After multiple sessions of recording podcasts and interviews, week 8 was spent on editing and communicating with the recording studio. No cameras were rolling, but the lessons we learned were no less important.
Editing Marathon
With the recording paused, we had some time to finish editing our old interview. First was the 50-minute Daryl Davis interview from Courageous Conversations. I incorporated Dr. Lua’s feedback, made color correction changes, and added an outro. I exported it, and after the review, it was fully ready for publishing.
Next came the interviews with Alan Ginsburg and Marc McMurrin. They were shorter, cleaner, and mostly raw – it required much less editing work compared to Daryl’s lengthy interview. By mid-week, both were rendered and ready for final approval. We still have minor changes to make in those interviews, but they are mostly done too. Dr. Lua’s interview is still in the works, but I am confident that we can finish it relatively soon. Each finished project is a little checkpoint that reminds me how much this internship experience has taught me in just eight weeks.
Communication with Recording Studio
While exporting video footage, a bigger problem arose: the July 10 Let’s Get Deep session returned as fifty minutes of complete darkness for one of the guests’ videos – perfect audio, no video. Hi-Hello’s system didn’t capture the footage on their system, and their camera backups weren’t started.
I wrote a detailed email explaining the loss and asking for clarity, a refund, or at least a credit for a reshoot. Their reply was, “We do not have any backup. We did not handle the recording; therefore, it is not our responsibility.” This was, after we had double-checked with them that everything was good to go. There was no refund, but it was a valuable lesson, as I have previously not had an experience with resolving such problems.
Reflection
Week eight showed that post-production is part creativity and part crisis management. Turning raw interviews into ready-to-publish material feels great, but finding a black screen where footage should be does not. The studio’s response was not as we expected, but it pushed us to tighten our workflow and have multiple checks before starting the recording.
Wow, that’s a tough result. It seems like you did your best to fix this situation and handled your communications professionally. This is an important part of the learning and tough to simulate in the classroom. Also glad you found the positive in a mostly negative situation. Keep that up and your career will benefit.