Monday, February 24, 2020

GoPro Clusterffffffail!!!


You'll learn in the video that I have been mired in a video-and-blog-production-free zone since July of last year.

Finally, I can see clearly now (sad 2020 joke). Yet I truly do think that I have found a path back to creativity and production.

The kind of bond you can build with YouTube is really odd.

It is simultaneously insanely public, yet paradoxically intimate. It's like my audience is a massive intimidating horse, but I have learned to whisper in its ear, and it listens patiently and intently. My studio is like the horse's ear.

Well, that's certainly not the most poetic description of YouTube as an artistic platform for mankind, but you get the drift.

This is episode 40 of the vlog.

As I grew progressively sidelined by the course of events, the horse wandered out of its stall, out the proverbial barn door, to become a random distant dot grazing in the meadow. The thought of slipping on a bridle, coaxing it back, and climbing back into the saddle became daunting. It was no longer the horse I knew, the one I whispered to. I began to doubt if I even remembered how to ride, or what its name was.

I can now safely say, if there are others who have lost track of their steeds, that it's akin to riding a bicycle.

My new reality is that I have two purpose-built production facilities, two mounts willing to let me ride shoeless and bareback, lean into their manes, and whisper confidently in their ears.

A studio that you see in the video (actually you can't see behind the scene at all, but it's a dedicated iPod tied to a bunch of other cool stuff), and a new Go Pro designed for roaming (with some special bullet-proof ingenious add-ons protecting the disastrously frail ill-conceived external microphone sub-system).

It all sounds so dry, nerdy, and boring, not at all like thoroughbreds who prance in their stalls and swing their heads out to greet me. And yet there they are, and they are mine.

A source of comfort.

There is still so much to learn, there always is, but I am back in the paddock, at least for now.

It's great to smell the hay.
The copyright in all text and photographs, except as noted, belongs to David Masse.