Henderson enjoyed a personal meet-and-greet with Ann Lewnes, Adobe Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
Former Dragon Adam Henderson has some seriousbrediting chops. The 2004 Carroll grad won Adobe's “Make the Cut” music-video editing contest and landed a cool $25,000 as the grand prize.
Adobe and Imagine Dragons teamed up for thebrcompetition in which contestants received outtakes and footage from the band'sbr“Believer” music video. The challenge? To create a completely unique versionbrusing Adobe software.
The competition drew thousands of videos frombrcontestants around the world. Henderson, who graduated from the University ofbrNorth Texas in 2008 with a degree in radio, television and film, defeated thembrall. Southlake Style caught up withbrHenderson to hear about the experience and how he plans to spend his winnings.
Southlake Style: You were a member ofbrCarroll ISD's TV Journalism program, KDGN. How did this program prepare you forbrsuccess?
Adam Henderson: What initially drew me tobrKDGN was that it was a class Carroll offered that was solely centered onbrcreativity and collaboration. There wasn’t any studying or tests or popbrquizzes. It was a project-based class where you had to creatively work withbryour classmates every day, coming up with videos and stories in a journalisticbrfashion. It offered a way to escape from the stress of making good grades in abrcompetitive school [district] like Southlake Carroll. I learned more aboutbrmyself in two years of KDGN than I did in all four years of high school.
Finding out that I made it into KDGN my juniorbrwas amazing, but what I wasn't prepared for was how quickly it would change mybrlife. One of my first assignments was to film the first football game of thebrseason (15 years ago this month!), and edit a short video with the players,brcheerleaders and fans to music. After filming the game, I went back to school,bropened Adobe Premiere, got a quick tutorial from one of my classmates, andbrstarted editing.
After that, I became obsessed. I couldn't stopbrthinking about editing. I wanted to be cutting every hour of every day. Whetherbrit was projects in KDGN, short films with friends, or even home movies, itbrconsumed my life. From then on, I knew this was something I wanted to make a careerbrout of, and am fortunate enough to meet amazing creative people over the yearsbrand had incredible opportunities. I'm now living in that fantasy.
SS: How did you hear aboutbrAdobe's “Make the Cut” competition?
Henderson: My coworker told me aboutbrthe Imagine Dragons contest. I was hesitant at first, knowing this would takebrup all of my free time as I only had three weeks to complete an edit. After abrfew days, I decided to give it a try, knowing that in the end, I would have abrpiece I would be proud of and would have learned a lot and become a betterbreditor in the process. It was a win-win scenario.
SS: How many hours did youbrinvest in the project?
Henderson: I spent about 40-plus hoursbrediting. This included editing into the early hours of the night, on a plane onbrmy way to vacation, on vacation while my wife slept, and even during my lunchbrbreaks at work.
When you're are able to jump over that initialbrhurdle in any project—where you don't know what the heck you're doing, youbrthink the edit might be bad, or just generally unsure whether your ideas willbrtranslate well or not, it becomes an obsession. I woke up in the middle of thebrnight several times as an idea had popped in my head, and I had to open thebrproject and keep working. This happened over and over until I submitted thebrvideo, four hours before it was due.
SS: Walk us through yourbrediting process—what was your approach?
Henderson: The first thing I did wasbrwatch all of the footage. Every second of it. I would occasionally make selectsbrif something stood out that I didn’t want to forget about, but at first, Ibrwanted to see everything and write down some ideas. I then came up with a five-actbrstructure and wrote them on paper. How was I going to edit it? I had no idea. Ibrjust knew that certain beats had to happen at certain times, and I organizedbrthe footage around that. From there, I just slowly started cutting footagebrtogether that I thought could work, tried my best to make certain point hitbrwith the music, and just whittled it down from there. It took me just as longbrto make my initial rough cut (about 20 hours), as it did to shape it frombrthere. Getting that initial rough cut out is the hardest part about anybrproject, but once you get it there, it consumes you.
SS: Describe your emotions whenbryou found out you won.
Henderson: I was completelybroverwhelmed when I found out I won the grand prize. I was somewhere in betweenbra state of shock and utter happiness. Adobe told me they were flying me out tobrtheir headquarters to meet four of the other finalists, as I was in the topbrfive. So I was expecting to hang out with them all day, have lunch with thebrCMO, discuss our edits, and then move on with our lives. What I wasn’tbrexpecting to find out all of this was a farce and that they were only flying mebrout there to surprise me to reveal I was the grand prize winner.
Imagine Dragons even filmed a video telling mebrthat my video was their favorite and I was indeed the winner. It didn't reallybrhit me until the CMO Ann Lewnes handed me the prize-winning check. The wholebrday was filled with interviews, meet-and-greets, people lining up to takebrphotos with me, and conference calls with people around the country to discussbrmy edit. It was absolutely surreal. I won't say it was the best day of my life,brotherwise my wife might get mad at me, but it certainly is way up there.
SS: What will you do with yourbrwinnings?
Henderson: My wife and I just bought abrhouse, so we’ll be putting some of that money into renovations. We also want tobrvisit some cities around the United States we haven’t seen yet—Chicago, Seattlebrand Nashville to name a few.
SS: What's next for you?
Henderson: I’ve met a lot of greatbrpeople since the contest concluded, so I’m hoping to keep on collaborating withbrthem with future projects.