Before we left Australia I invested in a HDV video camera. I have really enjoyed making short films for subjects at RMIT and I thought this was too good an opportunity to pass up for collecting some fantastic footage. However I made one big mistake when I took the advise of a few people and downloaded the editing program Sony Vegas instead of Avid Pro which I am familiar with. I’m sure its not too hard to work out, but I am not the most patient person when it comes to these things and so far I haven’t dedicated enough effort to working it out.
Three weeks into our semester at NID we started our editing course with the 1st year post graduate group. The class was being taught by a visiting faculty member, a lovely film maker who commenced the course by showing us a couple of films that he had made. One was a particularly interesting documentary about tribal dance in the villages of Kerala. After this introduction the following few days were dedicated to viewing old black and white silent films with the focus on editing techniques. This was enjoyable up to a point however, we were disappointed to learn that the focus of the course would not be technical as we had hoped, but rather a theoretical study of forms of editing used in the history of film making. This course was also our first introduction to the ‘Indian pace’ and Fiona, the teacher and I, were often left waiting for over an hour each morning for the other students to arrive.
A week into the class we decided that it would be more interesting for us to partake in a traditional painting workshop that was being run by the textile department. We said goodbye to the film department and went to buy some paints. Unfortunately I still haven’t mastered that editing program.
