Experimenting with a new Video host

Everyone knows "Youtube"is for video! If you are interested in having multiple views so you can boast about how popular your video is then Youtube is the place to be. I recently heard about Wistia and decided to check it out. This is a video hosting site primarily for people who have web pages that promote products but there is a special offer that interests the hobby videomaker and that is to have a free account so videos can be linked to Facebook and Blogs.
I took some snippets of video at a recent event and edited them together - and making the snippets even shorter - just to try things out for myself.
I doubt if you will be too enamoured by the music - by being close to the large speakers I have very distorted sound - plus the sound from Korea and from Japan is very different to Western music.

I am happy with the quality of the video that I am getting from Wistia - uploaded from my MacPro as a Quicktime movie and converted by Wistia. I hope you find the video interesting. The Gold Coast, which is 75klm South of Brisbane is home to people who originated in many different countries. Approximately 33% are from places other than Australia so we have a very rich mix of cultures. Wonderful!

One day in history

Each day we had passed a tourist sign that pointed down a side road to Patchs beach (not a spelling mistake, its possible there was a person named Patchs). Today we followed that road to take a look. It was worth the effort. The beach is another part of that same beach that is close to the caravan park where we are staying and the sand stretches for miles into the far distance. I could just make out the glint of sunlight on the window of a vehicle but not the vehicle.

The beach is used by surf fishermen and in different places there is access to the beach for four wheel drives. Not far from where we walked to the sand I spotted a single man up to his waist in the sea gamely trying his best to catch a meal.

Leaving the fisherman behind we again drove from Wardell to Alstonville because the scenery is so beautiful along that road. This time we were to visit the house of one of the founding members of the township, Ambrose Crawford. It has been converted into a museum.

The house is weatherboard and was Crawford's second house, built especially for his wife. Their first home was a very simple cottage and that no longer exists.

When the family moved out the house was gifted to the local council and it was used for as a baby clinic and as a base for Meals on Wheels but a few years ago the Historical Society asked for and were given the building to create a museum of life in the early 20^th century. One of the active members of this society is one of the daughters of the family that lived here, she is now in her nineties. We were lucky enough to be looking around the house when she called in and she pointed out this telephone that she told us was installed in 1913 and told how she would love to listen in to the conversations with the earpiece held to her ear.

Each of the rooms was displayed to show off different features and apparently the displays are changed fortnightly. In the bedroom was a collection of childrens clothing and toys. One large standing doll caught my attention, it was the size of a four year old child and had the most beautiful face and jointed arms and legs. It was standing as if looking down into a little dolls bed in which lay another small doll.

In the living room was yet another doll, this time a full sized adult. Maybe this was a shop display doll. Again the face was beautiful. The pianola (I think that is what it is) was a popular piece of furniture in the 1920's. I have a friend who treasures his old pianola and has hundreds of rolls of music.

Our holiday in the Ballina area is at an end and tomorrow we drive home again to continue with our regular lives. It will be good to be home but I have enjoyed seeing so many of the interesting places down here.

AJ

Video talk

Being in Canberra makes me appreciate the heat and the humidity of the Gold Coast! Thursday morning was foggy – not foggy like I once encountered on the Yorkshire Moors where visibility was so limited I couldn’t see the other side of the two lane road or even whether there was a corner ahead, but foggy like steam on spectacles! I think I had my coat on for the best part of the day – and I was indoors! (complain, complain!) Sitting still does not warm you.
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A lot of “Official” stuff was dealt with in the morning. Nothing was changed and nothing improved. I really have no idea what my official role is supposed to entail. When the issue of judges was raised and the FAMM president asked if clubs would appreciate having twelve FAMM approved judges to pick from to judge their major video competitions there was a very negative reaction. So amazed was I by this response that I swallowed my own ideas on the subject. I get a distinct impression that these club members are unwilling to accept change and jump in to stop any suggestion of change. Sigh.
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There was a fair bit of discussion about music and copyrights. It is a difficult issue and a real problem for amateur video makers who wish to show their videos to fellow club members and most likely only shown the one time, without fear of reprisal. The majority do not like the Royalty Free music that is available because they need music that dominates the sound track and Royalty Free music is not designed for that, it is for creating a mood and is usually quite short.
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Videomakers need friends who can create music. I would imagine there are composers around who would love to try their hand at creating a musical sound track for a short film. The difficulty is . .. . . to find someone!

