Video – Page 5 – Richard's blog

Glacier Exit – A short documentary showing a glacier’s retreat

Byrichard 3 September 20183 September 2018

https://vimeo.com/198306286

Originally they meant to go out to have an adventure. They interviewed an individual about how the glacier’s rate of retreat has been increasing over the years. “I used to come here with a snow plow. Now I need a lawnmower”.

Global warming is visible around the world. Rockfalls have made hiking dangerous. There have been rockfalls at “Les Cosmiques” as well as along one of the routes I walked last year near Zermatt.

There are so many images of how glaciers used to look and how they look now. What was under hundreds of metres of ice is now supporting mature trees.

In the documentary above I like the point where you see markers to see how far the glacier has retreated. It would have been better if they had marked the points with the years on a map, so that we could see how fast melt is increasing.

mobile streaming | Real Time Web | Rock climbing | Switzerland | Video

The Right side of the transmission chain – acquisition

Byrichard 21 July 201721 July 2017

The right side of the Transmission Chain is at the event itself. Transmission chain is a term used to describe the route that a signal takes from an event venue to the device on which you are watching an event. As a camera operator the right side of the transmission chain for me is at the event itself.

Belaying

For the IFSC World Cup in Villars this year I was both a camera operator and a belayer. Belaying at a world cup event is an interesting experience because it’s rare to clip and unclip from so many climbers in such a short amount of time. Climbers have a limited time to get up the route. They have six minutes. This means that every 12 minutes or so you’re belaying a new climber as they progress up the wall. It’s a great task for introverts. You observe what the person is doing. When they need rope you’re ready to give it. If they’re struggling you make sure to amortise their fall. When they make it to the top or come back down you help them untie the rope and then you start again.

Camera operating

Aside from this task I was camera operator during the semi-final and final of the climbing competition. This means that whilst most people were standing in the crowd watching the competition I was on a podium in the middle of the crowd filming the climbers as they progress up the wall.

From here you see the crowd and you see the climbers from a privileged point of view. You can see the climbers and what they are doing comfortably. You’re also more attentive. You’re following their every move, watching as they clip and progress. You see them progress and you hear the commentator and hear the crowd cheering.

When you’re on the “wrong” side of the transmission you’re hearing the international sound and you’re seeing what the vision mixer is seeing but you’re not seeing the event in context. The image below illustrates this.

In television broadcasting you usually have the cameras, an OB van and an SNG truck or fibre connections. These go from the venue to the Network Operating centre. The signal is encoded either for web streaming and sent to the content distribution network or it is sent on to national broadcasters. On that side of the transmission chain you are in an air conditioned office as a passive observer ready to react if there is an issue and waiting for the event to end.

Post-university life | Video | youtube

Joseph Nye at the Graduate Institute

Byrichard 16 June 2017

Joseph Nye was at the Graduate institute to address the question Are we Seeing the End of the American Liberal Order? He did not want to give a yes or no answer but rather to introduce ideas with which to frame and understand the context of the question looking back in history but also looking at contemporary issues. In so doing he spoke about why the aftermaths of the First World War led to war and why the Aftermath and attitudes after the Second World War led to 75 years of peace. He spoke about Hard Power and Soft Power. He spoke about how with Soft power we find attitudes that everyone wants to adopt and participate in.

What I like about lectures by such individuals is that they really know their topic in depth and they understand it. They are well read and they have taken an active role in the topics they discuss. As a result when they come up to the podium their hands are empty. He did eventually pull out a single sheet of paper and occasionally looked at it. He talked with authority, and occasionally humour.

Here are a number of videos

Verhofstadt, Merkel, Macron and others believe in Soft Power, they believe that through mutually advantageous projects we can all benefit. Just yesterday roaming fees were terminated for European countries. This means that we can now travel and communicate in any other European country. Soft power is the opening of borders for trade, education and more. It is about trust and similar goals. It is about collaboration.

As a result of yesterday’s talk I want to read his books. I want to learn more about the topics he discusses and delve deeper into the context. We must neutralise the populist discourse by understanding what led to so many years of peace. It is important not to regress.

Switzerland | Via Ferrata | Video | youtube

Electro-dance yodelling and other Valais videos

Byrichard 10 June 201712 June 2017

This yodelling video is currently the number one trending video on youtube. I am unclear on whether it is for Switzerland or a bigger region. A small tractor is driving up a Swiss Alpine road with a group of yodelers sitting in a trailer. A car with Ma Cherie playing on the radio overtakes and the yodelers start to yodel the song. This video is on the Canton de Valais Youtube account.

