movlog

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I made this on Thursday night, but my computer froze and I lost half my edit, so I gave up and went to bed. Couldn’t do it in the phone because I needed to cut Jeffrey in. So I’m cheating and backdating it to when it was really made.

This is a recipe Jeffrey posted on truthfairy.eu for Day 11 of NaVloPoMo. I read on Twitter that some other NaVloPoMoers have been making it, and I thought I’d have a go myself.

I’m not much of a cook, but as I mentioned the other night, one of my 15 failed 2007 New Year’s Resolutions was to cook 2 recipes every week. So this is my second recipe for the third week of January.

Jeffrey calls it Quick & Dirty Carbonara. Quick and Dirty. That’s how I like it.

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Just film a moment and send it off. Stop dicking about and letting the side down.

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It’s no wonder I’m behind with my posting. I’m spending too long doing my hair.
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RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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I don’t know how you all do it.

So many of you taking part in NaVloPoMo have been writing comments on my videos every day, so I know you’re watching – AND you’re making incredible films. Which is what it should be all about, I feel – I don’t want to just be making films here, I want to be watching and talking, responding and collaborating. But I haven’t been able to find the time to do that for days. So I’ve tried to steal a couple of hours this evening to watch videos.

I watched 5-10 films while the dinner was in the oven between 8 and 9. Then I watched a few more while Kate ordered our shopping online between 10 and 11.30.

And I still hadn’t made a film myself. In fact, I was so busy watching that I’d totally forgotten that I was even supposed to make one myself. Until 11.33pm. So this is the only option left to me! Really fulfilling what I said at the beginning of NaVloPoMo about just posting ANYTHING. You can’t even *see* this, the low light filming on my phone is so bad.

Anyway, the point is that I’m humbled by the talent and passion and generosity everybody’s showing by both creating and watching other people. And a bit frustrated at why I can’t get my shit together to do it better myself.

At some point, I want to try to share links to some of the videos I’ve watched. But there are dozens being posted for NaVloPoMo each day, and I’m days and days behind.

Now I’m really finally off to my bed on the floor. Kate and I usually hang out quite a lot in the evenings, so it felt a bit weird watching separate things in separate rooms. I wish I could both watch and hang with her. Perhaps I’m going to have to set up an Apple TV in our living room and drag her even further into our hell.

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Kate’s first videoblog post

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I handed the camera to Kate today. We were in Burnham Beeches, just outside London (map/satphoto). The colours are incredible this year. Another thing I’ll miss in evergreen Vancouver Island.

I was trying to persuade her to sing her song The Falling of the Leaves (a Yeats poem she set to music – you can hear it on her Myspace page) so that I could use it as a soundtrack for the other moments I shot all around the woods. But this is better.

I think I’m going to give her the camera more often.

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After the wine

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Damn! I posted this on Friday night from my phone, but it never arrived. Technology. I hate it.

This is just a couple of dark, barely audible drunken moments from a dinner called N0shit organised by Phil Campbell in Burton-on-Trent for a few UK social media guys – including Nik Butler (Loudmouthman.com); Christian Paine (Documentally.com; OurManInside.com); Jason Jarrett (ABuddhistPodcast.com) and Craig Marston (craigmarstonphotography.com)

Top. Men.

My N93 is terrible in low light – I have to start using another camera at night, like the Ixus I used in San Francisco – and again this is something that I probably wouldn’t publish if it weren’t for NaVloPoMo, I’d just share my clips among those attending. But here it is, including Phil’s explaining to me why I’m disorganised after that video last week. Also, this is the only time you will ever see evidence of me on the dancefloor. I think I had had a moderate amount wine at that point.

Thanks, chaps, it was fun.

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This is Red Five; I’m going in!

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This is one of the things I’m going to miss most about England when I go to Canada.

I shot this on Monday in Devon, on the way back from Kate’s dad’s cottage to the station in the nearest town. 20 minutes of death star taxi adrenaline. I was wondering what I should do with it until I saw Gogen’s NaVloPoMo Day 7 video of his drive back home through his town at night, set to music. Then I realised I’d secretly known all along what to do with it. NaVloPoMo is full of people responding to and being inspired by other people’s videos. Organic video conversations. I love it.

And I love how – when cutting quickly to music – you can find and take advantage of chance interactions between image and soundtrack.

It feels good to finally add the score for real, since when I’m actually driving at high speed along single lane country roads, this is *always* what I’m singing to myself in my head. And if I’m driving and there’s nobody else in the car, maybe perhaps sometimes I might even possibly have been known to sing it out loud. Maybe even quite loud. Especially the bit that kicks in after he turns off the tracking computer. It’s like being 11 again!

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My Office – the art of Getting Things Done

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Yesterday, I asked everybody to show their desks & workspaces, in response to Cheryl asking to see everyone’s Junk Drawers. And I promised to show mine today. So here it is.

Two years ago, a friend gave me David Allen‘s famous Getting Things Done. It changed my life.

PS
Dear Clients,
This is a work of fiction.

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Trip on the ferry to Dartmouth

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Just some moments from a trip down the river yesterday.

It’s a funny thing – I probably wouldn’t post this if it weren’t for NaVloPoMo. Because it’s aspiring to be something it’s not.

I wanted to do NaVloPoMo because I thought it’d make me feel more comfortable posting just *anything* without judging it too much. I wonder whether it’s having the opposite effect. Seeing all the amazing things other people are posting has made me dissatisfied with the kind of stuff I’m doing with this phone.

It’s made me realise that I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with my mobile phone’s aesthetic limitations. It shoots good *resolution* for a phone but I don’t really like the colours, the contrast, the *character* of the video it makes.

So while it’s great for capturing personal human moments and posting them in the moment, without frills, it’s not so good for taking moving snapshots of *things* that I see and want to photograph. The images just look flat, and dull.

I know that making things on my phone has got me making things and posting more often, which is great. And the aesthetic limitation has stopped me getting too hung up about what I make, which is also great.

But in NaVloPoMo I wanted to post a whole load of different types of films up, and some of them just won’t work with this phone. I want to start playing with a proper camera again.

And the truth is, I haven’t got time to. It’s already causing tension at home, the amount of time I’m spending at my computer for NaVloPoMo – and all I’ve posted are simple single-shot nothingy little snapshots. The time spent cutting the San Francisco film last week and this film today are just *too much*.

So I guess I’m stuck with my phone and its boring image quality. And that’s what I’ve got to work with this month. That’s my challenge. Fight the aspirational demons that tell me that you’re all making more interesting videos than me. Fuck it. Just post stuff. And talk. Create and connect. Kill the artist. 🙂

And yeah, yeah, I know… a bad workman blames his tools…

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NaVloPoMo – The Dirty Truth…?

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Maybe. But I think that for me, NaVloPoMo is not just about making, it’s about watching and talking. 41 participants x 30 days = 1230 films. So the marital bed might be a little colder than usual this month…
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