Power / Coco

A part of me had dreaded writing this post for certain reasons, despite the vehemently small voice that urges me through every crack in my subconscience haha.

Finally got the push today as I received this email. ;u;
Two days a week, I work at a video production start-up that does media for mostly corporate companies. In July, we headed over to Google HQ for a video shoot for a lovely organization that helps girls learn about science, math, and tech. Although I didn't do anything related to producing or camerawork, I did work the live audio recording, and then I assisted with the video edit, and did all the audio mixing and color correction. My first time having such a big hand in a project for the company ;u;! You can watch the video here if you're curious.

  

Hearing these kinds of things makes me really happy! I'm glad to be helpful.

I had a moment of realization last month that I can actually affect others' lives and move them by making videos. It's a fascinating thing—the power of a camera, an editing program, and a mouse—turned into the form of media that speaks most volumes.


During the shoot, one of the girls we interviewed really stood out to me. She was the youngest—a bright-eyed one, 12 years old, but spoke with more thought and articulation than me tenfold. A mature, but optimistic, obviously passionate young girl! I remember when we finished her interview, I thought to myself, "Man, so kids these days can be smart. Did I just meet a child prodigy? This girl's gonna do big things one day," and wished her good luck with her pursuits while I helped her take off the microphone.

Flash forward to last month, when I stupidly.. agh, so stupidly decided to check my work email on my iPad while I was in bed, before falling asleep.
And I found out she passed away in a car accident...... ;;;;;;;;;;;;; Needless to say, it was hard to fall asleep that night... And now I will never check my email before bed again.

When I went into work, they put me on the assignment of making a video for her family. Or well they asked me to put together all of the footage we had of her (since we really only used a nibble of it for the video) but I was more than willing to edit together a nice memorial video for her.. ;; I think she deserved at least that much. She was so charming, so smart, so passionate, so spirited. I don't know how she made such a lasting impression on me when I only met her once, but I had such big hopes for her already. Actually, I stayed really late that day to make a nice video to send her off with. A lot of deliberate editing. All of her smiling and laughing shots because they need to know how happy and bright she was. Video ended with a slow motion shot of her smiling warmly and nodding, because I think her loved ones would want to hear her say, "It's okay."

I don't know how her family reacted to the video, but the words of my coworkers and our friends from the organization (through whom we passed the video) really touched me—because of how I was able to touch them. ;; It was sad, but also felt a little.. miraculous? That I can do something that might help or comfort other people? Make something that invokes emotions?

Art is really such a powerful thing. ^^ I guess that's how I might find motivation to work on gifts for friends when I'm otherwise mostly unmotivated.

Honestly, I've had the thought before that my film classmates might look down on me because most of what I've been doing professionally so far have involved "simple" interviews, and I'm not pursuing fancy Hollywood-bound things and complex cinematography like most of them are. But today I feel like I'm not losing in any way. Interviews are personal; through them, people can share their stories and passions, and connect and strike a chord with the viewer. Right?

After that email today, I wounded up on the organization's website and came across their News page which talked about how the recent mentees went up to Google in SF (not HQ; it was a prior occasion) and one girl even wrote an essay on her exciting experience. I clicked on it out of curiosity. Fuck. It was Coco.... Just like what she said in her interview, she wrote that she dreams of working at Google someday. Emotions stirred again.
I hardly knew you but I miss you. ;n; Rest in peace, Coco.