My daughter is a filmmaker. She is off to college in the fall to pursue this fine art. This week at school, they had a heated Battle of the Videos where the kids of Advanced Film Production, squared off. They had to make a music video to Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". My girl and her partner Miranda toiled tirelessly to create this. For those of you, like me, who enjoy a film just for the film and don't notice all the special techniques, editing, and camera shots that make a film brilliant, this one is filled with a lot of special razzmatazz. It made editing that much more cumbersome. If they weren't at school, they were upstairs on the computer for hours at a time. The final night of production, they didn't sleep, not a wink. The two of them working through the night while the rest of the house slept.

And in the end, they won.

The videos were judged by a panel of teachers and then, the winner, was shown to the whole school. My child who has decided she likes the name, O-Dawgg (Dear Lord, how I hope that moniker doesn't stick), said the whole school was abuzz. O-Dawgg's film teacher of 4 years, a Tim Gunn lookalike who has helped mold this passion of hers, said he took the video home to show his wife. She, I'm sure having been shown many, many student projects over the years, told him she really didn't want to watch another kid's video. He insisted. He said she was blown away.

As you will be, as we all are.

O-Dawgg's films can be viewed at Mirlivia Productions on Youtube.

Today's Download: Of course, Kanye West's "Love Lockdown". Great song, even though I want to give it a rest for awhile. It's been reverberating in my head all week. The chords floated down from the upstairs workspace as they edited and reedited. O-Dawgg says she never wants to hear it again. Congratulations, Olivia and Miranda. We are proud.