Three Vlogs Down, None to Go

Here's the link to my final video tutorial. I met with a mechanic, Mr. Axelrod, yesterday. I explain in the video a little of what I learned...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vxgs4Aig6M

Busy Last Day

This morning I had planned on spending my last day with my team of sponsors but unfortunately did not get to meet with them. I woke up to a broken computer so I headed over to Hawken early in the morning to get things fixed as creating the video is essential to my project and final presentation Friday. Although my computer is now working I did loose a large portion of my edited video and have been spending today re-creating my project. Luckily, my sponsors are available to meet tomorrow and help me with the finishing touches of my production not to mention allow me thank them one last time! (I bought them these really cool coffee mugs that look like camera lenses!!)

So if loosing my film wasn’t enough I also need to finish writing my final report for tomorrow and film my last video tutorial. Yesterday I met with a mechanic, Pete Axelrod, so today I’ll film and upload some quick mechanic tips. In addition I’ll be mailing out thank you notes that I wrote yesterday. 

Although these last few days of project have been hectic the past three weeks have been really powerful. Although the lives of blue-collar workers might seem far away from our academic school days these professionals have taught me that our worlds aren’t too far apart. Meeting with these common professions has allowed me to really value the working class. Not only do I look at blue-collar workers in whole new light but also I see myself as capable of more than analyzing literature. Hopefully, my video will show just a fraction of what I’ve experienced.

Week 4 Day 1

Today I had to look for missing products on Amazon. It was really annoying because it turned out all 450 products I looked up were all missing and I could have just written it off but as I was checking there was always that potential for there to be one or two products that I actually found. After finishing that up I started finding images for products we are planning on uploading with products on Amazon. To find these images I needed to download them with a program called FileZilla. Once I found all the images I had to reference their names in order to select the ones we actually needed and get rid of those that we did not. After finding all the one we needed I had to rename them so that they had their serial number as their name so that Amazon would know which products to assign them to. Again I feel like if people were just super organized from the start no one would have to go back and rename everything which took almost five hours. The image uploading process was absolutely ridiculous as you can only upload one image at a time and I had about 300 images to upload.

Week 3 Day 3

Today I continued working on my Amazon spreadsheets and finished them. I started to work on setting up a new computer for an employee coming in for training next week. It was kind of frustrating because I basically had to use mismatched parts from different computers to set it up. For example I used a Logitech monitor from 2011 with a desktop from like 1999 and it was really a pain to get them to be compatible. Essentially I just had to keep referencing Google and try using different cables until I finally found one that made the monitor compatible with the desktop. Then I had to figure out how to connect a Windows 95 computer to the internet, which I had no experience doing. While figuring that out I realized that if you have a problem don’t ask another person how to do it just type it into Google and actually look for the information and not just click on the first site that comes up expecting that all my answers will be there. I ended up hooking up to the internet and then found software that I needed to install, Microsoft word, outlook, office place, etcetera.

Week 3 Day 2

Today I checked and went over my inventory to make sure everything was correct and that I had everything in the office in my inventory. After that I started working on Amazon spreadsheets and basically what I had to do for that was go over every aspect of a product prior to Amazon shipping it or listing it as an available product. I had to get all the information for over 500 different products and everything from whether or not the product has batteries to what warning labels are on the product, whether it could be drop-shipped or whether it needed to handle with extreme care. I thought it was interesting that there was a category that asked whether or not the product has any radioactive properties or potential hazardous waste to deal with; just goes to show they’ll let you sell just about anything on the internet. Unfortunately this was not the most exciting of jobs as all I really did was data entry from various spreadsheets. One thing I keep noticing is if the information is organized in the right format to begin with people would have to waste hours and hours reformatting the same information

All-City Musical

Today was super exciting because I got to see a free performance at Playhouse Square in the Ohio Theater of this year's All-City Musical, Aida (a story about a love triangle between and Egyptian princess, an Egyptian nobleman and a Nubian slave). The All-City Musical is an annual event run by Great Lakes Theater that allows students from all over the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to participate in a professional production at Playhouse Square. This is especially wonderful considering that many of those schools don't have good arts programs, or may not have arts programs at all. The show I saw today was technically a dress rehearsal, so there were plenty of technical issues (but that was to be expected). The actors, however, were spectacular, and they really had a lot of talent. Many of them had astonishingly good voices. Although I thought the plot was not that strong, I really enjoyed the actors' performances and the large amount of time it must have taken to pull a show like that together. I also got a chance to usher the performance today, since their were other Cleveland schools coming to see Aida, which was exciting since I have never ushered before. The other big event of the day was that I got to sit in on a meeting about GLT's summer theater camp program, for all ages. The discussion I heard before I had to leave was mostly about the varied activities that the campers will be participating in, such as writing and acting out their own fables or practicing classic scenes and monologues, or perfecting their audition technique. Overall, it was a very fun and busy day!

