Best Ink

October 18, 2011

I just got home from work. That's right kids, no need to adjust the clocks on your computer. They are correct. I work 3pm - midnight each day as a Post Production Assistant for a new reality competition show called Best Ink. The show will air on Oxygen sometime this Winter. Unfortunately, I am unable to share many things with you guys, even the logo, because it is considered confidential as of right now.

BUT! I am able to share with you the information that is already online. The best (and most accurate) article I found about my show can be found here:
http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Oxygen-Orders-Up-Tattoo-Competition-Series-Best-Ink-34927.html
There you can read about how many artists are competing for the prize, the show's host and the set judges. So far I must say, the show is very interesting. I do recommend everyone to watch it, even if it is on a woman's station like Oxygen. This is their first show to actually have male characters. Crazy right?!

So, you are wondering..."But Ashley what do YOU do on the show and why the HECK do you work so late?!" Great question. I work 3 - midnight because I take the cuts from the Editors after they are finished and write a breakdown of what happens. Pretty much I type everything that happens in the cut so the Executive Producers at Bunim/Murray can read along while watching and send back their notes. It can take hours to type up a breakdown from scratch and update one after the Editors have made many revisions after each cut. It's great for me, because I want to be an Editor, to see the MANY changes an episode goes through in Post. I see the show from the string out (a very rough timeline of various shots, interview bites, etc to make the story) to the locked episode that the audience will see.

One day while watching the breakdown, I noticed the Editors were only using a font for the lower thirds for the show. What are lower thirds? I'm glad you asked. Let's use Project Runway for example. The blue box that shows Anya's information is placed in the lower third of the screen. (Get it?..."lower thirds") So, the Editors were just using a plain font to put the name of the contestants for our show as a temp lower third. I decided to create lower thirds for my show for fun. My Post Supervisor saw me working on them one day at work and liked them a lot. He wanted me to keep working on them so he could show the Co-Executive Producers. They liked them and agreed to use them as temp lower thirds for our show! This is huge!! I was so excited. Oxygen would see my lower thirds! Well, since then everyone has discovered that I am pretty good with Photoshop and have come to me with many, many Photoshop projects to create things for our show. Since then I have made all NEW lower thirds for our show. (I hope to show you my original ones after the show airs because I put so much work into them, and I know they will not be used). The Co-Executive producers call me into their offices quite often now to create things like, a new logo for our show, a mortise (a border used around the video), different lower thirds, a show screen shot (that would be shown for 3 seconds at the end of each episode), and other things I probably shouldn't mention because I'd give things away!

All in all, I'm pumped to have gone the extra mile to make myself stand out and be noticed by my bosses. It's amazing to be more involved in my show than a regular Post PA would be. I am done working on Best Ink on December 2nd. We'll see what happens next, and I'll keep you updated if anything else cool happens at work!

Thanks for reading. It means the world to me. =)