Backstage with Sophie

I want to make a cool movie but I need an idea. "Mum, what could I film?" I ask.

"How about a show and tell," Mum suggests. "Get all the things you have been doing this week and show people."

I think this is a great idea. So grabbing my notebook and pen. I sit down to plan what I could show people.

"You could have it themed," Mum says. "One video about things that have changed around the house, the next about movies."

"I know what my first video is going to be about," I cry. "I will do one about books I have recently read."

Mum smiles as I rush off to find all the books I have read.

"I need a box to keep all my show and tell things in. I could put my hand into the box during the video and bring the books out," I decide. So I totter into the garage to see if we have one floating around.

Soon I am coming out again, an old kitty litter box in one hand. "This will do."

"You can't have an old kitty litter box on film," Gemma-Rose protests. "What will people think?"

"It would take heaps of coats of paint to cover up the pictures on the box," I tell her. "I don't want to wait that long." Suddenly an idea pops into my head. "A collage, I could do a collage! I'm sure some ripped up paper would look great glued to it and it should be much quicker to do."

"I will help," Gemma-Rose volunteers. "I could be your assistant."

"You could be my assistant on the video too. You could hand me the things from the box."

Looking in the garage, Gemma-Rose finds some old wrapping paper that came off her birthday presents and I find some green and pink paper and the glue pot.

Later we start working on the box. Ripping paper, gluing it on and then ripping some more paper. We are having a great time. We haven't done anything like this in ages.When we are finally done we hold the box up to show Mum. "What do you think?" we ask.

"Looks great!" Mum says. "A box like that would be wonderful for storing things in."

"Its our mystery box," I tell her.

I rush off to show the big girls. I knock on their bedroom door and hold up the box.

"This is our mystery box," I tell them.

"I wouldn't mind having a box like that to put super cool things in," Imogen says.

"If I can find another box, I will decorate it for you," I promise.

"I'll help," Gemma-Rose offers.

In the afternoon, we set up our studio. I look at Gemma-Rose and pick up a hair brush. "You can't go on film like that," I tell her.

Gemma-Rose's hair has lots of short bits that always come out of a pony tail. My solution to that is hair clips and lots of them. Soon she has a head covered in them. I am sure her hair is going to be the star of the show!

"That looks better," I say as I go to tell Mum we are all set up for filming.

She arrives. "Ready?" she asks and hits the record button.

I start talking. I make a mistake. I make another. Gemma-Rose's eyebrows go down low.

"Can we restart this?" she asks.

"We will have to now," Mum says. "Don't worry if I have to tell Sophie about her mistakes. It will just make it funny."

But Gemma-Rose doesn't agree. She makes faces at the camera whenever there is a mistake and it takes five goes to get it right.

Finally we have a version that we are all happy with. Smiling we go for some afternoon tea. Then I have the hard bit to do.

Mum puts the film onto my USB stick and I put it into my computer. I get to work cutting bits out, sticking bits together and just basically editing the video.

"Are you sick of the sound of your own voice yet?" Imogen asks a while later. She remembers what it was like when she made her videos.

"Yes," I agree as I hear myself say, "Hi, welcome to Sophie's Show and Tell," for the hundredth time.

"You're a natural on camera," Mum tells me. Me? Natural? I don't agree, but I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

By dinner though, my video is finished. It just needs uploading to YouTube.

All evening we watch my computer, surprised at how long it is taking to upload the video. Bedtime arrives, but I am going to stay up until my video is finished. There isn't that much more to go.

"What percentage is it now?" Mum asks.

"That's funny. It hasn't changed," I answer. "Oh no," I wail as the truth hits me. "My computer has lost Internet connection."

We hurry to reconnect it. Luckily the video is still uploading, but Mum has decided I must go to bed. I am tired and thankful to climb under my blankets. A little while later Mum pokes her head around the door.

"It's done," she tells me. I smile and decide to write a post about it tomorrow. I had so much fun!

If you would like to watch our video, please go to our Mother, Daughters, Sisters blog. It is called Sophie's Show and Tell (Episode One). I am going to make heaps more videos. What will the next one be about?

Unexpected Garden Photos

Yesterday I went outside to take photos of our trampoline for my blog post. I ended up taking more photos of our garden than of the trampoline.

 

This is our wonderful ash tree. It was tiny when we got it, but now it is taller than me!

This picture is of a big gum tree at the bottom of our garden. It turned out a lot better than I thought!

These flowers are some of my favourites. They are chrysanthemums which always bloom close to Mother's Day. Maybe that's why they are the most popular Mother's Day flowers. They are very pretty, aren't they?

We have quite a few bushes like this one. It is very nice. I like how it has both red and green leaves.

These flowers are in the bottom of one of our flower beds. They just grow all around the plants. 

There are only a few of these flowers left now. They are a lovely pink, but you can't see that very well in the photo.

Our daisy bushes just keep growing. They make the garden look wonderful.

I love our garden. It has some wonderful plants in it. Which is your favourite picture? Mine is the top one with the pink flowers.

Cameras

A very old camera

"You know you are very lucky to have a camera," Mum said to me last night. "When I was a girl we had film cameras, and you only had twenty four shots per film, and then you had to wait until you had enough money for another one, and you would have to save up even more money to have your photos developed."

I think about what Mum said. I am really lucky to have a camera of my own. It is a much better camera that the ones Mum must have had.

"Nowadays you can just plug your camera into the computer and import all your pictures and then take some more," Mum said.

In the old days you couldn't take many photos before your film was full and you had to buy a new one. How lucky I am to be able to take as many photos as I like without having to worry about running out of film on my camera. And I can use my photos as many times as I like.

I think of how I took all those photos of Gemma-Rose's Pollys. There were more than twenty four photos. I would have used up all my film at once. I think of all the bad photos I took. If I had been using a film camera I would have wasted heaps of photos. Cameras are much better nowadays.

I think of how I like to take my camera out on picnics and take photos. If I owned one of those big cameras that people used in the old days which you have to shove your head under a blanket, than I would never have been able to take it out on a picnic. I am so glad my camera is small enough to fit in my pocket.

Cameras have a lot of settings: cake, people, animal, nature, etc. When Mum was little she only had one setting. I am so lucky to be living when I do and have all the things I have. I will have a lot of photos to remember my life by when I get old! Mum is right, I am very fortunate.