continued saga

boxed and shipped the hard drive w/ footage off to los angeles yesterday. i have yet to see the footage but i'm able to hear it. that's something i suppose. missing a codec. it's always something. absent finding the right codec i'm asking dp to export all the footage into a low-res movie file so i can at least view it. these are not ideal conditions for editing a movie but it's worth it to me b/c evonne is so good. now i just have to keep my fingers crossed that the truck carrying the drive isn't hijacked or destroyed or waylaid. more to come

footage vision quest

things taking comic turns of epic proportion of late. after weighing multiple factors, decided best course of action editing-wise was to get footage to evonne in LA rather than have her come up. this necessitated me getting an external hard drive. on 'good food' the file sizes were small enough that i sent audio/video files via yousendit over several days (not recommended unless you have a surplus of time and patience) but that won't work for these files. So, since we had amazon gift $ (and further since m allowed me to use the money exclusively) i decided to order a 500 gb refurbished hard drive. it was to arrive the following friday. it didn't come until monday. had it come friday i could have gotten the footage from dp but he left town for a wk on monday, so i had to wait for him to get back. i waited until he got back to format the external hard drive (an error on my part). when i plugged it in i learned that they sent a 330 gb hard drive not a 500 gb. my plan at this point became: take hard drive to dp, get footage, bring footage home and put on computer, strip hard drive, send hard drive back and have them exchange it for one i ordered.

i went a couple rounds w/ customer service. they claimed they sent 500gb. i disputed. they said i had to call manufacturer to verify. i said, can you please just exchange this for what i ordered. they relented. if i would mail back the hard-drive (at my cost), they would exchange it. fine. i stripped it, boxed it, mailed it back (note, actually m mailed it back on my behalf)

meantime, i tried to look at footage now on my computer. i only have FCE not FCP and apparently i can't read this file format w/ FCE, meaning i can purchase software for several hundred dollars or i can upgrade to FCP for twice that. meaning, i can't yet see footage. evonne is cutting on avid so i yousendit'ed her a couple clips to verify that she could see. she could not, so there is some error. my plan when i get the 500 gb drive is to put the footage on it and ship it to her and keep my fingers crossed. hopefully having the whole folder/s intact will alleviate the issue. this however doesn't address the necessity of the director being able to see the dailies.

then, earlier today, an email:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for placing an order with Electronica Direct. We are very sorry, but due to an inventory error, the LaCie Refurbished 500GB Triple Interface Rugged Hard Drive - 301371-R (Refurbished by Lacie with a 90Day Lacie Warranty) that you have ordered has been oversold and is currently out of stock. Your order has been cancelled and a full refund posted to your account.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you and regret that we were unable to supply you with the item of your choice. If you would like to get a different item instead, please let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

We value your business, and we hope to be of service to you in the future.

Sincerely,

Abe
Customer Relations

back to square one.