Quick Turnaround 101 BY Inna Macaspac

As a video editor of the Ideas That Matter organizing team, I get to work on a lot of videos to be played on the events we are having. In last semester’s ITM, I got 7 videos (one and a half minute each) to make, all to be played in a single day. My assignments are assigned 2-3 weeks before the event day, so I have a lot of time to work on them. Sir Velez checks them a week before the event to see if revisions are necessary. That’s my time frame for making videos for ITM.

Then there came the videos I have to accomplish in a shorter span of time. WAY SHORTER! And it is less than 24 hours!

I first encountered this situation during this year’s On-the-spot Painting Competition, in which some of the ITM org team members volunteered to be part of the media group. I was assigned to make a video documentary of the said event using videos and photos taken by the rest of the group.

That video to be produced will be played in the closing part of the event, so that means I have to make use of my remaining time wisely to finish it before the deadline. From the time I acquired the first source files, I had about 5 hours left to do the video.

I spent those 5 hours focused on working (and raging over my Adobe Premiere that keeps crashing). Towards the end of my working time, the feeling of pressure increases. But fortunately I managed to finish the video on time. Well, not really, the video was meant to be played before the announcement of the winners, and that time the video was still rendering, so it was played after the announcement.

My second time was after the day we had three events, and Sir Velez told me beforehand that I have to make a flashback video showing the events ITM had for this semester, from Jonas De Los Reyes’ talk to Elvin Villar’s talk. And the video is supposed to be shown to the audience in the IMC Competition the following day. Of course, in order to get started, I have to wait until the end of the day to get the files to be used.

After I got back to my dorm with the hard drive containing all the photos and videos taken that day, I quickly opened my laptop and started editing. That video was the last I have to do for the last event. Pressure still bugs me, plus the drowsiness due to the previous sleepless nights. But I still managed to get it done and it was played nicely in front of the audience.

Quick turnaround means to complete a work within a short span of time. Pressure is inevitable. Those two pieces of experience served as signs for me to prepare for a lot of works like these in the future, because in the people in the advertising industry often work under pressure.

I really thank Ideas That Matter for being my training ground as a student.