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Hi. This is Ralph Zuranski. I'm on the phone with Nerissa Oden, the Video Queen, who has
the website TheVideoQueen.com. I met Nerissa at Joe Vitale's Spiritual Marketing Super
Summit. She was videotaping the entire conference.
I talked to her a little bit and found out that she graduated with a degree in film,
radio, and TV editing, recording and producing from college. She just fell in love with video
editing. She was just really a fine person. I had an
opportunity to work with her. I wanted to recognize her as a hero. How are you doing
today, Nerissa? I'm doing great. It's nice to talk to you
Ralph. I appreciate you offering to answer the Heroes'
questions. The first one I wanted ask you is what is your definition of heroism?
First of all, it's my pleasure to answer the questions and help out your program in any
way that I can. The question is again what is the definition of heroism? I would say
the ability to follow your gut instincts and listening to what your higher self or your
intuiting is telling you to do, even when you're staring at adversity and it feels like
you're against all odds. But you're still going to do what it is that
you're driven to do. For example, my move from the film industry and editing, I did
some editing on feature films and television there, into the internet took a leap of faith
because, at that time, in the mid 1990's, people were just getting on the internet in
1996. In 1998, when I'm going, "I really want to
make a living off the internet and I want to find a way on how to transition that,"
I'm listening to my inner self because the outer evidence wasn't really supporting me.
That would be an example of heroism. So you believe that heroism is doing the right
thing, even though there's a tremendous amount of resistance from other people and just from
your own fear in your own mind, not to do anything new.
Yes, conquering your own fear in your mind and listening to your inner voice. I would
say that we live in a time of activism right now. I would say that heroism is not forcing
other people to do as you believe, but that you live out your own beliefs in your own
life, follow your own intuition and your own path.
A lot of times that is hard because there is so much resistance. It comes from our family
members and friends. It's important to have a good standard of goodness, ethics, and moral
behavior to guide our lives. What is your perspective on that?
I believe that our families give us a blueprint that we start off with by mere force of distance
to them, being with them twenty-four hours a day, and learning, picking up on the habits
from them. But from there, we can go and develop, if
we are at odds with our family, our own morality and ethics from there. Sometimes, actually
for all of us, it's very hard to do unless you happen to have been brought up in a family
that was helping you and encouraging you to go seek out your own answers.
Even if they were at odds with society or with the family, that as long as you were
looking at the big picture and looking at it from all directions, they would support
you. A lot of families just aren't like that. That's really true. It's hard to overcome
the direction that other people want you to go, especially the moms and dads. They want
to keep you from getting hurt or experiencing failure, or just going through the problems
and difficulties that they experienced. I talked to a lot of the other heroes. They
believe that the more you fail, the greater opportunity is to be successful. What do you
think about that? That's what I understand. You're not going
to be able to succeed if you don't try. Not every attempt that you make is going to be
successful. I don't know what else to say about that. That's just a fact of life.
You may think that you're going to be successful your first time out. I know I sure did. My
first website attempt at doing video, working in PhotoShop, and doing an internet business
[inaudible] store. I really thought it was going to take off
and be this wonderful thing. But it turned out that I didn't have a whole lot of the
marketing skills that I needed at the time. In fact, I had an aversion to marketing, sales,
and business in general. It's kind of ironic that I wanted to do a
business for myself. Yet I didn't have the skills. It took a lot of guts to say, "This
is what I want to do," and go do it. There's definitely a learning process involved.
I thought it was going to do great. I think it could do great. It's a great idea. But
that's not where I want to put my energy anymore. I've learned a lot since then. I actually
learned that wasn't exactly where my passion was.
That's a whole learning process in itself. I thought I was doing something that I wanted
to do, which was do pet portraits and pet videos. As it turned out, I was operating
more from my -- I had lost my cat that I had had for nineteen years and I was really missing
her. I really felt that I wanted people to understand
that a lot of people feel like pets are part of the family. I wanted to help promote that
feeling in the world. I can imagine that. A lot of people consider
heroism people that actually get paid to do heroic things, like policemen, firemen, and
people in the military. They are definitely heroes because they do have to lay down their
lives sometimes in the process of doing their job.