Slow Start at WSCC

The first few days at West Side Catholic Center (WSCC) were really pretty slow.  We didn't find a single lady that wanted to talk to us so we spent some time babysitting some children while their parents were at an employment clinic and we spent a lot of time at home.  We left early when nobody agreed to be interviewed by us.  There seems to be a great difference in these women compared to the men we encountered at 2100 and North Point.  I don't know if the difference is solely due to gender but it seems like the women are far more conservative when it comes to sharing their stories.  Another difference about WSCC is that it is much cleaner than either of the first places we went to.  It has rooms specifically for art and for teens and for small children.  Their's also a community room where the interviews were planned to be held.  The good news about having so much down time is that we had a lot of unexpected time for editing all of the film that we had already.  There's already a lot of film, and we're having trouble narrowing down what we want in the video because so much of it is so good.  This video is getting long.

Two Vlogs Down, One to Go

Last Wednesday I met with Ashley Bish to learn about plumbing. Here's some of what I've learned...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE2CgNN24dg

 ... Sorry again for mediocre quality.

Also last Wednesday I met with a mechanic who unfortunately was not adequate for my project. Today I met with a different mechanic, Pete Axelrod, who was extremely helpful! I'll post my mechanic vlog later. Since last thursday I've been busy compiling all of my videos and editing the film. Thursday and Friday was a lot of clim trimming - picking the best moments from the entire interview and ordering them. Monday I began to add B-Roll to the video, which is other  images over audio to make the video more interesting.

I'm headed to my sponsors house tomorrow for a final visit where I will show them my work and put on some finishing touches like music/effects. Although I'm using different editing software than Second Story Productions does I'm sure they'll critique my work and give me some much needed constructive criticism. I hope the final product comes out well!

Friday and Tuesday

So just because not much has been going on I figured I would just conjoin Friday's and today's blog post. I had the day off for Memorial Day, which was much needed since we have such a busy and flexible schedule. On Friday Mr. Dlugosz came and visited us at the home office, and I made a tiny little presentation about what I've been doing. Basically for all of you who don't understand what I'm doing, I'm her assistant. I come to all her meetings and take notes, make sure we make it to places on time, etc. It sounds like it wouldn't be fun but it is! It is going to be really sad to leave this week. We don't have much going on so this week will be focused on getting my presentation ready and finishing up some last minute work on some of the meetings that we started last week. I've learned a lot about business and have really enjoyed this area of work and I hope to do something with this during college!

events and office work

I have been continuing to make spreadsheets for various purposes for the office, and I attended another event with my sponsor.  The spreadsheets I make are mostly for logistical purposes.  I have made a list of all the townships, villages, and cities within the 14th district and their respective state representatives.  This is so that the office can refer people to the proper office when a constituent is dealing with a state issue (because we can only deal with federal issues).  I also attended a ribbon cutting event at the new Levin Mattress store in Solon.  I went with my sponsor and another intern.  The congressman was there, as well as the mayor of Solon, whom I had the pleasure of meeting.  I also shook hands of various other small business/franchise owners of people in Solon.  Aside from this, I have continued answering phones and talking to people when they call in with various issues and complaints.  One thing I have noticed and appreciated during my project is that the great majority of people in Northeast Ohio are very friendly and polite.  Other than these things, I do other basic office tasks, like scheduling.  I talked, and met a guy from the Boston Heights/Hudson FOP about scheduling a congressional proclamation for their June golf scramble outing.

Last week of project

I'm very excited yet sad about the end of project. Excited because we're graduating but sad because I've been having a lot of fun and learning a lot during project. On Thursday we ended up heading down to West Side Catholic Center where we expected to a least get a few interviews done. To our disappointment, no one wanted to be interviewed. Angela, our mentor at WSCC, said that she had asked a bunch of people but everyone was concerned about being on camera, or didn't have the time to do the interview. We arrived at WSCC at about 9:30 that morning, from 10 to noon that day we watched little kids in the playroom; while their parents were participating in a job clinic. Once noon rolled around we found Angela again, who seems to be in charge of almost everything at WSCC, and asked about the interviews. Once again she told us that no one was interested in being interviewed. I was really excited about getting a woman's perspective on the questions that we ask but we couldn't find one willing. We left just after 12pm and went to Hawken to do some more editing. Angela said she would email us and tell us whether or not we should go down to WSCC on Friday. Angela had not found any one for us to interview so we ended up spending Friday doing more editing. It seems like there is a never ending amount of editing that we can do. Tomorrow we are going to go back to WSCC and see if we can find anyone to interview. Hopefully we get at least one or two people to interview!

Recital!!!

Today was our final recital... It was really bittersweet as we are moving on to great things, but leaving our friends and studio behind. It was also great to see our hard work come to fruition. All of the last minute things fell into place (the lineup was still being tweaked yesterday and the yearbooks had a mistake and needed to be reprinted) and everyone danced well! There were no glitches with music and everyone made their changes! We had to extend the backstage dressing room, but it all worked out. The only slight issue we had was with lighting. They thought the dance was over a couple of times and turned the lights off when it wasn't time yet. We also had flashing lights during one of our more challenging dances and it was hard to complete the turns section as a result. Overall, though, it was one of our studio's best recitals yet!

This is a picture of the seven seniors getting flowers at the end of the show. Our sponsors Jordan and Ms. Mary are standing at each end of the line.

