Trip To The ER, Projects and Progress

Hey Everybody,

I thought I'd give you an update on what's been happening in my so-called life as of late. I know that I haven't been keeping this blog up like I said I would, but it's not because I've not had better things to do.

After finishing up a long weekend on a film shoot as first AD, and during one of the days having an excruciating migraine headache, I finally got to sleep in a little, and I was happy. That is, until 6am when I woke up with crushing chest pain and extreme shortness of breath. I almost called the Hospital right then, but I was so tired, I suffered through it, since I was sure I wasn't having a heart attack, I figured it could wait.

I went to my noon class and about half way thtough it, I was getting winded very easily and so I called the school's clinic and they said that I should go to the ER. In retrospect I should have refused to go, since it was very expensive and took 7 hours and numerous tests to find out that it was nothing more than a viral case of Pericarditis, which is inflamation of the sac around your heart--the only thing they can do for it, is have you take anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibueprofen or Motrin and wait it out. What a waste of money.

However, it was good to find out that it wasn't serious, but I'm not going to follow up like they wanted me too, because it's just a waste of money.

Since then, I've been taking it easy--on Tuesday I stayed home all day and worked on the computer, and fortunately for me all my teachers seemed cool with it.

On Wednesday my group from Cinematography class headed down to my church in Cambridge... the Bishop had been kind enough to let us use the basement which houses a pool table for our lighting project. The shoot went well other than a small hiccup--the Bishop gave me the wrong key to the building so i was unable to get in... we had to call the ward clerk to come and let us in. But thankfully it all worked out and the project is going to look great. I'm getting the film back on Monday, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thursday I returned to class, and I delievered my final edit of my sixty second commercial for the Filmspotting Competition. I had to edit a 60 second commercial for a real or imagined product using only footage from Little Miss Sunshine, New York Stories, and Old School. It was really fun, and I made an ad for DQ. Eventually I'll post a copy for you to check out.

The great part about this competition is that only 6 people of the initial 15 entrants actually completed the project and turned it in on the deadline. There are 3 prizes! I've got a 50% chance of winning a prize (1st-Avid Xpress Pro, 2nd-250 dollars, 3rd-100 dollars). And I know I'm a good editor, so there's a good chance I'll win first or second! But I won't find that out until April 12th.

The other great thing about this competition is that I now have an established relationship with a Boston Post-Production house. I met the owners, Noreen and Barry, (Barry has edited every single Olive Garden Commercial on TV, they have that account) and got some great advice and contacts out of the whole event. It's just awesome. Noreen even complimented me on my sense of timing... she said she could tell I was a real editor!

Awesome.

So now I'm importing Sound Effects for my Third audio project for Intro To Audio Production. It's kinda a tedious process, but I'm working through it and I should have something pretty sweet by 2pm or so. I guess that about does it for this edition of Ezra's Ramblings 2.0! Twice As Fast As Your A$$

By the way, BIG AWESOMENESS to my little sister who just recieved a 6,000 dollar a year merit scholarship from her school in Chicago--Way To Go!