Phone Support Takes Time

I'm working with an artist at a university in California to help her complete an artsy video project she is working on. I hope it turns out because I'm doing the editing. But since she's in California and I'm here in Colorado, we have to work out the technical stuff long distance.

That means phone calls.


Phone Support

It's hard to walk people through steps when you have to rely on them to tell you what's going wrong. Granted, if everything is working it's cake. But the moment someone says, "Wait... what?" you know you have a problem.

So, I needed to walk her through capturing footage in 10 minute increments. I know this process very well, and while it took me just a couple of minutes before the system was purring away on my machine, it took me almost 30 minutes to get her tape dumping. That was surprising to me.

It goes to show two things: 1. Sitting in front of a computer and being able to interact instantly with the person and their machine makes for faster help. 2. Learning how to do something and not having to look stuff up speeds up the process. Familiarity with a system allows you to fly. However, every time you encounter new software the steep learning curve almost kills you. "I could do this so much faster on my old machine!" I say over and over again.

So, troubleshooting and learning software requires patience. A lot of patience. And a lot of time.

May you find the patience you need for your projects today.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor