It is done!

This is a weird feeling. It's just like when I finished my dissertation. Months - nearly a year actually - and then with one stroke of the key, it is over. I was working until 2am today, and not for the first time either, but I handed over my master copies this afternoon.

I've been a bit let down by the guy who was going to duplicate these for me. It was scheduled for next Tuesday, but now he can't do it, so I've had to go to a commercial House. Unfortunately they all need 7-10 working days, so I'll miss the Bash deadline. This means that I'm having to have a batch burned as well, which is much quicker but twice the price, too.

On the bright side, everyone whom I asked if I could quote their kind remarks has agreed, so there are a few attributions on the back cover.

And on the other bright side, Fine Woodworking are featuring some of my YouTube videos on GlueTube.

I'm not sure what to do now. The garden needs tidying, there is some painting to do, the insurance stuff needs sorting from the burglary and my workshop needs setting straight. I've also got to give Charley some help PDQ, so I'm not short of stuff, it's just not Video! But as I've done noting else for longer than I can remember, it's going to feel strange.

I'll probably post once more after the Bash and launch and then it's history.

Steve

Home run

Well the filming is finished, the editing is done and I'm fighting my way through the authoring of the DVD. It's amazing how much there is to learn. We take for granted (well, I do) that a DVD works the way we expect - menus, buttons, one scene following another - but none of that happens automatically. It all has to be programmed. It's rather like writing a computer program, actually.

It's complicated by the fact that I want to have DVDROM content on the same disk as the DVD Video content, but after a couple of duff attempts, I think I've got that cracked. Some application Help manuals are rubbish, aren't they?

I've been heartened this week to receive some feedback of previews I sent to one or two people. All the criticism has been constructive and by and large the overwhelming response has been positive. The criticism has all been perfectly justified, and in fact, generally less critical of some aspects than I have been myself, so I'm optimistic it won't get completely slated!

One guy, whom I don't know (he just turned up to assess some flood damage and we got talking...) said, and I quote, "If you can get the beeb to show this on a Saturday morning, every bloke in the country will be glued to the telly!" He had never met me before and had no reason to be unnecessarily nice to me, so that was very gratifying. I'm rather hoping I can quote him attributively in my blurb.

My website is coming on, apparently, not helped by me rather ignoring Charley's pleas for information. Apparently he has many skills but being telepathic isn't one of them. I'll try to do better, Charley.

So it's testing, testing and more testing this week. I have a Duplication date of July 17th, which will give me a few days before the Nottingham Bash and launch. I've done the artwork for the disks and the cover, I need to get them printed.

So all in all I'm optimistic of meeting my deadline. I just wish I was as certain about the success of it. I'm pretty sure it will get good reviews, but will anyone actually buy it? I just don't know. I do hope so, not just so that I can become an economically viable human being, but because I'd really quite like to do the others that I have on paper, and there is no point if people are not going to buy. But if they do, then I can continue and produce a fairly major body of work.

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

Starting to panic!

Things are hotting up. For a start I've decided on a release date, July21st. I'm hosting the Nottingham Bash of the UKWorkshop.co.uk members on that day and I shall launch at that. There are lots of other activities planned, mind, it's not just a promo for me! So if you are interested, email me, nottinghambashATworkshopessentialsDOTcom and I'll send you an Info document.

Now I know that they opened the Spa at Bath several years before it was actually ready, so there is precedence (!), but I really do want to have it finished by then. I know that's a tight schedule as it's less than 4 weeks away, but I am up to date with my editing and I've only another couple of scenes to shoot, which should get sorted this Friday.

After that it's getting the Titles done, the artwork for the DVD cover, the menu structure and the CAD models and PDFs. The they need to be replicated and packaged. That's all! You can see know why I say it's getting scary.

I'm really glad I decided to split the work into two DVDs. They are running at over 2h40m combined, and this way I don't need to cut anything out.

Good news on the ecommerce angle too. Charley has offered to help me with that and I am very very grateful. It's one less thing for me and I know he'll do a good job.

Must go, I've got a DVD to finish.

Megafilm

We filmed on Friday, and Bob arrived early and we finished late. We filmed tons of stuff and had some fun along the way. Quite an addition to the blooper reel! I've been editing it today and it's put the running time up astonishingly.

This means that I am going to have to cut some of the earlier material, probably re-film it, actually, in a more condensed form, as I don't want to lose this later stuff. I'm really very pleased with it. The new lighting is a great success.

I've also been working on my website and investigating the ecommerce angle. Boring but essential, I think you might say.

I'm getting very nervous about releasing it. I do have a release date, which I think is feasible, but what happens if it gets slated? I'll be suicidal. This is my Magnum Opus, my blood, sweat and tears have gone into this. I think it's a great work, but what if the rest of the world doesn't? I don't expect it to be a financial success, but I would like it to be a critical one.

It's getting scary.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

More filming today. We had to re-shoot just one short scene from last week, and things went well today, too. The main problem has been back-light as it's been sunny today. My workshop is long and narrow, and there are windows at both ends. Whichever way we face there is a light behind me, which affects the auto-exposure on the camera, so we have to find ways of working with it. But I think we do quite well, really.

Talking of lighting, I know it's a bit late in the day, but I've bought a new light stand - much higher than the site-light stands we've been using to date, and some reflective umbrellas. They are coming from Hong Kong, so I guess they'll take a few days, but I'm hoping they will give me a much more professional lighting effect.

Two unexpected things happened this week. First of all you may remember that a couple of months ago I bought some domain names, workshop-essentials.co.uk and similar. The one I wanted, workshopessentials.com was already registered, but coming up for renewal. Domains die a long slow and painful death . The owner had registered it 4 years ago, renewed it 2 years ago, but didn't appear to be renewing it now and I was keeping an eye on it.