Sigal and Maddie

More Captain America (again)

I feel like I am posting a lot about Captain America filming downtown, so sorry if this seems a little repetitive. Anyways, as I was walking into project this morning, I realized that they were filming on Euclid Avenue between East 6th street and East 18th street - which happens to be right in front of the Bulkley Building, where GLT is located and where some of Playhouse Square is. My sponsor allowed me and the other intern, Jeanine, to go outside and explore the set for a couple of hours, just to break up the daily pace. We wound up seeing three high velocity car chases about a few feet in front of us, which, I have to say, were awesome. Although some security personnel were a bit unfriendly, since whenever they started filming they would force pedestrians into buildings so they wouldn't be confused with the paid extras on set, most of them were nice and rerouted the blocked off streets quite well. We kept asking if any famous actors were around on that particular shoot, but they replied that we were only seeing the "Second Unit," which consists of all of the stunt people. None of them knew where "First Unit was," or where all the famous people are. However, I think that Jeanine and I might have stumbled upon First Unit by accident - we were walking around, trying to find more filming locations, when we happened upon a horde of cameramen, trucks, trailers, lighting equipment, and general pandemonium next to the Wyndam Hotel on Eucild Avenue. Before being told to leave by security, we found out that that was most likely the hotel where Samuel L. Jackson was staying, and possibly the other actors as well. Anyways, besides our adventure into the film world, our other activities for the day were not as exciting: we mostly continued organizing the office space, shredding papers, and discussing next week's matinee performance of "Aida," which I am very excited to see!

Miscellaneous Stuff

Today was basically a bunch of miscellaneous activities. The other interns and I cleaned out the rehearsal space for the School Residency Program, which is on the tenth floor of the Hanna Building (catty corner from the Ohio, State and Palace Theaters, which form the hub of Playhouse Square). It was extraordinarily cluttered and messy, so we folded costumes, sorted props, and moved tables and chairs. Then, we were allowed to explore downtown a bit during our lunch break. We meandered over to the Captain America set once again, but I think the crew and actors were on lunch break, so we didn't see anything exciting, just them moving cranes around and rearranging lighting and camera equipment. However, we did get to see the aftermath of their filming: we saw plenty of dented and destroyed cars from car chases, bullet holes and residue from explosions they had done. I wished we could have seen it in person! The rest of the day was mostly more office work, which was not too riveting. However, I forgot to mention that this last Tuesday I visited one of the last schools on the School Residency Program of 2012-2013: Solon High School. I got to see the actor-teachers perform the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and then have discussions about the scene, the play and the themes that go along with it. The students were very engaged and it was nice to see what they were learning about in class come alive for them on stage. I am really excited for next week though, during which I get to see a free performance of "Aida," this year's All-City Musical. The All-City Musical is run by Great Lakes Theater, and it gives schools that don't have theater departments a chance to participate in a large-scale production on a professional stage. I am very excited to see it, and I will write about my opinions of it!

Not Much Going On

So today we went to the ISES Membership Luncheon. I was not able to take photos because I broke the screen of my phone and the tape holding it together happens to be covering the lens. That will be fixed pronto! The theme of the meeting was "Hot in Cleveland", where influential members of the board talked about the upcoming Senior Games and Gay Games that Cleveland will be hosting. They mainly talked about the new convention center and how it would be utilized. They also talked about the need for a more hotels and central hub that could hold 700 to 800 rooms so that eventually Cleveland will be able to compete with 2nd tier cities. A woman from Playhouse Square was also there and she talked about how Cleveland holds the largest amount of Broadway members than any other city in the US, which is extremely impressive since our main competitor is New York City. Cleveland is definitely an up and coming city with its new casinos, hotels, convention center, and booming new restaurant industry. It seems that Cleveland will only prosper from here and that it will be a hot and great place to live in years to come.

After that meeting we cleaned out and organized her office. We did some other busy work but nothing too exciting. I am really enjoying the business aspect of this internship. I like being able to socialize and network with all these fantastic people. They have truly built an interesting and fabulous empire that our generation can definitely build off of. The party scene is booming and people love it here in Cleveland!

One Vlog Down, Three To Go

Thought I'd try a video log today but the blog website won't let me upload the video. Instead I uploaded it to youtube. Heres the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK1d_ezZclU

Sorry for the poor quality! 

Off to West Side Catholic

Our last day at North Point was promised to be filled with lots of interviews, but that was not the case.  In reality when we showed up, neither Ed nor Jan were there to let us into their offices to get the papers we were supposed to use.  We just set up shop in the cafeteria and started doing our editing.  We just did the introduction-type parts and started to put together the organizational skeleton of the video.  It's still in the early stages but its been coming along.  We ended up spending essentially the whole day doing that and finishing up some flyer work we had started earlier in the week.  Then today we were prepared to go to West Side Catholic Center, but Angela Spring, our contact there, told us at the last minute that we should wait another day to come in.  So we ended up spending a second day in a row editing.  Ultimately I think this is a very good thing because we originally didn't plan for a lot of editing time, but we're quickly realizing how much we are going to need.  So tomorrow morning should be the beginning of the end of our project!

