I'm stuck in my English class, send help

English professors like to try to spruce up their classes with junk like video projects. I don't know why, English is a cool enough thing in and of itself. In fact, if I were a college professor, I think I'd like to be an English professor. Heck, I already have all sorts of wack pet theories about how the English language accumulates the wisdom of its users and that this trove of knowledge can be accessed by interpreting the origin and use of words; that's a thesis paper topic right there. That's the sort of stuff I'd like to be discussing in English class (though maybe that stuff would be in a linguistics class, if that's a thing). What I don't want to be learning in English class is how to make a video presentation in iMovie, for the fourth time.

Pictured: Me, in a metaphorical sense, learning the basics of iMovie for the fourth time in an English class

You might know that I have a YouTube channel. It's nothing too special, but I'm at least proud of a handful of the videos I've put there. How do I have a YouTube channel? Well, they're free. But, how can I make the videos that I put there? Well, I'm pretty damn good at making videos and editing them up in Adobe Premiere. I've been doing that for like 10 years at this point. Obviously, I'm no pro, but I'm definitely not so much of a newbie that an introductory 2 hour class on iMovie will teach me anything I don't already know!!

I'm probably beating around the bush too much; let me tell you what the situation is literally right now as I type this blog post in class. For the past two class periods in this English class, a man from the library has given us a tutorial on how to put together a baby's first video sort of project in iMovie. This would be no big deal if you're the average student who has probably only ever mooched off of a friend like me to edit their Spanish video project (what's up with language classes and video projects?). But for me, the friend who DOES know how to edit video, these kinds of class periods are torture.

When I tell people this, I usually get the same response: "Eric, you're great at making movies, that class sounds like fun!" Oh yeah, Mom, well how fun would it be for Michelangelo to be subjected to a beginners sculpture tutorial? How fun would it be for Elon Musk to have to sit through a 4 hour presentation on the basics of rocketry? It sounds like NOT fun. I'm neither Elon Musk nor Michelangelo when it comes to editing video content, but I'll tell you what, I'm getting about the same value out of theses iMovie classes as those guys would get out of those other beginner classes, which is to say NO VALUE.

I've taken an actual cinematography class. I've taken a video art class. I've taken an animation class. I made video projects for English, Spanish, and science classes before college. I've got this damn YouTube channel that I've been running for two years with like 150 videos on it. I've taught myself Premiere, had now literally FOUR classes teach me how to make junk in iMovie, and I even had to learn Avid and After Affects at one point. I've got a lot of experience with this video editing stuff man, I don't need this fourth walkthrough on how to import media to iMovie.

Luckily, it's now 4:51, this class ends in only like 30 minutes, and I can probably even reasonably leave a few minutes before that. My torture will end soon enough. I guess I still haven't really answered why I wouldn't just get started on the video now. It may be torture to sit through the tutorial, but this lab time to work on the actual video should at least be productive, right? Well... the professor has—for some unknown reason—scheduled this iMovie tutorial and lab time two weeks before the paper we're actually making a presentation for is even due. I don't think anyone in the class, certainly not me, has even started on the thing, so how are we supposed to make a video presenting it now? It's madness!

UPDATE: Between the last paragraph and this one I've wasted 20 minutes, it's now 5:11 and just about time to go home! Woohoo!

Well anyways, here's a video I made a couple months ago about God Hand, which is a great game made by Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) and the now defunct Clover Studio (Viewtiful Joe, Okami, they basically were reborn as PlatinumGames):