Hydroelectric Power

Sixty percent of the of hydroelectric power produced in Switzerland comes from Valais with its 26 dams of which La Grande Dixence is one. They have French, English and German versions of this video.

From one side of the lake to the next by Pedalo

To keep the theme of renewable energy we have another project, to cross the lake in a solar powered Pedalo. It’s in French. I thought it was a project with an environmental goal at first.

Flying over Valais

Continuing with the theme of environmentally friendly activities Parapente is another. It’s a nice way to see such a pleasant landscape, especially if you find ascending air currents that prolong the flight.

Skydiving without the parachute

A few weeks ago after the Via Ferrata de la Farinetta near Saillon, I posted an image or two to Instagram and RealFly Sion liked the image. They’re the first indoor Sky diving simulator in Switzerland. It provides people with the opportunity to try skydiving without freefalling thousands of metres. This is an experience I would eventually like to try. I’m used to having the sensation of flying in a similar position underwater so trying it in a strong current of air would be fun.

D-Day Film archives on Facebook

Byrichard 7 June 2017

Yesterday D-Day Film Archives were shared on Facebook. These film archives were of landing crafts landing troops on the beaches, of battleships firing rocket salvos at the coast, of gliders being pulled by planes, of paratroopers getting and more.

Over the years films have been preserved by transferring the footage from one film stock to another and then transferred from film to tapes. The problem with film and tape is that they are stored in a physical location that only archivists have access to. This means that if we’re curious about seeing the footage, like the footage included in this post we would have to go to the film archive and ask for permission to see this footage. Within a few hours, days or weeks we might get an answer. We would have transport costs, access costs and more.

The advantage of digital video archives accessible online is that everything is accessible within a few seconds with the right keywords. This means that a child hearing about the Second World War for the first time can do a quick search and see this footage. History, rather than being words on a page, is brought to life. It stops being an abstract subject for the mind. In this footage, we see our grandparents and our nephews and nieces see their great-grandparents.

An effort, by the international community, should be made to preserve, digitise and then make available as much of this film material as possible. The technology exists today so that, at the very least, we can have digital backups of all of this material and in the best case scenario for this material to be available for future generations to watch and study.

I have already spent 15 months as a video archivist and media asset manager and I would like to continue this line of work. I find it to be a fascinating and interesting way to learn about history. It inspires to find books that contextualise the material that I am seeing on screen. This material makes us more informed citizens of the society in which we live.

environmental | environmentalism | Video | youtube

A Plastic Ocean – Recycle more

Byrichard 1 June 2017

A Plastic Ocean is an excellent documentary detailing the problems and threats caused by plastics entering water systems and eventually reaching the seas and oceans. This documentary starts with a team trying to film whales. When they finally do find the whales off the coast of Sri Lanka they notice that there is a film of oil and plastic build up miles from the shore. They say that this bit of ocean should be clean as the beaches had been unused for years. They suspect that the plastic had been freed after heavy rains flushed them out to sea.

I went to the Graduate institute to watch this film last night and the crowd was already well informed. When one speaker asked, “Did you know that the Plastic Ocean problem was this serious” at least half of the room, if not more raised their hand. When people were asked about the zero waste movement at least a third of people raised their hand. The auditorium was filled to capacity.

Plastic and snorkeling

When I was snorkeling in Spain a few weeks ago I was looking for fish and I saw a few small fish. In the past I had been scuba diving in these waters and surfaced to be surrounded by jellyfish. If you’re stung by a jelly fish you don’t need to use urine. Olive oil and seawater will calm the inflamation. I thought that I saw a jellyfish but as I swam closer I saw that it was a transparent plastic bag floating near the surface. I grabbed the bag and I placed it in my semi-drysuit sleeve and eventually swam back to come out of the water. As I walked back from the activity I picked up a second plastic bag and threw them away. If these bags were left in the Mediterranean then sea turtles and other animals might eat them.

Environmental impact

When plastics reach the ocean seventy percent sinks to the bottom of the sea and can remain there for centuries. What does not sink is degraded by the sun but it is broken up, rather than broken down. What this means is that you go from plastic sheets to plastic pellets and these plastic pellets outnumber krill and plankton by a ratio of two to one. This means that sea birds, fish and other animals higher up the food chain ingest plastic and it accumulates. Seabirds and whales ingest so much plastic that it fills their stomachs and they eventually die of starvation.

