Here it is! The long-awaited video of me playing my apple branch flute.
I'm in my kayak, out in le Baie des chaleurs, on-location at the Bon Ami Rocks in Dalhousie New Brunswick, Canada (eh?), just off Inch Arran, about 1 km from shore. I thought this would be fairly easy but the tide and wind made it harder than expected. The tide was running fairly hard which was causing my kayak to drift sideways at quite a speed, which means in the video I'm always keeping my eye on my position, because the are plenty of rocks just below the surface and once I get out onto the main current it would be that much less fun to paddle back.
I was drifting enough that I had to paddle back about 1/3km every few minutes and repeat the whole thing again. Each take was often disrupted by various things so this had to be put together from a few tries. Sometimes I ended up facing into the sun or away from the rocks. My hands kept getting wet while paddling so before each recording I was drying them off. Wrinkly fingertips would not work well for flute playing. Sun and cloud and fog in rapid succession. I had to turn to one side because the deck of the kayak was preventing me from assuming a natural playing position. Plus, I was holding my kayak paddle in place with one elbow.
Using my bluetooth remote proved unreliable. In order to film myself so close I needed my Moment wide angle lens on the regular camera lens which meant the screen was facing away from me. The times I pressed record on my remote and nothing was happening I couldn't tell until later when I reviewed what I had shot so far. After I realized the remote was not always working I started the camera manually while looking at the screen and then rotated the camera 180° so the lens was pointing back at me.
Normally I use my DJI Osmo Mobile to keep my iPhone steady in my kayak. In this case I wanted to use my Shure MV88 stereo mic that plugs into the Lightning port on my phone. However, I can't use the mic and the Osmo Mobile together so the iPhone is attached to a simple solid mount on my kayak, which meant I would have no stabilization. Luckily, close to the rocks the waves were minimal. Just around the corner in the main current it was a different story.
Later I was surprised to learn that even though I was 1 km from shore Fabi could hear my flute playing from the beach.