Neon (hooping video)

42 seconds

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I used a portion of a piece of my original music in hooping video #4. This was a simple moment when I realised that I was getting my hands easily in and out of the hoop as it revolves around my body.

You can see my other three hooping videos here.

Technical note:
I shot this video using the little video function in Mac Photobooth. Pulled it into iMovie to do minor editing and apply effects.

The adventures of my camera (cont'd) ...

Photo taken using Photobooth on laptop
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My camera was supposed to arrive in Texas on Wednesday ... but up until yesterday when I tracked it, status message was "Clearance delay at Miami". Yesterday (Thursday) I called DHL and a woman answered. I gave her my airway bill and she tracked it.

"Hmmm, it's being held in Miami," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know ..." she said slowly. I could hear her thinking. "Did you fill out a Commercial Invoice?"

"Yes."

"I'll have to call them tomorrow and find out what's happening. And I'll call you back." She referred to the information she had in front of her. "Okay, your name is E-l-s-p-e-t-h Duncan ... Your number, (868) 89 ..."

I stopped her there. "My number doesn't begin with an 89 ..."

Sigh. Whatever number she had for me was the wrong number. How come, I don't know, since I had personally written it on my documents. I guess the wrong thing had been typed into the system ...

Anyway ... tracked the package again this morning and it says "Clearance processing complete at Miami Gateway - USA."

Finally Cut

Countdown

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All over T&T there are people counting down to Carnival, which is this weekend, Monday and Tuesday. That's not what I'm counting down to in the above photo, though. I'm playing around with a new Photobooth feature on Satya (my laptop). The feature allows you to take four photos during the camera countdown. I bought Satya some new 'toys' the other day ... upgraded her OS to Leopard (which is what has, among other things, new features in some of the programs), bought a terabyte external drive and increased her RAM.

The computer I used to edit all my videos on (see right hand side bar for some videos) conked out the other day and it makes no sense to fix it. It was a PC (Windows). The only reason I would have wanted to fix it is that I loved the editing program I used - Sony Vegas (hm, there's that Sony name again). Unfortunately that editing program doesn't run on Mac :(

Mac people are always on about Final Cut and often laugh at anything else, but I genuinely loved Vegas. I found it powerful, customizable and 'intuitive' (to use the word people sometimes put to technology). Sometimes Mac/Final Cut editors would come up to me and say: "Wow, how did you do that?" or "How did you get it to do that/look like that?" Then when they heard it wasn't anything to do with Final Cut, they would be surprised. Well, it's not always what brand name you use or what equipment you have ... it's what you DO with what you have.

Anyway, I miss editing. Without my Vegas I've been tinkering around in iMovie, which is very limiting, but okay for putting together quick, simple things. Kind of like being without Synchronicity and getting my photography fix by taking screen shots and using Photobooth.

Seeing that I'm "a Mac girl" now, the time has come for me to switch to Final Cut. Plus, it's "the industry standard". I've used it before but didn't think it was sooooooooooo great. Kind of like going to see a movie that everyone is raving about and then wondering why (as often happens with me). But ... I feel this time around I will love FC and be really glad that I'm using it.

For now I'll use Satya for editing (which is why I got her those new toys), but at some point I'll need to get another system (computer). Many would advise a Mac desktop, but I'd rather a laptop, because of mobility/travel and wanting to carry the system with me when I go. Who knows? Time will tell what is what.