(no subject)
Well, Friday is here again, and you all know what that means. Being a second week, I went to the real estate first to pay a couple of weeks' worth of rent, thus lightening myself of the lion's share of what got in my account that morning. So I hopped on the bus and rode to the university campus. Along the way I had a bit of a chat with two of the women who are still in my class. I had been a bit antsy this week because the group I had been assigned to had not shot any footage as yet. The woman who is in charge of my group sent me an SMS this morning asking me to bring my video camera "in case we decide to shoot something". Of course, I would be kicking myself if any of the others in the group decided to shoot footage and I did not have it with me, so I made the effort to carry my camera and the tripod on the multiple bus trips to the real estate agent and the train station and the university. So I was relieved to learn from the two women I spoke to on the bus that, one group aside, nobody else had shot any footage yet, either. This prompted one of the lecturers to tell us to get a move on, of course. So I was happy when our group leader and I went into one of the classrooms and shot some footage.
I am going through the raw footage now and trying to convert it all to a format that can be used in Final Cut Express. This is mainly so I can keep it nicely catalogued and in order, or at least some form of order. I am sort of scolding myself because I know I could have worked in a slightly more professional manner when we shot it. I think I was partly distracting the poor woman trying to give the interview answers (the questions will be shot at a later time). I think I am also going to need to have her with me supervising the editing, because I only have a partial idea in my head of how the shots and sequences are going to be constructed. I really should just try to cross that bridge when I get to it, but right now I am really exhausted and have been needing more sleep for a few days. Either that or I need to start taking more stimulants again. Either way, I have a feeling that I am going to make this my last assignment because just being at the university takes a hell of a lot out of me. In fact, I have shot a video that I am going to show to the lecturers in one capacity or another in which I basically tell the camera about the ghost of ten-year-old me trying to talk to me while at the university.
I might shoot that video again, in fact, because I am somewhat dissatisfied with the results. I intend to shoot it at least twice, anyway. One for showing to the lecturers, and one for posting to the public, where I will elaborate on further details and tell more of a story. It is basically the first idea I have had for a video without being under the hammer of a deadline in quite a long time. That it is a reversion back to my old style of videos, basically me sitting in front of a camera and yapping on at random, bothers me not one bit. I could honestly care less at the moment how my videos are received, I just want to make them. Or not make them, as the case may be. Truthfully, I was sick of making them when I started the course, and being expected to make them just makes it worse. Nowadays, my camera pretty much sits around unused unless I need it for things like this. And often, I will just go and use something else, anyway, such as the inbuilt web camera that Apple put in iMacs. Honestly, the days when I really wanted to do anything that I actually could do are long over. This, of course, is what happens when you just ignore the person who can do something and push him off into the corner for that long.
Again, the schedule of the lectures differed from the previous experience. Instead of a lecture (two hours) and a tutorial (one hour), we instead just had a one-hour tutorial. That made it easier to shoot footage and get home at a reasonable time, at least. The tutorial basically consisted of the lecturer asking about the problem the groups are having with organisation, then advising us on getting organised to shoot footage, and urging us to get our act together. She reminded us about the participation logs and how our participation will directly affect our marks for the assignment. After that, we also watched rushes from the one group that actually managed to shoot anything, and it was actually quite entertaining. The subject of the project was one of a group member's father, and his membership in a bikie organisation. Of course, there are bikie organisations and there are bikie organisations, and the one this gentleman happens to be in would be of a certain kind. I am sure the documentary in question will elaborate a little more on this point, since that is kind of the whole point of the documentary in the first place. I actually look forward to seeing the finished result of their efforts.
After shooting some footage with the leader of my group within the university, I left and went back to the shopping centre in my local area. I was not sure what I was going to do there since I still had my camera and tripod with me, but I ended up going into JB Hi-Fi and buying two Frank Zappa albums, both of them from the early 1980s. These were Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch and Them Or Us. I have not tallied up their exact running time, but I would not be surprised to learn that the two together exceed a hundred minutes. As for the quality of the albums themselves, they are not Zappa's best albums by a long shot (for a point of reference, I consider that honour shared by Apostrophe (') and We're Only In It For The Money). But they are also a long way from his worst (Weasels Ripped My Flesh). I think I will probably listen to them a few more times before I decide just how good they actually are. Not because I have any doubts that they shit all over the best that the radio can offer. But even the best Zappa albums have moments on them where I wonder just what on Earth he was thinking when he laid down that track.
