Here's hoping everyone is doing well! I have gotten some great footage recently and I have more on the horizon. In short: I got up at 5am the other day to film the sunrise and then follow one of the local characters into the countryside so that he could pick mulberries to make gelato with. He is a very interesting individual. That evening, Elvira (my Sicilian mom, as I like to call her) took me to see how they separate the wheat from the chaff: by throwing the wheat into the air with pitchforks, and letting the wind carry the chaff away while the wheat falls to the ground. The only problem was, there was no wind. So I filmed the local farmers playing briscola (a card game), and Elvira doing somersaults in the hay. She is turning out to be a really outstanding subject. I also went on an excursion to climb Mt. Etna. I got some really interesting shots... of course I somehow managed to turn on the !@#$%ing gain switch at some point, so some of the shots are a bit grainy. Not entirely ruined, fortunately, since I had the gain on quite low. I have since admonished my HVX and told it never to do that again (or in other words, I set it so that the gain never goes above 0dB, no matter what I do with the switch). The Etna footage probably won't be part of my documentary, but I think it has some excellent possibilities for a lyrical piece. On Sunday I have an appointment to film a guy who makes and repairs zampogne, or Sicilian bagpipes! This evening I will probably film Elvira taking care of her elderly mother-in-law, who has Alzheimer's. Elvira has to be one of the best "nurses" in the world.
I'm running out of room on my hard drives... only about 100GB left. I think I need to go out and buy two more, what with a month left to shoot!
It is 97 degrees here today and I can barely bring myself to type. But I stumbled upon (through Lifehacker, one of my favorite blogs) a steadicam design that I think we could really sink our teeth into when we get back. Check it out here!
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