Hoade and I spent several hours at the library [1] trying to edit the footage (shot with a digital video camera we borrowed) we've accumulated over the past few days. The software, running on a high end Mac (with gigs of free space, just for editing of video), was fairly easy to use once shown how; the consuming bit came in waiting for the video stream to be read off the tape. Twice. First time through the audio tracks were not transfered. Then a significant amount of time was spent in converting the footage to MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group) and burned onto a video CD (Compact Disc)—all for naught, because it was a bad copy that didn't work.
Sigh.
Other than the bad CD, it was a cool experience and the fact that any student, reguardless of major, can make their own film is wonderful. Okay, so maybe the resulting films won't be all that great, but the idea that anyone can make a film is great.