Last Day at Northpoint

Yesterday, Tuesday, was the last day that Andrew and I spent at Northpoint. On Monday at the end of our uneventful day, Ed had told us that on Tuesday we would go out with a bang. Unfortunately, Ed was not there when we arrived at 9:30, which wasn’t totally uncommon. Then we checked to see in Jan, the next person in charge, was there but she wasn’t present either. Not knowing what to do Andrew and I walked down to the lunch room and started our editing process. We began thinking of rough outline type ideas for the video. Soon enough we put together a skeleton for the video and started editing. During this process we would periodically go check if Ed was there yet. But to our dismay he didn’t show up. Fortuitously, we caught Jan in the hallway who told us to go help out with lunch again. Once again though there was nothing to help out with in the kitchen. Since Ed wasn’t there we didn’t have any interviews set up for the lunch period either. After lunch we caught up with Jan again who had us making more copies. The printer had actually been serviced that morning so it was up and running again. We successfully printed out and distributed the rest of the packets. In the midst of printing, we spotted Ed. He looked like he was in a hurry and told us that he was on the way to a meeting. He also apologized for not being able to be there. We spoke with Jan after that, and she told us that we were done for the day and could leave. All in all it wasn’t too slow of a day, minus the fact that we didn’t get any interviews. Inadvertently, this caused Andrew and I to get some necessary editing done which is good since we hadn’t thought too much into it yet. Next we are off to West Side Catholic Center to interview folks there with Andrew’s mentor from the intensive, Angela.

Exciting Day!

So today we mulled over an RFP that we may or may not want to send. We essentially made a rough draft of what we wanted to send and decided to sit on it for a couple of days to see if it felt right to continue on with this event. Today I learned that Cleveland is a small town in regards to business. Even if someone messes with you or wrongs you, you have to be very careful about your actions because it could have some serious consequences for your business if you get on the wrong side of someone. After that we went to Root Candle in Medina for a personal tour from the CEO. It was just fantastic. He was so nice and accommodating. I learned a lot about their history and that their founder, A.I. Root, was the first person to write an account of the Wright Brother's first flight at Kitty Hawk and that this account is currently at the Smithsonian. A lot of their production is done by hand and the CEO knew a majority of his workers, which is very rare in this day in age of mass machinery production. Root Candle was generous enough to donate an enormous ton of candles for a Hopewell event in September. I am very thankful I was able to find this new business and make new connections!

Final Recital Adjustments

The past two days we have been finalizing the recital lineup. Our studio has four guest artists coming in and we had to add in all of their pieces, which has actually improved the lineup. There are a few dancers who had several one-dance changes, and today we were able to strategically add guest performances so that these costume changes were made easier. The guest artists are Rachael Leitson (the studio owner's daughter who goes to Chapman University as a dance major in California), Joe Chantry (one of her friends from Chapman), Jonathan Fors (another one of Rachael's friends), and Justin DeBernardi (a huge choreographer from Toronto who has been choreographing for our studio for a few years).

We also mopped the big studio (there are three) today after taking adult tap today at 10:00 to clean the tap dust, and then we worked on updating the ticket sales and recital lineup spreadsheets. After asking parents to return any tickets that they weren't using, we still have 37 people who need tickets. We are hoping to get them all seats, however, we are already sold out at a maximum of 640 tickets, which includes folding seats in the aisles. 

In the next couple of days we will be rehearsing for recital on Saturday, and making final adjustments for the dress rehearsal on Friday. 

Sigal and Maddie

The Mid-Project Lull

We're just a little past the half-way point and the interviews finally slowed down.  Before today we never had anything less than 5 or 6 interviews in a day.  Today we had a whopping 1 interview after lunch.  Even our volunteer work seemed to be in a lull.  We were supposed to make a bunch of copies of handbooks and distribute them, I believe.  After copying the first set of 50 the copier got a paper jam and we had to try to figure out the whole inner workings of the huge copier-printer-scanner-fax machine.  Finally we got one of the case managers, Will, to help out.  He seemed to know what he was doing and was pulling out a bunch of crumpled pieces of paper so we assumed he was doing the right thing.  Then he said he was done and when he closed everything back up the machine beeped angrily and the message on the display said "machine failure."  We restarted the thing and it said the same thing so we had another staff member, Xavier, call it in.  All in all, we ended up standing around for a while, watching the two of them try to figure out the contraption.  Then we went to help with lunch, but it was all pre-prepared so we watched "Judge Joe Brown" on TV.  We then ate and headed to our single interview.  It was even a short one, but no one else was prepared to come be interviewed today.  We proceeded to leave a little early because there was nothing left for us to today.  Ed says since tomorrow is our last day at North Point we will go out with a bang and a lot of interviews.  I'm excited for tomorrow!

Slow Day

Today was our second to last day at Northpoint and was fairly uneventful. We arrived in the morning and were greeted by mounds of paper work to do. We handed out and post a bunch of flyers around the shelter. Then we were supposed make 50 copies of one packet, 25 copies of another, and 50 copies of one last one. We successfully made the first 50 copies and about half of the next set before we had printer problems. The printer let out its shrill beeping alert noise that notified us that there was a paper jam. Now both Andrew and I not being that printer savvy we had to call in some reinforcements to help us with the paper jam. Will helped us out with the paper jam and we thought all of our problems were fixed but unfortunately they were not. The beeping noise cam back and the alert this time read "printer failure" which we had absolutely no idea what that meant. So then Xavier came to help us out but the printer actually required servicing so there was no way that we could continue. We had successfully broken the printer after just 3 days of being at the place. Hopefully it will be fixed by tomorrow or else I will feel kind of bad for breaking their printer. We were then sent over to the kitchen to help with lunch at noon. Incidentally, there was nothing for us to do there either. We opened up some boxes of granola bars and put them in a bowl but then the guy in charge, David. Told us to just go relax and watch TV because he didn't have anything else for us to do. So we waited around until noon when lunch began, we had our lunch and then set ourselves up in the small room just outside the lunch room. To continue with the theme of the day we only did one interview today, which is the least we've ever done. And the interview was just six minutes long, we waited for the rest of lunch but nobody else came, which was disappointing. We talked to Ed afterwards who said there was nothing left for us to do today so he just told us to leave. Though he told us tomorrow he would get lots of people lined up for us so I'm excited for tomorrow!

