Quintessential Studios' Weblog

Intro to Pro HD Class Intros – June 24th, 2008

Eric:
My name is Eric Harnden. I, like my namesake [another person in the class named “Eric”], found out about the class through the LA final Cut Pro users group. My main passion is editing. I only recently got involved in it. I’ve always thought that I wanted to make movies, write, that kind of thing. In fact, when I was 38 I got kind of serious about writing and started going to creative screenwriting magazine’s screenings and then this last year volunteered at their expo and went to a few seminars there and learned a little bit about the craft. Just the whole process. I’ve had some intro to it because my ex-wife was a makeup artist. So, I’ve been on some sets and have seen how that whole thing works and you’re absolutely right about the craft services. (class laugh) Making the crew happy. I’ve seen that happen. I’m a network engineer, that’s my day job and I do alright and my wife’s a registered nurse, so I’m not doing this for money, it’s just a passion I have for editing, actually.

Jim Lindsay:
You know I think I’m going to have a red light that goes off every time the word, “passion” comes up….

Eric:
I think my end goal, I guess, is I can imagine myself getting an Oscar for editing, that would be the pinnacle of my career or whatever. Obviously I don’t see myself jumping right to that (class laugh) but I’m a realist as well. A kind of thing happened to me when I was 38 and I decided to write. I always had these stories in my head and I always thought that, you know, one day I’ll just run into like Stephen Spielberg or George Lucas and I’ll just tell them my ideas and that’ll be it. and then I realized well, (class laugh) that isn’t going to happen so you better start writing and putting stuff out there and do… make yourself known, before anything like that will really happen.

So anyway, I was kind of following the writing track for a couple years and then it’s a funny thing but I guess I was putting together, I got married a little over a year ago but I was putting together the wedding video and that whole, just kind of sparked in me, that I really liked putting this together and so I just started doing a lot of research as far as what would be the best programs and a guy I work with [Synthian Sharp] is a kind of advocate types of films [maker] and he was telling me about Final Cut Pro and he gave the whole how it’s like how Pro Tools. Like how Pro Tools isn’t actually taught much and how this other program [Logic] was coming up that these young guys where learning more and the final cut vs. Avid argument and so I researched that a lot and figured that Final Cut was the way I was going to go.

And I couldn’t afford to get my own system and so I went to my community college and took the class there. I just recently finished that and then during that whole process, got my own system and then started going to LA Final Cut Pro User Groups and then saw your announcement there.

And one thing I guess I want to get out of the class is I want to understand the whole cycle and how would I fit into that.

I also know, I want to be an independent editor so probably will do like music videos or something after this class and get some chops and maybe get a story written or produced or whatever.