Rave Live, End of Year 1, Crazy summer!!

Starting with a similar theme to previous blogs; where has the time gone??

I think it's more than safe to say that time has definitely flown this academic year, and although the start was rather shaky, overall it's been amazing.

So Rave Live has just been. It was a truly fantastic event, and made me proud to be a Ravensbourne student. For those of you who don't know, Rave Live is Europe's largest student broadcasting event, and involves a day of live TV broadcasting over two Freeview channels and internet TV as well. The event this year also had it's own radio station, and has an on demand service much like the likes of BBC and Channel 4.

The event allows industry professionals to walk around the college as we work, talk to us, find out more about the college, and hopefully pick up our CV's and offer us some sort of work.

Originally, Rave Live 2010 was going to be held at Matter at the O2, however, 3 days before the event, they pulled out with no reason. All of us pulled together and turned the event round to continue as planned, from our own campus. Personally, as previously mentioned in other blogs, I, along with Ray and Andy edited all of the Talent Showdown auditions and VT's, as well as ingesting all of the on demand content and editing VT's for the award ceremony. We were very busy! The event was a huge success, and I think the best way for you to see the summary of it is by watching the round up at www.ravelive.co.uk.

It's been a hell of a journey, with regular, on average 13 hour days. We slept well the following night.

So, with Rave Live over, and only one more presentation to deliver before the end of term, everything feels like it's wrapping up. The last 9 months has seen the building of such strong and amazing relationships (even if they do involve me being the butt of every joke :p) that I would never have imagined materialising back in September.

So now it's onto the summer. Wow, it's a long one. Now through till the beginning of November pretty much. But I have so much planned! Next week I'm kicking off my summer by being part of the stage crew at Glastonbudget music festival, Europe's largest tribute band and new music festival. I am then back in London until July, chilling out and generally getting some well earned rest, along with a few editing jobs on the side.

July, I'm back in Loughborough for a month, well, sort of. I'm catching up with friends from back home, going on a road trip along the west coast, camping wherever we can. It will be amazing!

August I shall be back in London, moving house and, (fingers crossed) finding a job to keep me going. We're also going to V fest which I've been waiting for for too long! I want it to be here now! That leaves September and October, where I plan to be back and forth, living the best of both worlds.

So, wish me luck as I embark on this epic journey though what is supposed to be a long and hot summer.

Write again soon! Flan x

Workload, time and caffeine.

Well I haven't written an entry for quite a long time.

Time has been full with non-stop work, socialising and sleep. For a start, I have been living, breathing and dreaming Talent Showdown - a talent show due to be broadcast at this years Rave Live event. Along with my fellow editors Andy and Ray, I've been working hard producing audition tapes for online distribution, ready for voters to vote; successful auditionee's VT's for the live show; and above all, ensuring everything is legal and ready to broadcast from tape; bars, timecode, clocks and all! All together, we have probably worked around 504 man hours on the project - ridiculous!

It's been hectic, stressful, depressing, overloading, but above all a truly amazing experience, packed full of steep learning curves, new relationships and that ever closer feeling to my ultimate goal.

Today was the penultimate day. By this time tomorrow our work shall be done, and all we can do is sit back and watch our work be used on the day of the live broadcast.

Along side this project I've also had other stuff on. Firstly, my other editing jobs. The first is the 'Slugline Productions Training Project'. This is a project (entitled 'Adolesense' - I know that's not how you spell it - it's spelt wrong to enable a play on words.), working with actors from my final major project from last year. They have written a script, and are currently shooting it using my kit. As they shoot, I am receiving footage and editing it for them. This is proving a strange and long process, utilising various pieces of software and equipment. However, the project is going well, and I'm keen to see the final piece!

I've also been working on a short paranormal drama / thriller - details of which I cannot spread around too much. The piece is for a professional company, and looks really amazing! I'm the offline editor - another credit to my name, and some more awesome material for my Showreel!

My life isn't all Final Cut Pro and Avid.

I started a diet. Well, not a diet exactly, but watching what I eat. It started off really well, I was so pleased with myself, eating good food, exercising etc... but these great habits slipped as my workload increased... I still go swimming, swimming's great, and I hope to resume my habits in the gastronomic area very soon!

Well... just a random thought which doesn't really fit anywhere....

It's now nearly one in the morning, and after over estimating how long a job was going to take earlier on, and necking a big can of Redbull, I'm pretty wired. That was a pretty silly thing to do - I need to be up at half 6!

So...

It's nearing the end of the year - I really can't believe it! It's seriously flown by. It's one of those things where you can't wait for the holidays, but then realise that you really don't want this time to go so quick. People always told me that Uni is the best few years of your life - and they're seriously right. Although my Uni life is very different to friends at different uni's, I'm absolutely loving it.

Well, I should probably attempt to grab some sleep. Roll on the weekend! My first one in weeks where I have nothing planned, and I can seriously just chill, catch up on washing and sleep and pub. Hooray!

Peace x