4. Graduated from Ball State University. It was an amazing four years of adventure. I got to make films and friends and I learned so much about myself and the world. I spent a semester studying abroad in the United Kingdom and another semester creating an award-winning documentary with a fantastic group of students. I'm so glad I chose BSU. 

5. Accepted a full-time position with The Honeywell Foundation. I've been at my job for seven months and I love it! I get to work in the programming department for a non-profit organization, and I have amazing co-workers. I have grown so much in the past seven months, and it is very rewarding to put what I learned at BSU to good use. 

9. Went to Hawaii.  One of my dreams came true when Jessica and I flew to Hawaii for the concert to end all concerts. We got to see our favorite band, a Japanese idol group called Arashi (their name means "Storm"), perform in their first American concert for their 15th anniversary! It was the biggest production ever staged in Hawaii - pretty much a massive party of 15,000 people on the beach at sunset, with fireworks. Absolutely gorgeous and so much fun! We also visited Pearl Harbor, botanical gardens, and spent a whole day on the beach (and got the sunburns to prove it). The whole trip still feels like a dream.

The above videos are my first two projects of the semester for my TCOM 487 class.  Our professor encourages us to be creative and think outside the box. I've been experimenting with lighting and camera angles and editing styles and I've learned quite a a bit from directing and editing these projects. They aren't perfect - there are some issues with lighting and focus, for example, but I was working by myself with a small amount of time, so I'm still quite happy with how they turned out!

For the montage I used an EX3 and a pocket dolly, and then I filmed the PSA  with a Canon 5D Mark III. I was really excited to use the 5D again, because I loved using it last year on our Auburn documentary. I was actually only supposed to have access to a 7D, but the equipment checkout office accidentally overbooked the 7D , so I got to use BSU's  brand new 5D! I love that camera. It was fun to experiment with the lenses, depth of field, and editing styles.  Hopefully I'll own my own 5D one day.

My 17-year old brother, Wes, stars in the  Montage project. He was such a good sport, staying up until 4 am to be in my video. He is an amazing person and an incredibly talented self-taught pianist of three years. I highly recommend checking out his piano performances on his Youtube channel!

My friends Tara and Julia starred in the PSA project. We shot it on Sunday, and it was so much fun. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard during filming and editing a project in my life. My professor wanted us to do a ridiculous PSA, so this was my go at it. Tara, who is my best friend and roommate, did such a great job of getting into character. I partly made this to commemorate our descent into Arashi madness this semester. Tara introduced me to their music, etc and I will never forgive her for that because it has begun to take over all my free time. Arashi is a Japanese boy band that has been together for 14 years. I guess you could sort of say that they are the Japanese version of One Direction, except that they can dance really well.  They are ridiculously popular in Japan. All the band members are also really talented actors, so I've started watching some of their movies and dramas recently. They also do lots of crazy hilarious game shows and even news anchoring in Japan. Its like an entirely new culture of music, film, and television has opened up for me. Suddenly I'm obsessed with everything Japanese, and I've even started picking up some Japanese vocabulary, so this is actually very educational for me! I would also like to note that this video is in no way autobiographical - it does not represent how we behave in real life. Not at all...

I was pleased with my class's reaction to watching the PSA today. They all laughed really hard, and I love making people laugh. My professor nearly fell out of his seat he was laughing so hard, and when it was over he rewound it to the part with all the screaming. I've gotten lots of nice comments on it from people on the internet, and it got about 150 views on Youtube in the first day, so I'm pretty happy with it!

Production Assistant at WIPB
This semester I also started work as a Production Assistant at the Teleplex/WIPB station here on campus. My bosses and co-workers are amazing, and I am learning so much about production. So far I've recorded audio/video for several lectures and classes, as well as run camera for some green screen studio productions, including a press conference given by BSU's president and a senator. I ran cable for two football games, and I ran camera for a volleyball game as well. It is really great experience, and I am grateful to be working there.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project
This semester I am a part of an Immersive Learning Project with the Building Better Communities Organization here on campus. There are twenty students on my team, and we are working to produce film and other elements for an app related to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We will be heading to Washington, D.C. to film on the National Mall in a few weeks! (as long as its open by then...) Its a great project and I'm happy to a part of it. I was awarded the BBC Fellows Leadership Award Scholarship for this project, which was very exciting!  So far I have taken on a bit of a Producer role, and have been involved with the history research team as well. I was able to interview a Vietnam Veteran recently, which was an amazing experience.

