further failure
Across the weekend, and then this evening I managed to get around 10-15 minutes of filming done for the proposed Derek Jarman tribute. But then it all went horribly wrong. I don't know whether it's a problem due to the age of my camera, a problem with the memory card, or a problem with my Mac or the external hard-drive. Whatever it is I was unable to upload anything from the camera. What's worse, the two times I tried it locked up the applications I was using, and I ended up having to switch off and unplug the camera without ejecting it. Only because it wasn't possible to eject it. This may have caused the problem I'm seeing now with my camera. Worse still, when I'd finally unhooked the fucking thing I wasn't able to shut down my Mac properly, and had to cut the power twice. Although at the moment that doesn't seem to have caused a problem.
What is a problem is that when I switch on my camera it's telling me 'Card not Initialized', which I suspect at best means I've lost the film and photographs that were on there. At worst I may not be able to use the card again, I'll have to dig out my camera manual tomorrow and see if it describes how to initialise the card there - I can't remember if I had to do it before. If I'm not able to get the card working again then my other card only has a tenth of the memory, and that's only if it's working. I just hope I don't have to replace my camera or memory card, because I really can't afford it - much less my external drive or Mac.
It's a huge fucking setback any way you look at it, and it means the film tribute is on hold indefinitely. I will still try to complete the script that was going to accompany it, and if it looks like my technology's dead then that may end up being published separately. I'm so pissed-off right now.
Update Sat 23 Aug 08: Able to reformat the card, but it does mean I've lost any data that might have been on there. Some of the film I had can be easily reproduced, but a lot of it can't be. It will mean more of a delay to the final piece. I'm also not sure as yet what caused the failure in loading the data to my computer - I don't know for instance if something caused the card to deformat or read as though it was deformatted before I hooked it up, or if the problems in loading the data caused the card to go haywire.
Some of the video I actually won't even try to replace. There were a number of shots of the river and river bank along the Mersey last Sunday that are not worth reproducing. Not that they were bad, some of them I was very happy with, but the actual conditions there will have changed, and it would be pointless to try and recreate something that was spontaneous and reactive in that way. What I will try to do is use some of the same principles elsewhere. A lot of it was about framing something still through waving grass or other plants. Or framing moving water through a more static foreground of tall plants. Or filming something moving in the water that barely seemed to move at all except over time.
The shots I can reproduce without any problems are filming directly into the setting sun, filming lights shining into the camera, filming light from the setting sun cast on the kitchen units and worktop, and a couple more. At the earliest though this won't be completed until Monday, although in the meantime I might start editing some of my scrapbook of video into some kind of order. I may also start to record some of the noise of the city to see if that can fit anywhere on the soundtrack.
I hope I can make some progress with the script and soundtrack, as I aim to get a lot of audio work done this weekend. I hadn't made a sound piece for a while until I edited a new contribution for the collaboration with Mike Cannell. I emailed it yesterday, but if he's still having email/PC problems it may not have got through to him - I'll have to check that later.
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What is a problem is that when I switch on my camera it's telling me 'Card not Initialized', which I suspect at best means I've lost the film and photographs that were on there. At worst I may not be able to use the card again, I'll have to dig out my camera manual tomorrow and see if it describes how to initialise the card there - I can't remember if I had to do it before. If I'm not able to get the card working again then my other card only has a tenth of the memory, and that's only if it's working. I just hope I don't have to replace my camera or memory card, because I really can't afford it - much less my external drive or Mac.
It's a huge fucking setback any way you look at it, and it means the film tribute is on hold indefinitely. I will still try to complete the script that was going to accompany it, and if it looks like my technology's dead then that may end up being published separately. I'm so pissed-off right now.
Update Sat 23 Aug 08: Able to reformat the card, but it does mean I've lost any data that might have been on there. Some of the film I had can be easily reproduced, but a lot of it can't be. It will mean more of a delay to the final piece. I'm also not sure as yet what caused the failure in loading the data to my computer - I don't know for instance if something caused the card to deformat or read as though it was deformatted before I hooked it up, or if the problems in loading the data caused the card to go haywire.
Some of the video I actually won't even try to replace. There were a number of shots of the river and river bank along the Mersey last Sunday that are not worth reproducing. Not that they were bad, some of them I was very happy with, but the actual conditions there will have changed, and it would be pointless to try and recreate something that was spontaneous and reactive in that way. What I will try to do is use some of the same principles elsewhere. A lot of it was about framing something still through waving grass or other plants. Or framing moving water through a more static foreground of tall plants. Or filming something moving in the water that barely seemed to move at all except over time.
The shots I can reproduce without any problems are filming directly into the setting sun, filming lights shining into the camera, filming light from the setting sun cast on the kitchen units and worktop, and a couple more. At the earliest though this won't be completed until Monday, although in the meantime I might start editing some of my scrapbook of video into some kind of order. I may also start to record some of the noise of the city to see if that can fit anywhere on the soundtrack.
I hope I can make some progress with the script and soundtrack, as I aim to get a lot of audio work done this weekend. I hadn't made a sound piece for a while until I edited a new contribution for the collaboration with Mike Cannell. I emailed it yesterday, but if he's still having email/PC problems it may not have got through to him - I'll have to check that later.
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Comments
There have now been more than twice as many posts this month than in any previous month - my previous highest months have 26 posts.
There have been more posts this year (140) than in the two most prolific previous years (86 in 2006, and 46 in 2007) combined.
In fact there have been more posts this month than in any previous year excepting 2006.
This post is the 350th on santiago's dead wasp.