A Few Highlights

It is with great relief, and not a little bit of pride, that I give a highlight or two from the past few days’ work. I blew through a couple of tapes just today, which is enough to make anyone obliged to rest a moment on his laurels — ghost walks from the Isle of Man and York. My good friend Adam Wright was with me for the first one, and as I have him wandering in and out of a few shots, I plan to give him a cameo in the documentary. (I hope he’ll understand if I decide not to pay him for his brief, but nonetheless key, appearance.)

I’ve been able to devote a good deal of time to the interviews I collected along the way. Considering the wide array of possible mistakes a novice cameraman can make — a hair on the lens (or, perhaps, what’s left of a bug); forgetting to make sure the white balance is in order (thereby preventing people who wear white shirts from looking like fuzzy ghosts) — my interviews have all come out pretty well. So far, I’ve gone through an chat I had with a man who runs a garden complex with his wife at the base of Troller’s Gill, and a few talks with tour guides from different parts of England. I’ve already taken a glance at the interview I had with England’s reigning Black Dog expert in Northampton, and my talk with the owner of the Black Dog Inn in Uplyme. So far, at least, they all seem fairly clear, and undisturbed by traffic sounds, people shouting, the obtrusive honking of passing flocks of geese, and other noises one tends to encounter in the United Kingdom. Packing a boom microphone was my best idea yet; it functions directionally, and when aimed forward, it can pick up a street pianist’s rendition of Georgia on my Mind with heartbreaking clarity, while (mostly) filtering out the call-and-response hooting of two babies in strollers behind me. (See my notes on cameras, beasts and babies if you haven’t already).

That’s all for now. Tomorrow’s business as usual.