We have moved onto Florence. If you've never driven the road between Rome and Florence, it's rather pretty (like I imagine parts of California to look like). Of course it was a little disturbing when our bus lost power going up one of the hills and stalled. The driver pulled over and, fortunately, was able to re-start the bus in about a minute. It may have been short, but he had to try several times and it seemed a lot longer. When we restarted, there were 38 relieved people (driver included). The students applauded and the driver responded, "grazie."

We're in week 2 of the semester and we've encountered a couple of minor technical glitches. The first is we are getting no audio from the camera-mounted mic. Not a big problem. We're using the hand-held to get nat sound. Yesterday we couldn't find the firewire (Sony calls it iLink). That's the cable connecting the camera to the laptop to dump all the video for editing. Thanks to the help of some students I was able to find a shop that sold me another (20 Euros, about $24). I'm convinced we have the cable (we used it in Rome) and it's jut buried under somebody's clothes somewhere.

We also encountered one minor non-technical glitch. When the students were shooting in the Pantheon last week, a guard came over to tell them that they needed a permit to shoot professional video. They quickly pulled out their student ID cards and said they were students, not professionals. Still, the guard said, they needed permission. He said they could have 5 minutes. After some conversations with Romans, we have come to find out that pulling out a tripod draws the guards. They assume anyone that serious must be a pro. We modified our shooting plans. Now, any interiors we shoot we will shoot first off the shoulder. Once we have those, then we can take out a tripod. That's just interiors. Yesterday we shot 4 hours of person-on-the-street interviews in front of the Florence cathedral with no trouble. Tonight we have an interview scheduled with a church official. Perhaps he can help us use a tripod inside. Of course that was Rome and this is Florence, so who knows whether we'll encounter any more trouble.

It's hot here (our hotel has no air conditioning) but most of the students have bought fans and are not complaining. Just a reason to eat more gelato!

Ball State has published a news story about the class.