Classes
Besides the VVM project and my TCOM 487 class, I am also taking a Media Law class, a Health class, and my final Spanish class for my Spanish minor. I am enjoying all my classes and learning a lot. This is also my third year as a Peer Mentor for the Honors College. I get to teach a class of 8 freshmen about life here at Ball State for the first nine weeks of the semester. It is always a rewarding experience.

100 Acres
I'll end this post with my photos from a weekend with two of my favorite girls, Lauren and Tara. We went to the 100 Acres park in Indianapolis a few weeks ago, and had a lot of fun with our photo shoot.  My favorite thing at the park was being able to play on Funky Bones, a large sculpture featured in my favorite novel, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

The past two summers I've had the joy of working at Quaker Haven Camp as the videographer. Children from elementary through high school come to the camp each summer to experience a time of amazing spiritual and emotional growth, crazy games, and building friendships. It's my job to document their experiences by running around campus filming many of their activities, and then editing the footage into an exciting 20 minute video. I show the campers the video on the last day of camp, and then send home a DVD with everyone. For each week of camp, I get about 4.5 days to film and edit the video.

This is my highlight video of some of my favorite footage for the summer of 2013. Enjoy!

This is the first time my work will be aired on television, and I am very excited! The documentary will also be sold on DVD during the 55th annual Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg Festival at the ACD Museum in Auburn, IN. I was the Post-Production Supervisor on this project, and also worked as a Primary Videographer, Screenwriter,  Colorist, and Editor.

Creating this documentary was the most intense and valuable learning experience of my life.  I spent four months working with twelve amazing Ball State University students to create this documentary through an Immersive Learning Program at the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry. There were many different academic majors among the thirteen of us - Video Production majors (like me), Writing majors, History majors, Graphic Design majors, Public Relations majors, and several others. We created this film just like we would in a "real-world" project. Instead of taking classes, we got all of our credits for the semester through creating this film. This meant that we spent all of our time on the project instead of in classes. We spent a good 60 hours+ per week on the project for most of the semester, and took several week-long trips to places like Auburn, IN and Missouri to film interviews and other footage.  We were able to create this project from pre-production through to the premiere screenings just as a professional film crew would. 

I poured my heart and soul into this documentary. During the last few weeks I was working nearly 24/7 in the Editing Suite with the other editors. I am incredibly proud of my team, and incredibly proud of how the film turned out. I made life-long friends and learned what it meant to be on a real film crew. 

I've always loved watching the Behind-the-Scenes features on every film and television show I can get my hands on, and the number one thing I hear from filmmakers and actors is how much they love their co-workers, and how they become like a family during production. I was finally able to understand how that felt through this experience. This documentary confirmed for me once again that I am meant to be a filmmaker. For me, there is no greater feeling than sitting at the premiere with your beloved film crew and watching several hundred people react to the film you've slaved over for months. I cannot wait to experience that again with future projects.

If you would like to find out more about this project you can visit our Official Website, Youtube Channel, Facebook Page, and Twitter!

I hope you have a chance to watch it soon! Let me know what you think!

Here it is!  A project that has been nearly a year in the making is finally available online! We've already had over 12,000 views on Youtube in just the few days since release! The film has had charity screenings in five cities including Indianapolis and Dublin, and has yet to screen in five more cities including New York and Pittsburgh.

