Movie-Making in Winter

Everything is White this morning! What a great time to make a movie! Winter does present some interesting problems for videos. First thing is, it's cold! That means keeping not just yourself, but your equipment warm as well. There's some controversy surrounding whether batteries lose their charge quicker in low temperatures, maybe the guys at Mythbusters can answer that one; personally, I say they certainly do. I also can say with some certainty that cold weather affects equipment as well; I have a digital camera that takes great pictures above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but below that it starts out as if filled with molasses and eventually just stops working. It may be the lubricant, or close tolerances in the parts, but it can't take the cold. So before you make a big project out of your winter flicks, let's run a few tests. Make sure it's below freezing outside first.

Find a place outside that's a safe place to leave your equipment, a back porch, backyard, etc., that's got some light available, if it's after dark. Set up your camera with a freshly charged battery pack, select a setting, and start filming. Place a spare battery outside on a dry surface. Go back inside and make some hot cocoa! No sense you freezing, leave that task to the equipment. Wait 10 or 15 minutes and check to see if anything is still working. If the camera's stopped, try the spare battery to see if it works. Keep checking at 10-minute intervals until the media fills up or the camera stops working. Now you have some idea of how long you will have to make your video.

Now for the second test: on a sunny, cold day, take some shots that include total sunshine, partial shade, and deep shadows. Shoot the same footage on several different settings: if your camera has a snow/beach setting, try that, also the full automatic, and any other settings that you think might work. You may find that the snow/sand setting is inadequate for deep shadow shots while in bright sun. Review your test a shot, make a few notes and it's on to the last test.

The final test is you: what do you have for personal warmth equipment? Remember the little gut in A Christmas Story that looked like an overstuffed Teddy bear? You don't want that look. You want flexible, warm layers; you want gloves or mittens that have removable finger covers, and warm, comfortable footwear. Leave the sunglasses off when you film so that you can better gage the lighting. You also want to have some sort of equipment cases, to hedge a little against the bitter cold you may encounter. I keep my batteries inside my outer clothing, to add a little time to their life.

When you're ready to go, make a mental note of what kind of video you want, think about where you want the camera, and whether you'll be able to re-take any shots or just rely on one take for everything. If you're off to the slopes to shoot some awesome snowboarding moves or some exciting mogul moves, remember to try to protect your camera from spraying snow. Keep the equipment off until you're ready to shoot, and turn it off when you're through, and put it away, even back the still-warm car. If it's ice-skating or cross-country skiing, or just having fun in the snow, shoot until you run out of battery power; then head back to the editing studio.

The last step is the editing, including any sound editing you want to do. I like to use Audio4fun.com's Voice Changing Software Diamond 5.0 for audio editing, as it has some dynamic features that allow for real-time editing, and many filters and effects for adding depth and quality to your productions, and the ability to morph your own voice into almost anyone else's voice. This would be great if you want to create a funny video clip with this Voice Changer. Once you've got your final product, burn a couple of CD's or DVD's, invite the relatives over, and don't forget the popcorn and hot cocoa!

ABOUT AUTHOR: Wayne Rice is a freelance journalist, copywriter, photographer and artist. He currently resides in the United States. See also www.audio4fun.com

Related Information of Interest:

Who Wrote The Most Famous Love Poem
The Most Famous Love Poem

Love poems have been written for centuries to inspire lovers and create romance. When you give your special someone a love poem, you can express your feelings through eloquent words in a memorable way. Many famous love poems are written by classical poets, such as Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Shakespeare. But a famous love poem by a modern poet may appeal to a younger person who likes a less formal tone.

The poet e.e. cummings wrote what is probably the most famous love poem currently. It has been featured in other books and movies, used as inspiration for other writers.

i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

The poet e.e. cummings is quite a unique writer in that he used new methods of creating mood and setting the words to paper. He explored the use of white space on the page and made the words’ appearance just as important as their sound when the poem was read aloud.

This poem is a perfect example of his use of parentheses and unusual stanza variation. He found a wonderful way of expressing very abstract ideas with some concrete grammatical forms. Use this poem to express to your loved one just how much they mean to you.

Visit to find out more about famous love poems.

Art Hill is an internet poet who operates an independant poetry publishing company.

Cameras Of Tomorrow
One time you had only to look into a little lens and press a button to take a photo, but these days cameras are more complicated. Much advertising money is spent on telling us all just how simple and easy it is to take a photo, and it is certainly easier to load a film in the average camera now than it used to be, but you still have to know more about it. You can’t just pick up that brownie box and ready, aim, fire. There are warning lights that tell you to change your angle or adjust your exposure, to mention just a few.

So what is the camera of the tomorrow going to be like? Will it be so complicated that only a rocket scientist will be able to operate it? Probably not, since manufacturers must get good sales for their products. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there are more sales in the masses than in an elite group of rocket scientists.

So come on guys, make it simple. How about a talking camera to tell us what to do? Just imagine Great-aunt Ethel lining up her new camera to take a picture of the latest nephew. The sun slides behind a cloud and the camera growls, “Hold it, stupid!” Ethel retrieves the camera from the grass, dusts it off and focuses again. “Beep-beep-beep! The subject is not smiling!” As the family gathers around with fans and cool drinks for Aunt Ethel, little Johnny grabs the camera and drops it into the fishpond, where it happily snaps the goldfish every time they wiggle.

