Just for Kicks

Earlier this week, I asked the head FATV videographer if I could try my hand at video editing - just for kicks. I had been working on a few administrative tasks that I’ve dubbed “Daisy Duties” – responsibilities normally handled by the FATV producer currently on holiday (I'll go into detail on this later). Joe had me go through some tunnel cam footage from the England v. Switzerland game last weekend and edit together a "short" 2-3:00 min piece. It was a simple task, just cutting together a chronological snippet of the people who went in and out of the Champion's Tunnel at Wembley. After about an hour, Joe clapped his hands in exaggerated excitement and asks, "So what do you have for me, Babs?" After watching maybe 30 seconds of my masterpiece, he said I'm ready to edit my own piece. Thank goodness! I had been waiting to hear those words since my first day as the intern. 

My big moment was supposed to happen on Thursday for the FA Cup sponsorship announcement with Budweiser. Needless to say, I was stoked. Joe said that I, as an American, would be perfect to produce this piece because I can pick up on the quotes that emphasize this significant three-year partnership. Everything was going well as Matt, one of the other videographers, manned the camera throughout the whole event. I followed him around the entire time, making mental notes on what shots he was getting, how many cut-aways he had and who was interviewed. Unfortunately, some of the big names we waited to interview had taken too much time and we needed to turn around this piece very quickly - so Matt ended up cutting it together as I sat and watched. It was an understandable change of assignment, because I probably would have taken a longer time editing as it would have been my very first piece for FATV. Here's the final product: "FA Cup Budweiser launch" It's quite an upbeat feature. I hope I can learn to pick up on those motion shots, like this.

Joe mentioned later, in an off-handed, light-hearted manner, "No worries, we'll have something for you to edit next week." Sigh of relief. My time is still coming...

On another note, my administrative duties as the interim "Daisy" has been going pretty well - but my first big task ended up being a three-day ordeal. Essentially, two of our guys are traveling to Germany at the end of next week to cover the Women's World Cup and requested me to have our travel agency ATP send them confirmation emails of their flights. Easy, smeezy, right? Well, after a string of emails for four hours one day, I discovered that those flights had not actually been booked. One of the guys wanted to switch to an earlier flight, so the tickets had been cancelled and he, unknowingly, was supposed to go ahead and book the preferred flights on his own. This information was not relayed on to Daisy or myself, so another string of emails with ATP for a few hours the following day clarified this situation. The flights were not officially booked and the confirmation emails had not been sent until the third day, after the final string of emails and a phone call with the company. It wasn't stressful, per say, but more tedious and complicated. I felt like I was handling the situation gracefully and by utilizing my resources: I never raised my voice or rolled my eyes, checked through Daisy's previous emails pertaining to these Germany tickets and contacted all the parties involved to figure out the missing details. By the end of the week, this Daisy Duty was checked off my list and ended up as a success. Producing doesn't seem so bad.