An Aspiring Filmmakers Experience

My name is Janice Suess, and I am going to write about my very serendipitous experience with Girls Making Media. I am 17 years young and I am currently a senior attending Cienega High School in Vail, Arizona. I was presented with the oppertunity to participate in a workshop called Running and Winning: Women in Polotics. In a rather timely positon, I decided to attend because of recent interest in how government works. My interest sparked through recent events in districe wide buget cuts, along with recent learned knowledge from my government class. Soon before attending the conference, I was presented with a challenging yet amazing oppertunity. My digital media teacher told me that Carol Dow, the leader of the Running and Winning workshop, was looking for a student to film for Girls Making Media. I eagerly accepted the positon. I partially filmed at the conference, but found that my multi tasking skills are not exactly top notch. I transfered my filming duties to another student, and gave my 100% attention into the workshop; a decistion that I am very pleased with. After the conference, I began the process of editing, luckily a process that I am familar with. Using Final Cut Pro, I spent many class hours working on cutting down unnecessary footage and racking up prime b-roll footage. I later wrote up a script that contained all of the criteria that Carol Dow and Quinn, the leader of Girls Making Media, had deemed crutial criteria in the PSA. I continued cutting down footage in order to make it bearably long to watch, and overlayed the footage and voiceover. Today I write from Tucson, where the Girls Making Media editing software is located. I have found my overall experience to be very rewarding, especially because I aspire to direct movies and procede with a career in film. The amount of editing, filming, and networking has provided me with a myriad of invaluable and priceless experience. The learning process that I have endured is one of the best endevours that I have experienced in my short lifetime. Thank you to everyone who has enabled me to complete this PSA and encouraged me to be involved in this great process.

Best of luck to anyone who participates in this wonderful program.

Janice Suess