Day 7 of April Love 2021 . Today’s prompt is Growing and I am growing my skillset by teaching myself how to make videos.
Why? I have never previously wished to engage with the moving image and cannot explain to myself why I should choose to do so now. I can rationalise it by saying that we are in Lockdown (version 3) and I need a project. Or I can acknowledge a growing unease about my inability to keep up with the blogging when we travel. I have an inkling that I could use video to good effect; if I can get the hang of video and produce some reasonable output, then I can post it straight to the blog. More likely is a scenario in which I simply use the video mode on my camera(s) to provide myself with an aide memoire. I think that I can then select stills from the video to post to the blog and have a reminder at hand of all the ideas that passed through my head at the time.
Nell and I went out for a walk today. It’s a beautifully sunny, though quite crisp, day and I had time on my hands. I have come home with several video clips and now I need to review them and perhaps learn how to join them up into one sensible little piece. That’s this afternoon’s project, I think.
Also to do today is to find out how I am supposed to use my camera to film video…. check out what settings I need and so on. A big learning experience, that one!
What I have learned so far today:
- Trying to film and narrate simultaneously is a challenge
- Trying to film and to walk simultaneously is a challenge that is never going to be met
- I shall need to carry more extra batteries with me
I went out with some idea of what I wanted to film and also what I wanted to say. It’s really difficult to remember everything and to make it come out in a coherent order. I think perhaps filming without commentary and adding voiceover later might be one plan. A shooting script would be another but I think I am more interested in the immediacy of ad hoc filming. But, if I don’t add my thoughts at the time, will I recall them later? I wonder if it is possible to record when I film then remove the original sound and add voiceover later?
All of this is way out of my comfort zone.
Here (I hope) is one of my clips from today. It’s unedited (because I haven’t found out how to do that yet) but I have uploaded it to YouTube and so it can be shared here and you can take these little baby steps with me, if you wish.
Also out of my comfort zone is the project that I am undertaking to make sense of my Lightroom files. This is something that I need to complete before I can import my new video footage.
I don’t know about new skillsets but at this time I can see that the only things that I am growing so far are frustration and impatience. Impatiens! I am a Busy Lizzie today. Just don’t try calling me that!
Actually, we have both been very busy since we returned home. The “garden” has been busy growing weeds whilst we were away and there has been much work to do in taming the wilderness. We are slowly getting on top of things. When I say “we” I do mostly mean the lovely Mr L. I have had other tasks to carry out but have done a bit of weeding here and there in between laundry loads and van-emptying tasks. Oh, and finding where the Record button is on my camera 😉
Really nice to hear your voice for the first time after reading your words for so many years. I had a similar journey with video this time last year when I suddenly had to produce videos for work. Openshot is a good open source, cross platform video editor which I found very intuitive and quick to learn.
Thank you, Liz, and thank you – I will follow those up. Been out filming again today but thoroughly daunted by thoughts of editing down thirty minutes of clips!