"Grasping the Sparrow's Tail" (攬雀尾) DVD

Victor has been teaching a tai chi series 攬雀尾 ("Grasping the Sparrow's Tail") at Club O, and we have been filming a DVD on it. So I have spent the past two days editing; it is a very tranquil experience to watch so much footage of tai chi.

Despite the use of three cameras there has been an extraordinary amount of unusable footage.. mostly due to our (my) inexperience. But there are enough shots, thank goodness... enough what I call "charismatic shots" for us to hang the rest of the footage on. Part of the challenge of this project lies in the fact that this dvd is aimed so that people can follow the movement; and so basically you have to have at least one full body shot, done in one take for each set of movements (there is the left side, the right side and the complete works). You can't just "cut away" from it. Finding the right location has also been a challenge - first there was the weather, and then the perfect natural backdrop has also been elusive. For some reason in the country park there is always an inconvenientsign or bicycle rack in the way... especially if you want the spread of 3 cameras.