Home Movies Are Dead

I went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore today. That's apparently the name of the place. Not the "National Aquarium" which is located in Baltimore. But its name is the "National Aquarium in Baltimore." This is silly use of the language, but good marketing. But I'm already digressing.

It was very crowded, but an incredibly cool place to spend a day. Expensive, but mostly worth it. There were lots of little kids there today, possibly because it's Spring Break in many places, and the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. starts this weekend.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about.

At one point I observed a man with a video camera. He was shooting his young son looking at some sharks swimming by in the main aquarium tank. The little boy looked all of three or four years old. After shooting a few seconds, the man stopped and quickly moved around to the other side of his son. Yes, he was setting up the "reverse angle" as it's called. Not only that, he fed his son a line of dialogue to say about the sharks. Something like, "They're really big. I hope one of them doesn't try to eat me!"

As if this whole thing wasn't ridiculous enough, when he raised the camera back to his eye, he said to his son, "Aaaaand....ACTION!"

I didn't make this up. It really happened. The video generation has gone insane. Home movies are dead!