Cold, drizzly Sunday afternoon=prime logging

Cold, drizzly Sunday afternoon=prime logging (and weblogging time). Here is some real-time video screening/logging before I run over to my in-laws’ apartment:

Tape 4: Closeups of my grandmother’s photographs. Jeff’s idea was to have her hold them rather than just to shoot them on their own, Ric Burns-style. Great images, nicely framed with her hands and sweater popping in from time to time. We can insert these cuts in her discussions of the various pics. One bummer: she’d tell some stories while we were shooting the photos, too (she was still miked up); some of these stories got cut off when Jeff’d stop taping a photo and request the next one. We weren’t aware enough of what we were getting, I guess.

Shooting along an irrigation ditch, the first one. It was concrete lined, so the water ran much more quickly. Jeff (the cameraman) was straddling the ditch. Several great shots, useful for voiceover, narrative breaks, whatever. Then he suddenly swears at the camera. He flips around, looking through the camera as the rubber eyepiece rushes downstream. “Sht, sht sht,” and then there’s me busting up laughing, knowing that this eyepiece, which never seemed to stay on anyway, wouldn’t be bothering us anymore. A slight, old guy with a straw hat and shaded clips on his glasses comes over to see what’s up. “That water comes out over to Center Street, if you want to go catch it,” he offers wryly.

First interior shots of one of the dry cleaners. A lot of tight, well-framed images of the various equipment stations, the clothes racks, etc. No people, really. (There were only two working at the time, and we’d made plans to go back the next morningto capture the hubbub.) Reminds me of shots from a smaller, less monumental Jane and Louise Wilson video.

gotta run.