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How on earth has it been over a month since my last entry?! Time is absolutely flying by now. Its going to be 2010 in a blink of an eye.

Well, since I last wrote life seems a lot different! I am absolutely love, love, LOVING my new position as an editor at work. It’s night and day for me really. Finally I’m back to that creative role, something that demands the use of my brain all day. And the necessity of being creative is invigorating. Now there’s just not enough time in the day! Instead of watching the hours drag on while I scan photos, I find myself glancing at the clock going, ‘holy crap! How is it 4pm already?!’ I usually get in about 10 to 8am, and leave the office around 7pm. I pretty much spend my free time commuting, then am only home to shower and sleep! I need to move closer to work.

So my first 3 weeks as an editor were training days, practicing editing to my company’s style using old client footage. Then I got my first project! It was short though, and we’re still waiting for the client to be back in the country to contact about coming to view it. Then I did a really short other edit for another client. (Both were for Americans actually… hmmmmm). But unfortunately the company’s work queue is a lot smaller than anticipated for some reason. Not enough projects to go around at the moment. So one day my supervisor and the head of creative asked me to come have a private word really quick. I was absolutely panicked that they were gonna ask me to go back to being a PA (not that they have enough work to do either at the moment). But luckily my brief (but intense!) panic was short lived. See, we edit 3 levels of video projects, each being more expensive, time consuming, and difficult to produce than the last: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Usually junior editors when they start just do Silvers, then move on to Golds. Then Platinum’s are way down the road . The girl next to me just got her first Platinum project last month, and a couple others who recently did too and waited for about 8 months until they were entrusted with one. Platinum’s entail a lot of AfterEffects animation (which I did at Intava in Bellevue) which I have experience in, so my manager has been saying hopefully come the end of January they could put me forward to possibly try a platinum. But because of the low work flow, my previous animation experience, and I think just the fact I was doing quite well, I got asked to do a Platinum!! The Head of Creative actually has too much work, and decided to let me have a go at one of her projects! I really feel like I’ve been given an opportunity here, and am so grateful she is entrusting me with this project which is for a very important client of hers that get edits done every year. This is at least volume 6 for them, so they have high expectations! So that first project I did was a 20 minute Gold, then I did the 8 minute Silver, and now BAM an hour long Platinum! I’d only been an editor for a month. I mean, she comes and sits with me every morning and reviews what I’ve done the previous day and gives me feedback. I’ve been working on this for a week now, and she seems really impressed! Very few changes each day, which seems promising for me! I feel like this project could be my big break, so I feel a bit of pressure to do a really good job. I’ve been in the studio every day for the past 13 days for a minimum of 10 hours each day, but I absolutely love it. (I had to force myself to stay home today!) The days just fly by. So anyways, in sum, work is good. BUT there are many editors with nothing to do…and in a weeks time I may join that group. So fingers crossed!

 You may also remember me mentioning that I was promoted to the Production Team at work in addition back in June. I’ve pretty much completed my training with that. Now I just go on shoots as a camera operator when they arise. A couple weeks ago my colleague and I who joined the team at the same time as trainees were let loose to do a shoot on our own! It was a lot of fun though. It was basic luckily, not throwing us into the fire too hard. It was 2 interviews for a World According To Kids film. We took a taxi out to the family’s house in northern London and set up interviews for the two little boys in their rooms. One was 7, the other 8. They were TOO cute. Each interview lasted about an hour… they way kids think and how their minds process how the world works around them is amazing. I wish we didn’t loose that creativity as we grow older! I’m going on a Biography shoot next week which should be really interesting.

Anyways, enough of me rattling on about work! But to be honest, that’s the majority of what I’ve been doing the past month! In other news, Carey came and visited Lina and I again for Halloween! It was really a lot of fun. We went out to dinner, saw the musical Les Miserables (the world’s longest running show! I felt it was a classic I needed to see before it was too late!), which was really really good. We had a Halloween party at Sarah’s house (my old house in Penge) which a few friends which was really fun. I wore a cavewoman costume from a fancy dress birthday party I went to the weekend before (‘fancy dress’ is the Brit’s way of saying costume party… they’re pretty into them all year round. The theme for that party was that you had to come as something starting with the first letter of your first name. Hence, I came as a Cavewoman. I was well impressed with how all-out people went with their costumes… especially considering the majority of them had no plans for Halloween the next weekend cause its not really celebrated here!)

  

Fancy Dress Bday Party & Halloween

Other activities included doing a traditional English High Tea on a Sunday in one of the fancy 4 star hotels in the city. It’s basically what all little girls’ tea time sets are basic off of! You get fancy tea with tea pots and cups, then a 3 tear platter of finger sandwiches, scones, and posh pastry sweets. It was pricey, but very worth it! I also went to the Artistic World Gymnastics Championships at the O2 with Sarah. I’ve never seen gymnastics live like that before, it was really interesting! Also my first visit to the O2 Arena, which apparently knocked Madison Square Garden out of the top place for the world’ best entertainment venues! November 5th was Bonfire Night , and I went with some friends from work to a fireworks display at park in the area. The show was quite impressive for the size of the park! It was like the Brit’s 4th of July, but freezing cold out.

Bonfire Night 2009

Well thats all for now! Lots more to come in the following weeks I’m sure. Also noteworthy is that I come back to Seatte in 81 days! Woo!

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