Week 3 Day 1

Today I finally finished taking inventory of all the equipment in the two office buildings, as well as getting all of the software information off of every computer. I had a really hard time at first with getting the software information. When I first started I found a way to view all of the programs, but I wasn’t able to get the information about all of them without going into the programs and getting all the information, which would have taken me until graduation to do for every machine. So I decided to Google the best way to get software information and I found a program called Win Audit and it is a gift from god to say the least. All I have to do is run the program and in minutes it creates a .pdf file that contains all the information I need on any software. For example it gives me the name, the size, the firmware, basically anything anyone would need to know about a certain program or set of software. WebAudit also organizes the information into neat categories with tabs and a search function so it was perfect for the job I had to do. Now all I have left to do is get every employee’s logins and passwords for their computers phones, RPMS accounts, etcetera. 

BIG Blog for Friday & Monday - Sorry for Delay

Thursday I met with one of my sponsors and learned how to use the filming equipment. I’ll be using a DSLR Lumix GH2. Attached are pictures of the camera. Luckily the camera isn’t too advanced for me to comprehend. Although I took a great deal of advice from my sponsor and leafed through an instructor’s manual the camera is very user friendly and apt for a beginner filmmaker like myself.

Friday I called several people to schedule interviews. Overall it was a successful day as I scheduled three interviews, one with an electrician, mechanic, and plumber! (Tomorrow I will call back a seamstress to finalize plans). I also spent time researching the professions I plan to meet with in order to properly structure my time with them. I only have an hour and a half at most with each professional and this is not much time for an interview and learning a skill so I really want to use my time well. I’m also really thankful that these people are taking time out of their day to teach me something new. The last thing I want to do is waste their time.

Tomorrow I’m meeting with my first volunteer, the electrician, so today was all about preparation. Tomorrow will be unfamiliar territory – a foreign setting, a person I’ve never met, and new skill to learn. It will also be my first time filming on my own and conducting an interview. So, although I’ve spent a great deal of time preparing I can’t seem to prepare enough. I spent time using the equipment, even practicing really simple things like un-packing – I want to look professional tomorrow and I’d look pretty stupid if I couldn't do something as easy as set up the tripod. Besides using the equipment I’ve also spent the day perfecting my interview questions and packing my bag of the interview essentials – comb/makeup to help with imperfections, bottled water, an extra copy of the questions for the interviewee, etc. Although I’ve explained the project to my interviewee I still don’t know quite what to except.  He might respond to my questions differently than I anticipate or teaching me about being an electrician might take longer than I’ve thought so I want to have control over as much as possible and practice makes perfect. Tomorrow will most likely skew from what I have planned but being flexible is part of being a good interviewer. As I've mentioned above, there's also the time aspect on top of the uncertainty that makes me nervous. 

Although I’m nervous I’m pretty excited too. Hopefully, tomorrow will go over smoothly!

PS: Attached below is a silly video I recorded of my dad when I was testing audio tonight. Seriously watch the video of my dad, it's super funny. 

  

CAPTAIN AMERICA 2

Today was a much different routine than usual, which was exciting. Along with the other three interns that are doing their senior projects with me, I went down to the Cleveland Public Library downtown to look up children's books. After we found a couple of good books, we wrote down their titles and authors so that later we could turn their plots into mini plays for the children to act out at GLT's summer camp. We also found several monologue books for teens, and scene collections from famous plays like Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, Harvey, etc. I have never been down to the library before, and it is a really beautiful building - it is reminded me of the many college libraries I had scene while visiting schools, except on a much, much grander scale. It was also exciting because we got to spend a lot of time downtown walking around. We took the free trolley from the Bulkley Building, which is smack dab in the middle of Playhouse Square, down to Public Square where Terminal Tower is. We then walked a couple of blocks to the library. However, there were two super duper exciting things that happened today: first, I ran into Mrs. Gray with her intensive, which pretty much made my day. And then, we got to go down and see them prepare to shoot Captain America 2!!! Today was the first day that the film crew was in Cleveland, and they closed off a couple of blocks of East 6th street to set up. We couldn't get very close, since were were a ton of policemen and security officers all over the place, but we could see them setting up huge cranes with lighting equipment and cameras attached to them. They also had fake police cars all over the place that were labelled "Washington DC Police Department," since Cleveland is being used as a double for DC. As we were walking away from the set, we heard a huge explosion and then a bunch of gun shots. We thought that Cleveland was being invaded, but then we realized that it was for the film (of course), since I am pretty sure they are setting up a car chase scene to be shot on the same location within the next couple of days. Anyways, it was a quite an exhilarating day!

