Behind the Scenes

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Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes when we set up for a video shoot or a Facebook Live with Janome event? You all see the fun part of what happens in front of the camera. But there’s a whole other mess just behind the view.

Last night, after two days of filming, video editing, and uploading, my husband (who also is the full tech support team) asked me which I preferred more, the Live events or the production videos. My answer…oh the live events are way less stressful. Now that may seem a little odd to most, but let me explain.

When I’m doing a live event, we just have to let it roll as it comes. Cat walks into the frame, dogs starts barking, I start coughing from talking too much, machine won’t thread…it happens. What can we do about it at that moment…absolutely nothing. The only thing we can do is laugh about it and move on. We can’t change the fact that suddenly we got a delivery and the dogs are going insane and a kid is yelling at them to shut up. It happens. What about when the same cat, who we rarely see throughout the day because she’s off snoozing somewhere, always decides to make an appearance in every video? Can’t do anything about that either other than tell Molly hi and push her out of the shot (only to have her reappear again so everyone knows she’s there, even if it’s just the tip of her tail walking by). Best one yet, what do we do when I’m showcasing a top of the line machine that works perfectly every time except as soon as the video goes live? Well we just call it stage fright. See I can deal with those mishaps along the way. We laugh about it, blame the cat, the delivery driver, a ghost who won’t let my machine thread, whatever strikes at the moment as funny. We laugh and we move on.

Now let’s talk about the video production side. One day we are going to make a bloopers reel, and I’ll play it for everyone and yall all can laugh along with me. I can’t show yall the ones from this weekend yet because the quilt I was filming is still unreleased. Thank goodness for video editing software to save the day. Let’s see there was the moment when my Laurastar iron let out a huge burst of steam when I wasn’t planning for it to (I accidently hit the button) and I got a facial and screamed from fright (no burns happend just surprised). Then there was the time when I’m in the middle of sentence and just started coughing. Chris had to cut and splice that section out so it will be funny to see who can figure out where it happend, all I can tel you is that my Stitchin’ Heaven drink cup was moved in the new scene. Plus there are all the moments where I stumble over my words and they make zero sense so I just say a cuss word under my breath, Chris laughs and we start all over. We get the videos done but there are some hilarous outtakes for sure!

Now let’s talk about video setup. That can start days in advance. While I do my absolutely best to give you all a really nice polished scene and backdrop to look at, there is usually a disaster just hiding out of the way that you’ll never see, until now of course. Bolts of fabrics, shelves of fat quarters, notions, lights, tables, machines, you name it, it gets moved around. You may notice that we are often filming in different locations within the house as well. We have tried our best to find the best room, lighting, and sound to provide you the best scenes. It’s always a work in progress, but we just want to do our best to make sure you get the best content we can provide. Chris actually mentioned last night that we might consider putting up a separate room/barn that would just be for filming so it could stay setup ready to go at all times. Anyone want to Go Fund Me for a new barn? Just kidding!

So next time you watch one of mine or any other video, just know behind the scenes there is definitely some hilarity going on to keep us all entertained. It may be that moment when you catch the top of a kitty tail walking across the back of the scene, or peeking out behind a quilt, maybe it’s the fly who is determined to be in every freaking scene, or the dog that barks because somewhere off in the woods there is a rabbit he can’t see hopping around. Just laugh along with me and know we will get through it together. Enjoy some behind the scene photos below. Oh and don’t forget to give a shoutout to that one-man production/tech crew. I couldn’t do all this without him there, thanks Chris for all your hard work behind the scenes.

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