When I was a young girl I dreamt, as many young girls do, of being a movie star.  I fantasized about being famous and living an amazing life in Hollywood.  It took me many many years, in fact till four weeks ago to realize that this particular dream is never going to happen.  Luckily I have a lot of other dreams.

I have been saying for three years or more that we are going to start making videos for the store.  I have been yakking, talking and planning and talking some more about doing them but never actually, well doing them.

I even took a class with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer at a trade show (CHA) on how to make interesting videos but there was always an excuse when it came time to start.

I don’t have the right equipment;

I don’t know how to work the camera;

oh no, I don’t even know what software to use and if I knew I would then have to learn how to use the software and I don’t have time

Like I said, excuses, all kinds of excuses.

I think in the back of my mind I was sabotaging myself into thinking it had to be perfect, a blockbuster video right out of the gate, that it had to be absolutely amazing, that would have everyone talking about how fantastic it was.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I was having a conversation with Dina Wakley and she was encouraging me (thanks Dina) to just do it. . . . and I decided to well, just shut up and do it.

I wanted to share with you how the video process actually worked, there are three of us helping to do this video, me, Lisa and Nancy (coworkers) and it took many days to do.

I got a tripod and borrowed a working camera.  We set the tripod up on the desk facing down onto my mat like this.

Shooting our video

We actually have to stand up on a stool to see into the camera to make sure it is in focus, that we have my non stick craft sheet in the middle of the frame and then someone presses the “Record” button.  Fantastic we are ready to film

Video Take 1.  Finally got all the camera equipment working, sat down to film, Lisa sat in front of me watching me and she talked through the whole video. . . . Not to worry, I can always remove the sound track and do a voice over.  (yeah right, like I know how to do that)   I pick up a piece of chipboard to mask off a portion of the project, only to realize that I had written “Toilet Paper Rolls” on the chipboard and it shows in the video.

Video Take 2:  Sit down, make sure I have all the items around me that I am going to use, start the video and realize I can’t actually speak during the process.  I can’t get my mouth to form words out loud.  What the heck is wrong with me????  This is “IT”, the moment when it finally dawns on me that I will never ever be an actress. I can’t act, I hate having all the attention on me  and I am not at all comfortable in front of a camera. 

Video Take 3:  Sit down, Get everything set up, start filming and working. I am reading off a script and although I sound disjointed and like a babbling idiot I am actually talking, which at this moment in time feels like a huge accomplishment.  Finish the video, download it to my computer to review . . . . and it is completely out of focus.

Video Take 4:  Sit down, start the video, can’t find any of the tools I need as I had not prepared.  Did not know what I was working on, gave up and realized it did not matter as the lens cap was still on.

Video Take 5: Finally realize the tripod we have the camera on, actually extends much more than we thought.  So we can have the camera on the floor, right in front of me and we can see through the viewfinder and turn it on without being on a step stool. I mean seriously, we are that dumb!!!

So much easier to shoot like this!

So I sit down, I have everything around me, I have my script and we start.  I talk, I create and it looks good.  We review the footage and it is out of focus again. frigg!

and then . . . . many attempts later we finally get some usable, in focus, well narrated video footage and the next hurdle is editing. . . . . and it turns out that this part is really easy. I do not know why this part frightened me.  I casually transferred the footage onto a thumb drive and give it to my husband to process. Yes, it was that easy.

The video is actually only four minutes in length but if you watch it 30 times in a row it will feel like a full length feature movie and you will have time to eat your popcorn.  Be kind in your comments please it took a lot of sweat and effort to get here.

and this is our video masterpiece, please enjoy!

Now I am just sitting back waiting for an agent to call me and thinking of the next video.