"A Film to Decrease Worldsuck is a documentary in which self-proclaimed "Nerdfighters" explore what and who a Nerdfighter is, where Nerdfighters came from, and what they do. Produced, directed, and edited by Hannah Lindgren as her senior honors thesis, this film, eleven months in the making, is comprised of convention footage gathered by two primary videographers as well as crowd-sourced interviews and video from dozens of Nerdfighters. A play on the Nerdfighters' charity fund, The Fund to Decrease Worldsuck, A Film to Decrease Worldsuck aims to shed light on what this amazing group of young people is doing to help the world. It will screen in ten cities around the world from March to August 2013."  - Hannah Lindgren, http://nerdfightersdocumentary.tumblr.com/

The story of my involvement in this project began about three years ago, when my best friend Tara (who appears in the film) introduced me to Hank and John Green's amazing Vlogbrothers channel on Youtube. I became a big fan of their work, especially  John's bestselling novels such as The Fault in Our Stars  (JUST READ IT.), and Looking for Alaska. You can hear more about my journey to becoming a Nerdfighter in this short vlog I made in the early stages of pre-production on the documentary.

Hannah Lindgren, a fellow Ball State student and friend, knew I was a Nerdfighter, and asked me to be a cinematographer on this film for her Senior Thesis. I was incredibly excited to be involved. As we began pre-production, I filmed this interview/vlog of Hannah talking about our hopes and plans for the project. Then we set about on several social media campaigns aimed at getting Hank and John's attention/permission for the film, and also to raise money through a Kickstarter for the trip to California. Nerdfighters are an incredibly supportive and active community, and within 24 hours of our campaign start, we had received a tweet from John Green giving us permission to go ahead with the project. I helped Hannah with starting and running our Tumblr blog, and did a lot of work on the social media campaigns. It was the kind of thing I love to do, and all of the hard work paid off when we ended up raising over $1500 to travel to Vidcon!

That trip was one of the best experiences of my life. I am very independent and I love to go to new places, so I was excited to get the chance to fly for the first time. On top of that, I was flying across the country, with several thousand dollars worth of camera equipment, all by myself! California was gorgeous, of course, and though we only got to spend three days there, it was a blast. We spent most of our time filming at Vidcon. I got to see, meet, film, and/or interview lots of amazing Nerdfighters and Youtubers, including Charlie McDonnell, Felicia Day, Toby Turner, and of course, Hank and John Green. I could go on and on about all the crazy stuff that happened, from me finding $100 on the ground to all the great footage we captured, but I'll just say that if you want to know more about Vidcon, you can view our very entertaining Vidcon highlight video (wherein I interview Hannah), here. 

After Vidcon, Hannah got to work editing, and we continued to spread awareness of the film through social media. We asked Nerdfighters to submit vlogs to us, and we ended up getting submissions from people all over the world. We  also had Nerdfighters submit music for the film, and recently released the film's soundtrack, in response to popular demand. I got to see a few early drafts of the film, which really encouraged me about the end product.

Then I left America for three months to study abroad in London! Little did I know I would get the chance to see the Green brothers while there. They happened to be on tour for John's book, and one day while walking through Leicester Square in the middle of London, I looked up and saw Hank Green standing across the street from me. It was the most surreal moment of my life. I had met him briefly the summer before in California while filming the Nerdfighters documentary, and now here he was in one of the biggest cities in the world, and I randomly run into him! I am such a big fan of his; if you've ever run into (or imagined running into) one of your heroes on the street, you'll probably know how I felt. If you want more details on how much I freaked out (and likely freaked Hank out) during this encounter, you can read them in this post on my study abroad blog.

Of course, seeing Hank on the street filled me with an all-consuming need to find a way into Hank and John's sold out show two days later. I considered something along the lines of breaking-and-entering or bribery, but decided to go with turning up at the venue the day of and hoping for a returned ticket I could purchase at the last minute. Surprisingly, that's exactly what happened! I traveled an hour across London by myself to a part of town I didn't know, and then bought my way into the event like an actual law-abiding citizen. The show was amazing, and afterwards at the signing I worked up the courage talk to Hank and John about the documentary. If you'd like to read more about how this was one of the best days of my life, here is another post from my study abroad blog!  

And while I was abroad, Hannah was invited to John Green's office to speak with him about the film! When they met, she gave him a poster and DVD, and got her picture taken with him! I was so proud of her and happy for her!

