Ptfc – In Tribute
The 13th of November this year marked a rather pivotal plot twist in the in women’s football world; the general consensus reached was shock and devastation as fans woke up to news that the Thorns’ star midfielder Tobin Heath had gotten her rights traded to the new expansion club Racing Louisville in Kentucky. You might think, ‘That’s great! This expansion team is going to go places…’ But in reality, majority of Thorns supporters including myself were upset and in the process of lamenting at the prospect of Heath having to leave her home team in Portland after a memorable 7 years. Tobin was one of the original members of the club from when the Thorns were first deployed in 2013 and her influence was impactful to the extent that the many members of the public often connotated her to being the face of the Portland Thorns Football Club.
She was the reason I started following the NWSL and a big part of why I became a Thorns supporter in the first place. She called Portland her home, gave the team its fearsome reputation and expressed her love for her team countless times in interviews saying that she does not plan on leaving…ever. She expressed that being a Thorn was an honor, expressed her gratitude for her fanbase and made multiple crucial friendships during her time there and despite all that; the Thorns without hesitation left her unprotected during the draft pick; most likely without warning because of her lack of response to the announcements.
I felt that her legacy with the Thorns needed to be remembered in time to come and felt the need to give other Riveters something to remember this era by; so, I decided to make an edit in tribute. I spent a long time scouring the internet for interviews, highlights and audios etc. to use to compile my edit. The next few hours were emotionally exhausting as I slowed, trimmed, cropped, colored and re-colored my clips to fit the audio Lost in the Moment by NF which had a rather major lyrical meaning behind it. This was a rather long process as I had to create new colorings as well as custom aspect ratios – both of which were new skills that I had learned in the weeks prior. Regardless, I was grateful for a good opportunity for me to grow in my preset making and velocity editing skills which has been one of my weaker abilities as an editor and one that I only explored during my last practice edit. (LO1 & LO2) Once I was done I wearily uploaded my edit to the internet late that night. I was proud of my end product since I nearly cried making it.
The next day, I woke up to over 1,000 new notifications! I was a little taken aback to say the least, this was mostly a kind gesture to the Rose City Riveters more than anything else but I opened my socials to an outpouring of actions taken on my post. I had also hit 1.1k followers overnight and gotten 113 comments, 139 saves and made 3,107 impressions. I was honored by the numbers but mostly felt a wave of affection for the Thorns fans who flooded my comment section with their gratitude towards Tobin’s time with the Thorns and vented over how sad they were. I just felt happy that I could help them grieve their loss in whichever way I could. (LO7)
Since the file is too big here’s a link to it, make sure to watch on 1080p for better quality!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ylxdfwc29X26SCZN4RhRto-69mZnJ7VQ/view?usp=sharing
