In the end that foam packaging wasn't such a dogs dinner after all. Pretty proud of it. Certainly better than paying a few hundred quid for some bell-end to do the same job.
I am however, massively depressed by what looks like a crumb inside the 16x lens that comes with the Canon XL1s. It's on one of the inner lenses, I don't know how on earth anything could get in there. It doesn't look like condensation or mould, which would be awful but explainable, it looks like a solid object. The lens is the most expensive part of the whole camera. I need to do some tests to see if it ever comes up on film. If it does I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm confident weeping will be on the agenda. I never saw it when inspecting the gear from the seller, so I don't know if it's new or old. Fuck a duck.
Today I finished the redraft of the Toilet Circuit script, combining all my readthrough notes with electronic suggestions from some of the team too while listening to Chopin and Beethoven. On my lunch hour. Don't think I'll email the script to the boys just yet, I think I'll give it to them at the next readthrough so they don't have a chance to pre-prepare, or get specific line readings stuck in their heads. I've only made small changes, but I think it works, I need to hear them say it all first before I'll know for sure. Hopefully Frazer and Mark (who wrote the script) won't stare at me like a man who just butchered their child.
Yesterday some new miniDV tapes arrived along with a DV tape cleaner, I thought it would be good to spruce up the insides before putting my tapes in. I don't know what tapes the previous owner used but I read that using different makes of DV tape can cause problems because of the subtle accumulation of the different types of goop that each tape uses. I don't recall the specifics but I remember reading several people saying "find a tape brand and stick to it, you idiot" and I took their advice on board. There was more to it than that, and I used to understand better, but there's only so much room in my head so I've had to simplify certain knowledge so it takes up less space. Either way a tape cleaner could do no harm. Maybe I can start using this camera to film things with rather than having it locked away in a case, and only getting it out to fawn over it and stroke it and then putting it back very carefully.
I also think I will start carrying the camera around for ten minutes a day just to strengthen my arm and wrists. It's not huge, but it's no featherweight, and if I jump straight into filming for several days straight then I will probably give myself some horrendous RSI. My goodness, I'm not very butch, am I?
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