Amazing Rainbows! London Says Goodbye As We Emigrate

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I hope this rainbow brightens people’s days all over the world. Please share this with any of your family or friends who’d appreciate a little magic in their day ๐Ÿ™‚

And I’m making films for the Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards at the moment, so if you like this film, I’d love it if you could rate it and/or comment on the Pangea Day channel to help me out, and I’ll return the favour on your videos/blog/podcast.

Of the 200 or so films that I’ve made with my phone in the last year, I think this is the one I like the most.

We went on our favorite London walk for the last time yesterday with our friend Lucy – along the River Thames at Hammersmith.

In two and a half weeks, we’re moving to Canada.

So I started filming a plane in the clouds with my phone, thinking about making a video about us leaving, and suddenly something magical happened…

…and kept on happening! Instead of fading, they got brighter, and more intense!

In mythology, religion, art, literature, music and film, the Rainbow is a powerful symbol – a sign of hope and life and new beginnings.

I grew up in Christian boarding schools, so usually the first thing I think of when I see a rainbow is the rainbow that God sends Noah after the great flood in Genesis:

“And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”

Yeah. It’s either that or The Wizard Of Oz.

See you on the other side ๐Ÿ™‚

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Mrs Patel

Shot and edited on my Nokia N93 phone – excuse the lip sync – combination of the phone editor and Ovi’s flash video conversion.

“The next person to inspire me”: Mrs Patel from our local Post Office, about to be closed down by incompetence and greed in government and the privatised Post Office. After 35 years of service to our community – what does she get? An OBE? No. Termination.

This is today’s entry for the Pangea Day Nokia Mobile Filmmaking Awards.

The brief is to make 2 minute films about:

– The next thing that makes you smile.

– An act of kindness.

– The next person to inspire you.

– The best part of today.

They don’t stipulate in the rules that it has to even be shot on a phone, never mind a Nokia, but I’m doing what I always do and shooting AND editing on my N93. Hopefully that’ll give me extra brownie points with the judges! (if I get that far)

Please go here to the Pangea Day channel on Ovi and give me views and comments and favorites to help me out. You need to sign up for an Ovi account to comment, but if you have a spare two minutes, *please* do (also, you should upload your own)! It’s only the most popular films that will get a chance to go in front of the judges.

I should say that aside from the main competition at Ovi, the remarkable Mr David Howell has been appointed by Nokia to run his own Pangea Day competition at http://davidhowellstudios.com – post a link to your film in his comment section by May 2nd.

ANYWAY, enough selling

as for today’s film…

The Government are currently engaged in a disgraceful act of cultural vandalism. I believe that in 10-20 years – and beyond – they will be remembered for two things: The Iraq War, and the loss of the Post Offices.

For the sake of a mere ยฌยจยฌยฃ200m per year, they are closing the last remaining centre of community in thousands of towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods. This is a brief interview with Mrs Patel, who has run our Post Office for 35 years. Two posts offices within half a mile of here are closing. Seven in our Borough. (and of course thousands throughout the country.) We have a higher density of older and disabled people in this ward than anywhere else in the borough – people who will lose vital services.

I’m glad that I’m not going to be in the country at the next election. I’d be in a real dilemma at the ballot box. I couldn’t bring myself to vote Tory, but nor could I bring myself to reward the current bastards for everything they’re doing. Every day, more reasons to emigrate.

The Post Office issue is a classic case of everything that’s wrong with a) blind Privatisation and b) our party-based representative democracy. The local MP, Andy Slaughter, who lives opposite me, was fiercely against the closure of the Post Offices. But he couldn’t express that view in Parliament, where he represents us, or he’d lose his job. He was forced to vote for something he knew to be wrong, because his weak, venal party leadership had decreed it as policy.

Anyway, you probably came here to watch me making my usual arse of myself, not listen to my political opinions, so I’ll stfu and let you meet the lovely, inspiring, discarded Mrs Patel.

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This is Red Five; I’m going in!

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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Open reply to Josh Cohen of Tilzy.tv

–update–
Hi to everybody who’s stumbled here from Blip or Mefeedia homepages (or wherever) wanting to know about NaVloPoMo.

NaVloPoMo is (Inter)National Videoblog Posting Month – a lot of video bloggers and artists making and posting films every day in November.

The site is at http://nablopomo.ning.com/group/videobloggers – you can see people’s films there, and also find a list of their blog URLS and feeds.

Twittervlog.tv is my video blog, which I shoot, cut and post, all with my Nokia N93 cellphone.


This is a rather fast but long and probably quite inarticulate reply to an email I got from Josh Cohen at Tilzy.tv asking about NaVloPoMo. I just riffed on his questions. They’re quite good questions for getting you thinking about NaVloPoMo. If you want to answer any of the questions yourself, or if I’ve missed something, or you’ve just got something else to say about NaVloPoMo and about personal videoblogging, reply in the comments or (even better) in a video.

– How’d you come up with the idea? And how’d you initially share it with the community? Did it take long to catch on?
– About how many vlogs would you say there are involved? (I think there’s a list on the Ning site, but was wondering if that was extensive)
– Why do you participate? What type of people should participate? Is it for anyone?
– What’s the best part about it?
– How do your videos for NaVloPoMo differ than your regular fare?

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My Office – the art of Getting Things Done

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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Francis & Me, Part 1

I’ve been meaning to post this all year, but I got too busy. Now I can’t wait any longer to share it with you.

Jay and Ryanne and GoGen and David and a whole lot of other people have inspired me recently with films of travels and faraway places. This is very different to the kind of quiet moments of beauty they observe & record – but watching theirs made me get off my arse and do something with mine.

I’m going to try to cut together more from this trip, maybe once a week – as part of my NaBloPoMo daily posting.

PS – Geek note – This wasn’t shot & cut on the N93, as the title card says, but shot on a tiny Canon Ixus/Powershot 900 pocket stills camera. Amazing. Gotta love those Canons for quality, low light & colour. (Cut on iMovie)

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)
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