4 days Ago By Robert Fisk
What the actual — insert your favourite expletive here — is a gimbal? Seriously, what is a gimbal and why does it exist in my life? Shouting and swearing at an inanimate object isn't my style, but this week, I've been incredibly frustrated while trying to learn all about gimbals. I'm immersed in the world of gimbals because I've started filming a series of videos about cancer for the Daily Express Cancer Care campaign. Which will put me in a rare category of influencers about whom you're not allowed to annoyed, irritated or even slightly perturbed.
For this exciting venture, my employer helpfully sent me a lot of tech to use with my smartphone, including lighting, tripods, and a gimbal. It’s a grey handheld device that a mobile phone can be clipped into, and then you use the buttons to record and zoom in and zoom out. That’s all fine and dandy, but then you get into the world of what seems to be the main aim of the gimbal, which is to record "silky-smooth footage" while moving the camera.
I studied film at university, I'm familiar with mise-en-scene. I recorded undoubtedly the greatest mushroom video ever released by a local newspaper. But I can't for the life of me get to grips with why I would need a button on a gimbal which means the phone can just happily flip round and film on a 360-degree axis.
Why do I need a setting that tracks my face in shot so the camera is always slightly moving but never as fast or as smoothly as a camera person would? I only know these settings exist and how to use them after watching countless tutorial videos. My favourite tutorial was the one in which the English voiceover is laid over the top of the original language at the same volume so it wasn't really possible to make out what was said in either language. Is it so wrong to miss the days when you would buy a product and it came with a manual, including a diagram of the buttons, so you could see what to do instead of watching a tutorial in which the videographer seems incapable of taking a close-up shot of the buttons? And don't get me started on whoever thought that the quickstart guide for the microphones I have was a good idea.
Supposedly, all I need to do is take the receiver out of the box, connect it to my phone, get the transmitters out of the box, and then start recording. The guide forgets to mention the stage of "Find a 10-minute video on YouTube that explains what app you need to download to ensure the microphones can record." This app isn't made for Android phones, so I had to find another one that works, but not as well.
When you do manage to get the sound to record, it's essential to ensure the app doesn't stop when it feels like it. I think gimbals exist mainly for people who — if you know, you know — film themselves walking into a chip shop and asking the woman serving how her day is going and what drink she'd recommend. They also seem to be used in sofa adverts on social media, in which influencers have been paid to say how excited they are to sit on a three-seater.
That's what I think, but what I know is that it would be so much easier for me to get to grips with gimbals if I didn't have cancer. The Daily Express office is packed full of amazingly talented video and social media folk and picture people who would be able to explain how gimbals work and what the buttons do in seconds. But because my medical team is worried about me getting an infection, I'm not allowed on Tubes and am constantly told not to enter offices.
This means what would have been a 10-minute thing on Tuesday resulting from me shouting "please help me," was, instead, almost an entire day of watching tutorials and trying to figure it out myself. Countless journeys in life, whether to do with cancer or buying a travelcard for the first time, are complex and made so much easier when someone is there to help. So please watch the videos when they are released on the Daily Express social media channels.
If just five million of you watch me talking to myself outside Purley Hospital in South London and learn something about cancer, then it will have all been worth it. In the meantime, please sign the Cancer Care petition above to ensure that all NHS cancer patients have access to mental health support both during and after treatment..
