Pandemic prediction -- future of travel

 It is now November 2020:  the COVID-19 Pandemic has been going on since February or March of this year.

 

Here are my prediction regarding international travel:

-It will take many years to develop a workable vaccine.

-"Life in a pandemic" will become "the new normal": people will just accept the additional precautions (physical distancing; masks; hand-washing) as "what you do". 

-Recreational international travel can't get put on hold forever.  Therefore, travel will resume -- but it will incorporate various COVID-19-related precautions, such as:

-Physical distancing on airplanes -- which means that they'll only be able to fly at about one-half capacity (family groups, and parties traveling together, will not have to be seated apart).  This will double the price of air fares -- but people will be desperate enough to pay them.

-People will not be allowed to leave the airport during long layovers (e.g. to explore the town).

-Mandatory two-week quarantine periods, both before, and after, each leg of the journey.

-Specialized cruise ships will become more cost-effective than air travel:  the journey across the ocean will be part of the "two week quarantine" period.

--GG

Film experience with the Easter trilogy

For the last year or so I've been doing a fair amount of (unstructured) learning about film-making and video production:  I've read a few books, and watched a lot of YouTube tutorials:  the topic is very suited to the medium; can show examples of shots, depth of field, and etc.

But, I haven't had a lot of hands-on experience.

However, this whole "C-19" thing has changed that:  because my church (like all other churches) is currently not allowed to hold "in-person" services, we've shifted to an online format.  And because our vicar knows that I know a little bit about video things, I've been asked to assist.


They had already shot a few services before I was brought onboard, but it was fairly low-tech:  using a smartphone, and hitting "pause" each time they changed shots or location.

The first thing I was asked to do was assemble an equipment list.  I knew that getting decent sound is important, so I suggested getting a small stand-alone voice recorder:  it has a built-in mic, but also has a mic input for lapel mics (we've ordered them; haven't yet arrived).  Because we have a limited budget, instead of ordering cameras that can zoom, I suggested getting some inexpensive (AU$99) "action cameras" (i.e. GoPro-style) with a fixed focal length:  my reasoning is that we would just set up the shot by moving closer to, or farther away from, the subject.  And instead of zooming, we could just pick up the tripod and walk forward.  And they had surprisingly decent resolutoin.  We also ordered three tripods.

Since it's important to have decent lighting, we also purchased some AU$30 LED worklights from the big-box hardware store:  they're clip-on, rather than having stands -- which I figured would let us mount them to ladders and other tall things.  And we'd also need a few extra power strips/power bars (whatever you call them), with on/of switches -- because the $30 lights are too inexpensive to have their own switches.

CF, who is on the church council with me, was kind enough to do the "shopping run" for all of these things.


And then we did some shooting:  three separate days of production.  The early morning segments occurred without me (fine by me!).  But the "main" shots were during the day, starting around 10am.  Similar to a television production, we shot a few days in advance:  on Tuesday we shot the Thursday installment of the "Easter trilogy"; on Thursday we shot Good Friday; and on Friday we shot Easter Sunday's footage.  This gave CF (who was kind enough to learn how to do editing, so that I didn't have to!) only a day or two to do the editing.

I was pleased to discover that my year or so of learning about film making provided some context -- e.g. the subconscious symbolism behind shot angles and framing; "more light" is usually an advantage; how to get decent sound; and getting a good "performance" from the actors.  So I ended up serving as kind of Director/Director of Photography.


Example:   For the "stripping of the altar" scene, where we remove all of the accessories from the altar as we enter the period of mourning (because Jesus has been crucified, and not yet risen), I suggested that we keep the camera rolling, and remove a piece at a time -- but edit out the bits where the person is removing the items.  This would give the impression of the pieces mysteriously disappearing.

Similarly, the shot ends with a single candle remaining in the middle of the altar.  The creative question is, what mood are we trying to evoke?  If we do a close-up of the lone candle on the altar, that will feel intimate and comforting (which might be good, in these COVID-19 times).  Or, if we do a wide shot of the bare alter with a lone candle in the middle, that will feel lonely and sad -- appropriate for a period of mourning.


I also suggested to the vicar that it would be consistent with the medium (YouTube) to treat the sermons more like a video blog, and make them more "musings" than formally standing behind the lectern.  So she ended up shooting them from her desk or sitting on her sofa, and then CF edited them into the "church service". 


And, just little things like suggesting we "cut on motion"; the "180 degree rule" when changing angles to shoot the same scene; creating a shot list from the "script" (the vicar cringed a bit when I called it a script:  "It's a litergy, not a script"), crossing off each "scene" as we went, and getting all the shots from each set-up before changing the camera positions.


The type of advice I provided turned out to be similar to when I was producing the audio recording of my congregation singing Christmas carols, about half a year ago.  So, it suggests that I'm decent at that end of the business:  the "vision", the planning, getting good performances.

What I'm not particularly interested in is the fiddly bits -- the editing, computer-based visual effects, and (in audio) the fine-grained tweaking of pitch and timing (which I also have philosophical issues with).  This is consistent with woodworking:  I like the planning, and the general building -- but I'm not interested in doing time-consuming inlay work or intricate surface carvings.  (Urgh.)  In part this is because I have only a limited amount of time, and I know that if a project extends beyond a weekend (or a period of vacation), it's likely to fall down the list of priorities and (literally) languish for years:  so I need to crank it out.

Similarly, Chris Schwarz noted that in a project, the final 5% takes almost as much time as the first 95%.  From my perspective, this means that I can finish two projects "pretty well", or one project "well".  So especially if it's something for my own purposes (e.g. an equipment rack, for music gear), I go with the "pretty good", with twice the productivity.  Maybe when I retire,I'll do something more fiddly.  (NB:  In contrast, my brother says he enjoys the precise tasks.)  :)


We had many learnings along the way -- such as the action camera screens don't correctly represent the framing of what's actually captured:  so we learned to add a substantial margin at the top and bottom of the screens -- and then CF would crop it down in post-production.

