In February the family took a few days to drive from Seattle to the remote town of Forks, WA. It was a three hour drive, and an opportunity for the kids to see the setting of the "Twilight" books. When Gertrude Stein described Oakland she could have been describing Forks. Really, "There is no there, there." Still, the kids were happy to be on an adventure. The motel was next to the high school, Bella's truck was near the airport, and some merchant had devoted their store entirely to the Gothic romance that is "Twilight". The journey was a success.

I brought my little Flip Mino HD camera and recorded their adventure. This was shot entirely with the Flip, and cobbled together with iMovie '09. I think It looks like I finally have created a production flow for managing the non-standard 720 3ivx files. It is a little kludgey, but it works. Now if I could just master split edits, cover footage and voice overs I will be happy. OK, happier. The compression from MP4 to H264 and then to Flash in Vimeo desaturated color from the footage, the blacks got muddy and the whites blew out. The footage looked better in editing. The process holds together better with Windows Media files than QT. But this is progress.

This movie violates my 2-and-a-half minute rule. On the web I try and keep everything short and to the point. Short attention span theater, and all. This breaks the rule. Times five. But hey, my family will probably watch it.