Video Production Intern: Joanna

Joanna: Video Production Intern "School" seems to stick out in my mind when I reflect on what I've done with my life so far. I am a soon-to-be official graduate of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. The official part that's lacking is an internship credit, which is what has brought me to Wycliffe. In the midst of a frantic search for an internship last year, I went on a Spring Break trip to Orlando with my college ministry. It was there that had the privilege of staying in the homes of some Wycliffe staff members, getting to know them and hearing about their experiences. Returning home to Michigan, I did not get the internship I was counting on, but pursuing a position with Wycliffe at that point seemed out of the question. Who did I know in Florida? While waiting all this out and praying that God would give me a genius idea, a friend from my college ministry was hired to work for another ministry organization in Orlando, and was planning on moving in spring. Almost a year after the opportunity first presented itself, I contacted Wycliffe about internship opportunities in video production. So, here I am for the summer!

Wycliffe is BIG, much bigger than I ever realized. In my first month here, I have tried to jump right in and have felt welcomed by everyone, especially in the Communications Dept. Not sure, at first, whether a video production unit for a ministry organization would have much going on, I was quickly proven wrong. I have been learning so much, and am getting a good look at what it's like having a job with a ministry organization.

Odd facts about me:

I can snort like a pig.
I enjoy playing Frisbee.
I drive a great VW.
My greatest fear is having a bug jump on my face.
I don't eat a lot of fruit and I don't know why, hmmm.
The only way to get rid of my hiccups is to have people stare at me.
I'm learning to play guitar so I can be just like Jennifer Knapp.
I realize that I will never be Jennifer Knapp.

The Launch

6/16/2003

Welcome to the launch of my "intern journal". This is where I let you guys know what is going on here in the Communications department of Wycliffe, and what I'm doing as an intern. All of this web stuff is new to me, so I must thank Tom Van Wynen and Amanda Hobert for setting all this up. Cool, well, that's actually all for today. Be sure to check back later!

The World of Wycliffe

6/20/2003

Hello Friends--

I thought it might be helpful if I let you know a little about a normal day here at Wycliffe, to give you an idea of what it's like here. The Communications Department has close to 30 people, but I work with the Electronic Media team, which is about 7 people. I actually have my own little cubicle complete with computer, phone, drawers stocked with supplies, and best of all my own whiteboard. Decorating the walls of my cube are a few pictures and prayer cards, a toy model of my awesome Volkswagen Golf III GL, and some great pictures drawn by my neice and nephew.

Okay, so you may be asking yourself, what is Wycliffe like? Is everyone there a translator? Actually, where I work is a huge office building where departments range from Information Technology and Communications to Prayer Ministries and Mobilization. Many of the things that happen in these offices here help support the work going on in the field. A typical day for me begins with a Prayer/Devotional Time with my Department. From there, depending on the day of the week, I may have a departmental meeting where we talk about different projects going on. Three days a week, there is also a Chapel time that all can attend, so it has been quite a different working environment than I am used to.

Hopefully this has given a feel for the kind of place Wycliffe is. Next time, I'll share with you about the project I'm currently working on and what sort of things I've been doing with that.

Later!

The Eighth Week

6/23/2003

Wow, so this is the start of my 8th week here at Wycliffe. I feel like I have really been settling in. Right now I'm in the middle of a project that I'll most likely be working on until I leave. Its a short 5-minute segment for a prayer video that will go to Wycliffe members all over the world. The segment I'm working on is focusing on Project Funding which has been very low this year. When funding is low, translation projects are seriously affected. I'll be shooting an interview this week for the piece, and soon will begin editing on it. That's the main thing I'm doing this far this week, but I'll keep you posted!

Food for Thought

6/26/2003

Yesterday was spent getting an education in TV/Video Lighting. Lights are totally my thing, but only in a theatre context. Lighting for video is like a whole new world. Our little video studio here in the Communications dept. has been waiting for some lights, and they finally arrived. We (the e-media team) spent the day learning about the fixtures, talking about the many, many uses and techniques, and finally, hanging and focusing.

What else? Have I mentioned the excellent cafeteria here? It's very good and pretty cheap! (Just thought it might entice some of you potential Wycliffe-ers out there!) Not to mention convenient for those of us that forget to bring our lunch from time to time!

Boss Lady

6/30/2003

Considering this is the time for my mid-term evaluation to take place, I've decided that this entry should pay homage to my wonderful supervisor, Aileen. Oh, Aileen, how have you helped me adjust to being at Wycliffe? Let me count the ways:
Before I even arrived, you called me, sent notes and Wycliffe materials so I would feel welcomed...You walked me through my entire first day here, either so I wouldn't get lost or run away...You frequently say things like "How's it goin'", "What did you do over the weekend?" and "These are good, did you make them yourself?"...and last but certainly not least, you helped me make a list of goals for the summer that I truly cherish and keep posted in my cube so as not to stray from them. So, come on Aileen, and let me say "THANKS!"

So...Enough about me

7/2/2003

I know many of you may have read my last entry and are thinking, "Man, who is that Aileen person? She sounds awesome!" Well, let me just tell you about my supervisor AND cube neighbor, Aileen. This should give you an idea of some of the cool people at Wycliffe.

Okay, so Aileen, 26, is a native from the north, growing up in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Not just anywhere in Pennsylvania, but in Newtown, also known as the town close to where George Washington crossed the Delaware, also known as where the movie "Signs" was filmed. How's that for trivia.