The film was published on Youtube on July 6, 2013. We had over 10,000 views in a week, plus hundreds of wonderful comments by viewers saying how great the film was. Comments such as these made Hannah and I very happy:

• "This makes me feel awe-inspired and tremendously proud for finding this community and being a part of it. Just what I needed today! I'll definitely recommend it to friends that I talk to who want to learn more about how to be a part of Nerdfighteria. Thank you! DFTBA, everyone! "
• "That was so much fun to watch! Good job!"
• "I loved this! Really good job"
• "I didn't really get the whole [Nerdfighter] thing before, but now I do. No surprise it made me cry. All a mom can want for a child is for them to have a passion, a community to share it with and a place to feel that they belong. DFTBA"

but the comment that made me the happiest was,

• "!!! What a great film." because it was John Green who said it on his blog. 

And when your favorite novelist/Youtuber/blogger/historian/person reblogs and comments positively on a film you were involved in creating, it tends to make you do stuff like this:

I filmed this back in October for Ball State University's Indiana Outdoors show. As the producer for this documentary, I oversaw a team of five students; this involved tasks such as organizing the day's shoot, conducting the interviews, keeping track of equipment, teaching the new film students how to use equipment, approving the videography, and procuring permission forms from dozens of participants.

I love being a producer. I am very organized and energetic. I work well under the pressure of an on-location film shoot. I love finding solutions to problems; when a team member has a question and I can help them learn something - its the best feeling in the world. I am definitely a "people person;" I know how to communicate with my team members, and I find collaboration very fulfilling. I got such an adrenaline rush from this shoot, as I always do when filming. We spent most of the day getting B-roll and interviews. Luckily it was nice weather, though the light was constantly changing because of the clouds moving in front of the sun, and every few minutes we had to adjust the camera settings to compensate.

Our organization wanted us to have permission forms for all the children there, which was probably our biggest challenge. The Haunted Forest was very busy for Children's Day, so we were constantly asking parents to sign permission forms for their children to be on camera. Then we took photos of the children we had permission forms for, that way we could match up the pictures to the footage when editing to be sure we didn't show the faces of any kids without permission forms. It was extremely hectic, and for one of my team members, a freshman, this was her first shoot. She was very nervous about approaching people and asking for signatures. I walked her through it a couple times, had her come with me as I talked with parents, then set her loose to get more signatures by herself. It was so rewarding to watch her shyness turn into proud confidence as she successfully interacted with the participants. By the end of the shoot, she was so excited about filmmaking, and convinced that making documentaries was her dream job.

Indiana Outdoors recently finished this final edit and uploaded it to their youtube channel. I am happy to finally be able to share it on my blog. For more on Indiana Outdoors, you can visit our website, indianaoutdoorsbsu.weebly.com/

I hope that this video will air on PBS sometime during the next school year - keep your fingers crossed!

This documentary is 3 months of study abroad condensed into 9 minutes. I collected footage while in England, which was fun, but turned out to be a lot tougher than I'd anticipated for several reasons. I only had my little Nikon Coolpix L120 (basically a higher end point-and-shoot camera) with me. The resulting footage isn't exactly HD quality, and its very difficult to get it to focus correctly while recording. I had limited access to a nice Canon DSLR through the college I attended in London, but I'm happy with the shots I got with that camera. Unfortunately I only ended up being able to use the Canon a couple times - when I visited Rochester Castle for example.

I also didn't have a tripod or mic, and was usually rushed during filming. Not all the students liked being on camera, so I struggled to get footage of everyone looking like they were happy and enjoying themselves. But even with all of that, I still managed to edit together something that I'm quite proud of. At the very least, it allows me  and my fellow students and professors  a great way to look back on this past semester. Not only can I use this to share what I did with my friends and family, I am also getting credit for it in a class. 

I also overestimated the amount of free time I would have to edit the footage while in London. Originally, I'd plan to do a series of video blogs - releasing one every few weeks while I was over there. But with the workload from my classes I ended up editing only one other vlog while abroad. I asked professors for an extension over the summer to finish the editing, so that I didn't have to spend all my time editing while in London. This allowed me to do fun things like my homework and sleeping instead.

It took me about a week to edit this together. The music is all from Nerdfighter artists, used with permission by DFTBA.com. Enjoy!

