I’m videoing for the Cleveland Cannabis College today, so I have loads of preparatory work to do. While my wife is walking the dog, I bring the camera, tripod and bag of video goodies (radio microphone, connecting cables, remote controls, batteries, etc.) downstairs to the kitchen/studio and then clear the island of plant and fruit bowl so that I can put all of my paraphernalia on it instead.
Once my wife departs for work, then the serious business commences. Firstly, I need a shave. Then I have to iron the Cleveland Cannabis College t-shirt that they sent for me to wear.
I wonder why my tremor is so bad this morning, and then I realise that I have forgotten to return my device to its daytime settings, having reduced the voltages at bedtime last night (still sticking to 1.9v on the left and 1.7v on the right at bedtime, and 2.1v on the left and 2.3v on the right during the day). I make the necessary adjustments, and my world becomes a little steadier.
I load the video script into the teleprompter app that I have on my iPad, and then do a couple of practice runs to make sure that the text is scrolling at the right speed. I set up the camera and tripod in the kitchen, and the music stand that I use to hold my iPad while I’m running the teleprompter app. I set up the radio microphone and adjust the room lighting, and then I’m just about ready to shoot! I’m not editing the video for the Cannabis College – just providing them with the raw footage so that they can edit it however they want – so you would think that would make my job easier. Not so! The perfectionist in me has me doing re-take after re-take because I want the raw footage to be as near perfect as possible. I would normally do two or three takes, and then edit around any mistakes – I must have done about 30 takes this afternoon, and now I’m feeling exhausted and my voice has almost packed in! Tremor has been creeping back on both sides as I get more tired, so I decide to pack it up for the day and have a sit down before taking the dog for her afternoon walk.
After dinner, I review the video and start importing it onto my MacBook, ready to send to the college via DropBox. I’ll finish this tomorrow – for now, I’m going to open a beer!