It was only when we were closest, actually within the launch pad's fenced area on the "mounds" set up for staging cameras, lighting and other things, that the size really struck me.
When she reappeared a moment later, she was standing directly in front of the stage, camera in hand.
The whole experience is much like using a two-stage camera shutter button that clicks once to focus and depresses further to capture the shot.
Autofocus is very fast, images are captured with good detail, video stabilisation is fantastic and a dedicated two-stage camera button is very welcome.
This is especially prominent when trying to use the two-stage camera shutter button — my finger naturally gravitates to the highest point on the edge of the device, which often tricks me into applying pressure exactly where the shutter button isn't.
Like any dutiful journalist I approached the front of the stage, camera in hand, flash on.
Typical three-camera configuration is as follows: Camera 1 is in the back-center of the house; Camera 2 is house right or left, closer to the stage; Camera 3 is next to the back-center camera.
Even more telling is the staged helmet camera footage in its fictionalized account of the raid on Osama bin Laden.
"Fire Crossing Water" included acting, a Chinese puppet, on-stage cameras, a big-screen video and a musical typewriter.
When they did so, stepping away from the front of the stage, cameras positioned under the pyramid captured their hands in motion and displayed them on a big screen on the wall behind them, as if they were playing a huge dance festival.
In this three-day parallel universe, you will encounter once sensible young men painted blue with their underpants on their head, normally demure young ladies removing delicate items for the benefit of the stage cameras, people summoning up deep guttural primal screams of angst and alienation – and some of them may even be in bands.
