maven&meddler

Several months ago, I bought myself a nifty little handicam and Adobe Elements Premiere 7.0 to do the editing. I had big plans for shooting video to include on the blog. Yikes, but it was a LOT harder than I thought. Worse yet, I’ve been beating myself up over not being able to get my head wrapped around using the software to edit the simplest video.

True to form, I had gone out and bought a book that seemed to be the dummies way to learning it. Wrong. I just couldn’t get it, and that made me feel even worse. The fact that I’m not one to read the book straight through and then put it into practice made it harder perhaps. I’m the type that just wants to dive in and swim with the sharks.

The problem here is that I am a visual learner, and a hands on learner. Don’t tell me how to do something, show me!

But who?

Craigslist to the rescue. I just posted a simple, short ad, asking for beginner help using a specific software program. Within 24 hours I had several responses from people who had some level of working knowledge of the software in question. The one that I chose had samples of his work for me to look at, and was able to provide some local industry references - I didn’t need crazy showing up at the door.

Erik came prepared with a basic lesson plan, which was impressive right off the bat. He uses the professional version of my software, but was easily able to scale back his experience to fit within my learning curve. He also came without a big ego that needed stroking. He just brought youth, enthusiasm, patience and knowledge. The fact that he’s got experience teaching outdoors skills to kids at a youth camp probably made a huge difference.

He began by showing me around the basics of the program  - what everything was and what it did. Then we started playing with random bits and pieces of video I’d shot - simply to demonstrate certain concepts.

Then we moved to actually starting the editing of an actual small project.

Within the first 30 minutes, I thought “Wow.. this is actually going to work.” I couldn’t believe the relative ease that I was able to grasp both essentials and finer points. Although I have a long background in producing video, I’ve always just been on the conceptual side of the process, leaving the technical part to others. Now, I was actually seeing that I could master that aspect myself as well.

After he’d left for the evening, I continued to practice what I’d learned. I came to a sticking point, having forgot how to do one thing, so emailed Erik and had an answer the next morning. It solved the problem and I moved on to complete my first edited video with both ‘A’ and ‘B’ roll edits and simple titles.

I’m so proud of myself. Blush.

I’ve asked Erik to come back next week for another two hour session, which at $20 per hour ( this seems to be the going rate for tutoring according to friends in the know ) is a freaking bargain, considering how this got me over the frustration and anxiety of what seemed to be unconquerable software. I should mention that one to two hours is enough time for absorbing and learning technical stuff like this. My flight instructor husband says that a flight lesson should never go past an hour, since the student starts to become overwhelmed.

It occurred to me today, that anybody could run up against a similar challenge and not know where to turn for help. After all, I’d asked several people I knew with video editing experience - one a professional - and they either didn’t have the time or the experience with the software I needed help with. This could be anything from learning new software to playing your guitar to growing great tomatoes. You just have to seek the right person to show you how.

Erik is very smart.

I’m also very smart for having sought him out.