A fascinating day

I’m going to write about work today, which I don’t usually do, but I think I can say what I want to say here without breaking any rules. The standard disclaimers apply – I’m not talking about you, everything I say here is my opinion and my feelings and not those of my employer and so on and so on. On to the main event:

One of the things I love best about my job is the fact that it is always changing. I get to apply the same basic skill set to a wide variety of different projects. My team’s mission is to figure out how to do new stuff that the company has never done before. Mostly online, but not exclusively. It’s challenging and interesting and pretty much never gets boring.

A little over a year ago, we were responsible for coordinating the production of a series of videos. That sounds glamorous, but it really isn’t – the topics of those videos are generally only interesting to people in our particular niche. Anyway, we created a lot of schedules, and worried about getting sets constructed, kept people on deadline, and attended to a whole lot of operational details. Oh, and took care of the marketing end of things, of course. And then we moved on to other projects. Well, today I was on the other side of the fence, and I have to tell you, I have a newfound respect for people who work in TV and movies.

This time around, my team was responsible for the creative pieces. We came up with the concept and wrote the script for the video. I was the one editing the script at top speed as we were taping (one of the many things I learned today – how to use a teleprompter – and there is nothing like having a whole crew waiting for you to frantically come up with and type in new copy before they can start rolling tape again to put a little pressure on you). I was the one whose job it was to keep the talent focused and energized and feeling good about what he was doing. I was the one who, when something wasn’t working creatively, had to try to think up an alternate solution. It wasn’t all on me, since luckily, I am part of a team, but it felt like the main responsibility was mine. At one point, I actually stopped the taping (I kind of wish I had yelled cut, but I didn’t) and went up and had a conference with the presenter, talking him through his “motivation” and how I wanted him to cover what he had to cover. I’m not kidding. It felt very director-y! I also have a much better understanding of continuity errors now. Sometimes, you're just so glad that a take went well that when you notice later that the coffee mug has moved over six inches to the left, you decide you can live with it.

Overall, it was an exhausting and tough day. Still, I have to admit I kind of enjoyed it, at least some of the time. I don’t know if that makes me some sort of adrenaline junkie or what. I probably couldn’t hack it every single day, but I’m really glad I got to do it today.