Light it up and make it better was my goal of re-editing my videos. This past week I sat for 12 hours to redo my first video. I work on the lighting, audio, along with incorporating b-roll to make the video more interesting. I’ll be honest the quality of the camera and the shots I took weren’t the best, but this is where you live and learn. I don’t know if I should admit that I struggle with perfectionism or maybe it’s excellence I desire. Nevertheless, I long to produce quality work so that in the future people will trust me with more task.
With that said, I was more pleased with the result of the second edit versus the first one. Although there wasn’t much I could do about the lighting I did my best to adjust the audio as much as possible. Upon rendering and playing back the video, I notice a lot of hissing noise during the talking portion of the interview. I thought to myself “I can’t turn this in!” So, I worked to reduce the hiss as much as possible. What I’ve learned while editing video is you won’t get every bad thing out, but you can embellish it. Having thought in the back of my head I didn’t dwell on that one issue as I would have in the past.
I’ve grasped that perfectionism can be confused with excellence and that at times can keep you from delivering product at a decent time. Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be right, but applying skills that help produce results faster can keep work coming to you. I watched how I got caught up in one video that I failed to work on other footage, so things began to pile up. Once I began to receive feedback from supervisors I learned how to multitask more. When that started to happen, I was handed more opportunities. This week along I had the privilege of editing audio which is my main area of study. As much as I had to do before the end of the semester I refused to turn this down. Maybe I’m a bit ambitious, but taking opportunities can lead to careers, so when I can I give a resounding yes.
Overall, I’m learning to manage my time better, and what’s important to me I will work diligently at it until the great results are delivered.
It’s good that the quality of your work is leading you to more opportunities. The tricky balance comes when you take on too much work and the quality then suffers because you are spread too thin. I have seen it in others and (too often) even let it happen to me.
Push yourself, but be on the look out for your personal limits. When you find them, don’t be afraid to say the occasional “no”. Ultimately, people will respect you for knowing your limits.