What do you think about the idea of people that are heroes that are just living daily
lives and being of service to others? They don't really get any recognition. What principles
are you willing to sacrifice your life for? Remind me of the second part of that question
in a minute. Definitely, there is a difference between a firefighter and a volunteer firefighter.
I think that the volunteer firefighter doesn't get paid, obviously.
It's a whole different dynamic in your life. They are both risking their lives in serving
their community. For that, they definitely have to be admired. Just like people who sign
up to be in the military who are going to get money to go to college is different than
the activist that was killed over there recently, Marla Ruzicka.
She had gone over there to help the average Iraqi citizen, just to help feed and clothe
them and maintain their lives in the midst of this chaos in war. She wasn't getting paid
for that. They're all heroes. But Marla is not typically someone who'd get press recognition.
There are people that are doing things for the benefit of the greater good of society.
A lot of them are not getting paid for it. It's kind of like traditional woman's work.
A lot of it has traditionally not been valued. I think we, as individuals, have to recognize
that no matter whether you're getting paid or not, as long as you're doing something
that fits your internal desire for making your life satisfying and better, and you're
fitting the greater good, especially when your coming up against a lot of boundaries.
A great example would be a whistleblower-type person who blows a whistle on government corruption
or corporate corruption, when that corruption pertains to helping destroy the lives of a
lot of people. A person like that is going to come up against
a lot of adversity. They're going to personally get libeled and things like that. That takes
a lot of courage. Those type of people are definitely heroes.
There was the football player who left football because he wanted to go fight terrorism. He
thought that Iraq and the war in Iraq was the way to fight terrorism. He lost his life.
That guy is a hero. That guy is someone to be admired. He left
a plush career with lots of pay, lots notoriety, and celebrity status to go fight in a war
that he felt strongly against. He ultimately lost his life for it.
I hope I'm answering that question. That is a good answer to that question. It's
not so much the people with the burst of adrenaline who race into a burning building to save somebody.
Then they live a life of despair or just whatever. Gregory Allen Williams, the black cop on bay
watch, actually saved a man's life during the L.A. riots, even though he was a movie
star and Shakespearian actor, had tons of money, risked his life to save an Asian man
who was being beaten to death in an intersection. He raced out there, and just as the mob was
going to kill him and the Asian guy, a Mexican guy stepped in and took the beating so he
could get him to the neighbors to get that guy to a hospital. They saved that man's life.
That's my true idea of heroism. That's a great example.
You have something to lose and lay down your life for somebody else you don't even know,
I think that's an incredible thing. I think people like that are incredible heroes. But
I also think that moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and just people that sacrifice
their life, sacrifice the things they want to do to help raise their kids.
They're real heroes, too. That's another great example, exactly.
Everybody has highs and lows in their lives. I think you really define the character of
an individual and how they respond when they're at one of the lowest points in their life.
What was the lowest point in your life? How did you change your life back?
The lowest point in my life was probably when I felt like my mother didn't want me and that
my father didn't want me. I came from the divorced family. I didn't really know my dad.
My mother wasn't getting child support. She felt like she had been betrayed by the
courts. She couldn't get child support from my dad. So she said, "Look, it's nothing against
you or anything. But you're thirteen now. It's time for him to take care of you. He
has to live up to some of the responsibility. I just can't do this anymore."
I'm her third child. I definitely understood what she was saying, even at thirteen. It
still hurt, nonetheless. Then, when we go to the father's house, the father's like,
"We really need to get you back to the mom. No, I don't want a single responsibility."
That also felt like rejection. That was probably the lowest point in my life emotionally. I
ended up being back with my mother because I basically turned into a runaway for a little
bit. I ended up back with my mother. My mother took us to counseling. I guess,
probably on the third or fourth counseling session, I finally opened my mouth and started
talking. That was the lowest point in my life. I'm not sure what would've happened if my
mother hadn't agreed to come rescue me or take me back.
