Musings

An Excellent Week

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The last month has seen me working furiously in the studio preparing for two video shoots at PopWood, which took place last week.  Dealing with David, Rick, Jake, and Sam was a delight, they really know their stuff and succeeded in making me appear life-like on camera.

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After unloading my substantial inventory of stuff first thing Monday morning (I needed all the tools, supplies, and in-process step-by-step examples to make sure the schedule was realistic) the cameras started rolling around 11 AM.

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Because of the logistics of shooting two unrelated videos we spend the next four days moving back and forth between the two subjects.  Producer Jake and Director Rick kept me on track.  Fortunately, my three-decades-plus as an educator made me keep-on-track-able.

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By the end of Monday we were ahead of schedule, by the end of Tuesday even more so.  This allowed me to take a long lunch on Wednesday with Chris Schwarz and Raney Nelson as we toured the custom bindery of Ohio Book in downtown Cincinnati, a really cool experience.  I only wish I had grabbed my camera before leaving the filming studio to capture some of the images there.

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By noon on Friday we were all done.  I was extremely please with the project(s) and Producer Jake figured that I had only three verbal fumbles in five days of shooting.

The videos, Traditional Japanning Techniques and Simple French Parquetry, are due out in a few months I think.  As for the content, I tried to demonstrate the execution of these techniques as being straightforward and do-able with little fuss and hysterics, requiring the least possible acquisition of esoteric tools and supplies.