40-Pages in 39-Hours

Some time around 2:30 Monday morning, for all of my prior bitching about the burden of putting together my school’s yearbook, I realized that i really loved the challenge of trying to tell a visual story with the pictures, graphics and text that my staff and I had gathered. Oh, if I haven’t returned an email or phone call, this is what I’ve been doing in all my waking hours since returning from MacWorld.

In a last minute surge to get pictures taken of all the groups that been missed, my photographers and I shot 872 pictures from that Monday to Friday afternoon, bringing the number of pictures in our catalog to 7,798. Even in the mad rush of the last few days the process was the same: as soon as the photographers came in, I’d drop the pictures into iPhoto, if it was a group shot needing names, I’d quickly pick out and print out an 8×10 copy and give it to a student to match faces with names. If it was a series of action shots, like the 457 pictures I took of the girls soccer team in the last two days, I’d print out a catalog with 12 pictures per sheet and have a student pick out eight of the best and write in captions. All of the pictures had numbers assigned to them by the cameras, so when they turned in their work, the students typed the numbers and captions using our digication website. I then copied and pasted the information into program called Notebook (by Circus Ponies) and made virtual albums of the selected photos in iPhoto. With all of this data gathered I was able to sit down on Sunday morning with Adobe’s InDesign and produce 40 pages over the course of the 39-hours that followed (with a couple hours spent sleeping and teaching). By the time I wrote and edited the dedication page Monday night I was almost sorry that the process was over…. almost. Best part is that when the vendor delivers our yearbook in early June I will have a book to share with other of what my staff and I did (over the course of several hectic weeks and weekends). JBB

Please check out my Twitter play-by-play account of the last week in the “more” link below….

Music: Sometimes from the album “Lost In Translation – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” by My Bloody Valentine

Technorati Tags: kids, media, twitter, work, yearbook

My Twitter version of the last week of getting the yearbook prepped:

pretty good day w/ the kiddos, really pushed the yearbook-lings & they did great. now I need push this stuff into pages, 40 pages 2 be exact# 2008-03-12
I would really like to start layout work but kids r 2 antsy, need 2 do continuous rounds around the room. ack# 2008-03-13
3 last photo sessions left: girls soccer, librarian & cheerleaders. Reports that cheerleaders didn’t bring uniforms = no yearbkphotos 4 them# 2008-03-14
I seem 2 remember when I could work @ my desk during the 1st half of the day & only do rounds periods 7 & 8, now I’m down 2 only p1 deskwork# 2008-03-14
A Couple students got on my computer and tried to hijack my twitter feed ===> hello! this is ….. # 2008-03-14
Students thinking that twitter is chat, too funny===> i said hello! “) # 2008-03-14
Friday evening, 1st stop PCClub 4 a HDD enclosure, 2nd stop In-n-Out, duh, major yearbk pages due this weekend. Looking 4ward 2 beer on 3/17# 2008-03-15
looking 4 pix 4 6th-grade section, hating that 8th grade phototags don’t photograph 6th graders, or do boring 6th grade pix: kids at desks. ack# 2008-03-16
yearbook update: just finished page 51, staring down the next 19# 2008-03-16
Just got 2 work, 31 yearbook pages done @ 4:30, 9 to go; should’ve stayed home# 2008-03-17
Funny how hard it is to concentrate when 26 7th & 8th graders are high on green goodies; 9 more pages to finish…. tick, tick, tick# 2008-03-17
Just got home, actually finished 4 yearbook pages at work. 5 more 2 go. Uploaded completed 31 pages while @ work. Almost there. 😉 # 2008-03-18
didn’t finish the yearbook job in time to join the st. patty’s day revellers. damn. # 2008-03-18
three more pages to go, the dedication & scrapbook pages. Lots of photos to cram into limited space. Almost done… # 2008-03-18
Just finished the 80th page of DeMille’s 2008 yearbook, now to upload the beast 2 the vendor. fingers-crossed… # 2008-03-18
perfect. I put 2gether 40-pages in 39-hours & then the upload hangs up at 125KB (mysterious proxy error), will finish upload @ school l8r # 2008-03-18
@akamrt wish i could’a been there, yearbook upload failed…. so, i’m not exactly done yet # 2008-03-18
38% uploaded… # 2008-03-18
yea! Success, Demille 2008 Yearbook successfully uploaded. Now I can do all the 3,000 other things I need 2 do, like planning the FL move # 2008-03-18
@girlgeek77 now I can plan “the big move” 😉 # 2008-03-18