Bundle of Nerves

I really was!


On the morning of the seminar, all of the mp3 files I had lovingly found, downloaded, spliced and inserted, quite bizarrely disappeared out of my presentation. I had absolutely no idea where they had ALL gotten to. Luckily, I have eventually gotten into good practice and keep all of my media in a file specific to that project. Even I was impressed at how tidy my desktop was.


The next thing I decided I had to amend (at the final moment) was converting a new film clip from my last film "Suffer" from widescreen to ordinary format. I had looked at the footage and thought it was bad enough that the camera adds 10lbs, but widescreen adds triple that. I was feeling a little bit precious, so thought it best to export another clip into a different file format. Not such a big deal, I hear you say, but as anyone with any knowledge of Final Cut Express will know that rendering is a nightmarish, extended, and far too long a process to be stress-free.

By the skin of my teeth! In and looking perfect. Comments were made as to the identity and strength my film-work has. (Hurrah!)


And onto the show...in all of my years of performance I have never been so nervous and I could hardly get my words out in a coherent manner. What made it worse was the fact that my Website assessment that was to happen prior to the digital kiss seminar was cancelled at short notice which gave me a slightly flumuxed feeling.


Anyway, back to the seminar. I had fabulous assistance from Mr Pete Lancaster who set all of my levels and helped me tremendously with my technical run. However, when my examiners came in, they fiddled with the central control panel to adjust the lighting which altered all of the levels including my sound which got lost. I re-ran the first slide twice and then pressed the poor little volume pad so many times that it would have become dented had it not been touch sensitive. The sound was minimal and there was nothing I could do to rectify.

The next hitch was that my Mac decided it was going to ask for a software update right in the midst of the presentation. Did I wish to continue was the message on the screen. Of course I bloody well wanted to continue! I apologised and had to laugh to myself. What else could possibly happen?


Answer: The questions at the end. Oh. My. Goodness. 35 minutes of questions. As you can probably imagine, they were deep, searching, personal, some intrusive and in all honesty, quite draining. I felt like a startled bunny in the headlights. A cold one at that. I ended up leaving a little hat and scarf on (black to compliment my business black) just to feel moderately comfortable. Fingers were shaking from nerves and cold but I was particularly careful not to inadvertently press forward on the dinky remote for powerpoint. I made full use of the red laser on one slide only, just to show my skill and adjustment to all things technical.


And then straight to the coldest bar in town for a couple of cocktails. Needed and enjoyed.


I will let you know of anything when I hear myself. Also, I would like to say thank-you to everyone who has sent me messages of good luck, congratulations and requests to keep the blog alive. (smile) You are all so lovely!


And as always, my fondest regards,


Ms Digital Kiss


Ps. I launched the image. I think it was well received(?!)