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Two excellent speakers gave inspiring talks to us. One, a young man with lots of passion and ambition is sure to go places because he has so much confidence in his abilities and so much energy to see that it will happen. I am sure we shall hear more about Daniel Sanguineti.
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Our second speaker is a scientist with the CSIRO and he also is responsible for a short (science)film festival. As well as showing some of the incredibly crafted videos from previous competitions he talked about the sorts of things that video judges looked for. It was a valuable talk.
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Later in the evening we watched more videos that had been sent in by the Video Clubs – each club sent along the five best movies from the past two years (the convention is held biannually) and when the lights came back on the winners were announced. One video was awarded first prize but the club that won the coveted FAMM Shield was the club that acquired the most points from the scoring of all five videos.

This year the shield went to Newcastle Video Movie Makers.

AJ

Culture on the 'Coast

I have done so many things this past week that to write a story about what I have seen and done actually stops me in my tracks! Where to begin!
So to be feminine and non logical I am writing about today first!
It was a hot "summer" day today with the temperature over 30'C and the air was filled with the haze of smoke from grass fires (most likely the fire brigades burning-off the long growth as a safety measure)so wandering around was rather exhausting. But at the same time stimulating.
Today many of the different cultures that make up the people who have made the Gold Coast "home" had made a great effort to demonstrate either their dance, music or their foods. It was the Gold Coast Multi-Cultural Day.
I had barely managed to charge my batteries for my Nikon and my Bloggie camera after two days in Toowoomba but I was so pleased that I had made the effort. The colour and the sharing by everyone was wonderful to see. I stayed three hours and in that time I travelled the world!
I had actually arrived ten minutes before the first "show" (Three stages in action, non stop - and all free) and a brightly dressed Chinese woman encouraged me to sit down and she told me so much about the group she belonged to. It is a strange title for a group of dancers but I will share it with you - "Global Federation of Chinese Business Woman of Australia" (Yes, womAn not womEn)They practice a kind of Tai Chi and martial arts with swords that looks more like a beautiful dance than a type of aggressive attack/defence skill. I took some Bloggie of the sword dance so I will share it later on.

When the ladies posed for a photograph for a friend, of course I could not resist grabbing one myself! Don't they look gorgeous? The woman who was chatting to me is in the centre at the back, in green. Surprisingly most of them did not speak English at all.
When the performance had finished I made my escape (or I would still be talking to the Chinese lady!) and made a bee-line for one of the other stages. On the way I came across three little girls in yellow costumes. They looked so beautiful. I chatted to them and asked them if they were going to be doing some dancing somewhere soon. I asked if their mother's had done their beautiful hairstyles and the floodgates were opened! They turned around so that I could admire them all the better and showed off this hand movement and that dance position until I asked them if I could take a picture of them. I took one but the next thing was that three more children were called over - and then more, so I have three photos of these delightful children (different number in each!) who later were on stage demonstrating Indonesian Dance.

What surprised me was that some of them did not "look" Indonesian - but they may have either an Australian mother or an Australian father. (remember that you can click on the pictures to see them larger - click on the "back" button to return to this blog!) They did dance beautifully - I made a point of returning to the stage for their performance.
While waiting near a stage for a different show - it was an Indian song and music demonstration - I was joined by two little girls who had obviously been to the face painting. I can strike up a conversation with children very easily and these two were just so sweet. I asked them if they would mind if I took a photo of them since they looked so gorgeous and I asked them to put their heads close together and look at me - here is my lovely shot of them.

Don't they have the most beautiful eyes? The face painting is lovely too, not the mess that you sometimes find! I wish that I had found out if their mothers wanted a copy of this photo - maybe they will find it accidentally by finding my blog!
I have so much to share that I will be writing again tomorrow!
AJ

Bollywood song and dance

As promised, here is a taste of the talent of the Bollyfunk Dance troupe from Brisbane.
Click on the title at the top left to be taken to Youtube where the video can be seen properly.
AJ

Street performers

There is a new event happening at Surfers Paradise and one of the happenings during that Festival is a competition for Street Performers. Although I live in one of the suburbs inland from Surfers Paradise I wanted to join in the fun and see what was happening.
The Street Performers or Buskers competition started today which meant that I was able to see some of it. My weekend is pretty well organised with heaps of activities! Surfers Paradise is not really the safest place for a woman on her own so I dragged my willing husband along with me as my body-guard.
I was not sure what to expect but I anticipated performers on street corners and alcoves singing or playing an instrument or juggling or whatever, what I did not expect was to find a clearing with rows of chairs arranged for a seated audience in the middle of Cavill Mall. Asking a fellow who was tweaking a sound system inside a small marquee, when things were going to start I was told "two minutes" so we found ourselves a seat on the front row. Following our lead lots of others came and sat down too. Setting up took far more than two minutes! More like twenty! Anyway the wait was worth it, The young Argentinian fellow twiddling a soccer ball while the sound system was being fine tuned turned out to be the first performer.