Senior Dance Updated

Final Question

Thus far, Andrew and I have done about 25 interviews. Which is spectacular because in the beginning we thought that maybe we would be doing an interview each day. Little did we know that so many people are willing to take about their stories. The biggest thing that we've noticed is the last question that we ask at the end of each interview. Which is "so do you have anything else to tell us or add?" Initially, Andrew and I added this question on at the end just in case the person felt like we missed part of their story and wanted to add some detail about their children, or something along those lines. But to our surprise everyone has taken this question as "what advice can you give us?" This turned out to be a better question than we anticipated. Most interviewees have some thoughtful advice to share with us, which is a nice way to wrap up the interview as well. A lot of the advice turns out to be the same, most of it is along the lines of "stay out of trouble" and "drugs aren't where it's at." It's still very interesting that each man took the question in the same context. You can really tell that these guys are reflecting on their past, and are learning from it. It makes the situation a lot more seem more real. Although that may sound strange, I feel like a lot of the time at private schools that we are confined to a sort of "bubble." Where we don't see how drugs and alcohol can effect people so much. But at places like 2100 and Northpoint and many of the men have over come their addiction. Although some still struggle through it everyday and are trying to quit so that they can find a job.

North Point v. 2100

After the first day at North Point I couldn't help but to make comparisons and notice differences.  The first one I noticed was the cleanliness and apparent order and organization of everything.  At 2100 there were a whole bunch of people walking around everywhere and just hanging out in every crevice of the building.  There just seemed to be a lot of people at all times.  At North Point there are rarely more than a couple residents visible at any time outside of meals.  Residents are either working, finding a job, or in their room.  North Point feels more like a hotel than a shelter and has a lot of offices and staff members populating the visible areas.  A second difference is our schedule.  At 2100 we interviewed all day every day but at North Point we interview at lunch until we leave.  In the mornings we do volunteer work, unrelated to our projects. Also, when I ask if the residents feel safe everyone at North Point says they do but few of the men at 2100 say they feel completely safe.  Of course the goals of the buildings are different.  At 2100 the purpose is much broader, from Emergency bedding to transitioning out of the shelter.  North Point is a transitional housing building for moving people back into their own housing.  It is the last step, many times, before heading out of homeless shelters all together.  There are many other smaller differences, but these are the ones that stand out.

First few days at Northpoint

Andrew and I made our transition to Northpoint on Wednesday of this week and we were excited for the move. After spending our last week at 2100 and gathering all the stories that we did, I was very excited to start the next leg at Northpoint. On our first day there we had a total change of pace and spent the morning doing office work. We were put to the task of copying and stapling packets that were later to be handed out around Northpoint. Since the only time most of the men are available is during lunch time, so from about noon to one every day. During this time Andrew and I will set up our gear in a small spare room just outside the cafeteria. This way each person who is being interviewed has more privacy and feels comfortable telling us their story. Our first day there we were surprised when we were able to interview five guys in just that lunch period. Granted, one man took just around 6 minutes to complete our interview. Which, I believe, is the fastest anyone has gone through the entire thing. The interviews actually ended up running past the 1pm mark so after all the interviews we just ended up leaving because it was already 2pm.  There was also nothing left for us to do at Northpoint that day. So far the staff finds us something to keep us occupied for the morning and then we interview for about two hours. Then off we go so that Andrew to make it to lacrosse practice on time each day.

Busy Busy Busy

Deb and I have been very busy lately. On Thursday, we visited the Senior Outreach Services headquarters on 79th and Quincy. It is an amazing building, the original Langston Hughes Library, in an otherwise very impoverished area of Cleveland. This organization serves a little bit over 1000 seniors a day with meals and other services. They try to keep seniors vibrant and social. Currently, they are having an event at Nighttown with famous jazz singers. They hope that the turn out will be better than year. After that we went to the Lakeview Cemetery to lay out a tent idea for their next event which will fundraise for the cleaning of the Garfield Monument and upkeep of the cemetery. On Friday, we had the HB alumnae event and it went great! I was in charge of keeping one of the alum chefs happy and doing whatever she wanted so that her presentation could go flawlessly. It was really nice to see some familiar faces and talk about future plans as I head off to college in the Fall. The only problem we had was the AC broke down but no one seemed to notice. There were some other small issues but they were easily fixed. Next week we have an ISES Membership Luncheon which should be fantastic! ISES stands for the International Special Events Society. Pictures to come!

Homeless People are People too

More interesting than the organizational, day-to-day narration is what I've been discovering through talking to  so many homeless men.  First, I think the most important lesson I've taken away so far is that every person is another human being.  It sounds too cliche to be taken seriously, but I sat down and had a heart-to-heart with the scariest man I have ever seen.  Upon first glance, he had tattoos from head to toe.  Literally.  He had so many tattoos on his face that I didn't even bother trying to count.  And tattoos covered every visible patch of skin.  He explained that all of the tattoos, including the numerous teardrops, were all gang related and that he was heavily involved in the gangs of Los Angeles.  Upon hearing that and seeing him, objectively I'm surprised I got close enough to have a conversation with him.  I just kept telling myself that he's a person too and that he was trying to clean up.  While speaking to him he laughed and made jokes and even gave me advice for the future.  He was very down-to-earth and humble and soft-spoken.  I enjoyed talking to him by the end, and when I think about how scary I thought he was it amuses me.  Moral of the interview: People that are homeless are People too.

