Montgomery Theater's Artistic Director was working on a grant proposal, and he asked if I could provide some footage on DVD. At first, I was under the impression that we could submit up to three clips of five minutes each. And we discussed what he wanted to show: The first meeting between Boney and Julia (A Good Look at Boney Kern), the final duet between Jamie and Kathy (The Last Five Years) to showcase the voices and the lighting changes, and a scene transition to show off the turntable we built to rotate between sets (Boy Gets Girl). I transferred footage to my laptop, cropped each requested scene down to 8 or 10 minutes (which I planned to work down to the requested five minutes), and took a break.
Then I received a copy of the NEA multimedia rules: the DVD could not exceed a total of three minutes. Three minutes!! Yeah, I was bummed, but I figured I could get each clip to about a minute each and still show what the AD wanted for his proposal.
Then I found out that timing was not my only problem. Seems the nifty turntable transition in Boy Gets Girl were too dark for my camera. My footage did not show what our audiences actually saw. Where the audience could see the rotating set, and actors moving to their next positions, my footage looked like an extended blackout. This was sort of overcome by inserting an inset of background footage that showed the turntable in action. I didn't have enough footage to cover the full duration of the "blackout", but it should be enough to get the point across.
The AD has given me permission to post the Work Sample clip here. Please note that this is a much more compressed version than the NEA received (and it doesn't have the nifty menus that the NEA DVD features!). Oh, and this is my first video project, so please be gentle with the criticism (but do tell me what you think of it.
Update (06/25/2007): I have removed the video link from this entry, and even removed the Quicktime movie from my YouTube account. The reason: There may be issues regarding copyright and royalties. Until we are certain of our rights and responsibilities, we won't be "broadcasting" any footage. Sorry!
Please Come Again
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