Guess what.
It's another blooming drum. Or rather...
...whatever this monstrosity is called. I've seen bongo drums in pairs; I have no idea what a set of three is called.
Seán and I were walking past the local market when he gave this excited shout of "Annette, look left: there are drums!" I looked and I thought I initially saw two pairs of bongos, presuming one was behind the other. Then we came up close and then we saw... well, this. It was going for £15, we needed a replacement for our bongos, and this was too good an offer to pass. We did give it a little test play before buying it -- it sounded lovely, but to be fair, it was a cold, wet, windy day, and this market was an outdoor market, so it wasn't a good benchmark for what its actual sound was.
We put this in a heated room just to let the skins dry out, and then I gave it a bit of a play. I can safely say that even when it's warm and dry, it sounds marvellous. I'd like to do a demonstration of sorts sometime, once it's restored, and if everything goes to plan, I might throw in the other percussions we have. Might. And if that goes to plan, I hope to push Seán's camera skills to the limit...
In other news, I'm slowly healing from that depressive period. I can't say I know how well I'm doing -- only that I am feeling and looking at things better than when I last wrote. I've been spending the last few days finishing off Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, but not up to 100%. If anyone has tips on how to get some of these elusive Power Cells, I'll be very grateful.
I'm now revisiting Final Fantasy X, a game known for its in-universe strawman dialogue. And awesome battles, awesome music, and RPG character stereotypes. Let the fun times roll!
kkots
Filming drums high-quality (in terms of camera placement & movement) will be incredibly difficult if you're only going to have one camera+operator, because you cannot do cuts or transition effects at all (except maybe at the start and the end or if you mirror/multiply the footage).
I'm thinking it will be great if you could time camera panning with the music: on the most intense part you'd do a slow close-up into the drums, and after the culmination you quickly zoom out all the way back to what it was before. And I think it would be a mistake to move the camera away from the drums at any time for any reason: be it for the reason of filming your face more closely (it is often done in footage of performers playing) or your costume (it would make things more in-character) or the surroundings.
Oh I've just got an idea. You can get a second camera and hide it somewhere (over the performer's shoulder) so that it always films your hands on the drums' surfaces. That way you could do cuts and have absolute freedom with everything.
About Final Fantasy X: what do you mean by strawman dialogue?
Troisnyx
By strawman dialogue, I mean: the Yevonites hate the Al Bhed, the Al Bhed hate the Yevonites, each hating the other for petty reasons, and as far as the story goes, one strawman stereotype is going to prevail in the end, in this case, the Al Bhed -- it doesn't explore people who have deeper spiritual connexions than just, "do what the precepts say and you will be saved." Naturally, this sparks a lot of hot-headed commentary. Christian fundamentalists will make this a comparison to Judaism, atheist and agnostic hotheads will make this a comparison to Christianity, and the flame war goes on and on outside the universe of X, as well as within, solving no problems whatsoever.
I like those camera ideas. Mind, a lot of drums will be used: we have three bodhráns, these drums above, one djembe and one set of ankle bells to play around with. The way I see it, it's going to involve a lot of cuts. So to a degree, there's a lot of freedom as to what can be done with the camera. Perhaps I ought to storyboard this once the piece is finished, and see where this'll take me?