The Film Fund

As you can see, we still haven't posted any videos from our NASCAR event last month. We're really bummed about it, but there is good reason. Or bad reason. However you want to look at it.

First, we had to finish our June mission, which was our trip to Ford Safety Labs. Once that was hammered out, Mandy got to work on the first NASCAR video. After 5 hours of sound and film editing, she decided to take a break. When she came back to iMovie, all editing had been lost. Why? No particular reason. iMovie's "automatic save" feature must have decided to take a break too, resulting in a colossal automatic fail. Mandy took to the couch and drowned her sorrows with repeat showings of The Next Food Network Star, Ruffles, ranch dip, and Mountain Dew.

Fast forward two days later when Mandy gives it another go. Remembering all the fancy editing she did earlier that week, she gives her computer an old fashioned restart, just for good measure, and she's off. The video is looking better than ever. 4 hours into the project, she closes and reopens iMovie to make sure the automatic save is working properly. Glory, glory, it is! So another 4 hours go by and editing is coming to an end. The video is almost finished. She closes and reopens iMovie again because the program is starting to bog down. This is where the hair-pulling begins.

When iMovie restarts, the project has unbelievably and undeniably reverted back to the day before. Even though Mandy made sure the program was saving mid-edit, iMovie went the extra mile and did something miraculous: un-saving what it had previously saved. How is that even possible?

With two full days of work wasted, Mandy tries not to give in to madness. 4th of July weekend was a nice diversion, even though there was much more Food Network Star, Ruffles, ranch dip, and Mountain Dew, but now we're back to the work week. Film editing must be accomplished this month. Mission #3 is fast approaching, besides all the wonderful NASCAR footage waiting to be shown to the world.

We know that Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere are the answers, but where do we find an extra grand lying around the house? We've checked the sofa cushions and under the seats in the Fiesta. No luck. Joel's grandparents used to sew cash into their drapes, but they haven't blessed our curtains.

We did, however, install Final Cut Express. More failure there. Seems both FCE and iMovie have problems using our external hard drive. This week we'll be trying to find time to move photos and music onto the external so our film editing software can use the internal drive. Lots of folks seem to think this should clear up a lot of bugs. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, we've decided to create a Film Fund. We'll be pestering friends and family to donate a few bucks to the cause as we try to scrimp and save for a new Mac and possibly even some professional editing software. Whether or not this Film Fund will succeed, we have no idea. But we do know that our current set up is hindering our creative aspirations. If you'd like to donate, or give any sage advice, please email us: joelandmandy at mac.com

Thanks in advance!