This is an important year for me. It's the year that my fear of failure isn't as strong as my fear of never trying in the first place. There really isn't an equivalent phrase for women, but essentially I am "manning up." I'm manning up and learning the skills that I've been telling myself I need to learn for the past three years. I'm learning how to edit and I'm learning about audio for interviews, etc. I'm manning up and trying not to be intimidated by these things I know little about. I'm doing my best to not make excuses anymore. Earlier in the year, I got a new computer with specs specifically for editing video and that's made a world of a difference. I've had the idea for this edit since 2014, and at the time, I had no clue how to execute it. So this year, I finally made it happen.
I was listening to the Onion Book of Known Knowledge while driving my car on the move out to California late 2013. I was driving my car alone, and sometimes with long stretches of silence. At this point, I only have photos to trigger the memories because I can't remember all of it. If you've moved across the country to a massive city, no family, one friend, no connections, no job, no client base, no apartment, and not even really knowing what the place looks like, then you can relate. :) I took a blind leap of faith and have been reminded of my mortality ever since. My curiosity for all things bigger and unknown had skyrocketed. I no longer cared what had already been proven, all I cared about was what had yet to be proven -- for myself and in general.
The constant tango of beauty and sadness keeps me intrigued mystified by this world. I'm always searching for truth and those slivers of moments that make up the collection of our life's memories. That's really what this reel is suppose to represent; all those moments on jobs when the talent became actual people and had a moment when they forgot about the camera and were connecting with their surroundings and connecting with me. I gathered a lot of this footage with Dan, my video partner over the past three years. All this footage is from jobs that we've shot together and my own personal travels.
This is the first major concept I edited all on my own, and I think my 2014 self would approve. :) Thanks to Sarah Vandekamp for doing the narration and voiceover.