Panic in the Studio

After a very productive weekend, it is now time for major league getting it together. My director/cameraman, son Chris, called yesterday to let me know we would be filming dvd three this weekend. Ya, ha...sure honey, perfect timing for release but your errant mother has a mess in the place of filming. At least, I have until Friday to get this mess in hand. We won't start filming until either late Friday or Saturday..whew!

Gotta tell ya I am the luckiest woman on the planet. This whole dvd thing would never have happened without my amazing family. When we dumped a bunch of money into all the necessary equipment, there was a moment of panic in sweet Ronnie's eye but now he could not be more pleased. To bore you with details, son Craig set up separate website with shopping cart...did it all in html because he can't stand messy code. His amazing wife, Kelly, mother of the famous twins, did all the graphic design and filmed the first dvd while she was very pregnant. Now she still does the graphics and all the editing...a major process. We use the same editing program as Monster Garage on the Discovery channel....big time work with fade ins, etc. Now son Chris, home from Iraq and an amazing artist in his own right, is director/cameraman. Kelly loves working with his film. He has a great eye and is picky about everything.

The cottage industry continues with the hard work of these fabulous three. All I do is stand where I am told in the clothes I am told to wear and talk. Chris and I storyboard each segment prior to filming, discuss where to put what and off we go. We usually shoot about ten to twelve hours to get an hour of good material. Kelly takes over and in about three weeks, we have a finished product.

A funny aside: Son Charles and beautiful Christy got a copy of each dvd. He knew what they were...me blathering on about quiltmaking....puts disc in player....picture comes up and he says, "Wow...that's my mom." No duh, sweetie, it says so on the cover. Gave him a whole new appreciation of mom..kinda a third person view of someone you know very well.

This whole process has been a learning curve for all of us...and a pleasure for me to work with my kids...okay they are adults but still my kids. Still lots of bugs come up from time to time but we are getting there.