Day 752: One Big Project

Originally I was going to share some top secret information about the band trip video on this particular blog post, but I've decided against it. After all, there's plenty yet to be released in relation to the giant project I've been working on over the past how many weeks, and I'm really looking forward to the prospect of having a premiere for the whole thing. Megan even said I could go get a nice new dress for it. So maybe I'll actually get to "walk the red carpet" for a night. Just kidding, we won't have a red carpet. Unless we use the band room carpet thing we have. I suppose I could walk along that.

Regardless, if you haven't figured it out by the completely crazy schedule of blog posts over the past month or two, or by the constant tweeting about it on my Twitter, I spent pretty much my entire winter break at my laptop, editing video. Now, I'm insanely proud of the product that is the Seymour Community High School Band Trip 2014 Video, which I really should stop calling a video because it's actually more of a movie, but I've been calling it the band trip video for the last two years, so I figure that will be a difficult habit to break.

But despite the fact that I'm trying to save at least a little bit of the surprise for the actual possible premiere, I can share a little bit about what I've been doing for the past two months, even if I can't really share any videos or pictures. So here's some facts about the band trip video:

• Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 9 easter eggs that I have hidden in the video, although I'm sure there's more than that. I had a jolly good time trying to throw little things into the sequence, from the nearly constant references to Captain Hook or Colin O'Donoghue to references to my roommates and beyond. 
• There's a total of 23 songs in the video, which, speaking of Easter Eggs, could be an accidental one in its own right. 
• The final product is 57 minutes long, which was just under my set maximum of an hour. I knew while editing that I had more than enough to get it past that, but for time and entertainment sake, I wanted to keep it to that 60 minute mark. 
• Those 57 minutes are selected from over 30 hours of video and over 3,000 pictures. Yes, I watched every minute and looked at every single photo. It took me an eternity. 
• The video component of the video (that was a strange way to say something) was shot between, I believe, 5 different trips: July 2013, January 2014, March 2014, June 2014 and January 2015. You probably will find a few differences here and there, but for the most part, you can't tell what was shot when. I paid a lot of attention to consistency. The pictures included, however, were all taken on the trip in June. 
• Every person on the trip appears at least once in the video as a whole. I tried really hard to make sure everyone was there, but if you edit videos like this, you already know how difficult this is to achieve. 
• Also in an attempt to make sure everyone felt included in the video is the reasoning for pulling footage from 5 trips, despite the fact that everything included could NOT have been achieved in our one day at each park (or in the case of Animal Kingdom and Epcot, less than day). I went through a checked to see how many attractions I included and there's under 15 from the entirety of Walt Disney World that didn't make it into the final product. My thought process was this: I could have easily gone on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin in June, but I didn't make it to that attraction. However, while interviewing members of the band at the end of our Magic Kingdom day, I found that one of the members LOVED that attraction. Therefore, thanks to some film magic, I have that attraction included. It's all about making it apply to the most people, and when I only have one video camera that's in my hands (or the hands of a trusted friend) at all times, things get tricky. 

And since you're all wondering, I'm sure, it took me approximately 150 hours to simply EDIT the video. That's not counting the time it took to find the songs, tag the pictures, actually film the video, brainstorm, animate the beginning and end (because it IS animated) or a variety of other things. Yep, it took me a really, really long time. Oh, that's also not including the extra hours I had to put on when my bloopers section corrupted. 

So this video means a lot to me. I'm going to try and figure out a way to upload some clips so those of you who aren't in our band but would like to see can get an eye on what I've been working on, but that won't happen until after the "premiere," sadly. But new vlogs will hopefully be coming soon! 

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on January 26 due to a busy schedule).