Personal Fears

Some people fears to spiders, darkness, evil clowns, dentists, a lot of things that I can understand, but what do I fear?. It was a little bit difficult for me to answer this question, I don’t know why. I’m not the bravest man on earth (everyone knows it, I guess) but I´m not afraid  of external things. After of digging deep down in my mind I realize that my biggest fear is fail to myself. What do I mean with fail to myself?  Well I have a lot of dreams about future, things that I want to do, places that I want to visit, goals that I want to reach and sometimes I feel insecure if I will be capable of  accomplish all this things. 

To avoid that feeling I try to live every day being responsible with the things that I believe and I like to do. Being honest with myself and if I make a mistake try to figure out that and apologize. Also I want to learn a lot of things; I think that is one purpose of existence, because knowledge is useful, it’s a good way to spend the time.  When I  make this things, I feel that the fears go away.

I want to do all the things that my capacity allows me to do, but if I don’t do the things that satisfies me I’m going to be frustrated with myself .  Finally at some point in my life I want to look back and say: "I did what I wanted, I  feel good for that", then I will have no more fears.

English Challenges

I think that english is easy to learn for me, but I don’t practice too much to be honest.  I always try to increase my vocabulary, researching when I don’t know the meaning of a word or phrase.  To practice my hearing I always try to watch videos in YouTube without subtitles and I like listening music in english, I think that this helps a lot. 

Sometimes when I’m walking  I like to challenge myself thinking things in English and making phrases on my mind, I find that really easy , but when I must speak, especially  in public, I have some problems. The first reason of that is that I get a little bit nervous, and the main reason is because I never practice my speaking. I need practice a lot speaking, I know it.  To improve that I want to travel to some English speaker country, in the future. I think that there I’ll have a real and direct experience with the language. I would like to travel to England to learn, because I like how they speak and their pronunciation is better that the American one, at least for me. 

At the beginning that experience could be hard for me, but if I am surrounded by English all day I will be in the obligation to learn. Meanwhile I’m here I just want to practice at home, but if need a higher accreditation of my level of English I must take a course. 

English is a very useful tool in every sense, from work related things until entertaining stuff. I use a lot when I want to watch reviews on YouTube of cameras and technology related with filmmaking.  The good reviews are made by people who speak in English, so it’s my only option. I want to learn more English because it’s very helpful to get a good job and is always better have more knowledge.

Year 2014: Good & Bad Things

This year started good for me, why? Because summer. Is there something better than summer? I guess no. The best thing is don’t go to classes. Sometimes I could sleep all day. Without classes I feel free to do what I want.  The weather is warm, Santiago is almost empty and everything is good in summer. Also this summer I travelled a lot and meet a few nice people. But nothing is forever.

Then comes March and the good things disappear magically. People is back in Santiago, suddenly every street is fill with little children with uniforms, the evenings are shorter, the weather changes, it’s a little bit colder. But the most terrifying thing this year was back to university, I mean I like to be with my partners, share with them and learn new stuff, but waking up early everyday and do a lot of work for the different subjects … it’s difficult take that rhythm of life again. 

I had a problem with a subject this semester; I was in the red line. The first mark was kind of low and I though “damn I must give exam to pass”. This situation changed today when I received the second mark, it was good, better than my expectations. Also the teacher said that I will be free of exam, to be honest that makes my day.

In summary I'm doing well this year and I hope it´s keeps the same or better.  This semester is about to end and comes a little break to rest a little bit. 

How green I am?

To be honest, I´m not green at all. I’m not supporting directly any ambiental organization or participating on drastic campaigns to save trees, threatened animal species or whatever.  I know if we (as human beings) waste natural resources and pollute our environment   Earth will be a complete disaster, and that means the end for any type of life.

Instead of make big contributions to our planet, I try to help with my everyday habits. The first thing that comes into my mind is try to use the water wisely. For example when I brush my teeth I use small amounts of water, because fresh water is only a three percent of the total of water.