The camera of the tomorrow may not talk, but at a recent exhibition in New York Canon had a prototype that waits until all the subjects are smiling before taking the picture. Another can tell if you’re blinking. These are expected to be commercial within a year. Fuji has already announced it has a digital camera far superior to most in clarity and resolution.

We think of the digital camera as possessing the most modern technology, but what if it is simply the Model T of cameras? Perhaps today’s digital cameras are the forerunners of some amazing new technology hiding around the corner, just waiting for someone with vision to invent it? Some time in the future, there will surely be moving 3D images that can be clicked into being on our desktops, in mid-air, or beamed to the other side of the world in less than a second. They’ll be in full color and at the click of a button, we’ll be able to hear what is being said. I can hardly wait!

Michael Colucci is a technical writer for Photography Tips and Digital Camera Reviews - Free sites that offer photography tips and camera reviews.

Delicious Christmas Cookies Recipes
Keep your kidsbusy during Christmas break baking cookies to give as Christmas gifts. Below are some common Christmas cookies that arenï¿½t too hard to make and are great for Christmas sharing.

Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread cookies are classics that will melt in your mouth. You can roll the dough out and use Christmas shaped cookie cutters or simple roll the cookies into balls and then roll the balls in a festive topping like crushed almonds or coconut. These cookies are easy and fun to make.

Youï¿½ll need the following:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 pound unsalted butter
pinch of salt

To make the cookies mix the ingredients well and then roll out to ï¿½ inch thickness and use cookie cutters. Or make small balls out of them and roll the balls in nuts or coconut. Place on a greased cookie sheet and then flatten lightly with the bottom of a glass

Bake at 300ï¿½ F. for around 20 to 25 minutes.

Secret Kiss Cookie

These fun cookies have a chocolate kiss treat inside!
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 bag chocolate kiss candies, unwrapped (7 ounces)
powdered sugar

Cream the butter, vanilla, and sugar. Blend in the flour. Wrap a tablespoon of the dough around a chocolate candy kiss. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350ï¿½ for approximately 15 minutes until the dough has set but is not brown. Then while still warm, roll each cookie in powdered sugar.

The recipe above makes about 2 to 3 dozen cookies.

Thumbprint Cookie

This is a colorful and fun cookie that kids love to make with a thumbprint.

2 1/2 cups flour ï¿½ add more if dough is too thin
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons vanilla
Chopped nuts
Jam

Use an electric mixer and beat the butter at medium speed until creamy. Then add sugar and flour, vanilla and almond extract, blending well. Chill the dough for 2 ï¿½ hours then form it into small balls and roll them in the nuts. Place the balls on a lightly greased cookie sheet then make an indentation with your thumb and fill it with jam. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes until firm and light brown on bottom. Bake at 300ï¿½.

Marianne Jackson is a staff writer at Christmas Gazette and is an occasional contributor to several other websites, including Family Review.

Diabetes And Your Diet
If you are like me you probably thought diabetes is one of those things you have or don't have; nothing could be further from the truth because diabetes is now the biggest threat to health in the developed world and we are eating ourselves into it because of poor diet.

First question is how prevalent is diabetes?
Using Australia as an example that has a total population of around 20 million inhabitants, in the last full year official figures show 70,000 people were diagnosed with diabetes during the year. That is equal to one extra person diagnosed every seven minutes 24/7.

At present 700,000 people are diagnosed with having diabetes and a conservative figure indicate that for each person diagnosed there is another that is not diagnosed but does suffer from diabetes. that is 1.4 million sufferers out of a total population of 20 million. - More than 5% and growing by the day. The organization Diabetes Australia forecast that by the year 2010 the number of sufferers could be close to 10% of population. This rate of increase is happening throughout the developed world and is caused by lack of exercise and poor diet. We could be quite cruel here and say that people are queuing to shorten their lifespan because diabetes does reduce your lifespan.

The answer to this epidemic is in the hands of each of us. We must exercise more and be more conscious of what we eat. Attention to diet should start from a very young age; in particular we should concentrate on serving sizes and avoiding fatty foods. Yes that does include every child's favorite burger and fries. Once a month does little harm if the children are active, once a week causes damage even if they are active.

We all need to be conscious of seven servings of fruit and vegetables each day in our diet and also the need to back a good diet with reasonable exercise, like walking. People most at risk of type 2 diabetes, the most common, are overweight and do not exercise. They may have high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol, if you fit this category ask your doctor to check for diabetes next time you visit.

I saved the scariest fact for last: The total number of people in Australia with diabetes or "pre-diabetes" is 3.2 million or 15.1% of the total population. Each of these people will have a reduced lifespan.

This article is (c) copyright David McCarthy 2006.

David McCarthy writes articles on the subject of the effects of food and diet on your health. This article could be the most important he has written when you read the scary statistics. His work can be viewed at: www.recipesmania.com/articles.html