How did you pull yourself up by your bootstraps? Were there people that helped you along the
way just to overcome? I know that that's a problem that a lot of young people are going
through now. What was it that gave you the courage to carry on?
This is going to sound a little funny. But I get a lot of my optimism and desires for
goals and stuff from the television. I've always been the kind of person, ever since
I was a little girl, who could sit in one spot and watch television for a long period
of time. I could sit in one spot and have crayons and
a coloring book for hours focusing on one thing, television was very similar. I spent
a lot of time in front of the television. I think from the television, I learned how
life could be different than my family life. There are happy, smiley families who do support
each other. You learn lessons from them. They help you see the lesson in circumstances that
happen to you, help you figure out the best way to react to them, and things like that.
A lot of my optimism for my life, wanting it to be better, financially and emotionally,
came from television. I don't know if it was intuitive, but I certainly held on to the
feeling that my life could be better. So when you saw TV and saw the different programs,
was that where you were able to create a dream or a vision for your life?
I think that when I was watching television and saw the happy families, which was not
what my family was, my family was broken apart. My brother and sister really didn't treat
me like a sibling at that time. They both didn't like me very much.
They felt like I was the youngest, the spoiled child, and the favorite. The truth is we just
had different personalities. We get along well now. Back then, when we were children,
they didn't see things in the best light. I didn't have a big brother and big sister
I could run to and say, "Oh, help me with this problem," or "This bully is picking on
me," or anything like that. I just didn't. I had to look out for myself and the family,
basically. From that, I saw that the television families
could be different. Then, from that, I was able to attract friends in my life who came
from middle-class families where the parents had been married just one time and were still
married, had older brothers and sisters that were nice to them, looked after them, and
helped them. It just happened. You could call it coincidence. You could call
it focusing on what you want, attracting what you want in your life. I attracted, at the
age of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, the best friends that I still have in my life
today. They all came from these families. They weren't
perfect families. But they were kind of what I had envisioned or gotten the idea from television.
I think that that reinforced the whole television concept.
It was like, "Okay, here's an idea from television of how things can be better." Then, "Wow,
look. My friends have this very similar to television kind of lifestyle. It's a real
thing." That also gave me hope and understanding that things could be better because honestly
I was the kind of child who learned from observing my family.
I could see that people would get married very quickly. Divorce would most likely ensue.
They'd probably have a child. They'd just hate each other and it would be horrible for
the child. It was just a lot of chaos, a lot of snappy decisions.
But yet, my friends' families weren't like that. Ideal television families weren't like
that. It sounds like in your life you had a lot
of setbacks, misfortunes, and made a few mistakes along the way. How important is it to be positive
and be an optimist? It's very important. I think I've been an
optimist forever. Of course, there were the dark spots like I mentioned when I felt like
nobody wanted me. I felt like I was worthy, at that time, to be loved.
I felt like I was a good child, a good daughter. But nobody wanted me. It was definitely a
dark spot. I've always had an internal belief that I'm worth it and I'm worth better. I
can achieve as long as I hold onto the dream. I wouldn't say that I was always consciously
thinking that. But it was an internal, something inside me that would obviously guide me through
life because I am way better, financially and emotionally. I'm happier.
I did get to where I wanted to go. Do you think that it takes a lot of courage
to pursue new ideas? I think so. I was very fortunate to have my
family later in high school, and in college, whenever I got back together with my brother
and sister. My mother was always supportive of me.
I could do whatever I want. I'm smart enough and strong enough to do whatever I want. I
always had that verbal support. We lived below poverty level for the whole time I was in
high school. I had to have the school lunch tickets that
the government would pay for my lunches because my mother couldn't afford it, all those types
of things. I was always emotionally encouraged to achieve and go for my dreams, not that
they were providing me with role models. I think that is important for parents to do.
