Any excuse to play in the grass

Keith arrived on time as always at midday, with his camera at the ready. In fact I had asked him to give me a hand by operating my video camera for a short film I intend to make. I want to prepare a short guide to throwing and catching frisbees, which I have promised to send to a friend whose son loves frisbee.

I had charged up my batteries in advance, tested the external mic. for good sound levels and reminded myself of the basic functions, as it has been a long time since I used video (probably since I started blipping to be honest). I thought Keith would understand about framing through a viewfinder, which would help to get the steady hand held shots I wanted.

I drove us up across the valley to Bownham Common, which is another area of National Trust land, adjacent to Minchinhampton Common. The background here is the upper part of the small Brimscombe valley, running up from the site of the fete which I blipped yesterday. If I turned around from this camera position, I would be able to see our house in the distance, on the north side of the Golden Valley.

It was very hot and bright with the sun overhead, so not ideal lighting conditions. I had brought a range of frisbees, just in case, and we managed to record a reasonable amount of footage, which I haven't viewed yet. But when standing in front of a camera again, I quickly remembered why it is always best to script exactly what you want to say and show. I did once present a tv series, partly about frisbee, and the memory of some of my mistakes still makes me shiver both with embarrassment as well as annoyance at not doing a good job.

Today though we had a lot of fun, and I think Keith enjoyed being a video cameraman for the first time. We may well have another go to add some extra footage, but I will wait to see what I can cobble together from today's tapes.

As we packed up, Keith said he wanted to take some pictures of the frisbees, so I thought it would be entirely appropriate to blip him doing so. He has a newish wide-angle which he seems to really like, and with luck he might even blip his shot later today, though he has been a bit slack recently! Have a look here at DailyKeith's journal. It was Keith who first introduced me to blipfoto, so it is all his fault.

I do love playing frisbee, so I will arrange to have some frisbee meets with friends as soon as possible. I want to create a basic frisbee golf course here on this bit of the common as it is so beautiful and about the right sort of landscape.