Week 1 Organization

So Sydney and I finished at 2100 Lakeside on Tuesday the 14th.  We then went to Ed's headquarters at North Point. (I found out North Point is two words).  We unfortunately had to miss some time at 2100 due to a couple of AP tests I needed to take on Friday and Monday.  Thankfully, we ended up recording many more interviews than we had expected.  After only 3 full days we had somewhere between 15 and 20 solid interviews.  Only one interviewee got cold feet and changed his mind about talking comfortably with the camera.  He said he was comfortable, but each response was one word or even just a facial expression.  We did have one extremely close call with the video files, however.  Sydney was still getting the hang of how to delete the files on the SD card to make more space for more filming and we thought the first day's interviews were lost.  Luckily, Sydney found every file on her computer.  Apparently some of them were hidden under a different name or a different project or something.  So after a seemingly very short third of our project we are on our way to week 2 with a lot more footage than we expected.

Good Problems at JCD

Things have been extremely stressful in the studio this week due to the upcoming recital. There have been two major areas of focus: the yearbook, and the ticket sales. The yearbook has ads for just about every dancer that ranges from full page, half page, or quarter page. It also includes advertisements from companies that paid to have their logo in it. With more than 50 dancers (some of whom bought about 15 ads each) this is a long and complicated process. Ad sales were through the roof this year, which is an amazing thing financially and aesthetically, but this means that creating the yearbook took about 3 days straight of work. The most important part of this is that there is absolutely zero human error and that every single add that was purchased makes its way into the book. We finished this just under the wire and got the yearbook in to the printers just in time to make sure they are all ready for the show. The second thing we have been focusing on is the ticket sales. Jordan Center Dance's recital is held annually at Tri C Eastern Campus. It is a great location but the theater holds 600 people and every single one of these seats have been purchased two weeks before the performance. As a result there are several families who were not able to purchase tickets and due to fire codes will not be allowed into the theater to see their child perform. While overselling is a great problem to have, it does create an issue. We came up with the idea to have a live feed streamed to a tv in a room on campus to allow parents to see their children, even if it is not in person. However, this creates another problem as the room with the tv is the room we generally use as a dressing room for the dancers. We are now in the process of trying to find other space for dancers to change if, come showtime, we are not able to get everyone into that theater. We're also working on having parents trade tickets if they bought more than they need and have gotten a few members of the waitlist seats in the theater.
Maddie and Sigal

Week 2 Day 3

I finished the rest of the invoices today and I only suffered a few paper cuts. I am now starting to take an inventory of all the equipment in both of the office buildings. This means I have to take count of every computer printer, phone, keyboard, mouse, copier, etcetera, basically you name the office supply and I’m probably taking an inventory of it. For all electronic devices in the offices I have to find the serial number, product keys, and model number, which is really difficult on some of the bigger computers that are wedged between multiple desks. My strategy for this is I use my IPhone to take pictures of the different service labels on the computer and other devices. An observation I’ve made that I find very interesting, but at the same time perplexing is that on big devices, such as computers and printers the serial codes are like three to five digits long, but on smaller devices like a computer mouse the serial code is like 25 digits long and in nearly impossible to see print. I’m also trying to figure out the best way to organize everything, but I’m thinking I do everything by each employee’s desk.  

Week 2 Day 2

I finished making my pie charts and I put them into a power point so that they could be presented to the different companies who want to see how their products are doing and decide whether or not they want to stop producing a product or produce even more of a product. I’m not focusing all of my time on the invoices. I’ve probably gone through about 60 invoices, which is roughly around 500 pages, it has been alright I preferred making the spreadsheet but at least it’s better than making the pie chart which was incredibly annoying. Today I have also been put in charge of a very, very important job which is to look for a water cooler for the offices as well as find a water delivery service that is cheap yet reliable, which I must say is very difficult. I’ve waited on hold with some of these water cooler companies for over a half an hour, which was absolutely ridiculous. Once I finish the remaining pile of invoices, 34 I counted, I will start taking an inventory of all the electronics in the office, meaning computers, printers, etcetera; additionally I will have to make a list of every program on every computer. 

Week 2 Day 1

Today I finished my Groupon spreadsheet and I’m beginning to make pie charts for all of the different products on the spreadsheet I made. So I just use Excel’s graph function to make them but, unfortunately, I have to manually enter in the key. I also started a second project where I’m checking off whether or not certain products where shipped or not based on an invoice. An invoice for those who don’t know is essentially a sheet of paper that lists the sales of a particular item; it could also mean that they want a certain number of products as well. I have a pile about a foot high of these invoices to check and I check them using a program called RPMS, Resources and Patient Management System, and it’s a database that has the information on every product in certain warehouses that are owned by the companies we represent. So I look through the database and look up the products code number and If it was shipped I put an S and if it wasn’t I press the spacebar, or if part of the inventory was sold I press P and then enter the amount sold. This is crucial because by having records of what products are shipped our company can get a commission on the sales. 

