Zoom Doom

[smokingboot]

That was a lovely birthday.

58 is a good age; I know there will be difficulties in ageing just as there were in youth, but what can I say? There's a lot for me to be grateful for, a lot of beauty and adventures waiting. Happiness finds us in different ways. I never was a Spring bloom.

I got the dates wrong, our restaurant evening is next Saturday. Mine was spent quietly, opening presents, (my big birthday present is a trip to Romania in September! Vampires, castles and bears, oh my!) but on the day itself, I just enjoyed champagne and pie, catching up with a couple of mates via zoom. The next day too was Zoom orientated. Responding to a shout out from a theatre group, I agreed to help out with an Austen readathon; yes, Pride and Prejudice! The unabridged version, til we dropped!

Exactly what was this meant to achieve? It was meant to encourage people to donate to the arts, and that seems to have worked...I failed in one aspect; I didn't publicise because it always feels odd to me to do that. Making a fool of myself comes naturally to me, I don't fear an audience, but I just want to do the playing, the 'lookitme!' aspect is not such a big deal. I am wary of tech though, and with good reason. Being in front of the camera is a doddle; if you can talk, you can do it. The problem is when you have to talk even as you are receiving instructions from directors and camera operators, but once you've got that, even if you slip on the words, just shrug and try again, no-one speaks like a robot. You just need to relax into it.If it goes catastrophically wrong, it's the tech, and the tech is someone else's problem.

As appears to have been the case last night. Of course it over-ran, everything over-runs. What these guys had failed to notice was that zoom cuts out after 12 hours. Apparently the last part of the book was broadcast, but not recorded at all. Now I don't mind this, because while I enjoyed it, and got lovely compliments from the others about my reading, it was not capital. I just checked it on Youtube; my voice is too thick and there's a volume glitch at one point, as well as an almost lisped 'Elithabeth' which doesn't work at all, but the crowning glory is the camera. It looked fine when we tested it; but the light is behind me and all the camera picks up is my pure darkness. I am the silhouette narrator! I actually think it works better in a way...

But whether it does or doesn't, I still can't help laughing at it.

They want to re-record the entire last portion of the book for archive purposes, which is lovely because if it is a recording, you can go back, redo, redo again if you have to, make it much more polished. Suits me. But I can see why those who waited up to do their reading/acting and dedicated themselves to it with so much heart and enthusiasm might feel a bit dashed at doing it all over again. Eh, that's show business!

Tech's a bastard. But the experience itself was fun. I am now horrendously tired, not much work happening today.

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Sounds lovely! Romania! So fabulous! Please take pictures! I can only travel vicariously these days.

[smokingboot]

I will happily bore you to bits with endless pics, if it still goes ahead! R bought the whole thing prior to the pandemic, so it's a little bit up in the air, but fingers crossed :-)