Lights, Camera, Action!

So, this is Week 2 of shooting videos for the About.com website, and I have to admit, I'm having fun. It has been so cool coming up with the ideas for the videos, and writing the scripts and then actually using the video camera! I think the only thing that I am NOT going to enjoy (from my test runs the first day I had the camera) are the shots where I am on-screen. I'm not terribly photogenic, even on a good day, and when I watched the videos on the computer, I was shocked to see how often I blinked. I think I'll have to stick my eyelids open with double sided tape while I say my on-screen lines.















These are some of the samples from the first four videos that I have shot and finished: basic bead embroidered backstitch, St. Petersburg Chain, Cellini spiral, and African Helix. I had numerous requests for cubic right angle weave, which I would love to show in a video, but alas, these videos can only be three and a half minutes long at best, so I don't think I can do a tutorial for cubic right angle weave in under four minutes.

When I was reviewing some of the video I shot last week today, I realized that in the background, you can hear the (rather loud) trickle of water from the fish tank in the dining room! Yikes! I contacted the video editor to see what I should do about that, but before she got back to me, I decided I would just re-shoot the video clips where you could hear it so that I wouldn't have any problems when they start editing the clips for me. I re-shot the video with the filters turned off. Then I had to re-shoot some of those clips with the front door and the windows closed so that you couldn't hear the cars speeding up and down the road in front of the house. I need a padded cell, I think...

I've also been watching beading video tutorials online wherever I can find them. They're all like 5 to 10 minutes long, or longer! I hope I can squeeze all the important information into three minutes. And of course, I'll have written tutorials for these things on the site, too.

Meanwhile, the opening day of the Keene Valley farmers' market is drawing closer, and I have a million things to get - business cards, packaging, a new tablecloth, and I think I'm going to need an extra table, since I'm currently using one of my tables as my "desk" for shooting photos. I think it's going to be a less intensive market season for me this year. I'm not sure how good sales will be, considering the state of the economy here in the U.S. and around the world. I think I'm going to focus more on listing items in my Etsy shop, and when I do the farmers' markets and craft shows, I'll just have my higher-end bead embroidered and bead woven pieces and kits for sale. Maybe a few pieces of glass jewelry, but I've got an entire box of glass jewelry inventory sitting around with pieces that I've had for the last year, and it's not doing anything for me just sitting there and collecting dust. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I'll take a bunch of photos while Colden takes his nap...