We feel badly that we aren’t creating shows more often than once a month. Then, this month we’re even further behind than normal. This is not by design!
Our intention is to begin producing two shows a month, very shortly. We currently have fifteen show ideas in development, which would take us into August if we filmed those, alone. Also, I am planning on attending Air Venture (Oshkosh) in July, which will easily be good for another six episodes by itself – making it October if we come up with no new ideas. By increasing the number of shows a month I’m in no way worried about running out of show ideas while keeping to the show’s concept. I feel that we could produce a show a week and still have plenty of subject areas to keep us busy for many years.
So, why the hold up? Why are the PreFlight shows taking so long to produce?
Good question. Here’s what’s going on:
- I went on a two week vacation in November. By itself it wasn’t really an issue, but…
- After my vacation: work was very backed up in my day job (Microsoft). It was so bad that two weeks ago, on a Thursday night, I didn’t go to sleep until Friday afternoon. So, I didn’t really have time to do anything with the show until two weeks ago. Then…
- As you know the show is filmed in front of a green screen. One of the problems we’ve faced in every episode is that the the table and chairs are not only highly reflective, but chrome. Reflections of any sort are the bane of green screen. It means that every reflection must be managed individually – this is very time consuming. As a result, during the last two weekends I’ve been re-painting the furniture to be flat black. This one change will easily reduce the editing time down by half. Finally…
- We bought a new green screen, but need to change the orientation of the screen (long way should go horizontally, but it was designed to go vertically). After we put it in position we realized that it wouldn’t work as-is. I ordered some grommets, and will change the orientation of the screen this weekend (once the grommets arrive, and we install them).
After all this… after the paint is dry… after the new green screen is in position… we should be able to produce two shows a month, and I’ll still be able to keep my day job.
