Obstacles

During the first two drifts I completed, I came across some interesting obstacles. These obstacles should actually be the things that these film courses celebrate. It is these exact obstacles (natural, not created or prompted) that challenge the artist to use their creativity in ways that they have yet to explore. I believe it is these obstacle that we really learn from.
The first major obstacle that I encountered was on drift one. I noticed that when I returned from my first audio collection period that I had returned with mostly traffic noise. At that point I had figured that I would only catch traffic noise due to the fact that my microphones were so sensitive. However, I sat down to watch a movie and was drawn into the audio aspects of the film and that's when I started to realize that even though this film was using state of the art sound equipment, the idea for that equipment had to start somewhere, meaning that there had to be some way for my self to capture specific sound. This began a few days of indoor practice. After a few failed attempts I had constructed a crude cone shaped device to go around my microphones. This didn't exactly cut out all the outside noise but it helped in directing the capture. After that I decided to use cupped hands for shorter captures. This seemed to do the trick. Honestly, the thing that helped the most was just getting used to the supposed traffic schedule around where I reside. That probably helped the most.
The second obstacle that I encountered was on drift two. The obstacle was an unruly and quite hyper golden retriever. I had designed a short visual display in my head that would involve myself creating a design on some fresh snow. I had made and taken shots of a path I had created that was a very simple but large display. All I had to do was hop over to the sidewalk and walk around the design to where I had begun to visually capture the design or symbol if you will. I had only made it half way around my design when I noticed the owners of the previously mentioned dog, frantically running after said animal. That is when I noticed that the dog had decide that my design was missing a few things. So, I went home, collected myself, and filled a clip for my pistol. You see, sometimes things can be excused, and sometimes a simple apology would fix the problem, but unfortunately in this case, some one's dog needed to be shot in the hip...I'm joking of course... I'm a dog owner. I guess in this case, if you ever decide to spend a lot of time creating intricate designs using fresh snow as your medium, I would suggest having armed guards and maybe someone else to operate your camera. Really, that situation was just unavoidable.