I am so not camera ready, and yet...

A quick hello + an update

Hello, Gorgeous Reader! I hope this finds you well despite, you know, all the things. It’s been a minute since I’ve reached out, and I apologize for not continuing to send weekly hellos. But it’s all for a good cause. Your girl here has been up to her eyeballs in work. Specifically, figuring out how to edit short video clips from interviews to share on social media and getting it wrong and swearing a lot and giving up and then going back to it. Repeat those steps a few hundred times and you’ve got a pretty clear picture of how my month has gone.

I’ve been dragging my feet for two years on the whole social media video thing, for a few reasons. One, I’m not a huge fan of my face being plastered all over the internet. Or anywhere, for that matter. I think I’ve taken two selfies in my life. I’m just not someone who enjoys being on screen. Two, I prefer the written word. And three, editing a written piece comes easily to me. Editing video…not so much. (I went to film school as an undergrad, but that was back in the day when editing meant literally cutting and splicing film strips. And if you ever questioned how old I am, well, now you know. Old enough to have cut my finger editing actual 16mm film that was shot on a Bolex.)

Anyway, I’ve avoided it for a long time, but have come to accept (begrudgingly) that kids these days like their videos. The algorithm favors chatty faces, and we live in a world where you must feed the algorithm if you wanna have your work seen.

I will admit I’m proud of myself for learning how to create a short clip, and more so, for putting myself out there. I’ve done four so far—two with Ani DiFranco, one with editor Michael P. Shawver, and one with casting director Jamie Ember.

You can find them on the Creative Reverberations YouTube channel or on my Instagram. When new clips are ready, that’s where they’ll live. Feel free to subscribe to the YouTube or follow me on IG to see the latest. I’m hoping they’ll drive more people to Creative Reverberations. We’ll see how that goes.

But one other bonus to all of this cutting: BONUS CONTENT!

Going forward, if there is additional material from an interview that doesn’t make it into the written piece, I’ll share the video with paid subscribers. Keep an eye out for emails—I’ll share the footage once it’s ready.

In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed the recent round of interviews. I’m sad that none of my Oscar nom interview subjects—Michael Shawver, Ruth Carter, and Nicholas Kraus—won this past Sunday, but I’m sure they’ll be nominated again in the future. I also had an amazing chat with my icon, Ani DiFranco, and learned a ton about the casting process from Jamie Ember.

Later this week I’ll share my chat with documentary filmmaker Kim A. Snyder, whose latest work, The Librarians, has been generating quite a buzz.

Well, gotta get back to editing. Hope you’re good!

Til next time!