TV2: So long, and thanks for all the shoes

Well, last night really capped off what has undoubtedly been one hell of a semester.

As stated in my previous posts, I have had the time of my life putting together this documentary, and I think the quality of the work reflected the deep level of engagement myself and my group memebers had in this process.

It was also heartening to see so much fantastic work, and to have the fruits of a laborious semester amount to something. It is quite astonishing, the far greater levels of skill as filmmakers we have acquired since last semester. So many docos stood out for me last night, far more than the dramas. Yeah, they all had their little flaws (OMG I'm positive I saw a flash of black in ours, and the sound was TOO SOFT - why oh why?!?!?!), but they took me to places that 9/10 dramas could not - i.e., they actually made me think.

Working with this medium has been so richly rewarding, and I'm not sure if that's because I have always had a marked partiality towards it or because my experience in TV1 was so dramatically different (read: negative). I don't think the two semesters could have been any more opposite in my mind... I literally never even saw the final version of 'Potato Cakes' before it was screened, and could not have cared less if someone had blown up the harddrive and erased everything. With Amazon, however, I was only ever more than willing to spend as much time as needed to make it as polished as possible.

To some extent I had no choice in the matter (that is, with my level of responsibility), but the fact is I genuinely enjoyed every minute of it. And that counts for a lot. As imperfect and rough around the edges as our documentary may be, it connected with people, and gave me the opportunity to do something beautiful for a good friend of mine, who has only been too supportive of the project as a whole.

This is quite possibly the end of the road for me as far as production projects go. For a little while, at least. I have Honours to think about now, and at this stage I am looking at doing a thesis instead of a production project. I have to say, though, that it was good to go out with a bang - and even if I'm not working on something of my own next year, I have big plans to hijack as many gigs as possible... as long as I can pluck up the courage to take on more technical roles, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.