Steadicam -- Just Saying

Due to a schedule change, Wild Thang and Toucan Sammy's regular videographer was unavailable to shoot this week's segment for their blog, Explore to Learn: Early Literacy Fun.  Due to a minion shortage at my Library, Broadway Gal was forced to ask Scowl-Face to operate the digital video camera.  This had catastrophe written all over it.

At a critical juncture in the presentation, Sammy the Toucan showed Wild Thang her buttons to celebrate the Letter J, which, as we all know, stands for Wild Thang (i.e., Miss Jaymi).  Scowl-Face was supposed to zoom the camera to see Sammy's buttons, but, unbeknownst to him, the zoom feature is locked out in the camera's videography mode.  But Scowl-Face persevered, pressing the zoom button so vigorously that the camera went flailing about like we were having an earthquake or something.  This produced less than optimal results.  See for yourselves.

Neither Wild Thang nor Sammy had time to reshoot the sequence, and so there was nothing for it but to have Scowl-Face attempt some editing magic using Microsoft Windows Live Movie Maker.  Sadly, magic is not among Scowl-Face's limited arsenal of skill sets.

Fortunately, the video was usable, thanks entirely to the impressive professional oratorical abilities of our literacy video stars.  Do you know that both Wild Thang and Sammy extemporize these videos? (Elements of improvisation are also clearly discernable.)  As one who once competed in extemporaneous speaking and impromptu speaking in the National Forensic League, Scowl-Face can verify that these speech styles, complete with ad-libs, are much tougher than they look, especially when done as well as Wild Thang and Sammy perform.

I have only one recommendation for Scowl-Face.

Steadicam

Just saying.

Next Time, Ask Moi, Broadway Gal,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

Videography News Beat