The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of information in regards to anything and everything involving my internship at the Giants, including learning how to actually edit on Avid. In the last three weeks, I'd gone from having virtually no knowledge of how to edit on the system to cutting and effecting a 15 second video that aired during an inning break of today's game.
I've gone from knowing how to import footage to actually cutting it up after it's captured and logged. I was tasked with creating "stingers," which are basically short video clips with audio that we can plug in during inning breaks that run a little long. Today was the 10th anniversary of the ballpark and as a result, the videos I made were of highlights from the first year that the ballpark was open in 2000.
Now for the nuts and bolts. Unlike most editing programs, Avid, has numerous different editing modes. That means that depending on what mode you are in, a keystroke could do different things. For examble, in segment mode, B inserts video from your bin to your timeline so that it can be edited. In effects mode, B brings up your black level adjuster so you can lighten or darken your blacks to create greater or lesser contrast.
I've gotten some tidbits of information here or there, but for the most part, I've just been shown enough to get done what I need to get done. This coming week, I'm hoping to actually sit down for a half day with one of the senior editors and have him give me an in-depth lesson on what all the program can do.
Until then, I'll continue to maximize the limited knowledge I have. We've got a lot more interviews to be logged starting tomorrow. Roughly 6 are done, including the four most critical. However, we've still got 6 more left. In theory, the fun really begins once those are completed, but there always seems to be some other menial task that needs attending do. Such is the life of an intern.