I’ve been home from my semester in London for nearly a month now. Its been quite the upheaval. A few days after I returned to the States, my family and I packed up and moved to a new house about 10 minutes from the one we’ve lived in for three years. We moved because my dad just started a new job, one that allows him to have all his weekends and evenings free to spend with his family - something we haven’t had for years!

Moving is nothing new to me of course; I’ve lived in 5 states and moved about 14 times that I can remember, but for some reason this move was more difficult than the rest. Maybe its just because we’ve accumulated so much over the years, but it seemed to take forever to get everything transferred to our new place. I really like our new house, but its been pretty difficult to find room for everything in a smaller space, and we put quite a bit in storage. We’re still unpacking, but this house is starting to feel like a home.

We live on the edge of a tiny town with a population of 860. There’s a forest in front of the house, and a beautiful field stretching into the distance at the side of the house.We’ve planted some flowers and a small herb garden with chives, basil, rosemary, oregano, thyme, and cilantro that we’ve been using nearly every day. On Saturday I helped my dad plant a box garden that will hopefully produce tomatoes, butternut squash, onions, radishes, and garlic. 

Last summer I went to Vidcon in California to be a cinematographer on my friend Hannah’s senior thesis project, A Film to Decrease Worldsuck: The Nerdfighters Documentary. It’s a film that’s close to my heart, since I’m a Nerdfighter myself! Nerdfighters began as fans of The Vlogbrothers – two brothers, Hank and John Green, who have grown to be internet sensations through their Youtube channel. Hank is a musician and John is an author (The Fault in Stars is his most recent work – I highly recommend it!) I’ve been working with Hannah on the social media promotion for a year, and last week I finally got to see the finished product at a screening which I emceed with my best friend and fellow Nerdfighter Tara in Indianapolis. We had about 65 people attend, and each person brought books to donate to the Indy Reads Adult Literacy Charity. It was so amazing to see all our hard work pay off. People loved the film, and there are still charity screenings taking place all over the country and in Ireland this summer.

Since I got home from London, I’ve spent most of my time dealing with the move, but I’ve also been babysitting some adorable babies, as well as working on video editing and updating my website and resume.  I leave for my summer job as the videographer at a summer camp in two weeks, and I have to finish editing my London vlogs before then. 

On Sunday our pastor’s wife asked me to share my about my semester abroad with her Sunday School class in a few weeks; she says that they are a group of old ladies who like to hear about what the youngsters are doing with their lives, so it should be really nice to share that with them. I had a lot of support from my church family while abroad, and its great to be back with them again.

Sunday afternoon we went to see Iron Man 3 at the historic one-screen movie theatre in our hometown. It was my second time seeing it (the first was at the BFI IMAX in London alksdjf;ladjs) and I loved being able to see it with my family. I also got to go to the premiere in London and catch glimpses of Robert and some of the other cast members on the red carpet! In my opinion it’s the best out of the Iron Man movies – the first two were pretty good, but this one just blew it out of the water. 

IM3 was hilarious and the action sequences were so inventive and exciting – even my mom liked them! Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant of course, and after this film he has moved high up on my extensive list of favorite actors. I loved the character development in this film. The writers gave the side characters – Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey, for example – some amazing scenes that actually made me care about them. Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley were absolutely fantastic as well. There were some plot holes and a couple small things that stretched the believability, but overall it is a fun, escapist film that I will watch again and again.

I’ll be spending Memorial Day weekend at my best friend’s lakehouse. We haven’t seen each other all semester, so I’m really looking forward to it! The past few weeks have been really stressful because of the move, but also really good because I'm with my family. Its hard to adjust to my life here again after spending 3 months in London; I still feel a bit lost and overwhelmed. I’ve seen and experienced so much in another country, and suddenly I’m thrust back into my old life, but in a new house and town! And I have such a short time left here before I’m back working at camp. After that its my senior year of college. I have many dreams for the future after I graduate, a future that feels simultaneously far away and terrifyingly close. I suppose I just need to take it one day at a time and keep working towards my goals, like I always have. 

And I need to go see Star Trek Into Darkness…