filmmaking
Lights, Camera, Action
I spent last week in Providence with a few of the other Lullabots, filming training videos for Drupal's popular Views and CCK modules. It was a real learning experience: all of the video/TV work I've done in the past was more conversational and casual. You needed to be coherent, of course, and not look terribly goofy, but there was no need to convey a large amount of very precise technical information while the cameras were rolling.
We also kept a live webstream going, so various friends and members of the community could peek in on the progress throughout the day. It was fun for bloopers, and I think it gave folks a good idea of just how many takes it requires to get a good shot of someone, say, turning on an AJAX pager without accidentally mispronouncing the words "graceful degradation." Also, we had to wear stage makeup.
I'm back at home now, helping clients finish a few interesting sites (social business networking, e-learning, and more). To celebrate, Catherine and I binged on the first season of Damages, a cool court-drama-action series. The main character is kind of a low-rent Jennifer Connolly, but without the personalty, but she exists mostly as a catalyst for the really fascinating characters. We'll be finishing the last episode tonight, and tensions are high...



