“Two AM” and the Huckleberry Botanical Regional Preserve

From 2014 to 2018, I lived in Oakland. Then I had a car. In ~15 minutes, I was at my favorite park: the Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve. This post is about a short movie about it, and a song I wrote during the lockdown and used as the score.

From 2014 to 2018, I lived in Oakland, near Lake Merritt. I was quite happy there because the lake was just a few minutes walking away. Then I had a car. In ~15 minutes, I was at my favorite park: the Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve.

Sometimes I was going there to breathe, some other time I brought with me my camera and shoot. As a result of that, I have a lot of footage. My laziness prevented me many times from putting some of the clips together to make a short movie.

A few days ago, I composed a tune that sounds, somehow, like classical music. Yesterday I decided to record it, and I did it. Posting it on SoundCloud, I called it Two AM, roundly the time at which the music started flying around my head. After, I shared it on Facebook, but the way that happens is not ideal. You can not just listen to the music, you must open a new tab and go to SoundCloud. The only way to let people listen to the tune on Facebook is by uploading a video. How to solve the issue?

Initially, I looked for some app to do that, but I didn’t find anything that I liked, and I thought I could maybe build something myself. But I discharged the idea, I am doing too many things these days. When I had almost given up, “Perhaps I can take a look at all the footage I have, maybe some idea will come up,” I thought. I connected my 2Tb backup drive, and a folder name Huckleberry said hello to me. Almost automatically, I launched DaVinci Resolve and started a new project. To align the footage with the mood of the music, I colored it like an old Fujifilm. Last night, around 1 am, the video was ready. This morning I watched it with fresh eyes, I fixed a couple of clips out of sync with the music, and I published it on Vimeo.

If you like to listen to Two AM without the ambient sound in the video, you could appreciate the audio file on SoundCloud.

Thanks for watching and listening to. Leave me your thoughts in the comments.

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Originally, it has been published at https://room29.art/2-am-and-the-huckleberry-botanic-preserve/ on May 10th, 2020.