To reduce the air pollution, I travel by public transport. I live near to a subway station, so I can leave the car at home when I want. Public transport is bad, everybody knows that, but really helps to avoid travel by car or share it with someone else.

When I see that nobody needs light I turn off the light. It sounds an obvious thing, but not everybody does. This measure helps to save energy.

Something easy to do is throw your garbage into the trash cans. I do that every time, and when I don’t see a trash can available, I keep the rubbish into my pockets until I see one to throw the garbage.
I know that this it’s not enough, but is a point to start to help our planet.

Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

The documentary “Les glaneurs et la glaneuse” is my favourite because shows an alternative way of life. The documentary shows the life of different people who collect things in the crops, the streets or the garbage. I saw it for the first time two years ago. It’s directed by the french documentalist Agnes Varda. It was released in 2000. Varda is the narrator of the documentary.

The title of the documentary comes from a picture called Des glaneuses (The Gleaners) made for the french painter Jean-François Millet in 1857.  The documentary starts showing the picture and explaining the ancient tradition of glean. When the harvest is done there is a law who allow the gleaners to pick up the leftovers of the harvest. Varda goes to a rural region of France and talks with people who still are following this tradition. In this group of people there are poor people, like gypsies and people with a good economic situation, in this case a restorant owner who picks up vegetables for free to prepare his dishes.

In the second part Varda goes to the city, there are urban gleaners too. The documentalist meets people who survive with the food that found in  trash cans, people who make sculptures with garbage, and tells the story of a teacher who teach french to the immigrants and eat vegetables that find in the streets of Paris.

The documentary won several awards: Best Documentary in the Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, Best Documentary in the Chicago International Film Festival, best documentary in European Film Award and many others.

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse from WDROTV on Vimeo.

The Answer

It’s not easy to pick just one favourite song; I guess that the election depends of how you feel that day. Well today I choose The Answer by Richie Sambora. It´s an acoustic guitar ballad in A major and it was published in 1991. It´s part of the album Stranger in This Town.

So, why I like this song?  I like a lot the melody of the song, as a non-native english speaker, it was the first thing that I put attention.  “The Answer” starts with an arpeggio progression in A major and at the last verse it changes to B major.

When I read the lyrics I tried to figure out what was the meaning of the song. On an interview Sambora said that he wrote that song when he was about sixteen, but he could finish it many years after.

The song contains something that every person does in some point of life; try to get answers for the meaning of the existence and what is the purpose of the life. At the end the lyrics explain that life is not about  making questions, life is enjoy every single moment as the last one.

Bird's eye view: Six beautiful destinations filmed using drones

Original article

The latest innovations on Drones (unmanned flying machines), put this product on the commercial market, and now it’s available for professional filmmakers and “indie” filmmakers. In the past this type of technology was restricted for military purposes. 

The main advantage to have a drone is the price and portability. On EBay you can find a small drone for 500 USD. The smallest version of this device works with GoPro cameras, this kind of cameras are a lot cheaper than professional cinema cameras and you can get stunning footage too. If you compare the final price of a drone with the price of renting a chopper plus a professional camera,  you save a lot of money.

A lot of filmmakers are working with drones, and they get amazing results. Once  the job it's done  they publish their footage on YouTube Or Vimeo.

This is a special selection of six beautiful places captured with drones machines.

The first one comes from Africa. The video shows a safari in the Serengeti. The drone allows shooting plenty of animals in wildlife. 

This shows the rhythm of London City. Also it contains slow motion scenes. 

If you don’t have been in New York City yet, you can see the streets and different building of this emblematic city.

AERIAL NYC - RANDY SCOTT SLAVIN - DJI PHANTOM from director. randy scott slavin on Vimeo.

The next video got a lot of adrenalin. The surfers ride a huge wave in Oahu, Hawaii.

Pipeline Winter 2013 from Eric Sterman on Vimeo.

Take a look of the ice caves in Alaska, a wonderful natural landscape.

Bigger Than Life - Ice Caves from Firefight Films on Vimeo.

The last video shows the Cornish coast, and gets over a half millions views