I’m gradually assembling equipment for my next long walk. I’ve got this mad idea that I’m gonna try and record it beautifully and put it out there as a kinda “this is what it might be about” type thing. This is partly driven by my ADHD and partly driven by the idea that, if I’m gonna take so much time out of the possibility of earning in order to pursue spiritual things, perhaps it makes sense for me to be “generating content” in the hopes that occasionally people click the button that says “buy me a sausage”.
Today I got the software up and running for my drone. It took me hours, but I think it’s done now. It can now talk to my iPad and to my phone. I’ve only ever flown it inside the flat at the moment which doesn’t play to full capability. It’s a hell of a bit of kit even indoors.
It has been 3D printed, and the rotors are protected in the body of the drone, which is definitely for the best as I’ve already crashed it into a few plants and conked it into the ceiling. It makes a heck of a noise too. There’ll be no stealth with it. But in the right context it’ll be glorious for aerial shots and the like. I’ve paired it with my iPad so I can cut and twiddle with iMovie – that lets me narrate after the fact so I can blither on about this and that while getting a good view of the path or whatever.
They are already extremely regulated though. I can only fly it indoors at home, if I was to put it out the window there are people whose job it is to fine me for it. I’m right by a major heliport, a main road and the river Thames. Fannying about with a drone here would get me into trouble very quickly so I’m just gonna make sense of it here and in the fullness of time I can experiment with the other modes. Also when I flew it into a dark room it immediately just landed itself. It’s temperamental, and I haven’t learnt its ways.
It can do clever things like follow you or match your speed as you walk towards it, or rocket upwards from you, or Hitchcock itself out and up. I can’t imagine it will be possible to build live sound into the shots, just because the buzzing is always gonna get picked up, so it’s not gonna be a dolly but it is gonna allow for some fun stuff with sound done in post. Combine it with my gopro glasses and once I’ve got enough space on my devices to edit everything together I reckon I’ve got my suite of gadgets pretty together. And an AI music maker perhaps, to avoid the pitfalls of accidentally using copywritten music on a video about some prat wandering around in the hills and eating fish.
I’m gonna keep saving up for now, I’m a bit worried about cashflow right now. But before long I wanna do a deep dive into something spiritual in nature. Got a couple of ideas in my head, it’ll come down to plane fares and accommodation.
AlBarclay 