Well, in a little over a week, the final episode of Issues: Season 1 will drop on all normal channels. Although that doesn't mean that work on the series is done. We're planning on a 2nd season, should we find the funding, and some other fun stuff in the interim. I'm hoping it will buy me some time to keep going with my training.
I began training in how to use Apple's Aperture software, and it has proven to be a rather nice program. Most of the stills I incorporate on this site and the show's site will be treated in Aperture before posting. The fine control of the photo quality really makes it pleasant to work with. And it's capabilities in terms of organizing the pictures blows my mind.
I should be upgrading to Final Cut Studio 2 at long last in the near future. I'm entitled to a pretty tax refund after loosing my teaching job last year. Part of it will cover my upgrade. Once I get it, I'll immediately start training in Soundtrack Pro. Color correction and sound editing are two areas I need to improve on. I'm hoping to make color correction a specialty of mine, while I simply NEED to develop better audio editing skills. I've got the training materials all collected. all I need is the program.
My first semester of grad. school has been difficult. I'll be taking an incomplete in one of my classes and repeating it next fall. Falling victim to a nasty virus and missing the discussions that the class depends on for understanding is a sure way to fail. Thankfully the professor has been very understanding, and we're trying to see if I could TA the course while taking it. (Since I've been exposed to the material before.) Other than that, my other two are busy. And scheduling for the Fall is coming up fast. It's looking like I'll be spending Tuesday and Thursday nights in New York during the Fall.
I'll also be working on a couple other projects with Scott over the next few months. One is a series of short documentaries for a youth group he has connections to. The other project will be a pilot episode of a 2nd series. I'll withhold any details until we decide we want to make it public. And of course, we're hoping to start production of Season 2 of Issues in the fall. Pre-production is already going. The outline is made, and scripts will be ready by the early summer. That would give us several months to do full breakdowns of everything, and create a plan that we lacked in the first season.
We are going into Season 2 with an ambitious plan and high expectations. Our hope is that you'll see Issues, and the crew, at next year's Streamy Awards. (We were ineligible this year since we started airing after the submission deadline.) We'll be taking more risks with our style, but doing so will help us tell the story in a more dynamic style than the first season. We'll also be changing our formatting to aim at shorter episodes.
I guess saying that I'm almost done is a really inaccurate subject line, huh? Yeah, I might be almost done with Season 1, but Season 2, the pilot, the documentaries, and the classes should help keep me busy. And of course, I'm hoping that the project CJ and I discussed this winter will come to fruition now that the weather is warming up.
In the coming weeks, look for an addition to my demo. reel. I'll be making a 3-5 minute autobiography for my production class. It's meant to be an introduction to Final Cut Pro. Heh. Guess that means it will be an easy assignment for me then. It'll just require a lot of driving to get all my footage. At least it's all in New Jersey!