Chasing the Unicorn of Fortune

Before I begin, I must say, typing out an entry with my phone seems very cool yet out-of-place for me. While this must make me sound like an old fogey but if I'm to join the world in its never ending march towards a technological singularity, I damn well better be up to date!


Anyways, hello and welcome back to my humble zone of bits and bytes! Here my random video of the day:




Don't ask me why. It's just a cool video. It also has to do with what I do for a living. I'm not too sure if I've mentioned this before but I am doing my best to make a career out of the broadcast industry. I major in post-production and have worked on a fair number of project ranging from TV commercials to documentaries. I started out as a video editor for television daytime soap operas and eventually made my way up to the role of colorist/editor. I dabble in videography and directing as well but my real job lies in post-production.

Anyways, the reason why I brought up the topic of my career was because of a job I had recently completed. It was your usual freelance job. I was hired on as the online editor and colorist for a History Channel documentary. It was supposed to be a two week gig.

The online edit & colour grading suite I was working out of. Horrible graveyard shift mess not pictured.

The job started in December last year.

I just finished it earlier this week.

Yay for me...

There were a lot of reasons as to why a two week job ended up becoming a four month job but to be fair, I only did a week in December and a week in March. So yes, I kinda sorta did what I was contracted to do. I won't complain about the hours I pulled because if anybody from my line were to read this, they'd think I was a fraud for not getting used to the hours. I actually am used to the hours. If they were actually work hours and not me waiting on people to supply me with the necessary files for me to complete my job.

However, I had a series of interesting events on the last day of the project. Allow me to set the backstory:

We had just finished the programme and laid it back to Digital Betacam. The master had been delivered to the station and DVD copies had been sent to the station's production manager. Pints were drank and everybody went home for some much deserved rest. This monster of a project had been laid to rest. My story picks up the next day.

Digital Betacam Transfer Tower™

 I had a nightmare that night, being on edge for the past week had left me with a buildup of anxiety. The nightmare was simple, I woke up from sleep to only see a hundred missed calls from the director/producer and a series of angry text messages from said person. Apparently I had dropped the ball just as the programme was about to be delivered. Many fuckups were made and I woke up (for real this time) in a panic.

Almost immediately, I asked my wife to pass me my phone.

Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

'twas all but a bad dream it seems. Somewhat shaken, I proceeded to do my morning ritual and I shit you not; pardon the pun. Just as I was about to pinch a loaf, my wife knocks on the door and says,

"Your nightmare's come true. Your post-production supervisor just called."

If there ever was a more ominous sound of shit dropping into water, I'd like to hear it but as of now, this holds the record for most ominous shit. Really. That was that, the shit had hit the fan, or so I thought.


After scrambling away like a headless chicken trying to get to the office as soon as humanly possible, we discovered that the programme was fine but only the DVD copies sent to the station heads were faulty. Yes, I know it sounds anti-climatic but for the first half of my day I thought I was heading towards post-production disaster. So the relief felt was tremendous!


Looking back, it did seem like a whole lotta fuss for something so trivial but in my experience, station heads tend to love trivial matters. 


:End Transmission:
Amir.