Sunday 12/11/2022
In the morning I spent a fair amount of time on emails related to, and planning for, the CH Chorus Holiday Performances this week. It turns out that Bert tests positive, as does Jerry, so any A/V for the tech rehearsal on Tuesday and the two live performances on Wednesday, fall on me. Exchanged several emails and phone calls.
The basic tech is simple, all they need is a couple of mics. But I would also like to record the performance, as Jerry did a couple of years ago. That meant figuring out how to get some video into a computer, especially video superior to the ceiling camera in the auditorium.
I thought to use my Nikon which takes excellent video, and then I found that it has a size limit on video files, which amounts to a time limit of about 20 minutes at 1080p resolution. Well I can do that, I’ll just have to two times during the performance, go over to the camera and hit the record button twice, to end one and start another. Plus an iPhone on a tripod for another stream from another angle. But how to get good audio into the laptop? I need another adapter to get audio out of the system, so I ordered that off Amazon, arriving tomorrow.
That settled I was looking at some youtube videos from channels I subscribe to, and one by coincidence had some footage from… Barcelona. Very handsome public spaces. This pretty much decided me, the town I am going to visit next is Barcelona.
At 1pm I joined the carpool of 6 people in all, going to the Pear Theater. The play was Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune, and I didn’t much like it. Highest respect for the two actors, their memory capacity to start with. It’s a two-hour conversation between two people, and just remembering all that dialog and delivering it with expression and no mistakes is a feat. But the people spend two hours talking and end up right where they started, as far as I could tell.
During the intermission I checked my email (as one does) and there was one from CEO Rhonda, saying that owing to the sudden rise in Covid cases (I know of 8 people in quarantine as of this evening) it is time not just to start masking in the public spaces (see Friday’s post) but also: the Auditorium is closed for the duration.
Which means, one, the resident association meeting tomorrow is zoom-only, and two — no Chorus Performance! I felt a real emotional lift on realizing that. It had been kind of weighing on my mind I guess.
Codgerville 