Anyway, she went to the University of Florida, where she came to really know Christ for the first time and was able to grow in her faith with the help of students in a college ministry. After college, she returned home and found herself in the middle of what she calls a "quarter-life crisis". But, while chaperoning a youth group to a CreationFest concert, Aileen spoke with some people at a Wycliffe booth. It was then that Aileen realized that she could use her degree (Electronic Media) as a ministry! Eureka! In April of 2002 she was accepted for a Production Specialist position and moved to Orlando. Now she works as the Electronic Media Facilitator, which means she goes to a lot of meetings, does paperwork, assigns projects and gets A LOT of e-mail, but is excited to be working with Wycliffe.

What an inspiration--just one of the many Wycliffe success stories!

WyNet is the word

7/15/2003

A couple of the projects we have going on right now involve Wycliffe's youth network, WyNet. I've spent a lot of the last couple of weeks getting to know more about what WyNet is and some of the young people that are involved in it. Okay, so first let me see if I can tell you what WyNet is: It's basically a way for "young people" ages 13-23, to have a way to connect based on a shared love for missions. They have a super-duper website that you can get to from the Wycliffe home page. On the webpage, students can interact on a message board with other students from all over the world.

Another thing WyNet does is Get Global trips. These trips take students overseas and show them what translation work is like. I had the privilege of hanging out with some students this week that are on their way out to participate in a Get Global trip, and they are quite a diverse group! We got to watch them learn some basics of linguistics, and were able to pull some aside for some on-camera interviews to get their thoughts on missions. Anyway, it was just an impressive group of teenagers, and we hope to catch them when they come back through before they head home.

Okay, so that's all for now...but I would like to send a special hello out to Ruth. This is "An Ode to Ruth Who's out on the Road This Week"...no, not really. But I miss you, have a safe trip back!

The 12th Week

7/21/2003

Hello Friends--
Yikes! So, this is the start of my 12th week at Wycliffe and it's really beginning to feel...normal! So, let's see what's ahead for this week:

The Project Funding segment is progressing well, but deadlines are coming quickly, especially since we are collaborating with the Wycliffe organizations in Australia and Canada for the whole Prayer video. Does that make sense? Long video + broken down into segments + different teams working on different segments = collaboration, which Wycliffe likes!.
Anyway, working on the script is the current task. A team of us, including our writer met to go through the interviews we've gotten so far and compliled them into a rough script. That was a first for me, but we accomlished a lot, and I even won a game of darts in the process. Yea for scriptwriting meetings! We'll most likely continue work on that this week, making sure it's within the our time limit, and getting it approved by all the people that need to see it.

Okay, so I should get started on that.
Check ya later

What's a good title for a Wednesday entry?

7/30/2003

Hello Friends--
First things first. It's been brought to my attention by several different people that I lack consistency with my entries. Dearest Blog, it is not my intention to neglect you, things are busy, you understand, right? On the bright side, it's nice to know that people are interested.

Second, in trying to remember what I said in my last blog, I checked it out and was horrified at the spelling and other errors. My apologies, I'm kind of a spelling snob, however I can't be held responsible for my grammar. Oh, but wait, I have an "edit" function on this thing! Excellent!

Okay, on to more important things. The script is coming along wonderfully, we've gotten good feedback so far and we are waiting for approval from some other people that need to review it. I'll be in a meeting today working on another script for the same video, this one is about Youth Involvement in Wycliffe. I believe I mentioned WYnet in one of the other entries, so that will probably be a part of it.

As far as the project funding video, I'm finally getting into the editing stage (we use Media 100 in case you're curious), and will be doing A LOT more of that in the coming weeks. I got to hang out with the super-cool literacy specialists we interviewed for the video, and they handed over some of their personal videos and pictures for use in the video. It's a lot of stuff, but after hearing about their Literacy Project and the people they worked with, I'm excited to look through it.

Excellent, check ya later.

What's happening

8/11/2003

Hello friends--
So, I should probably back up a bit and recap what I've been doing the past couple of weeks, huh? Work on the script for the Project Funding video is complete and has been approved by pretty much everyone in authority over me as well as people on the field we are using material from. It was interesting, kind of makes an intern feel important! Anyway, with that done, I'm working on assembling all of this into an actual video, beginning with digitizing the parts of the interviews that we decided to use in the script, gathering other footage and photos that can be used as cutaway, and checking out our music library so I can create a music bed for the piece. Today, we had some training for our new audio software, and used it to record our narration pieces. The final narration will be recorded in Australia, but we'll use what we recorded today to help us get an idea of how long the segments are and how the story will flow. So, yeah, I'll continue working on all that stuff this week, we need to have a rough edit ready by the end of this week, so I'll be working quickly. Is it fun? Sure! Am I learning a lot? Definitely! Am I going to finish everything before I leave in 3 weeks? Ummm...I'll keep you posted.

Later

Welcome!

8/22/2003

Okay, I only have a minute, but this is an official welcome to those of you that have:

1. Just found this site and are checking it out for the first time

2. Have just found that the "Click here to read my Journal" is a link to where the actual blog action takes place.

Either way, I'm glad you're here, so enjoy!

A blog farewell

8/28/2003

Well, the time has come for my Wycliffe summer to end. By the time this blog is posted I will be back in Michigan, probably reminding myself that I'm no longer in Florida. Somehow, when you fly from one place to another in the U.S., it seems a bit surreal that you could change locations so quickly. I took three days to drive down here in May, and yet it will take only three hours to get back. Seems too quick to be real.

Anyway, in terms of wrapping up projects here, I'm proud to say that the project funding piece is finished. My part, anyhow. Next it will be combined with the other segments for the prayer video, duplicated, and distributed. There is something very rewarding about being able to see a project through to this point.

I hope it's been cool to follow what I've been doing this summer through this blog. It has been amazing to be part of this team, e-media as well as Wycliffe as a whole. I've met incredible people and heard powerful stories of how God is working around the world. It's exciting!

So, what's next? Not sure. Wish I could say, but I guess it wouldn't be much of an adventure if I could.

Blessings,
Joanna