Lights, camera....action!

Yesterday, we turned my dye studio into a tv studio.

A crew from WTIU [Bloomington, Indiana] came to my studio to film a segment on my dyeing for The Weekly Special.    Very exciting!    It's set to air on May 5th.  

It took me days, days!, to get the studio ready for TV.   It will stay clean for another 10 minutes, so if you want to see it, you'd better hurry.  

When they came, they brought all their TV camera equipment in handy cases.    When I saw the cases, I wasn't too worried....

and then I realized that tripods took up a lot more space set up than they did in the boxes.  It's a good thing I cleaned so much.   

They brought a camera and two lights.  

Confession #1:  Cameras are not my friend.    I do not appreciate looking like an orca on screen - even if I do look like one in person.    The producer assured me that they would use the Skinny Filter on the camera which would make me look 20 pounds thinner on TV.    I'm so relieved.

The crew was fabulous!   This is Eric, the producer.

and Ilsa, the grip.

and Jacob, the cameraman.   He's in charge of the Skinny Filter, so I was extra nice to him.

Jacob had to stand in front of the Big Hot And Extremely Bright Light.     It was big, hot and extremely bright.   Really - during the whole interview I felt like I was looking at Eric through a heavy mist.    They told me Do Not Look Into The Big Hot And Extremely Bright Light.   So I didn't.   I enjoy what little eyesight I have left. 

I thought the mini-monitor was pretty cool.    That's me in the monitor.   Too bad they couldn't just use that still and voice over the dialog.

This is me getting the mic on. 

It had a long cord connected to the little box thingie and everything.   I didn't want the mic on, but apparently making the audience lip read is bad form.   So I wore it.   I was  relieved that I didn't strangle myself with it or trip the cameraman.   That would have been bad. 

Taping was in two parts:  The Interview and The Dyeing Process.   I got a little break between, which was good because my knuckles were kinda white after the interview.

Jacob and Eric were very relaxed.

I wasn't. 

See that skein of handspun on my lap - it kept me sane.   I just pretended I could hide behind it.  I also kept my hands on it so I wouldn't wave them around.    The whole keeping-my-hands-from-moving-around thing didn't really work, as you can see.  

This is me trying to look like I know what I'm talking about during The Interview.

Confession #2:   I totally suck at impromptu interviews.   I get all tongue-tied, my vocabulary deserts me, I lose my train of thought,  I give too many details,  I move my hands too much.    Every time Eric asked a question, 40 things popped into my brain at the same time - the loudest one being 'I have no idea how to answer that question!'.  Too bad they couldn't tape all the noise in my head - THAT would have made for some gripping reality TV.  

Eric took it all in stride and never even once rolled his eyes out loud, so I was extra nice to him.    

It's kind of a minor miracle that we managed to turn the studio into a....studio.   We even had a studio audience!  At the bottom of this photo you can see part of the studio audience.   The other part of the studio audience took the photo.

After The Interview,  they taped The Dyeing Process, which meant that Jacob had to follow me around with the camera on his shoulder.    This is me getting the yarn out of the soda solution. 

And this is me rinsing the already dyed yarn.

Confession #3:    It takes 3 days to dye stuff from start to finish.    They didn't want to come over three days in a row, so I had things ready at four stages:  White and dry, in skeins; wetted-out and ready to dye; already dyed and ready to rinse; already rinsed and hanging on the drying rack.  That way they could film the whole process without actually being here for the whole process.  

When it was all over, they packed everything up...

and then we went down to the chicken coop to talk chickens.  Eric is getting chickens this month and he wanted to see ours.  

Confession #4:   It was really exciting but I'm relieved that it's over.  Mostly, I'm just glad I didn't fart on camera.   

Really.