The event was a success.
Last night’s Annual Blessed Sacrament Catholic School Sports Banquet turned out great. I had some technical issues and wasn’t quite pleased with how it showed up on the projector but it seemed the 300 plus people loved the videos.
I know the kids did — they had been inching their way to sit in front of the project during the last of the awards presentations. When they announced that the Sports videos were ready to be presented, they all ran to get a seat on the floor in front of the projector – as if they had all reverted back to kindergarden ages and were playing musical chairs. Suddenly I was surround by almost ALL of the kids/athletes. I tried to tell them they could see the videos from their seats but it fell on deaf ears. They all wanted to be seated in front.
During the presentation, they screamed, cheered and patted each other on the back or head when they saw themselves on the big screen. I knelt by the projector controlling the sound and loved hearing their reactions.
Afterwards, I had a lot of parents thank me — then some began asking for copies. I politely told them I wasn’t going to make copies because then everyone would want a free copy.
I know DVDs don’t cost a lot of money but the time and wear and tear on my machine to burn a DVD for a 30min program is pretty big. i don’t have access to a DVD duplicator either and having to coordinate that would be just as cumbersome.
Of course the next thing they asked is if I they could pay for a copy. I couldn’t sell them either since I used copyright music on the videos. The last thing I want to do is get the school in trouble — so the next best thing is to put them online. Like I did last year — click here to see them.
That’s gonna be my job this weekend. I’ll post when they are up.
My biggest reward was that my little girl Emmy was finally able to open up to her friends about the videos. I had told her not to spoil it for them so my 11 year old had to keep “mum” during the (almost 9 months) of video filming, downloading and finally, in the past month — the push to get them edited and scored.
I constantly use my family as my “focus group” to get their valuable input on video clip content, music selection and timing/pacing for the videos. Plus it was my fist time adding “motion graphics” to my clips — not too complicated but since I’d never done it before, I was nervous.
Emmyl was one of the athletes in the presentation so she sat in front of the projector as well and I could hear her say, “Watch this part…you’re gonna love it.” She was so excited to finally be able to tell her friends about the videos.
I forget that she is also constantly being asked, “Is that your Dad filming?” “Is he going to post them somewhere?” “When?”
On the drive home, she told me told me her friends were so happy with the videos. I could tell she was proud of me.
What parent would not want that?
Thank you all for your support — especially my wife Liz, who had to endure my OCD induced mood-swings and overachieving high standards that get in the (my) way sometimes.
Beto