You may not know this, but I wasn’t always a proud employee of this illustrious institution known as Northwestern University. Oh no!  I actually had quite a crazy 11-year run as the co-owner of a high-end aquarium company up until 2012. Yup, I sold fish tanks. We specialized in saltwater and reef aquariums, and as such, I became an expert of all things marine.

So when my parents treated me to a vacation down in St. Thomas last year for my birthday, I took full advantage of the reef right outside our door. I went snorkeling for hours every day, clutching my trusty GoPro camera and capturing the magic under the waves. It was glorious!  But then I came home and wondered what in the world I was going to do with all this amazing footage. I needed to make a movie, of course!  That meant teaching myself how to use iMovie, the one stop shop for turning your raw videos into thrilling films. It was truly addicting, and I had such a blast arranging my clips that I ended up with THREE movies instead of just one. Do you want to join in the fun?

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One thing I’ve learned over the years is that everyone has at least one fairly strange obsession. And if you’ve ever looked at my hands, then you know that mine is nail art. Yes, much like a 10-year-old girl, my heart gets all twitter-pated thinking about creating itty-bitty intricate designs on those 10 little canvases. I scour nail art blogs like it’s going out of style, looking for inspiration and tips for transforming my talons. Most of these nail bloggers create wonderfully helpful tutorial videos for people like me, and I’m always left thinking, “Hey, I should make one of those someday!”  Well folks, “someday” has arrived, thanks to the MMLC’s latest purchase for students in our supported classes – the smartphone rig kit.

What treasures await me in this sleek black case?

Nowadays, almost everyone has a phone with a built-in camera, so who wants to lug around a separate camera to film videos and whatnot? A silly person, that’s who! (No offense to silly people – I, myself, am one)  Of course, the phone’s video functions are rather limited when it comes to things like lighting, audio, and stabilization, but this is the 21st century!  There are now a multitude of options available for the novice filmmaker, and Cecile has tapped into her vast wealth of knowledge to compile a complete smartphone rig kit for video. I must say, this thing is pretty awesome. Full Post