Today I attended a great session at Podcamp Boston 3 for beginning and intermediate media makers. David Tames, a documentary film maker, gave a presentation titled “Improving Your Video Using Cinematic Language Techniques.” This is a long post, so I’ll place my full write-up after the jump.
Oh, and happy birthday, Jean!
Podcamp Boston 3, a new media (un)conference for bloggers, podcasters, vloggers, etc., is happening this weekend. I’ll be posting via my Twitter account (see the sidebar of this blog, or go here). If you wanted to attend, but missed the registration deadline, there’s good news — at the last minute, the organizers have decided to allow onsite registration up to the maximum limit specified by the conference center. Details here.
Hope to see you there!
Holly Near wrote the song “I Am Willing” in 2003. She sang it May 18, 2006, at a peace rally outside the White House, with Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow singing back-up. I learned this song from Laurie Loosigian, and it has become my new religio-political anthem. It’s easy to sing, with a powerful chorus:
I am open and I am willing,
for to be hopeless would seem so strange —
it dishonors those who go before us,
so lift me up to the light of change.
I’m going to introduce this to my church this fall, and after you listen to the song, your church might want to do the same. (You can find a score of a gospel-y arrangement, with recordings of all four parts, here — scroll way down. It’s not to my taste, but you might like it.)
Right in the middle of church
outdoors in the pine woods chapel
the preacher gets stopped
by a loud caw. The preacher
pauses, smiles, and says,
“He was outside my house
early this morning,” and we laugh.
The crow caws again and grows
more raucous. The crows always
have the last word. They’ll be
cawing here long after
preacher and people have died and
gone to dust and dirt.
After church ends, as I
sit and write this down
three crows come close and watch me,
hoping for food, impatient.
Saco, Maine
After dinner, I walked up the road to Ferry Beach State Park, hoping to hear a Veery sing. Two of them have been singing regularly every evening and every morning. When I went up this morning at about 6:30, I listened to one of them singing for ten or fifteen minutes; the second one only sang for less than a minute. This evening, I listened for five or ten minutes and didn’t hear either bird. Perhaps they are done for the year. On the way back, I realized the sun is setting noticeably earlier. Summer is already starting to wane.
Saco, Maine
Betty S. sends along this link to a database of canoe-able water trails in the U.S. Alas, none yet in my home state of Massachusetts.
Long-time reader Mindy sent along a link showing President Bush touring the devastation caused by his presidency. I laughed, because if I didn’t laugh I would have cried.
For now, all I’m posting is today’s session plan. Later, I’ll find time to post more, including some feedback from the evaluation I did with program participants.
Older posts on ecojustice activities at Ferry Beach:–
Nature and Ecology with children at Ferry Beach in July, 2007: one, two, three, four;
Nature and Ecology with children at Ferry Beach in July, 2006: one, two, three, four.
Read the session plan…. Continue reading