Filming Has Started ....

We started filming the TAKS DVD this past weekend. We filmed both Saturday and Sunday and basically got 1/2 of the material covered!

We are filming the DVD in our living room. Tom and I cleared out the big couch and chair and coffee table and replaced them with a 4' X 6' White Board and a bookcase. I placed plants and some of my favorite books and things on the bookshelf ... but I am usually sitting right in front of the bookshelf when I am on film ... so you can't see too much of what is on it.

The man doing the filming and sound has noticed some things which we have basically tuned out over the years ... the sounds of airplanes flying overhead ... ( we are on a flightpath to and from DFW airport ) .... the clocks chiming on the hour ... my chimes out on the deck ... the cats messing around with stuff and with each other ... AND the creature which lives in one of our living room walls who occasionally makes scratching and banging noises in the wall!! Our door and windows BEEP when they open and if the back door isn't secured it will sometimes blow open with the wind ... sounding the sharp BEEP and allowing the chimes to sound even louder!! All of this gets picked up by my microphone. The sounds of "home".

Luckily this past weekend was very cold outside ... which means it was also cold in our house ... so even under the lights I had no worries about sweating off my make-up or messing up my hair. I stayed pretty comfortable ... but Tom and Robbie and Bob (the camera guy) all were pretty chilled. It worked out well ... I don't do heat well at all.

As I mentioned before. we got about 1/2 of the material covered .... that includes boardwork, and calculator problems, and some of the introductions. Tom is doing a great job of being the gaffer and of keeping track of what problems we have covered and what we need to do. He has even caught me making a couple of mistakes ... stop ... take 2!! Robbie is being the Gopher and my cheering section.

I am doing my own make-up and hair ... and I think I looked pretty good ... I don't usually wear make-up much nor worry about my hair .... I hope I look okay on film. I am not too happy with what I chose to wear on the first day of shooting ... the sleeves were too short and Tom mentioned that I might want to cover up my "relaxed triceps" wiggling as I wrote on the board ... so I got a denim shirt to go over it. This is a normal outfit for me to wear ... and I do look naturally ME .... but I like what I wore on Sunday better ...

By Sunday, I knew what to expect so I wore a 3/4 sleeve top to hide my upper arms ... and it is a multi-hued jewel-toned tie-dyed shirt with sparklies at the v-neck and sleeves. I like sparklies ... and bright colors ... but I was worried that the tie-dyed pattern might do weird things on camera. Tom and Bob said it looked fine ... I hope so!!

Tom also mentioned that my personality wasn't shining through on Saturday. I was nervous and worried about time. We have to fit all 102 problems on 8 hours of DVD .... so I wanted to be sure to keep things precise ... we started filming around 9:00 and finally at about 3:00 I called it quits ... my shoulders hurt ... my neck hurt ... and my energy was flagging .... and we had only covered 25 problems ....

Still ... all in all it went okay. Bob said that he heard and saw personality ... so we shall see. Bob doesn't really know me that well. On Sunday, I ate a good breakfast and took some Aleve ...before the pain even started ... and that seemed to keep the pain at bay. But I was much more relaxed on Sunday and made sure my personality came through ... for better ... or worse!!

We will try to finish filming next weekend ... then there's all the editing and there will probably be some things we will have to re-film due to the noises and such ... we shall see.

All in all it seems to be going pretty well ....