Editing the Commercial

Today in AICE Media Studies class, I was assigned to write a blog about the editing process.Recently, my school has been experiencing technological difficulties with the computers. Although some computers are working, the majority and Pinnacle Studios are not working. Due to these computer malfunctions, my group and I cannot edit on 10/25 and 10/29 as planned.

 On 10/25, my group and I were given a portion of our class time to re-shoot some scenes and begin editing our commercial. Before the computers stopped working, my group and I were able to dump the raw footage onto the computers. Since my group and I had our own SD card,  the dumping process was easy and we wouldn't worry about our footage getting deleted or lost. After we dumped onto the school's computer, I guided Hannah how to open Pinnacle Studios and set up the program before we began editing. Once we finished importing the raw footage, we began to arrange the footage in a specific order. This is where my group and I experienced computer problems. For my group and I's commercial, we wanted to do a split screen of athletes getting ready to practice. This allowed our group to gain seconds for our 30 seconds commercial. As our teacher was showing us how to do split screen, Pinnacle Studios wouldn't work. My teacher said if I click, this certain button in Pinnacle Studios, the selected footage would appear on the screen. As Hannah was clicking the button, the footage we wanted did not appear. The only footage that appeared was the one in Track 2, not track 3. It wasn't until 15 minutes later, Pinnacle Studios was working and we were able to create a split screen. During the process of editing the split screen, our teacher instructed the entire class to dump our footage onto the a UBS drive or Google Drive. We had to end  the editing process early and begin dumping on a flash drive. We also had to change our commercial schedule to accommodate the equipment failures. If we were going to edit today, my group and I were going to: cut the raw footage, add transitions, add voice-overs, and adjust the lighting design to match the conventions of a sports commercial.

These equipment problems are causing me to be aggravated, frustrated and stressed- three emotions a "normal" teenager should be feel. Although my group and I have more time to edit, I am frustrated at the broken education system. Schools have a limited budget but, majority of the money fund programs for the sports team. The Art and Theater Departments and Technology Departments are lucky to buy a can of paint or a get a new computer.This year is very stressful because I have to teach myself AICE European  History since I didn't have an official teacher for 6 weeks. I am frustrated I cannot work because I am the type of person who likes to get things done. I am frustrated at the school's  priorities because without working computers, I cannot practice the necessary skills to pass the AICE Exam in May. I feel the school systems cause unnecessary stress to students in assignments, assessments, and grading scale. If any Broad of Education members are reading this blog, this is an example of how broken the school system is and how much change is needed. I hope the laptops that school will provide would be in good condition and working.