General Update

Well we just had a big Typhoon, I didn't need to go to work today because of it. Yesterday at one point when i went outside the door was yanked out of my grip by the wind and the door knob slammed into the outside wall. Seems it was damaged a little because now it is more stiff to turn and lock. It was a surprise to me! My scooter was also blown over so I took it inside. Many stores were closed during the Typhoon.

Leah stayed with me and we walked to McDonalds and were well soaked and blown about. Lucky for us they were open. A lot of people were there getting food and staying out of the rain.

I took Leah to catch her bus to Kaohsiung and ended up getting lost on the way home. I still had a general notion of where I was going, and which way was North, but I was getting a bit confused about exactly where I was. Finally I found a road I knew, and followed it to another intersection. Many of the bigger roads are also labeled in English. I am able to read the characters than mean 'Beitun District' as well which helped me at one point. Anyway, I was soaked by the time I got home. During my time being lost, however, I discovered a really cool big temple with a statue of a red skinned bearded man, most likely a daoist god. I think I'll try to go back there to get some footage for my Taiwan Dreamin' program.

Speaking of that - well actually, randomly discovering that statue was really cool for me and inspired me to continue thinking about how I can put segments together to create the first eppisode. It's been a long time and I still haven't gotten all the pieces I want. When my father is here I will be doing more traveling so I am expecting to get a lot of footage at that time as well.

Just driving around in my every day life I see the same things and sometimes kind of forget I am on the other side of the world from where I was born. But when I see something new, like a traditional temple, or a big sky scraper, anything like that, I am reminded and I get really excited. That's when I really want to show everyone else! So I really want to get some eppisodes completed.

My main problem is trying to decide on a production value I am going for. I mean, how 'professional' it needs to be. Basically, shooting video is difficult, but editing is probably twice as hard. The other thing is keeping the editing process in mind when you are filming, make sure you get the shots you want. On some of the footage Ive gotten so far I found that I moved the camera way too quickly, I'll need to slow it down. The thing is, when you are filming, you have an urge to be quick. When you are slowly panning over something you feel it's too slow and might be boring, but that's what editing is for, you need the shot to be long enough and slow enough to work with.

Okay, enough about that... I think my Taiwan Dreamin' questions and comments video has over 200 views now. That's not a TON, but it's enough for me to feel there is an interest out there for the video. Once I actually have some interesting content, I hope Taiwanese and the rest of the world will be interested to watch.

I'll also need some translating done if I am to use subtitles, so if anyone is interested let me know!