It has now been a week since we got here, it actually feels like less, I don’t know, times keeps changing- to begin with the days seemed longer, now they seem shorter- maybe it means I’m settling into a routine now. I passed up the opportunity to head back to the supermarket yesterday, meaning it will be another whole week before I see any kind of civilisation again. I went back to the waterfalls yesterday though, and will do so again in a minute- the weather is perfect for walking, its clear and crisp and no hint of the mugginess that has characterised the preceding week.
At the moment I’m carrying out one of the taglines- ‘girl writes on laptop in park’ or something like that. I’ve also done jumping- alot of it seems to go on in this starnge world of happy people, but its actually damn hard to capture it on film successfully (see my attempt on the right). There is still the laptop by waterfall one to do as well, which does make me wonder in what context someone would desire such a video: what could it be used to illustrate exactly- connectivity in nature…industriousness? Maybe I should check the keywords as they often indicate the overall attitude of the video, for example you can have ‘girl walks in field’ but with ‘happiness’ or ‘depression’ being the keywords. One of them was described as ‘depressed hours’, which I liked the sound of, although I’m not what time of day its referring to. Perhaps its just the hours you feel depressed in, whichever they might be. The main difference I’ve noticed is that the ones corresponding to ‘sadness’ or ‘despair’ are mostly staged in rain, or least cloudy skies, whereas the more cheery key-worded videos are more sunny or blue skied. So no surprises there then.
On the wildlife front, a rabbit just bounced me, again they too are cartoon perfect (like the chipmunks) with cute little bushy white tails.
Oops, the battery just cut out while I was in the middle of recording, and its now decided not to recharge. So this battery is also a dud, what are the chances of that? Can’t face ANOTHER trip to BH to exchange it, I really was a bit hasty in giving them good publicity. It means I only have one hour of battery, which is pretty crap.
But as result of heading back to the studio and then out again I can now add another critter to the list- a beaver! We scared the shit out of each other, as I thought it was (large) stone on the path until it moved, I screamed, it looked at me and froze for a minute before scampering off in terror. It was huge, and had the wide tail to identify it as a beaver. Apparently they are a real nuisance here, constantly trying to dam up the overflow mechanism they have installed in the pond (more of a lake actually), which would result in the water level rising and flooding the forest. Or something along those lines.
Anyway enough about the wildlife (for now). What I also started collecting was just straight nature taglines of stock video material, for a little variation. These could provide interludes, for example “dolly shot of a swamp area, close-up shot, revealing a frog at the end”. Just have to find that frog again, there is one who makes a twang noise, like someone intermittently strumming a bass guitar. I can add him to the video I shot earlier of a chirping red squirrel….. I guess this is going to turn into a wildlife video after all.
