Takoma Gardener

Gardening experts - wanna be a video star?

Over on GardenRant I put out a call for video star wannabees and got a great response.  Details as they shake out. 

I Survived the Making of a Gardening Video

THANK GOD THAT'S OVER.  That would be the taping of the gardening how-to video I agreed to do for a new website of how-to videos.  Why all the relief?  Ladies, you know.  Guys, maybe you do, too.  But more important than how-do-I-look is do-I-make-sense?  The topic suggested to me was "How to Create a Garden" after all, not something I could just demonstrate.   And one horrifying sit-down with a tape recorder told me this wasn't something I was going to just WING.  Unlike Ms. Amy Stewart, who's so good on her feet I'm sure she could do an off-the-cuff on any old topic.  Or Kathy Jentz, who does radio and TV all the time and does it so WELL.  God love 'em; I'm not one of 'em.

But at least I knew what had to be done.  And that would be prepare.  Ignore the person telling me not to write a script.  Write it and practice it.  Then create cue cards to refer to while I'm talking to the camera sans-script.   It all happened this morning and I can at least report that I survived it.  Let's hear it for Girl Scout training.

So preparedness and videographer Derek Campbell are all it takes to make it a surprisingly happy experience.  He's a really nice guy who seems to be good at what he does.  So when he promises he won't make me look bad, I believe.  I WANT to believe.

But as I said, it's OVER.

Photo:  Derek and his two cameras.  See the cue cards taped to the back of the beach chair on the left?  Very professional.

How DO you teach gardening by video?

THE OFFER
I recently got an email from a video production company looking for someone to create gardening videos for a website to be launched next month. (They'd gotten my name from a friend who's a local community garden organizer.) You can see the actual offer by clicking "Continue reading" at the bottom of this post.

I just love the concept - that thousands of how-to videos will be available on line, presumably all created by people who know what they're talking about.  I think it's actually pretty cool they chose a Gardening Coach for the assignment - even if it IS me - and I'm looking forward to getting help from their other experts - maybe instruction in bleeding my radiators or restoring my deck. 

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
So the upshot is that not one but TWO gardening videos by this very gardenblogger will be coming to your Internet soon.  They're titled:

• How to Create and Care for a Low-Maintenance, Eco-Friendly Garden (or whatever title the producers in their wisdom choose.

• How to Choose, Use and Care for your Gardening Tools (with the same possibility of a better name being assigned).

In the two days I have available to prepare for the taping this Friday (!), I have to write the 8-12 clips that make up each video, choose locations for each that will demonstrate what I'm saying, assemble the materials I'll need to show, some of which have to be bought, and get any necessary permissions (which indeed I got because we'll do some of the taping in my neighbor's garden).  Hey, could all this be called being "in production"?  Sounds impressive!

So come back soon for a report on the big day.  This time if the result isn't more than 2 minutes of airtime, I'll know it's me.  (But wait - on the web we can't call it "air time," can we?  Maybe screen time.)

THOSE POOR BOOBS ON HGTV
You know, I've already gained something from the experience - sympathy for anyone trying to demonstrate something as complex as gardening in a stand-still, one-time video.  NOW I understand why we see so many demonstrations of "How to Plant a Container" - because it can actually be done easily enough in front of a camera, all at once.  Compared to, say, my HUGE first topic above - planning, implementing and caring for a whole fricking garden.  (What was I thinking?)  More or less in one spot and all demonstrated in one afternoon?  Ha!  The video about tools seems doable enough, but more will be revealed.

Now tell me why the offer below mentions TV and not the Internet.  Does everybody still want to be on TV?