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There was not much that this boy could not do with a soccer ball! He was quite a comedian too so his performance was very entertaining.
The act that followed was also a juggling act and although each of the tricks were very clever the fellow himself irritated me so much that I actually wanted to walk away!

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This fellow juggled with fire, knives and an active chainsaw (!) and finished up on the top of a pole held up by people he had picked from the audience - he even jumped up and stood on the shoulders of one man (from the audience!) to get up high on the pole where he had a couple of footholds. I actually felt sorry for his victims!
Changing the pace of things was the sound of drums. We looked around and a bunch of people were creating amazing rhythms using tin garbage bins, folding chairs, tin lids and stuff, they walked as they drummed and led the crowd to the top of the Mall to the Esplanade where they stopped and gave a performance. I took a few minutes with my pocket video camera which I will try and put together for tomorrow.
Colin and I walked to another venue at the other end of Cavill Avenue and watched and listened to a very talented group who were playing exciting music.

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The young fellow in the red shirt was just as talented as the other two band members! They were a great trio. I did feel very sorry for the performers who were allotted this location for their performances though, there were no people here. a great venue but no audience.
Surfers Paradise was actually very quiet - apart from the sound from the performers, that is - I have never been there and seen so few people. It meant that I was able to get my shots of the performers easily but from the entertainers point of view it was not good! There are not many visitors around, in past years the place has been teeming with people who are obviously from other countries but today most were locals. The high Aussie dollar has killed our tourism!
AJ

Multicultural Day

Hot on the heels of Eurofest came the Multicultural Day, also in Surfers Paradise. Once again the day offered music and food and once again I was there with my camera to capture a few of the things that happened while I was there.I was fascinated with the displays that were put on for our entertainment by the Japanese Society. To begin with I watched the nimble fingers of a group of women as they played some unusual stringed instrument. The frets that hold the strings are relocated for each new piece of music. So that was interesting too. While the kimono clad ladies were playing their "harps" (for want of a name) a gentleman accompanied them on a bamboo flute.
Later I returned to the same stage to watch a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. As each of the movements was performed (the bowing, turning of the bowl, etc) a woman on a microphone attempted to explain what was being shown. Unfortunately the sound quality was very bad and that combined with her rather poor command of English pronunciation made understanding her very difficult.
Under another tent - storms had been forcast - the music was being played loud and fast for a very wiggly South American girl. She encouraged quite a few people to join her on her "stage" to learn the steps to a dance. It was amazing just how many did join her - but look at the faces, they are new Australians and haven't learned to be reserved like the rest of us! They had a ball!
So two fabulous fun and food filled days for me this weekend, I wonder how I can fill my time next weekend!
AJ

Eurofest - foods of many nations

Saturday was a hot and sunny day and perfect for driving out to join in with a festival that was being held in Surfers Paradise. The festival was called "Eurofest" and it was a celebration of food and music from Europe.We were greeted, on arrival with the exhilarating music of Spain and I had no trouble at all in getting near to the stage to take my photograph of the performers. They were extremely talented but I would imagine a little disappointed at the small number of people present at the time of their performance.Having arrived in time for lunch - deliberately! we lined up at the Hungarian tent to get ourselves a bowl of Goulash. There is no point in going to an event like this and not trying something a bit different. The meat was tender, the soup spicy and I found Colin to have plenty of room in his bowl for my unwanted chunks of potato! There was plenty of potato in the goulash! Potato, Carrot and meat were the only ingredients other than stock. We enjoyed it and then lined up at the Dutch tent for little pancakes with maple syrup and icing sugar. I cannot spell the name so I wont try to write it!
While we were sipping a coffee (we really did enjoy our lunch!) we had fun watching the German Umpah band (that's not their official name!) as they played the chicken dance and lots of jolly beer-drinking tunes.
I am not sure what it is about Australian audiences but they are very reserved! Only half a dozen children and one mother who remained seated, actually danced the chicken dance - I thought everyone knew it! I think back to the time when my boys were under ten (and not embarrassed by their mother's antics) and how I would join in and encourage them and many other children too, to join in. It was fun! Have people forgotten how to have fun?
AJ