TAKING OVER MY SCHEDULE

While initially I had no idea what I wanted to make a PSA on, fortunately, yet unfortunately a topic manifested in my hometown a month before it was due. Idiots, for lack of a better word, decided to take over not one BUT four of the busiest intersections in my hometown of Austin on a February Saturday night. Donuts, drifting, and fireworks – activities you’d expect to see somewhere like Miami, was happening in my own backyard. While I am one to break the law (at times flagrantly) when it comes to speeding, activities that impede the flow of traffic or threaten the safety of pedestrians is not something that I endorse. As a member of the Austin car community, I felt the need to condemn these actions and provide an alternative.

Conveniently, there was no shortage of content regarding these takeovers. Participants and bystanders had filmed nearly all of it, making TikTok a highlight reel of their stupidity. News stations from around Texas jumped on the story, securing interviews with former Austin Police Department officials and even Texas Governor, Greg Abbott. Unfortunately, as this event had already passed, I could not really record much about it apart from an interview and a call to action. This really put my editing skills to the test, and I think they held up to some extent.

The main difficulties I encountered were shooting my own content, and video downloads. My call to action, me yelling over racecars at full throttle at Circuit of the Americas (see left to see the racecars), caused my audio to suck. I couldn’t smuggle in a Lavalier mic without the risk of it getting confiscated upon or having to take the two mile hike to return it back to the car. I tried to voiceover my own voice, but I couldn't replicate the hoarseness of my voice and my yell from my dorm room. Ultimately, I decided that adding subtitles would be the best course of action. Additionally, I ran into issues downloading an exclusive interview from News4SA with Greg Abbott. I worked for about an hour trying to find a method to download embedded JWPlayer videos, but I was able to get it sorted.

I think that a lot of the editing skills like Gaussian and Mosaic blur (see right) that I revisited from past projects are “dusted off” and are back to being familiar again. I am excited to put all these to work in my mini doc, a passion project about likely my own car.