No news is no news

I don’t really have anything to report on in my creative life, and the very good reason for that is that I’m working — slowly — on a project that, if it comes to fruition, could be a bit of a life-changer. However, I’m not the person in charge, and we don’t have a firm calendar for going public yet, so you just have to use your imagination as to what it might be.

I will say that I’m having relearn Final Cut Pro, Apple’s video editing software. I haven’t used it in at least a decade, and you will not be surprised to learn that it’s a bit more complex than iMovie, to which I’ve defaulted in the interim.

Back in the day, I’d do an annual update to the parent orientation video for the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program (GHP). When I was elevated to the position of assistant program director, for instruction, it became my job to host sessions for the parents of the 3,000 nominated students during the two weekends of interviews/auditions. I quickly realized that I could make the day go a lot faster if I did a video that answered almost all the questions that every parent would ask, every session.

(One question I deliberately left unanswered was, “What happens if my child isn’t selected?” My answer to that was a gentle joke, “Not all baby sea turtles make it.”)

So every year I’d update the video with the new dates, any new procedures, etc., and away we’d go.

The last time I got to do that was 2013, and in the intervening years Final Cut Pro has moved and improved with the times, so diving back in has been a challenge. Not only are there tools and workflows that I have forgotten, there are tools and workflows that didn’t exist the last time I worked with the app.

This has been the case with several pieces of software that I find myself using after an absence: InDesign, Affinity Publisher, Final Draft, Scrivener (though that’s much simpler than the others). But I persevere, because if I don’t make myself re-learn these things, then who’s going to do my work for me?

::sigh:: Onward.