I thought I’d turn this entry over to Donna:

This weekend was so exciting! The Red40Entertainment team is remarkable. So sharp! So professional! And wonderfully fun on top of it! Todd has impressed me from our first meeting. And continued to do so. Was great to finally meet Dakota yesterday! And Ryan. They were absolutely on top of everything! And you’ve got to remember – as creative beings as they are, they were dealing all weekend with a studio full of painters! We really got the feel of what it must be like a day or two on a movie set. Lot of hurry up and wait.

p=. !/images/44t.jpg (We brief our studio audience)! …….. !/images/45t.jpg (Our day 2 group)! …….. !/images/48t.jpg (Donna demonstrates relative color)!

We’d need to set up a still life for points I wanted to make. John Mutrux, our host and such a marvelous photographer and master of lighting, would bring out this big light and that small one and color gel after gel to get the right effect needed. Someone in our class/audience would remind me in needed to check my lipstick or pull back a stray hair. Or somehow a small white speck would manifest on my black clothing and they’d point it out!

p=. !/images/46t.jpg (Lunch on the second day)! …….. !/images/47t.jpg (Dakota and Ryan serve drinks)! ……..!/images/42t.jpg (Donna and Dakota discuss)!

It was a real team effort! I kept thinking it would have been so much better if I had not been spending the majority of the last week in New Mexico, on the go all the time, first with presenting the program for the New Mexico Pastel Society. But still – my daughter, Melanie, our graphic and web site designer – and Santa Fe resident, was able to be in Albuquerque to videotape my program. Watching it gave me some good ideas about what I wanted to do and not do for our work this weekend.

p=. !/images/49t.jpg (Two-camera setup)! …….. !/images/50t.jpg (Setup for the color mixing segment)! …….. !/images/43t.jpg (Dakota monitors the shot)!

Now Todd has a huge job ahead of him editing alllllll of this! He’s going to do a fabulous job it it, I know. It’s all so very exciting! He’s going to keep us posted!

Donna ;-}

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There you have it. And thank you, Donna, for the kind words!

We have photos! Let your mouse linger over them for captions.

We left my house this morning at 9:15am — about 15 minutes later than we intended. When we arrived at John’s studio, half of the studio audience was already there. We wasted no time setting up the backdrop, lights, equipment and chairs. With four crew members (Todd, Dakota, Ryan & John) we made short work of it. Because we had previously tested the lighting setup in another session, setup was a breeze.

p=. !/images/33t.jpg (Some of our studio audience)! …….. !/images/37t.jpg (John satisfied all our lighting needs)! …….. !/images/40t.jpg (Final setup)!

We then settled the group – 16 volunteers – into their chairs and gave introductions all around. We thanked them for coming, told them what to expect, and asked them to relax. The was instructed to write any questions down that they would like to ask Donna so they could ask her after she finished her explaining. We decided to treat the question and answer sessions separately so there was no interruption of Donna’s teaching “flow.” We passed out release forms for everyone to sign, and I gave each person $1 for their time. They seemed WAY too eager to be getting so little money…

After a quick sound check, Donna slipped into teacher mode and slowly became comfortable with the process. This is the first time she has done this sort of thing for a camera, so she didn’t quite know what to expect. Like most first-time actresses, she loosened up and got comfortable with the process after about an hour.

p=. !/images/34t.jpg (Dakota sets up his shot)! …….. !/images/39t.jpg (Ryan Rusch – our sound man)!

For the first 2.5 hours, energy was high — but lunch was late in coming. Unfortunately, Jodie got sick so our lunch plans changed at the last minute. John went on a run for drinks, pizza, fruit and veggies, and some amazing wraps from Chili’s. We broke at 1pm for lunch, and not a minute too soon. Everyone was pretty hungry by then.

p=. !/images/36t.jpg (Janice Lackey grabs a bite)! …….. !/images/35t.jpg (Craft services)! …….. !/images/38t.jpg (We break for lunch)!

After lunch, we tackled some different setups. I think this tested the patience of our studio audience, who still managed to remain good attitudes toward it all. For example, we set up a shot with oranges and a pitcher to show how reflected light changes the colors of objects. The camera had to be moved close for that one.

p=. !/images/41t.jpg (Todd gets close for a good look at shadows)!

As we progressed to more elaborate setups, it was obvious the studio audience was losing enthusiasm, though they still retained good spirits. Hey, it takes time to set up a couple different gelled lights and get them just the way Donna wants them so they illustrate her point *and* work with the photography. A number of the students remarked they were amazed by all the work that goes into it. A few said they were glad to be painters and not videographers.

However, we did end the day at our planned time of 5 o’clock. By that time, our crowd had dwindled down to 6 — and we still had audience-reaction shots to shoot! So we just turned everyone around to shoot them against the backdrop. We pushed their seats closer together and shot them really tight, so it wasn’t obvious that there were only 6 people.

After all the hard work, I think we were all ready to go home for the night. I’m happy we managed to move right along on schedule and got more than 2 hours of footage in the can. Tomorrow morning, we start again at the same time, same place. We will have much fewer audience members in the crowd — a little more than half of today’s attendance — but it should be a lot more fun because Donna is going to do some painting demonstrations. Since everything is already set up, we ought to be able to wrap it up by mid-afternoon.

I do want to thank all of Donna’s students who could make it out to our shoot today! I hope you had a good time. I know it was educational! But we really do appreciate your time and lending us your heads, faces and insights to add a deeper, human dimension to the DVD. See you tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day — we are shooting footage for the first three DVDs in the “Artists’ Essentials”:http://www.artistsessentials.com series. The ones on color. Dakota and Ryan (our PA) are coming over in the morning and we’re loading up the car for John’s “studio”:http://www.mutrux.com in Overland Park. Donna has arranged for a dozen people to be in the studio audience while we tape.

We’re arriving one hour earlier to set up the lights as I mentioned in a “previous article”:http://www.red40entertainment.com/index.php?id=36 on our test shoot. Our goal is to start shooting by 10am, so we’ve told the studio audience to show up at 9:30. In my experience, that’s a wise thing. Here are a few other important considerations I’ve learned when planning an event like this:

1. Be sure everyone has the proper directions and at least two number to call in case they get lost.

2. Provide for adequate parking and accessible bathrooms at the shooting location.

3. Make arrangements for lunch — Jodie is graciously cooking for all of us — and have plenty of drinks on-hand for the cast and crew.

4. Set up ahead of time. Take as much equipment as possible to the site the day BEFORE the shoot. For example, Donna is bringing over all her example paintings, items, photographs, etc, tonight.

5. Always allow for more time than you think you will need. This will foil the Demons of the Unexpected.

Through proper planning, there is less tension while setting up in the morning, and it creates a relaxed atmosphere from the beginning. A relaxed atmosphere is VERY important. In anything, *impressions* are just as important as the reality of the situation. If you appear to know what you are doing, be in control, and be prepared, you effectively *are* as far as anyone else is concerned. This puts everyone on the crew, regardless of their own experience and background, in a professional mode and makes them comfortable.

In our case, we will shoot all morning and afternoon on Saturday. If all goes according to plan, we will finish all the “workshop” footage on Saturday, leaving Sunday to shoot some one-on-one transitional elements with Donna while we have everything set up. My goal is to get all the footage we will need this weekend. I’m confident that, if everyone stays focused and works together, this will be no problem.

Check back tomorrow night for some pics from the shoot and the gory details.