Everyday Recycling

It is at this moment that I am so happy to live in a canton where you can recycle PET in one container and all other plastics in another. This means that almost all of the plastic I use on a daily basis is recycled. It can be re-used for bags, car doors and more permanent uses.

Recycling is a simple and intuitive habit to have. My generation learned to recycle as children and we have kept up this habit for decades. It is so normal that we feel uneasy at festivals and events where we don’t have bins for PET, Aluminium and other products. In some cases I keep aluminium or PET bottles on me until I find a place where I can recycle them. I enjoy that at Swiss train stations you can now recycle paper, PET, Aluminium and other rubbish.

The advantage of recycling loops is that we use the primary material more than once. It means that we don’t need to waste energy and money on extracting oil and other primary materials. We simply recycle the materials. The concept of closed circuits was discussed.

An Environmentally Friendly Hike

If this post has inspired you to do more for the environment there is a wehike event organised by the Summit Foundation .

This is a hike inaugurating the partnership between WeHike and Summit Foundation, a Swiss ecological non-profit. The Foundation’s mission is to reduce the environmental impact of human activities -leisure activities in particular- in high-traffic locations like ski areas, by raising awareness and proposing concrete solutions. To this end, WeHike supports the Summit Foundation’s objectives by promoting and organising environmentally-aware hikes and waste collection & recycling operations in high mountains.

This is a two day hike near Les Diablerets.

A plastic Ocean is available to watch on Netflix and from other sources. It is worth watching as it will affect how you use plastic in future.

observation | Video | youtube

K2 With a Drone

Byrichard 6 May 20177 May 2017

K2 with a Drone is a documentary following Petr Jan Juracka, a scientific photographer’s trip to K2 with Klara Kolouchova with two drones. He performed extensive testing before setting off on the trip. He flew the drone in a hyperbaric chamber to see how it would react. He flew it in freezing conditions to check that the batteries would cope and then he flew in other places.

He had already flown his drone in a multitude of countries and Pakistan was the latest challenge. We see the journey to base camp. We see images of the snow and ice, of rivers, of challenging roads and more. The documentary mixes fixed camera footage and drone footage in a pleasant to watch manner.

Thanks to God, to a lot of work of professional kindergarten teachers, great support of my parents and a lot of eye-training I see. And I see perfectly! Since the times my vision went good I enjoy every detail, every color and I admire any type of light. – Petr Jan Jura?ka

For some of the cold weather testing:

As I watched this documentary one question I wanted to have answered is how he powers his drone and other devices. Apparently he has a set of solar panels that he can deploy outside his tent. When acclimating at base camp solar panels would be ideal. There is no need to carry a heavy generator and fuel. You just bring a few weatherproof panels, deploy them on the side of the tent and wait for various batteries to charge. In that shot we see that the weather is overcast.

Overall this is an interesting documentary that I would expect to see at events such as the Alpine Film Festival in Les Diablerets or the Montagne en Scène events. Combined with more footage of the climb of K2 it could provide for a more complete documentary.

Documentary | environmental | environmentalism | Post-university life | Switzerland

Dirty Gold War screening at the Graduate Institute.

Byrichard 3 May 2017

I went to watch Dirty Gold War at the Graduate Institute at lunch time today. The film is interesting because it makes you think about the environmental impact of gold mining. We’re familiar with the stories of gold mines in South Africa. We’re familiar with the stories of the gold rush. We don’t often think of the environmental impact of Gold mining in rain forests in Latin America. This documentary introduces the topic well.

It brings our attention to the fact that when people buy luxury products like gold watches, bracelets and other objects they are buying objects that have no environmental or ethical credentials. It leads us to question when the luxury industries will be accountable to such considerations.

Mobile Phones, laptops, televisions and other devices all contain traces of gold. If that gold is sourced from environmentally unfriendly sources then we are contributing to the destruction of the rainforests and the poisoning of ecosystems. Fairphone and other companies with such goals benefit from such documentaries because we are shown why their goals are so important. It contextualises their mission and their reason for being. It also helps to put pressure on all electronics manufacturers to do more to reduce their impact on the environment.

Dirty Gold is a topic that does not get much attention. As I reach the conclusion of this blog post I find that Dirty gold points to a music album rather than gold mining. We need to raise awareness of this topic. People are wearing wedding wings, luxury products and using electronic devices that are in part for the degradation of the environment. As awareness of these issues grows so companies like Apple, Sony and others should work to ensure a clean product line, from raw material in the ground to the finished product.