May the Fourth Be With You!

There's nothing like a good pun to open a new blog post.

And yeah, I know that the title is nothing like a good pun!

I seem to have spent most of the Bank Holiday break wrestling with Sony Vegas Pro to edit video together, but am finally starting to feel that I'm controlling it, rather than having it control me!

The first 'proper' weekly video podcast is uploading as I type (with two hours to go before it finished and then starts compressing - sigh!) but at least this one's in 720p hi-def and although still too long, half the time of the early 'preview' show which clocked in at just under half an hour.

I'm happier than I was with the preview with the way the visual side is going - especially the Top 10 rundown, but my presentation (narration and 'on camera' performance) still sucks big time.

I'm going on a TV Presenter's Course for my birthday a week on Tuesday, so hoping that the folks there can give some hints and tips on how be less 'wooden'. The company running the course trained Natasha Kaplinski and seemingly almost everyone who works in television today, and it's conveniently run just down the road from me, opposite The Houses of Parliament, so fingers crossed! I must say the course looks pretty intense and we've been given home-work (script writing) to prepare before the course. It turns out the six attendees are all going to have to do an informal piece to camera (with no idea how long to talk for, under the control of someone barking instructions down an ear-piece), an autocue piece, an outside interview, and a couple of magazine-styled interviews - all on top of any training we're given. It's quite a long day but should be fun!

Fortunately, I haven't spent all my time at the computer, although it sometimes feels that way. On Friday night I 'escaped' and went to see the Iron Man movie, having renewed my annual subscription to the Clapham Picture House, receiving three 'free' tickets as a result.

I wasn't disappointed in the film, although the final act suffers from the usual Hollywood nonsense, and comes across as a carbon-copy replay of something from the Transformers movie. As I've mentioned in my Shiny Discs show, if you go make sure don't rush to leave the cinema when the (seriously overlong) credits start rolling there's a nice extra scene which features a Hollywood A-list actor giving clues as to what's coming soon from Marvel right at the end. You'll be filled with Fury if you miss it and want to 'Avenge' yourself on those that didn't warn you what you might miss!