It seals the deal. It's hard to tell children to go for their dreams and you not go for
your dreams. It takes away the argument. But at least I did have that. I did have the verbal
support and encouragement. That adds a lot. It helps you a lot. It's
hard for me to even imagine that someone doesn't even have that at home. I would highly encourage
you to go seek out the friends and the friends' families, mentors at school, the teachers,
other adults in your life, and other relatives. Go migrate towards those people who do give
you the emotional support and the encouragement to go for your dreams, to do what it is that
you want to achieve in your life. That's really good advice. I know a lot of
young people don't do that at this point in time. Having dreams and just seeking after
those dreams and not letting anybody steal your dream is so invaluable.
I know in the process of doing that, I'm sure you have a lot of doubts and fears about nearly
everything. You don't have a good family role model and a good family to come from. How
did you overcome your doubts and fears? One thing that came to mind, I did well in
school grade wise, A's and B's. I was going to go to Texas A&M to be an electrical engineer.
I almost got a full scholarship for that. But I shot myself in the foot by smoking cigarettes
like a chimney before I went into the interview, of course, reeked of smoke.
This did not make a good impression on the board that was reviewing me. I think that
was a blessing in a way because my whole goal at that point was to get a good paying job
and have a life at night and on the weekends. Late in my senior year, I ended up meeting
one of my classmates, or really spending a lot of time with one of my classmates.
He had been working as a DJ at his father's radio station for a while. I just found that
all very fascinating. I really took hold of that concept. I asked him to show me how to
do audition tapes, which he did, gladly. I worked on my audition tapes. I got permission
to come in, hang around, and be like the office intern, which I did. I ended up getting a
job as a DJ. From then on, it was like, "Oh my goodness. I can have a job where I make
money and enjoy what I'm doing." Up until then, it wasn't an option because
I didn't really realize that I could do that. What gave you the willpower to change the
things in your life for the better? Was it just the support from your friends' families?
Or was there any particular element that gave you the courage just to do the things that
you wanted to do and just not give up? It was a lot of verbal support from the family,
like "Way to go, Nerissa. You're the first person to get into college. Good for you.
I tell all my friends about you. I think you're doing great. Keep it up."
I had to work thirty hours a week at a part-time job to afford to go to college and get the
Pell grants and the loans from the government. It was hard work. But I did have the encouragement.
Of course, I chose the right friends. I didn't get in with the bad crowd. I chose people
who supported me and encouraged me to go for what I was wanting to do, which was go to
college. Moving to a large, strange city by myself
with no money, not even sure that I'd be able to afford to go to college because I didn't
know if I was going to get financial aid at the time. If I had people doubting me and
nagging at me saying I couldn't do it all over the place, I don't think I would've made
it as far as I did. It's very important to be surrounded by people
who support you, encourage you, and wish you well.
Do you think it's important to find a good group of role models and also a good peer
group that has or is experiencing the type of lifestyle that you want to experience?
Definitely. It doesn't have to be the same kind of lifestyle. Some person may want to
spend their life doing nonprofit work and living on fifteen thousand dollars a year
because they're living in Africa most of the time. Housing is very affordable there compared
to here. Your peers don't have to want to do what you're
going to want to do. I think, as far as it's very important to get mentors. I didn't even
realize the importance of mentors. I saw how valuable that was in hindsight.
It's very important to go seek out mentors and ask adults for help and guidance. When
you're looking at mentors, you should look towards people who can help you in your chosen
career path that you're looking at, what you want to do in life, even your spiritual path.
That's where the mentors would come in handy. Your friends can have their own path. But
as long as you all support each other on each other's path it's perfect.
It sounds like you have a lot of people that offended, opposed, and upset you. How important
was it for you to forgive those people to be able to just have peace in your life?
I didn't really have a lot of people who opposed me or anything. My family, although they didn't
have financial support for me, I had to go work and start making money as soon as I could
legally do that to pay for my concerts and concert t-shirts, school lunches, and breakfasts.
They gave me a lot of verbal support. I think that means a lot. Anybody who was a real downer
to me, for example, I remember running across people in high school who were interested
in the kind of music that I liked, and the kind of concerts that I liked to go to.