Hat-tip to CF for also progressively figuring out ever-better ways of integrating the footage with the text that the viewer would read (as she/he followed along with the hymn or Bible readings).


--GG

C-19 and social predictions

So -- this is my first day of working from home... until I'm told otherwise.  Strange times.


Here are three predictions I have for the aftermath of the current coronavirus (or, as I'm calling it, "C-19"), which I came up with on 25 March 2020:

1) Improvements in video conferencing:  There's probably a lot of people like me who never got around to trying out video chats -- and especially not "group" video chats (video conferencing).  But this last Wednesday my church council had a test run of a video conference, in preparation for a "re-shaped" church council meeting on the weekend (i.e. "no longer face-to-face").  And teams that work from home are going to use it more than ever before.

Once people discover video conferencing, they'll use it a lot -- because (despite the extra bandwidth it uses), it is more "personal" to be able to see facial expressions and body language when talking.

This increased uptake, and frequency of use, means that people will "shop around" for the most efficient, easiest to use video conferencing software -- whereas before they probably just used whatever everyone else in their company used.  This means that there will be increased competition in that sector (remember the "browser wars" in the mid-'90s?) -- and we'll get a lot of extra features, better interfaces, and generally better video chat products. 

I can't say whether the "base packages" will be free, and the "premium" versions will cost money -- or whether the "free" versions will be funded by advertising.

Unless one is just amazingly better than the alternatives (much like Google is still the strongest search engine), I don't see there being a quasi-monopoly.  Especially since -- unlike computer operating systems (or type of video tape cartridge) there aren't strong "costs" to switching back and forth (except perhaps the nuisance of exporting your "favorites" list of contacts).


2) Working from home will become normative:  By the time this C-19 thing blows over, a substantial portion of the entire industrialized world will have spent (I estimate) two months working from home.  The technical kinks will have been addressed; bandwidth will have improved.

Everyone will have established their "working from home" routines -- for individuals as well as workgroups.  This means that if people want to work from home -- to save commuting time; to minimize pollution (from travelling); or just from personal preference -- it will be more acceptable.

I have anecdotal evidence of workgroups that have wanted to have the flexibility to work from home, but were denied permission:  but now, they can.

Kind of like "Rosie the Riveter", where after women were so broadly integrated into the workforce during World War II, it was hard to force them "back into the home" again.  Except that this is the opposite:  it'll be hard to keep people from the home (as they work).


3) Smaller workspaces; more hotdesking:  I do think that there is something benficial about having co-workers physically located around you:  social interaction, spontaneous conversations -- and nipping down the hall to ask a question is often still the right level of interaction:  e-mails are too cumbersome if there's a lot of follow-up questions (e.g. for clarification), phoning takes a little too long -- and you can't gauge how open to interrupting someone is (even with their electronic "busy status" flags).

It's also good for creating social integration -- especially with new hires:  my team has worked together for at least a year, so we all have a sense of each other, and of the group -- so we can not be "in person" for a month or two and still feel like we "know" each other.  Whereas integrating a new person to the group would be difficult, if there are only e-mails, phone calls, and the occasional group chat to bring him or her into the group.

Maybe when we have better holographic imaging technology -- so we can do the "Kingsmen" (the first movie) style of "virtual colleagues".  But until then, it is good to have at least some face-to-face time.

My prediction is that workplaces will grow physically smaller -- at least in terms of the number of desks (and computers) that are required.  If your workplace currently has 100 people, five years from now I predict you'll only have 60 workstations set up.

Some people -- like me! -- are "nesters", and like having personal items, photos of the family, and etc. on their desk.  But others have fairly spartan desks, and would probably be happy to only come in for meetings (as needed:  once a week, if you can schedule things efficiently).

I foresee two variations:  one is that two teams share the same "pod" (group of cubicles) -- maybe with one person piling their things on the left, and the other on the right.   They then alternate working from home, and coming in to the office.  The converging on the office would largely be for for developing and maintaining social cohesion.

The other is that each team is allocated space:  I'm estimating that about one-third of a team would want to work at the office all the time; one third would share a desk with another team member and just trade off (based on a schedule arranged between the two); and one third (pragmatically, more one one-quarter) would work from home unless they had a specific reason to come in -- at which case they'd sit at a super-small desk with their laptop.  This means that only about half the number of proper "workstations" (computers, proper desks) would be required -- a long as there were enough small, "blank desks" available for the "drop-in" people to set up for the day.


I predict that there will be enough inertia, post-C-19, that a lot of people who had worked from home over the last two months will just... keep doing that. 

The process of the reduction in workstations back at the office wouldn't be felt for two to three years:  it would largely come up whenever space gets reassigned (e.g. your team or directorate moves to another floor) -- and the new set-up has fewer desks than the old set-up.


--GG

What you wake up to

Although I'm pretty sure it's not "The 19", I'm trying to physically isolate myself from my family.  Among other things, I'm sleeping on the floor of the living room (next to the piano), on top of two layers of yoga mats, a blanket, and some beach towels.  I've come full circle:  that's very similar to what I slept on when I roomed with my drummer "Captain Crash" and his brother in my early 20s, between attempts at university.  Despite my being middle-aged, it's still reasonably comfortable.

So -- this morning:  farmers wake up to the sound of the rooster; in some seasons I wake to the sounds of wild birds; some people wake up to the smell of coffee, or bacon. 

I wake up to the sound of my sons screaming over their comms about Fortnite.

But at least they're having fun:  mostly.  ;)


--GG