Recent Life and Career Changes

Eight months ago my personal life got flipped upside down. Four months ago my professional career took a drastic turn. And a few weeks from now every waking second of my existence will forever be altered.

You can probably guess one of the changes already — my wife and I are pregnant. Our son will be here before we know it. Man, I’m nervous and excited and every other emotion in between.

crib in nursery

The other twist of fate life threw at me was a career change. I traded in the edit bay for another role. In February I started transitioning off of editing projects and over to the producing / project management side of things. I’m with the same company and working on the same product but in a completely different role. As of mid-March I moved over to this full-time and started growing a team under me.

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The only thing you need to succeed in 2019

(Sorry for the clickbait-y title… I’m rusty at writing good, catchy titles)

It’s early in 2019. The confetti is still falling. Most of us are back to the office. Ready or not it’s time to begin another year in our careers. Another year of our lives.

Looking back at 2018 maybe there was something you didn’t do. Something you didn’t learn. Or something you didn’t accomplish. A project, a habit, a new NLE to master, a documentary to edit. So we look to 2019 as our saving grace. We have a whole fresh calendar for us to get X done. And that fills us with a glimmer of hope. That we can make that change this year. Heck, we have 12 whole months.

As the confetti is swept up and the hangovers from NYE are cured, we head back to the edit bay or cubical or home office. We got this in 2019. Then…we check our email.

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Increment and Save in After Effects

This tutorial explains how Increment and Save works in After Effects. It’s a simple method for backing up your AE projects.

Finding Your Path from Student to Professional Editor with Grace Novak — Command+Edit Podcast Episode 86

Hey there! This is a very special episode of the Command+Edit Podcast. I interview Grace Novak. Grace is in the midst of one of the scariest points in her life — trying to figure out how to make the jump from student to professional. Our discussion focuses on topics such as networking strategies, how to make … Read more

Revealing My Freelance Video Editor Rate

This article tells you what my freelance video editor rate is, how I got to this number, and how flexible this dollar amount is.

Black and White Video Tutorial in Avid Media Composer

This tutorial teaches you how to create black and white video in Avid Media Composer using the Color Correction tool and how to keyframe saturation.

Some brief thoughts on creating creative work

There several dozen half-written and probably twice as many fully-written but never published blog posts scattered across my computer, laptop, Google Drive and various Moleskins. They contain thoughts I’ve had on many post production-related topics that I’ve worked countless hours on. And they’re just sitting there in digital purgatory.

“It’s not good enough.”

“Someone could say that you don’t mention ______ method/shortcut/etc.”

“You aren’t really an expert. Who are you to give advice?”

I could think of endless reasons not to ship each one of them.

Today I was watching some random YouTube video from this guy another YouTube guy I routinely watch recommended. His production quality was low. He knew it. But he said something that struck a nerve with me.

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I Got A New Job!

It’s been awhile since I’ve truly written something for EVF. Actually it’s been awhile since I’ve written much of anything. My writing muscle was burnt out after letting my former daily blog expire and disappear into a digital black hole back in August. Two years of writing and publishing everyday… Fast forward a quarter of … Read more

Small Business Tactics for Editors: An Interview with Editor Rachel Bastarache Bogan — Command+Edit Podcast Episode 80

Hey there! Rachel Bastarache Bogan is the owner of Renegade Digital Post — a video editing company providing Hollywood-caliber services to filmmakers and content producers outside of Hollywood. In this interview, Nick and I find out Rachel’s strategies for working with new clients, how she finds clients not only locally but across the globe, and … Read more

Starting a Post Production Company in Jamaica with Twain Richardson

In this podcast episode guest Twain Richardson discusses with us post production in Jamaica and how he started his video company in Kingston, Jamaica.