On Friday I'm heading out on a little roadtrip which will eventually take me to Cleveland, Ohio.
In Cleveland I'll be taping the upcoming season of Scrapbook Soup TV.
Today I thought I'd share a little bit about what goes into prepping for a segment on the show.
Each segment is 6-7 minutes long. When I'm creating a project for the show I need to think about that fact.
What is a project that I can do from start-to-finish in 6-7 minutes with some step-outs?
Do you know what step-outs are? They're a TV invention. Remember when Julia Child would put a turkey into the oven on TV and then remove one that had already been cooked? That's a step-out. If paint needs to dry on a canvas, I'll say, "...and here's one that's already dry..." and pull out a new canvas. It makes it possible to get each project down to 6-7 minutes, but boy is it a pain-in-the-you-know-what to do all those step-outs. It means that I make each project multiple times. I'd like to say that this has absolutely no bearing on the types of projects that I create for the show, but I have to admit that I do end up limiting the numbers of layers just because I want to do fewer step-outs.
When I have an idea for the project, I'll do a sketch or two.
Once the idea in my head looks good on paper, I start to figure out what supplies I'm going to use. When creating for myself I tend to like to use everything I own. When creating for TV it's important to severely limit the supplies that I use. I have a very limited amount of time to show off the products and talk about how they work or why I like them, so keeping it minimal is helpful. In my mind I think about the Green Room trays....
We lay each segment out on one of these big trays before filming. In my mind, I try to imagine the least amount of stuff possible on that tray.
At this point I know what my project is going to be and I have my supplies. It's time to get to making. I'm sure that I look like a crazy person as I create each project. I sit there in my studio talking to myself as I create. On TV it's important to talk-and-do. You should never stop talking or doing. Both must be happening at all times. So to get myself ready to do that I give the instructions for everything I'm doing out loud as I do it.
Crazy. Person.
Once the project is done I sit back to determine how many step-outs are required. I want to do enough to keep the segment moving quickly, but not so many that the viewers get overwhelmed. It's a balancing act. I tend to write out how I'm going to teach the project. Usually when I look at the steps I can see where a step-out will help speed things along. Then, of course, I have to sit down and make all those step-outs.
Once the step-outs are done it's time to photograph the project, edit the photos, write up instructions, and create a .pdf of the instructions for download on the Scrapbook Soup website. This takes a surprisingly long time.
Finally, each project goes into a bag with the name of the segment, the instructions, the finished project, the step-outs, and all of the supplies needed to complete the project on air.
Whew.
For this taping I have prepped nine segments. Well, technically I've prepped eight and have one more that needs to get finished before Friday...eep! It's time for me to get back to work!
I hope you found this peek backstage interesting! Thanks for stopping by!
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P.S. I'm going to be interviewed on Mark Lipinski's internet radio show "Creative Mojo" today (Wednesday, April 11) at 3:35pm EST.
Here's a bit about the broadcast:
As you might know, Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski was chosen by Digg.com as one of the Internet's five most motivational webcasts and was a featured podcast on iTunes.com. The entire premise of the show is to spotlight creativity and the creative process and has a following of roughly 40,000-plus listeners. Let your friends and fans know that in order to listen in to the show LIVE, they will need to go to www.toginet.com on their computer and click on the "listen live" button on the right-hand side of the page. The show airs every Wednesday at 3:00 pm EST (New York) and runs LIVE, with listener call-ins, for two hours! If you can't listen live, you can catch the taped version anytime, starting from a few hours after the live broadcast. Just check out the Creative Mojo web page.
Hope you can tune in!
P.P.S. The winner of the Pomegranate Stencil is....
Anne, e-mail me with your mailing address and I'll get those stencils out to you!
