Well, my first video that was basically centered around me got me quite a bit of comments. It also taught me quite a bit. First the lessons I learned myself:
– Batteries. Lots of video means you need some way to charge a battery, or have a replacement ready. In the two days camping I spend the battery of my good camera the first day. My phone was empty around noon the second day, and the two gopro clones I had did last a bit longer, but had a terrible image and sound quality.
– Interaction. It was difficult to film people I did not know. It felt like I would invade their privacy, so I did not film anything while I talked to others. People in our group also showed some restraint when appearing, so I also kept these interactions to a minimum. The result was a movie where I am almost the only person to appear.
– Clean. The video needs to be ‘cleaner’. I don’t know the correct word, but a lot of my sentences end in gibberish no-one can understand. I need to speak clearer. Some parts of the video show the ground, or my feet, or my shirt, and are not focused correctly. I needed to keep some of these parts to avoid breaking the monologue I was having.
– Information. I need a bit more of background information, so I have something to say when there is a dull moment.
– Editing. Cutting away boring parts is not so easy. I was talking a lot, and sometimes I had to leave bad parts to not cut my sentence in half. Sometimes I had to remove big clips, because I repeated things I had already said. Shorter sentences and a small pause before changing topic might help a lot to do the editing afterwards.
My family also had some comments. Quite a lot of comments actually, but most are covered my the issues I found myself.
– Focus. There is no clear goal for the movie. I was told nobody would be interested in seeing only me talk (and drink). It the focus is a family movie we see to little family. If the focus is transmitting interesting facts, I need to include more information.
– No interaction. The same as I already stated, but my family told me it was not all on me. The participants to the video should participate more, without being scared of the camera. This will probably be hard to achieve, because I told everyone I would be making a video, and everybody thought it was a good idea, but still almost nobody wanted to be filmed.
Conclusion: I liked filming and thought the video was not so bad, and maybe even a bit funny, but after all the criticism I have changed my mind. It is not a good video, and it would take a lot of effort to make it better. Will there be a next video… I´m not sure. We don’t normally go camping, so maybe I can make a video when we do something more often, and I need something to talk about. I’ll see, but for now my motivation is a bit low.
Our expectations were set quite high for 
The hotel itself was stunning. The architecture was breathtaking. The pools where everywhere and were really very nice. The greenery looks very nice. There were elephants, zebras, crocodiles and flamencos (all fake) all over the gardens, and it helped with the nice African feeling. There was a lot of personal walking around, doing their jobs, and the personal was very helpful. The rooms very nice and very big. Except for a broken coffee machine, and a led strip that was hanging around everything was in order. We had a well stocked mini-bar and a really nice big bath. Good beds. The room was great. A very nice view and a nice balcony, but this was unusable because of the weather.
Gran Canaria is a small island of about 40 kilometers. The capital of the island is Las Palmas and, surprisingly for such a small island, this is one of the 10 biggest cities in Spain. The strange thing about Gran Canaria is that the island is divided in two distinct parts, north and south. Las Palmas is in the north of the island and here it is often a little clouded. The south is the domain of the tourists. Here you will find lots of hotels and the best beaches. The area has the most sunshine of the island. The weird thing is that the inhabitants of the island actually refer to ‘the south’ when they talk about the tourist areas.
This weekend I was planning to follow the wine route of the Gran Canary Island with a couple of friends.
