I was reading documentation that referred to the portion of World War 2 fought in the Western Desert as the good war. The war was good because Montgomery and Rommel did all that pesky fighting away from population centers. They went mano y mano away from the people. All I could think was there were still plenty of people in those spots. They just weren’t white people. Those cities involved in the conflict like El Alamein, Tobruk, Benghazi, Tripoli and Tunis didn’t just pop up out nowhere.

The Cairo Trilogy

I continue to plow through the Cairo Trilogy, written by the only Arabic Nobel Prize Winner, Naguib Mahfouz. I have yet to finish the first book in the trilogy, Palace Walk, despite the fact I feel like I’ve been reading the book my entire adult life. The majority of the book details the home life of a typical Muslim family in Cairo in the time just after World War 1. The book was slow and uncomfortable. But I keep reading because the Cairo Trilogy looks at the world and in particularly, Cairo, from a completely different viewpoint than one I am used to reading about. The Egyptians do not care for the British and really wish they would leave their country.

The book really focused my attention when the 1919 revolution starts. The events of the day s of Revolution start to impinge on the daily life I’d been reading about for a million pages. I read a review of the books to see if it was ever going to get out of that damn house and I got a big spoiler about upcoming events. It won’t be pretty. 

This is in the aftermath of WW 1, twenty years before World War 2. From the Cairo Trilogy vantage the English don’t come across as the good guys. Speaking as a man studying up on Irish History, I see a lot of parallels between the Egyptians and the Irish in wanting to free themselves from English rule. When we do get to the part of the “Good War”, it feels like we are watching two colonial powers fighting over land that doesn’t really belong to them. If we just focus on the Germans fighting the Brits, we miss the bigger picture.

Greg is stubborn

Upon returning from our dog walk yesterday, Cindi asked if I had a beginning, middle and end for the Black Scorpions documentary. I can’t remember what prompted the question, but I do know it irked me. I do have a beginning and an end. The middle is sketchy. Cindi remarked that doesn’t sound like much of a story.

I tried to explain that I wanted to juxtapose my grandfather’s diaries and the life at war the diary depicted with what my grandfather told my grandmother in his letters home. The letters home showed something completely different. That to my mind was interesting. Not interesting enough for Cindi. Still no story. She kept pushing for the story.

And if there is one thing I like it is getting challenged. Challenges don’t get my hackles up at all. The worst part was she was right. There isn’t a story. I have a sequence of events that I can link together, but does that make a story? Is that enough drama for the documentary? I don’t know. 

The weakness of my current documentary, Iron Crotch, is the lack of story. I show some really cool demonstrations. I give out a lot of information about Qi and Qigong. But there isn’t a story, per se that people can recount. I think that might be the reason Iron Crotch was only selected for a few festivals. My pride wants me to do better on the Black Scorpions. I want the documentary about the Black Scorpions to do much better on the festival circuit. But I’m going to have to come up with something that looks like a story.

My Gimbal and Me

The Gimbal continues to fight me. I practice with it every day. Most of my effort is to learn how to balance the camera in the gimbal. Without balance, the Gimbal doesn’t work. Almost like a metaphor for life.

There are 4 different knobs to choose from in the balancing sequence. You need to do them in the proper order. I am still at a point where I can’t just look at the Gimbal and know which arms to unlock and then rotate the knobs. 

I have a video I watch to go through the steps. I try to do as much balancing as I can before I click on You Tube to find out what I am missing. This morning I stumbled at the first step. I started with the knobs for the second step which messed everything up.

I need to get this part down before I head out because I won’t be able to access the video I watch when I am standing by the side of the road in the Western Desert. Tomorrow I will balance again.

Adventures in the Yard

After I get the balance set, I head out to the yard to film. This presents all new challenges. When shooting video on the Nikon, I don’t get light readings on the rear screen to help me get the proper exposure. If I switch to camera mode, I get a lovely histogram. No such luck in video  mode. I am just guessing at the exposure at this point by looking at the screen.

Focus is proving to be tricky, too. I went and changed a bunch of settings on the camera yesterday to give me continuous 3D focus tracking. Supposedly, I just need to touch the screen for what I want to be in focus and the camera keeps that point in focus no matter how much I walk. Not really working great so far. Things close up tend to be blurry despite the fact my lens is rated to be sharp within a foot.

But the real problem is my wobble as I walk. You are supposed to keep your upper body still while you walk heel to toe . This should cut down on camera shake. After perusing the footage afterwards, I can say unequivocally I still have plenty of shake. I changed some settings in the Gimbal and they might have helped a little.

I’m going to blame my poor numb feet for some of the issues. My right foot has been particularly problematic for quite some time. The numbness makes me walk like I have cement feet. I don’t put my feet down gently anymore. This throws off the smoothness. I will continue to practice. I have ten days.

I did get some shots of a terrified dog and two terrified cats as I roamed the house and yard with my oh so scary camera contraption.