Churning Out More Non-profit Arts Promos

As part of my volunteer work for a local nonprofit arts group, I make promotional videos for online marketing.

Thursday I was sitting in the waiting room during my daughter’s ballet class, when the artistic director asked me to interview the new ballet mistress. I went and got some video of my daughter learning that glissade is not a “glee slide,” and also recorded some more advanced students at the barre.

The Stage Right studio is a noisy, chaotic, incredibly creative place. On my way out the door, I ran into the cast of next week’s Rocky Horror Live in full costume for the first time, posing for a cast photo.

A few years ago I remember blogging about “long portraits” — short movie clips of individuals or groups looking at the camera. Rather than a frozen moment, you get a glimpse — kind of like the way the magical pictures are depicted in the Harry Potter movies.

Anyway, I couldn’t pass by without recording some more footage, figuring I’d find a way to use them later.  (There I am in the mirror, right between Brad and Frank.)

I was up late Thursday working on an audio project for my online American Lit class (here’s my oral interpretation of Pap’s racist tirade in Chapter 6 of Huckleberry Finn), so all this footage just sat in my camera.

Then, during this morning’s musical theatre workshop rehearsal, I used ScreenFlow on my MacBook Pro, to edit and upload the ballet mistress interview.

The dance video took less time than I thought, so during this afternoon’s show choir rehearsal, I recorded some narrative to use as the “A” reel, and worked it around the long portrait of the Rocky Horror Live cast.

The more media sharing I do myself, the better I will be able to integrate media creation and sharing in my classes.

My next big project over the weekend is to make a dent in my marking, and follow up on some committee work. That which is important is not always fun.