We just happened to be in the same classes, or whatever, French class, or gym class, or
whatever. But if I hung out with them and found that they were really heavy into drugs
or they were dating some guy who was like twenty-eight when they were sixteen, I just
knew that those were negative influences in my life.
I chose not to hang out with them. Certainly, I did not try to belittle those people by
any means. They are just not someone I would voluntarily go hang out with for a weekend
or go do stuff with. Have you experienced service to others as
a source of joy? Definitely. I am working on finding the balance.
It's been hard for me. One of my struggles with marketing and stuff is I just want to
help people. I've always been an employee where I sought out my job.
Once I had my job, it was a definite defined thing. Someone gave me a paycheck for doing
my work. I always did great work. Like, for example, when I was working at the post house
in Houston, the producers would come in. They'd say, "Okay, here's our project. Here's
what we want to achieve. Here's what we're looking at." I would go all out to help them.
I was very successful as an editor, with the producers, because I listened to them.
I didn't override their concerns. I worked with their concerns. That made me very popular
there. Now that I have my own business, I'm in the position of having to ask people to
pay for my services. It's different, like a switch. I'm finding
it's not very easy for me to do that, just because I'm so used to having the paycheck
and being able to produce what they want me to produce. Now, I have to go get that paycheck
from every individual person that I work with. Does that make sense?
Yes. It's different. I'm, right now, in a transition
of -- I'm surrounded by marketers. I have a mastermind marketing group that I belong
to. They are like a support group for business people.
Their experiences in marketing have been very helpful and have guided me a lot. At the same
time, it turns out that a lot of their customers are other marketer people. My customers are
not necessarily other marketing people. I have to discover my own intuition and find
my own path. It's kind of against the grain of what the group is suggesting or providing
answers for. I discovered that the more that I can give, as long as I can give freely to
people, as far as information about video, how they can do video affordably, on their
own home computers, and even free because there's a lot of free software out there.
What is the best way that I can give that information to people? Do I ask them to sign
up for my newsletter, which is free? Then they get that information for free. The way
I'm probably going to go right now is, because I want to give a lot more than asking for
business, put the Google AdSense on my web pages and make money that way, through click-throughs.
I think a lot of my audience is not necessarily the marketing audience. They're not willing
to spend fifty bucks on a product. A lot of them come from the television mentality. They'd
like to have stuff for free. Here I am, learning all this stuff as I go.
What's nice is it fits well with my personality because I would like to be able to just give
and give and give. If I can make money in the affiliate way, which is if I'm talking
about Pinnacle Studio on my website, which is one of my favorite video editing softwares
that you can download for a free trial at PinnacleSystem.com. It will last for thirty
days. It is my favorite software and if I can review
Pinnacle Systems, and I can make movies showing people how to use Pinnacle Systems, then people
say, "Wow! This is really neat." There's a Pinnacle ad on the right hand side
of the page and they go click on that and I make a few cents. I get a lot of people
doing that, sharing knowledge and making some money at the same time. So it looks like at
this point that that is the method I'm going to be set up for.
I was just going to say I feel like I'm going off on a tangent here. But it's something
that for me and self realization and self-betterment to confront my marketing and sales knowledge
and baggage that I got somehow through growing up. I guess I was always told that rich people
were stingy, rich people this and rich people that.
My entire family was all employees. None of them were business owners or employers. So
I have a lot of baggage that I have to work through in order to have my own business.
I was going to say that I love Pinnacle Studios, too. That's the one that I use for videos,
too. I didn't know that. Well, hey, we have something
else in common. We also have a sense of humor in common, too.
How important is it to have a sense of humor, when we're in the face of serious problems,
since everybody has those in their lives? Yeah, I would have to say that I probably
don't have a very good sense of humor in the face of problems that are immediately happening.
I do have that sense of optimism though. I do try to look for the silver lining and focus
on that. I probably don't look at the downside with
a lot of humor, but I definitely admire people who can, because it certainly helps me to
be around them. But I do look for the silver lining when other people are in distress and
going through a hard time. I always share the silver lining that I see in the situation
to them. That's a valuable thing to do. Who where the
heroes in your life? Gosh, heroes in my life? I think Joe Vitale
is an excellent role model and hero to look up to. I've learned so much from him. Of course,
I share my life with him, so I love him dearly. He's an excellent role model and hero.
