A virtual visit to Gill’s farm
Up until we all got shut away, I was having a wonderful time going to service clubs, community organizations, and even a couple of schools, talking about my two books.
After the meal, I was given the opportunity to speak for 15 or 20 minutes. I told the story behind the first book, “Fire on Black Mountain” and how I happened to write it. I then ended by telling them about the second book, “Snow on Black Mountain” and the reasons for writing it.
Thanks to a niece, I was invited to two elementary schools on the Central Coast and did two assemblies for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students. One school even asked if they could bring a class of second-graders. I agreed, and was pleased when the little ones were well behaved.
Then COVID-19 came along, and all that ended abruptly. I was saddened, not so much because I was locked away on my hilltop, but because I was unable to go out and talk about my books.
Then I had an idea. I could create a video doing the same thing I’d been doing in front of the school assemblies. Maybe I could send it to schools to use in conjunction with their distance learning classes, as a visit from an author. I wasn’t certain it would be acceptable to the teachers, but began exploring the concept.
Once again, my niece came to the rescue. “I have a cousin who teaches elementary school in Nevada. Let me talk to her and see what she says.”
The response was most positive. The Nevada teacher was excited about the idea, and encouraged me to continue. She also introduced me to her sister, also an elementary teacher, down in Texas.
Because of encouragement from both girls, I wrote the script for a video introduction to the two books. Wrapped into the story of the books, I would also talk about having been raised on a ranch and that I still lived on the same hilltop. I sent this script to both teachers.
Before that introduction video got finished, I received an email from the Nevada teacher. “We’re going to have a Distance Learning Career Day in latemay. Could you create a ten-minute video about your two careers of Cattle Ranching and Writing?”
She suggested I emphasize the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) aspects, and how they’re used in my career. This way, it helps fulfill some of the educational standards required for any material presented in a classroom of students.
I broke up the script into segments, or scenes. I decided I would go to various locations around the ranch to explain the many different aspects of being a cattleman. I decided where each scene would be shot, and jotted these down. The only thing left to do was get out my iphone and go to work.
I’ve seen several videos made using only an iphone, though I think some used an external microphone to get better audio. I elected not to spend the money this time.
I enlisted Bob, who often helps me on the ranch, to be my helper on the day of the big shoot. It was up to him to move the ladder, start the camera, then hold my script near the iphone. I printed the scripts in big font then stapled them to a spare scrap of plywood.
Digging around my shop, I found an adjustable clamp for my phone with a nice heavy base. It was originally intended for holding circuit boards for soldering. This would be perfect for holding my camera steady. The clamp, resting on the front of my quad, or on the top of my step-ladder, was sufficiently stable to produce vibration-free images.
It took us three hours to record the 12 different scenes, with no one scene longer than 98 seconds. Two or three times I made a second recording of a particular scene. A couple of times I simply stopped in the middle and started over because I wasn’t satisfied, or I’d stumbled over a word.
Once all 12 scenes were saved in my phone, I retired to the house, parked the quads, put the ladder away, and sent Bob home. Then I transferred all 12 scenes into my laptop for the final process.
I’ve previously used the Apple video editing app called imovie, so am familiar with it. I began piecing the scenes together. In one of the segments I also wanted to cut in two still pictures of Mr. Boo. I was actually surprised how easily that was accomplished.
It took less than two hours to put it all together into a finished video. The end result is certainly not Hollywood quality, but it’s not bad considering everything.
Some of the audio, especially at the break between scenes, could be smoother or of higher quality. In one shot, the breeze was blowing enough to produce wind sounds in the background. That shot was on my patio and had Tinker and Lucky dashing through the picture, accompanied by my wind chime ringing merrily.
With the video finished, it was time to uploaded it to Youtube. The size of the 10-minute, 20-second video is over 1.5 GB, so it took most of four hours to upload. The upload speed on my internet provider is an agonizingly slow (2 Mb/second) so there was nothing to do but be patient, have dinner, and wait.
I invite you to type in the link in the top of your web browser, or copy and paste if you can. When you are typing, be sure to carefully include each character and all the capitalized and small letters exactly as they are printed. It may take a couple of tries, but keep at it. Here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/ELMXCNEFPXI