Long Day

Started work yesterday at 3 PM and worked 'til 11 PM. We wanted to record an interview with the Sec. of State who was in Singapore, 12 hours ahead of us. She was about to board a plane and would be unavailable for a day. So we recorded a "phoner": we have a camera at her end and one at our end and the interview takes place over a telephone line - neither of them can see the other. We couldn't get a satellite link. So after recording the interview from 10:30 PM to 11 PM, the whole crew (about 20 people) rushed to our hotel rooms for 3-4 hours of sleep. Then back at work at 4 AM to receive the feed of the Singapore video and sync it up on the Avid and make it look like a real interview. Our guy, George S., sits in the studio and the Sec. appears on a plasma screen (chromakey) which we see from a camera looking over his shoulder. The interview ran too long so I had to cut it down two minutes for time - it ran about 13 minutes for air. And this editing involved making some tight audio edits - a pleasure with 720p because I can trim to 1/60th of a second instead of 1/30th of a second with NTSC - and adding some over-the-shoulder shots to hide the edits. It worked out well and the director, exec. producer and tech. director were very impressed. After the show, we (the tape director that I work with and I) got some unusually effusive praise: "You guys are awesome!" "You guys are fantastic!" "You guys are rock stars!" We finally got released about 11:30 AM Sunday.

Totally worth the loss of sleep. Although, in truth, I have edited harder projects under worse time pressure for more difficult producers. So it was easy to say, "Aw, shucks! 'Tweren't nuthin'."

One good day at work can make the rest of the week a pleasure.