I typically haven't looked at the people on the news as heroes. The first things that
really come to mind for me, Ralph, when you talk about heroes besides the people that
I know in my own life personally, my mother in some ways is a hero.
I didn't have the best upbringing, but she certainly gave me the verbal support that
I needed to carry my optimism and go for my dreams. So the people outside of the immediate
people that I know would be, gosh, I have a lot of respect for the whistleblower people.
When they break some big news event about how the government lied and covered up a bunch
of wrongdoing, or corporations lied and covered up the wrongdoing. They know they are probably
going to get slandered in the news for it and the government and the corporations are
protecting themselves. I would say that those people are heroes because
what they're doing is for the betterment of everybody. They are bringing to light issues
that we all have to confront and work on in order to have a better society and a better
culture of life, really -- clean air, clean water, all those things, keeping the Constitution
in tact, I mean, just kind of name it. Those really are the first people that come
to mind. I read a lot of political stuff and Sybil Edmunds comes to mind as far as a whistleblower.
I was so awed by her tenacity to be able to continue to speak out.
Well, those are real heroes because it's hard to stand up against that amount of political
power some of those corporations and the government has. They don't want the light of exposure
on the darkness they experience in their pursuit of power or wealth or whatever.
Those people are incredible because when you go up against powers that are that big, a
lot of times those people get crushed in the process of doing so, but they do it with the
attitude they're going to do it because it is the right thing to do. Those are really
the true heroes of today. It may not be self-sacrificing your life but
it certainly is self-sacrificing and ultimately something good will come out of it for the
person. I haven't heard those stories. I've always stood up for what I believe in and
sometimes it didn't happen right away. Sometimes it's like, wow, this is very shocking.
I don't know what to do. I have to spend time thinking what is the path here. Do I ignore
this? Do I act on it? What do I do? But I've always gone with what I've felt is
right. Of course, I haven't had any major catastrophes or events anything like people
in the public eye have gone through. Everybody is in their own little world. You're going
to encounter situations where you are going to have to make a stand.
So you feel that's the way people are real heroes? That every person has the potential
to be a hero if they actually follow through on what they believe is the right thing to
do? Definitely. Have confidence in your beliefs.
Share them with others. I wouldn't recommend trying to force them on others, but certainly
sharing and opening discussion. Even that for some people takes a lot of courage.
There are some people who are discouraged in their homes to talk back. It takes a lot
of courage to even discuss your own personal viewpoints with other people. People who overcome
their own trauma that they've endured in their life.
Whether it's physical violence in their family, a tragic accident that happened kind of left
you emotionally scarred, a car accident or something, those people are heroes, too.
Our society doesn't usually give them that label, but they are. They are people that
I admire and wish well and enjoy being around. People who are able to overcome whatever their
adversity is, I'm just kind of speechless. I'm really glad to be able to have met them,
read about them, known about them, interacted with them.
Do you think it's the average person just like all of us that triumphs over trials and
tribulations and obstacles that are in our eyes, sometimes just incredible?
Exactly. Give yourself as an example. You had this idea for a program and you are bringing
it to fruition. You've had personal obstacles to overcome. You've had obstacles on the program
itself, but you've made so many great strides and gains. You are doing a wonderful thing.
That didn't come from any outside forces saying, "Hey, Ralph, do this." It came from an internal
desire, drive, and intuition and all that stuff. It's been a long road. I mean, we met
for the first time almost a year and a half ago, maybe.
You were working on it then and you'd been working on it for awhile then. That really
takes a commitment to your passion and you are an example of a hero.
Thank you. I've been working on it for twelve years.
Wow! Yeah, give yourself a hand! That's awesome. Sometimes you have to make a decision. What's
more important, money or making a positive difference in the world, especially in the
lives of young people? I know that you are making the world a better place. What are
the things you are actually doing to make the world a better place?
