After 10 long, sometimes grueling (othertimes definitely not) weeks, the time has come; the end of my ETV internship is here. Before I wrap up and put a bow on this summer, I have to recap the final week first. It's been another pretty slow week here at the office with seemingly half of Content on some kind of vacation this week. This left Aimee in charge and she took a laid-back approach, not wanting my final week to be too crazy. I finished up the astronaut video after a little more than a week working on it, which you can see here. It was a fun project and probably the work I'm most proud of from the summer (though that might be because I only edited it and did a small voiceover - I'm my biggest critic when it comes to my videography). Kudos to the videographer for getting some good b-roll and getting enough variety of shots in what I can assume was a mostly repetitive environment. I was able to write to the video, a major plus in this industry (sometimes without even meaning to) and I get a great feeling every time it works out, like Dr. Thomas saying he saw a boy in a spacesuit at the event, right as the audience gets to see the boy, as well. Also, kudos to Aimee for asking great questions that got some really amazing soundbites out of Dr. Thomas. The whole video felt very inspirational and I couldn't help but smile every time I watched the ending (which was approximately 50 times while editing).
As I was finishing that video, Aimee told me there was one last assignment for me to do, which was to mess around with some "behind the scenes" crabbing footage of her recent trip to Charleston. She insisted that I didn't have to work on it, if I didn't want to (as she has for most of the summer), but I wanted something else to do and that's kind of the point of me being an intern, right? So I got to work on some basic videos showing people how to crab. Technically, I still have to export the last video as I'm writing this, but all three will be online as digital shorts soon enough, so keep an eye on YouTube and our website. Aimee came by to thank me for a great summer and, in classic Aimee fashion, told me to take it easy today and leave by lunch.
And with that, as they say, it's a wrap! Thanks to all the wonderful people at SCETV for making me feel at home these 10 weeks. Thanks to Tom for helping me get started and helping me during the convention and fish fry. Thanks to Don for leading a great team here in Content and always saying hello and knowing my name, even though I was just a temporary intern. Thanks to Xavier for being a cool guy who taught me how to use the cameras here and would talk sports with me while waiting to film This Week in South Carolina (and thanks to his cohort who I think is named Ricky (editor's note: Ricky Taylor), but he always called me "Mr. Syracuse," so it's fair if I don't know or remember his name). Thanks to the other interns I got to know here in Content (Sarah, Laura-Ellen, and Murphey) for being able to share stories with and have a good time. Thanks to Ty and Mimi for proofreading these blogs and putting them online (and always reminding me to bold and link to ETV shows!). Thanks to the Endowment for giving me this opportunity, and thanks to Donna, who is the person I associate with the Endowment, considering she woke me up with a phone call back in the spring, telling me I had made the first cut.
And most importantly, major thanks to Gavin and Aimee, the two best bosses I could imagine. Their laid-back, fun personalities were definitely not what I was expecting walking in the door on my first day, but it took a lot of pressure off of me and allowed me to have more fun.