option since the employee couldn’t tell it was really me on the phone she’s speaking to.

This meant I had to drive back to Phoenix to get my belongings. So I made the drive back that day with the intent of picking them up the following morning. However, I neglected to notice that the following day was Veterans Day, a federal holiday meaning all government offices would be closed that day. I called up the City Desk office which is always open 24 hours and told them of my situation. The City Desk phone operator was able to convince a Parks Department employee to let me in the office to collect my stuff so I would be on my merry way back home.

Once I returned home, I waited for my furniture to arrive later that week. After they arrived, I started the slow process of emptying my boxes. The following week, I chose to sign up with AT&T U-verse for my phone, cable and Internet connections. My first choice was Verizon FiOS, however although it was available in most of the neighboring cities in Orange County, it was not available in Costa Mesa. The only other choice was Time Warner, but I heard some not so good things about them. Later that week, I took my car to DMV, got it verified, had it pass a smog test, get my car registered so I could get my California license plates and I had to pass a written 18-question multiple choice test to get my California driver’s license. I could not get more than three wrong and I had three chances to pass it or pay another $28 fee. I passed it on the first try with only one wrong. My license was mailed to me two weeks later.

After completing film school in Scottsdale, Arizona, I will be doing freelance film editing work. I also am working on a couple of screenplays. I have also gone to couple of L.A. Kings game and one L.A. Lakers game as well.

The biggest headache I have is that the patio in my new house was not constructed properly, so every time it rains, my patio tends to get flooded. I am working to remedy this.

So that’s what’s going on so far.

The latest as of Friday, April 11, 2008.

Wow, I can't believe it's been almost three years since I posted anything on my blog. I guess it's because I didn't feel there was anything going on in my life worth posting, but most likely I don't like blogging when nobody is posting comments on them.

So much has happened during the last three years. I've worked on three feature film projects, I made my first overseas trip to London since the 9/11 terrorist attacks (both that and Iraq have made me afraid to travel overseas for a long time), I bought a new iMac last November and now have Avid, the editing system that Hollywood uses (in addition to Final Cut Pro) and I'm almost done with film school. Assuming I don't screw up with the last two courses I'm taking this semester (and no disagreements over my fulfilling the general course requirements), I should graduate next month.

Up until several months ago, I seriously considered traveling to Beijing to attend the Summer Olympics, but that was only if I was able to snag tickets for the Opening Ceremonies event. I was not able to obtain those and I also wasn't able to obtain tickets for gymnastics and swimming, so I am passing on the Olympics. I already have set my sights on visiting South Africa in the summer of 2010 to watch World Cup games. Two cities I definitely want to visit are Johannesburg and Cape Town.

After I'm done with school, I'm thinking about rewarding myself with a well-deserved vacation in late May. I'd like to visit two cities I've never visited before. They are Anchorage, Alaska and Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada.

My mother earned a free round trip ticket from JetBlue airlines for using her JetBlue credit card and she is giving it to me. I'm undecided as to whether I should visit Puerto Rico or Bermuda. I'd like to visit Mexico, but it only goes to Cancun and the only city I want to visit is Mexico City. Two summers ago, I drove with friends to Puerto Penasco (aka Rocky Point).

So that's my life in a nutshell. At least for the last three years.

Film almost ready.

For the first time since I shot the film last Spring, I have all the scenes put together in order on the timeline. There is still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done, but it's getting there. I was able to find the right kind of Spanish music I needed, plus other types of music and sounds.

Although I have a December 7 deadline, the first preview of my rough cut will take place next Wednesday, November 23. I'm really, really nervous as this will be the first time other people will see my work. They will be critiquing it and offering constructive criticism of it as well. This is a day I'm dreading, just like when filmmakers get their films released and the critics come out with movie reviews in which they either like it or hate it.

Pictures from The Joshua Tree.

Last May during a return trip from Los Angeles, I took a detour and stopped over at The Joshua Tree Park in Twentyninepalms, California. I took several pictures, here are a few:

December 7, 2005 is the date.

The deadline for getting my film ready for exhibition is December 7.

This, of course, assumes that there will be no further problems or technical issues along the way between now and December 7. As of now, I have a rough edit of the telephone conversation scene between the lead character and the girl he asks out on a date. Right now, that scene just goes back and forth when each of the characters is talking. However, with a little help from my technical adviser, there will be some tweaking of that scene in which I will get reaction shots from the girl while the guy is talking to her, meaning that I will need to create a "telephone voice" for the guy.

I also did a rough edit of the cafeteria scene in which while the girl is talking with her friends, the guy manages to get a hold of her cell phone so he could punch up her number and then call her. There are cutaways in which first you see the gang talking, then a cut to the guy sneaking up on them and snaring the girl's cell phone.

Finally, I put English subtitles on the classroom scene where the instructor is reading a Spanish poem and the English translation is at the bottom of the screen.

There will be one review of the film on November 23 in which I will receive feedback/constructive criticism from my classmates as to how they think I should edit the film. I will either accept or reject their advice and put the finishing touches on it by December 7. The film will be shown either on December 7 or December 14 depending on how many other films are ahead of mine.

So far, so good!