I have this great idea that no one else is doing to help people practice video editing.
That sounds kind of silly to some people, like why should I learn video editing and
stuff? But from how I see it, we all know the visual language on television, but very
few of us know how to speak it or how it gets spoken to us.
What goes on behind the scenes to make that message? So the more people who I can get
interested in video editing or just video in general. I have one book that is 137 Fun,
Funny, Zany & Profitable Things to do With Your Camcorder.
I got that great idea from Joe who bought a camcorder because he was intrigued with
the technology and he didn't know what to do with it. I'm like, "Oh, you're kidding
me." I was absolutely full of ideas. So he's like,
"Well, just put them down in a book. Write a book."
I'm going, "Who would buy it. Everybody knows what to do with a camcorder."And he goes,
"No, they don't." And I hadn't thought of it like that. So getting the ideas out there
in a way that is unique and affordable, after having this pivotal realization about the
Google AdSense and that people can actually make money with that, giving away their stuff
that's really what I'm going to be doing. I've already got one project on the web. You
can watch the video called Video Basics on my website. It is an edited project. Then
you go download the MPEG file of all the unedited clips that I used to edit that project together.
That gives people a tool to practice their video editing on. It's a real life project.
It goes from long shots to medium shots to close-ups to cutaways to still shots. It kind
of incorporates all the things that people would use in video editing.
Not everybody is going to be enthralled to do video editing when all they're shooting
is video of their dog or their cat. So this gives them something that they can work on.
As their working on video editing, they're learning the language.
They'll go, "Oh, okay, this is how you achieve that effect." It's kind of hard to explain
it, but the visual language off of the television, we all know it. There is a definite way to
make it. The more people who start to make it without knowing anything, the better off
they'll be in identifying that language and how it got to be on the screen as they see
it. Is that on your site TheVideoQueen.com?
That downloadable clip and the movie are one my site. It's under the button called EditWOW
because I intend to make that a totally separate site for unedited projects and scenes that
people can go download and use in their video editing software.
That is really great. I really appreciate your time and just how much you shared with
us today. I'm looking at you being a wonderful resource for the young people that are going
to be doing the video interviews in their communities of the people they consider heroes.
Just curious whether you had any final comment? I guess the main thing is that I would encourage
you to do at least two video projects and a couple of audio projects so that you have
an understanding of how the media works. Then for those of you who are more interested in
video and audio as a possible career or you are just wanting to get into it more, there's
a great new thing happening on the web called video blogging.
I'll go ahead and plug someone else's site if that's okay with you. There's a free resource
out there right now that's FreeVlog.BlogSpot.com. That site shows you step by step how to get
a free blog, which is kind of like a website, how to put images on it, how to put video
on it. That is through a free image hosting service, free video hosting service.
In essence, you can be a part of the growing internet media community. You can have your
own interviews with people in your neighborhood, interviews with people at your school, your
own little documentaries, interview your friends and what their favorite hobbies are.
There are a wide variety of video and audio projects that one can do. But that website,
FreeVlog.BlogSpot.com will show you how you can, with no money, have your own video and
audio website. I think it is a great place for people to start when they are starting
to learn media. So that would be www.FreeVlog.BlogSpot.com
It's www.FreeVlog.BlogSpot.com. That's kind of a long one, but every time that you have
a blogger site, whatever the name of your blog is, it's the name of your blog plus BlogSpot.com.
Okay, so here it is. www.FreeVlog.BlogSpot.com. That's exactly right.
Well, Nerissa, it was a pleasure talking with you. Again I just thank you so much for sharing
your life with us because it has to be an inspiration for the young people that are
going through similar experiences that you've gone through, to know that they can be as
successful as they choose to be. And never give up.
Well, thank you for asking me to do this. I really enjoyed it and hopefully, even if
one person out there is inspired or gets some new information, I'm just tickled to death.
Thank you. Thank you and I want you to have a good day.
Okay. You, too. Bye-bye.