Week 1 Day 2

I continued to work on my Groupon spreadsheet and also started to work on a separate project where I would look for missing Amazon shipments by searching a database for the their code number, then when I found the missing item I would copy the serial number and put that information on the account for Amazon, thus the missing products were found and could be shipped. It was a very boring task and I actually preferred making my spreadsheet. Essentially everything I do here requires Microsoft Excel. According to everyone in the office the most commonly used program in business is Excel and I don’t doubt it.  One thing I’ve learned just from being in the office and overhearing phone calls and conversations I’ve noticed how difficult a business of this type is because the products in this industry change according to who won last night, meaning that things sell based on the outcomes of the major sporting events. One example of this is with the Golden State Warriors, ever since they’ve started to win the sales of products with Warriors logos have gone up by far, whereas sales for the Denver Nuggets (Who the Warriors beat) have gone way down. 

Week 1 Day 1

I start every day at 8:30 and work until 3:30 with an hour long lunch break. At the beginning of the first week all I really did was and Excel Spreadsheet that contained Groupon Statistics. Basically, I would go onto Groupon and look at the products our company was managing and then seeing how many coupons were sold for each product and to which specific teams. I did this for all NFL teams, NHL teams, MLB teams, and a few NCAA teams. What I've learned so far is if you put the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, or Chicago Blackhawks logos on any product it’ll sell. On the other hand things with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Baltimore Orioles, or the Minnesota Wild (NHL team I hadn’t ever heard of them) they will not sell anything. Seeing how some of these companies have over 50,000 sells on Groupon alone puts into perspective how big the sporting product industry is, as Groupon plays a rather small part in many of the companies we represent. For those who don’t know what Groupon is, it’s essentially a site that sells products at discounts even though they aren’t actually discount they just want people to think they are.

Very Busy

So, this blog post is actually about yesterday and today. Yesterday, I went to Hawken Upper to observe the School Residency Program there. It was in Mrs. Griffin's and Mrs. Hagen's intensive, in which they were learning Macbeth. It was incredibly entertaining and engaging to watch the students learn the basics of stage sword fighting and then stage the final battle scene of Macbeth. I got to participate in the battle a couple of times when people didn't have partners, and even though my sword skills are not quite perfected, I still beat my opponent. After lunch I went back to the GLT offices downtown at Playhouse Square and I basically filed forms for the rest of the day. However, I did get to meet two new senior interns from Magnificat, who are also doing their senior projects at GLT. Today was also fun, but busy. I did a lot more filing, which my sponsor was very relieved to get done. The exciting part was getting the opportunity to watch the interviews for the School Residency Program. If an applicant for the program auditions well, gets a call back, and then does well at the call back, they get an interview. I saw two interviews today, and I really, really thought the two applicants would do amazing in the program, especially with children. I also was better informed on how difficult the program is for the Actor-Teachers who run it: the hours are very long, they usually teach five classes a day, five days a week, their rehearsal process is 9 hours a day, six days a week for six weeks in the summer, and they are also responsible for basically memorizing ten Shakespeare plays and more contemporary plays. After learning this, I have a lot more appreciation for the incredible work that the Actor-Teachers do when they teach the plays at the schools as part of the program.

It's All Business

Our days have been filled with finalizing our EventSource orders and making sure all of our numbers are accounted for. EventSource is a company that Ghostlight uses to rent tables, linens, etc., but there are many others out there that can do this. Recently, we have been working on the alumni event for HB and making sure that the caterer, Kimberly Gibson, has everything she needs. After making sure that was done, we moved on to questioning the possibility of a nonprofit obtaining more than 2 F-2 liquor permits. This permit allows you to sell alcohol until 1 am on a specified night. They usually last for 48 hours. As to why they only issue 2 per calendar year, I don't know. I also learned that when a company sends you an RFP that means that they want you to submit a proposal for an upcoming event. My sponsor has received some in the last couple of days so we most likely will be working on those a lot! She taught me about business etiquette and how important it is to not get frazzled when the client is unhappy or simply does not choose you. The last thing we worked on was trying to figure out if we could put up glass wind barriers on the beach of Lake Erie for a land conservation event in September. More to come on that! I have the HB event tomorrow so pictures and stories to come on that.

Field trip!

Tuesday was a busy day! I went to an assisted living center where my sponsors had been hired to create a promotional video. As I am inexperienced I wasn’t much help so I spent the day observing their work. When I first arrived I watched them set up. They spent almost an hour minutes making very minor adjustments to the set, specifically to the angles and strength of the lighting. The space was a very controlled environment, they blocked natural light and shut off the bulbs in the room, only using the lighting equipment they had brought. Noise was also sensitive - when the interview was being conducted the room was silent besides the speaker. And, all of this laborious set up was for interviews 15 to 20 minutes long! Besides all of the technicalities, I also watched how my sponsors interacted with the interviewee, making small talk in between questions and giving positive comments after the interviewee spoke. Interviewing can be a delicate process as the goal is to receive natural and sufficient responses and in order to achieve that someone must feel comfortable. Sometimes my sponsor needed to ask if they could fix someone’s hair and apply makeup to their face or ask a person rephrase the way they answered a question and these things can be slightly uncomfortable. Overall, the day was a huge learning experience and I’m so lucky I could join.

Wednesday was more relaxed. As my camera is not suitable for filming, my sponsor was gathering equipment for me. I spent the day on my own researching the equipment I’ll be provided. The camera I will use is being used more and more by young filmmakers and this popularity provided lots of different tutorials online.