Anyway, that pretty much concludes my week. In closing, I shall offer the following words of wisdom: Sensory responses do not know the word "should".
I am going through the raw footage now and trying to convert it all to a format that can be used in Final Cut Express. This is mainly so I can keep it nicely catalogued and in order, or at least some form of order. I am sort of scolding myself because I know I could have worked in a slightly more professional manner when we shot it. I think I was partly distracting the poor woman trying to give the interview answers (the questions will be shot at a later time). I think I am also going to need to have her with me supervising the editing, because I only have a partial idea in my head of how the shots and sequences are going to be constructed. I really should just try to cross that bridge when I get to it, but right now I am really exhausted and have been needing more sleep for a few days. Either that or I need to start taking more stimulants again. Either way, I have a feeling that I am going to make this my last assignment because just being at the university takes a hell of a lot out of me. In fact, I have shot a video that I am going to show to the lecturers in one capacity or another in which I basically tell the camera about the ghost of ten-year-old me trying to talk to me while at the university.
I might shoot that video again, in fact, because I am somewhat dissatisfied with the results. I intend to shoot it at least twice, anyway. One for showing to the lecturers, and one for posting to the public, where I will elaborate on further details and tell more of a story. It is basically the first idea I have had for a video without being under the hammer of a deadline in quite a long time. That it is a reversion back to my old style of videos, basically me sitting in front of a camera and yapping on at random, bothers me not one bit. I could honestly care less at the moment how my videos are received, I just want to make them. Or not make them, as the case may be. Truthfully, I was sick of making them when I started the course, and being expected to make them just makes it worse. Nowadays, my camera pretty much sits around unused unless I need it for things like this. And often, I will just go and use something else, anyway, such as the inbuilt web camera that Apple put in iMacs. Honestly, the days when I really wanted to do anything that I actually could do are long over. This, of course, is what happens when you just ignore the person who can do something and push him off into the corner for that long.
Again, the schedule of the lectures differed from the previous experience. Instead of a lecture (two hours) and a tutorial (one hour), we instead just had a one-hour tutorial. That made it easier to shoot footage and get home at a reasonable time, at least. The tutorial basically consisted of the lecturer asking about the problem the groups are having with organisation, then advising us on getting organised to shoot footage, and urging us to get our act together. She reminded us about the participation logs and how our participation will directly affect our marks for the assignment. After that, we also watched rushes from the one group that actually managed to shoot anything, and it was actually quite entertaining. The subject of the project was one of a group member's father, and his membership in a bikie organisation. Of course, there are bikie organisations and there are bikie organisations, and the one this gentleman happens to be in would be of a certain kind. I am sure the documentary in question will elaborate a little more on this point, since that is kind of the whole point of the documentary in the first place. I actually look forward to seeing the finished result of their efforts.
After shooting some footage with the leader of my group within the university, I left and went back to the shopping centre in my local area. I was not sure what I was going to do there since I still had my camera and tripod with me, but I ended up going into JB Hi-Fi and buying two Frank Zappa albums, both of them from the early 1980s. These were Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch and Them Or Us. I have not tallied up their exact running time, but I would not be surprised to learn that the two together exceed a hundred minutes. As for the quality of the albums themselves, they are not Zappa's best albums by a long shot (for a point of reference, I consider that honour shared by Apostrophe (') and We're Only In It For The Money). But they are also a long way from his worst (Weasels Ripped My Flesh). I think I will probably listen to them a few more times before I decide just how good they actually are. Not because I have any doubts that they shit all over the best that the radio can offer. But even the best Zappa albums have moments on them where I wonder just what on Earth he was thinking when he laid down that track.
Anyway, that pretty much concludes my week. In closing, I shall offer the following words of wisdom: Sensory responses do not know the word "should".