JeganRX
Well-known member
I figured it wouldn't hurt to get to know each other here; there's always a professional attitude, and I love it, but how did everyone get into the industry, what challenges did you face, and where are you now? I ask because I'm currently in college myself - I wish I could call it film school, but NYIT's Film and Television program leaves much to be desired... Anyway, that's for another discussion, so I'll start:
At the age of 11, I got into video capture using my TV-Tuner in my old PC. It later turned into compressing those captures with Real Producer. I look back at that and wonder what the hell I was doing...
At about 13 or 14, I started experimenting with ripping my own DVDs. This was a tumultuous experience, and I was essentially introduced to framerates, resolutions, aspect ratios, color spaces, bitrates, etc. At the time, I was using the old Divx 3.11 codec, and eventually the alpha builds of Xvid. By the time I was 15, I was routinely encoding, but was still quite inexperienced in video processing. At the same time, Photoshop and After Effects became my friends, to say the least.
In 2005, at the age of 16, I was given the chance to take a video production course at a technical school for half of my school day; I took up the offer, and was introduced to the wonders of production, basic lighting, editing (FCP), and of course, the DVX - which would become by favorite camera. Of course, even then, later into the year, I had heard about the HVX and nearly exploded with anticipation at 4:2:2 color, despite not having a dime on me.
In 2007, I graduated the course, and also passed the Infocomm ICIA Certification, which sadly has not even been put to use, and is likely to simply expire in 2010. I have not had an opportunity to get any renewal credits, but considering it hasn't served me much at all, I can't say I'm feeling bad about it. Very few pros seem to even know what it is! Anyway, my actual career started that year, as an intern at a very small, but local production company. I did some light editing and motion graphics for them, along with PA on a few shoots, which was simply enthralling...
Fast forward to Summer 2008, where I finally got my first full time video job, as an editor and general assistant for an A/V Rental House on Long Island. I was unfortunately mostly relegated to editing people's home movies, putting still montages together, and working with a buggy computer and outdated equipment. The worst part was often talking to "pros" in the field for "10-15 years", who I had to often educate on their own cameras. So many people are unaware of how interlacing works that it's baffling, and also really sad at the same time.
I left the job in October that year, when my internship finally decided to use me as a paid freelancer. Unfortunately, they turned out to be a dead end, since they lost most of their work during Winter (for obvious reasons), and have been recovering since. I was without a job until this month, and unsurprisingly, my own education got in the way of taking most freelance jobs. Finally, I landed an editing job with a wedding catalogue company (not to be confused with event video; I'm editing web spots for the company itself, as they do not actually shoot weddings), where the work is nice, but it is not "progressive" in the sense that since video is not their focal point, I won't really learn much in terms of workflows, equipment, and such. The projects don't change much, so I'm filling my free days with freelance when possible. So far, nothing, but I shall see.
Anyway, I was a bit gloomy towards the end, but that's the point. As a student, I want to hear what you've all been through, and just how long it took until you got well placed in the industry.
At the age of 11, I got into video capture using my TV-Tuner in my old PC. It later turned into compressing those captures with Real Producer. I look back at that and wonder what the hell I was doing...
At about 13 or 14, I started experimenting with ripping my own DVDs. This was a tumultuous experience, and I was essentially introduced to framerates, resolutions, aspect ratios, color spaces, bitrates, etc. At the time, I was using the old Divx 3.11 codec, and eventually the alpha builds of Xvid. By the time I was 15, I was routinely encoding, but was still quite inexperienced in video processing. At the same time, Photoshop and After Effects became my friends, to say the least.
In 2005, at the age of 16, I was given the chance to take a video production course at a technical school for half of my school day; I took up the offer, and was introduced to the wonders of production, basic lighting, editing (FCP), and of course, the DVX - which would become by favorite camera. Of course, even then, later into the year, I had heard about the HVX and nearly exploded with anticipation at 4:2:2 color, despite not having a dime on me.
In 2007, I graduated the course, and also passed the Infocomm ICIA Certification, which sadly has not even been put to use, and is likely to simply expire in 2010. I have not had an opportunity to get any renewal credits, but considering it hasn't served me much at all, I can't say I'm feeling bad about it. Very few pros seem to even know what it is! Anyway, my actual career started that year, as an intern at a very small, but local production company. I did some light editing and motion graphics for them, along with PA on a few shoots, which was simply enthralling...
Fast forward to Summer 2008, where I finally got my first full time video job, as an editor and general assistant for an A/V Rental House on Long Island. I was unfortunately mostly relegated to editing people's home movies, putting still montages together, and working with a buggy computer and outdated equipment. The worst part was often talking to "pros" in the field for "10-15 years", who I had to often educate on their own cameras. So many people are unaware of how interlacing works that it's baffling, and also really sad at the same time.
I left the job in October that year, when my internship finally decided to use me as a paid freelancer. Unfortunately, they turned out to be a dead end, since they lost most of their work during Winter (for obvious reasons), and have been recovering since. I was without a job until this month, and unsurprisingly, my own education got in the way of taking most freelance jobs. Finally, I landed an editing job with a wedding catalogue company (not to be confused with event video; I'm editing web spots for the company itself, as they do not actually shoot weddings), where the work is nice, but it is not "progressive" in the sense that since video is not their focal point, I won't really learn much in terms of workflows, equipment, and such. The projects don't change much, so I'm filling my free days with freelance when possible. So far, nothing, but I shall see.
Anyway, I was a bit gloomy towards the end, but that's the point. As a student, I want to hear what you've all been through, and just how long it took until you got well placed in the industry.