Unfortunately, there are companies with robots to do this sort of thing. They snap up expired domains within seconds of the button being pushed, in the hope of selling them on at a profit. I didn't get there first.

I was fully expecting an email saying "Dear Mr Maskery, would you like to buy workshopessentials.com, it's yours for only 5K!", but it never came. This week I decided to see if the new owners had set up a site, and what sort of business they were in. I was surprised to be redirected to a generic For Sale site, and to cut to the chase, workshopessentials.com is now mine, and at no inflated price. I've paid $34 USD for 2 years, including page and email redirection. I'm very pleased. I don't understand why the previous owners didn't confirm their purchase, but I'm glad they didn't!

The other surprise was looking at my running times. I've been working my way through my running order, but not keeping tabs on the times. I decided to take a look, as one of my recent scenes was a lot longer than I had anticipated. I was astonished to find I had 1:50 of finished footage! And we are not fdone yet!

Now I always fully intended to give good VFM, but was anticipating 1hr+, not nearly 2, so now I have a dilemma. Do I release two DVDs simultaneously, or release No. 1 now (-ish) and No. 2 a few months later? I could physically put them both on one, but that would be daft from a marketing POV, as people won't pay twice as much for a 2hr DVD as they will for a 1hr DVD. Crazy, I know, but that is human nature. I'll have to think about that one.

No filming next week, both Bob and I have other things on the calendar.

Cheers

Steve

Back in the workshop

It seems like ages since our last shoot, and indeed, my trip to Sierra Leone has set me back about a month, but this week we set to again and got quite a lot done. I cocked up a bit at the end - the jig I'm making is a modified version of an earlier one, making it easier to use. Unfortunately I'd not quite got the geometry right, so I'm going to have to work it out properly and re-shoot. And we shot one scene with no sound... but all the rest is good usable footage.

It certainly makes a difference having a 19" monitor in the workshop. We can play stuff back instantly, rather than having to move upstairs to my office and do it on the computer every time.

I've made one or two changes to the plan of what I'm going to include in this DVD and it means that I hope to have the main shoots finishes in three more days. That's three weeks if we keep to schedule. I'm seeing a big difference in quality between the stuff we are shooting now and the stuff we shot before Christmas, I think some of the earlier scenes may get re-done.

It appears that I have offered to host a woodworking get-together in July. So far about 24 people have said they will come, so I hope the weather is good or else our lounge will be a bit crowded. I'm planning to do a demonstration video shoot on the day so anyone who is interested can see how we have done it all. It should be a good day, I'll light the BBQ, open a couple of bottles and see what turns up. One or two people have offered to bring along exhibits, too, so it should be a truly home-grown event. If you are interested, please sign up for the Nottingham Bash (5 minutes from J25 of the M1) on July 21st 2007at www.ukworkshop.co.uk.

That's it for now,

See you soon.

I don't believe it!....

... and this time it's all good news!

The first is that we have no sound problems at all, mainly due to using a traditional, wired, £20-from-Maplins microphone, having given up on wireless in the workshop. Productivity has soared, we filmed on Tuesday this week and so far I've got about 16 minutes of finished footage, even after speeding up a few of the dull bits, and that's absolutely unprecedented. And I've not downloaded it all yet, either. Fantastic.

The other unbelievable thing is that my mate Nigel rang me a couple of weeks ago inviting me for lunch. Nigel and I catch up with each other a couple of times a year. He is Chief Exec of a charity called Mission Direct, which does various projects around the world.

I told him about my film-making capers, and he replied "That's great, Steve, we could do with your skills. Come out to Sierra Leone with us over Easter and film our project. We are building an orphanage and we need some new footage for our DVD".

I pointed out that I'm in front of the camera, not operating it, and I also pointed out that I need a job where I work for someone and they pay me for doing so, not I work for someone and pay more money than I've earned this year for the privilege of doing so!

So I said No.

I fly out on Tuesday. I can hardly claim that I don't have the time, and as so many people have offered to help fund it, I can't say I can't afford it either. People's generosity has been tremendous, contributions coming from everywhere between next-door-neighbours and Oregon, and a friend has promised to underwrite any shortfall, so I don't have any excuse not to do it really. I'm not sure if it will be fun exactly (working in 35deg C and 90% RH isn't very appealing), but it should be rewarding, and it will certainly be different; I am fairly well-travelled, but never been that far south in Africa.

I contacted JSP, who have provided me with safety-wear for my film, and told them what I was doing, asking for some safety specs. "Sure", came the reply, "Anything else?". So today two enormous boxes arrived, full of hard hats, goggles, ear defenders, work gloves and safety specs, including tinted ones for working outside. We could not have hoped for more. Thank you Jacqui at JSP!

My local phamacist sold me the anti-marials at cost and even the guy I bought camera batteries from gave me free postage (it was eBay, so that was a significant saving, over £20).

So no filming no for 3 weeks, I'm going shopping tomorrow for stuff for the trip, then hunt for some tools I can take. They want me to build a wardrobe, and I pointed out that I can't take my Xcalibur and collection of Festools.... Goodness only knows what I'll be faced with. Anyway I drive down to Nigel's on Monday and I'll be in Freetown before I go to bed on Tuesday. I feel a whole new adventure coming on.

And if you feel the urge to contribute, I have a paypal account, or you can give by Gift Aid or Charities Aid Foundation. Email me steveATstevemaskeryDOTcoDOTuk and I'll give you details.

I'll keep you posted.