Today is a much better day.
 
From the moment I woke up this morning, I could feel things were better.
 
I fell asleep early, so I was awake by 3:30.  But, I stayed in bed until 4:30, which is when my husband had to get up to get ready to leave for the airport.  Travel is part of my husband’s job.  It always has been.  I usually like to get up when he wakes up, so we can have breakfast together, chat over the breakfast table, and wish him a good trip.  We’ve been married eight years, but we still get along very peacefully.  We’re lucky that way.  We’re just a compatible couple.  It seems our marriage gets better each year.  I’ve heard that can happen, but haven’t seen it much before.  My parents, whom I love dearly as individuals, are invariably frustrating to be around as a couple.  My brothers are all either divorced, or in the process of getting divorced.  (I have three brothers.  One just completed his second divorce.  Ouch.)
 
But, my head was just back to its normal ache today.  Just the usual nagging headache, rather than a real heavy duty one.  It was a relief to just deal with the usual old thing, rather than the “can’t get my head off the pillow” ones.  And, the pain in my back, while still there, was considerably better.
 
Today is going to be a better day.  I just know it.
 
Other than going to String/Wind rehearsal, I spent most of the day yesterday writing a “Video Content Flow Map” for a five-minute video I am doing for Alex’s school.
 
I’ve never actually mapped out the content before doing a video, even one that is synced to music, like the one I did for Alex- my most complex video to date: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm_mtZQjr8A

(That was the very last video I did on my old computer, which was having some issues in iMovie ’06.  I’d still like to rework a few segments of that video, now that I have a new computer with a faster processor, and iMovie ’08.  That will be my next project after I finish this project for Alex’s school.  There are a couple of transitions that are not perfect.)
 
But, this video for Alex’s school is extremely important, and I want to do my best possible work on it.  So, I spent hours simply planning the content, before I even opened my movie editor.  I re-read our Distinguished Schools proposal.  I mapped out the six main areas we wanted to emphasize.  I wrote an introduction and a conclusion.  I mapped out all the sub-categories we would want to conclude.  Then, I created an outline, putting each one of those points in a logical order, from beginning to end.
 
Then, I looked at all of the visuals I had collected so far from the beginning of the year, and cross-referenced it against my outline.  Did I have enough video footage, and still photos, to cover every area I wanted in this video?
 
It immediately became apparent I was missing footage for four points I wanted to conclude, and would need the principal’s permission to shoot in these areas, (such as teachers holding their weekly Data Team meeting, which is a confidential meeting.  Or, a teacher training another teacher.  I had no footage of either of these shots, and did not want to use canned footage from Google images.  I wanted everything in the video to be actual footage, shot at the school.)
 
I sent the content flow map out the principal yesterday evening, and already received a response back, with permission to film (well, technically “shoot,” since everything is done digitally) in all of the areas I need footage.
 
We are going to win this thing.  
 
Losing is not an acceptable alternative.
 
P.S.  The photo above is one of the visuals from my archive of photos for this project.  It was shot by another photographer at one of our planning meetings for this project.  I’m in the middle in the red sweater.  We were meeting in the school library.  The school campus is new, modern and beautiful, just having opened in August ’07.  It’s  a lovely school.  I’m glad my son goes to public school.  He is getting an excellent education, and has outstanding teachers.  I’ve never met a harder working group of people in my life.  I consider it a privilege to team up with them on projects such as them.  They’re a terrific bunch.  I highly respect all of them.
Ahhh... finally!
Sunday, March 2, 2008