Becoming Mother

Silly me, I thought we’d just set up the camera and start shooting whatever we were cooking.

Okay, maybe my husband would get out the little photography umbrellas and some lights, but that’s it.

But oh.

We are really in it now.

***

This is how we started out.

I thought this was kind of a lot of equipment.

Oh, sweet naive me.

Here’s where we are at now.

What you’re looking at is the second version of this handmade mounted mirror (much lighter than the first one.) You’ll also notice that we’ve added more lighting on the countertop… and around the cook top in general.

That pot is about to undergo some intense interrogation.

(Not pictured: We also have a fan mounted to the cabinet while recording–to keep steam from condensing on the mirror.)

Why a mirror? The idea is to record the cooktop from above, without getting steam and gunk in the lens of the camera. Thus, the mirror. Then, once I import the video into our video editing software, I can flip the image vertically so that your brain doesn’t feel like something is off as you’re watching us cooking.

All this rigging has taken a lot of trips to Menard’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot. (And sometimes back to Menard’s ten minutes before they close.) He’s really put a lot of time and effort into this.

But anyone who knows my husband knows that when he does something, he really does something.

Like this.

That’s the joint garden that we share with our neighbors–all built in the last few months.

Because. You know. He wanted to have a garden.

Notice the gate on the right side. And where he’s standing, there is a removable portion of that fence–so the truck can back up to it and dump the wood chips directly into the garden.

Hey, it makes him happy. And Felicity loves, loves, loves getting in the dirt.

***

So it’s taking some time.

In the meantime, I’ve been figuring out and articulating our workflow for making the videos.

I’ve also been building my video editing skills (I’m using CyberLink’s Power Director–a solid program.)

Which leads to this conversation that we had last Thursday night.

Me: “I don’t know why but the preview of the video is really choppy.”

Him: “Once you render it, it should smooth out.”

Me: “Hmmm…”

Him: “Your computer probably isn’t fast enough.”

Me: “Hmmm…”

Then Friday, I call him at 5:00 to see if he’s picking up the kids.

Him: “Yep,”

I hear him giving someone his name and address.

Me: “Okay. Where are you?”

Him: “Cincinnati.”

Me: “Um, okay.”

Him: “I just bought you a computer.”

Me: “Right. I think I saw that coming.”

Him: “It’s so badass.”

Then later, after the kids are home and dinner is finished, we pick up the conversation again.

Me: “So when is the computer getting here?”

Him: “Already got it.”

Me: “Oh. Where is it?”

Him: “In the car. I still have to put it together.”

Me: “What? I thought you said you bought a computer.”

Him: “Yeah. The parts. It won’t take long to put together.”

Then later, he starts bringing in the boxes.

Me: “Two monitors? You bought two monitors?”

Him: “You got to have two monitors.”

Me: “Oh my God…”

Him: “Go big or go home, Sweets.”

Kid in a candy store.

***

So when can you expect to see some videos?

I think in the next two weeks.

We have some good footage of making steel-cut oats (although we’re figuring out color balance and how to filter background noise). We wanted to produce some egg videos, but we’ve got to wait until our egg supplier is back from vacation. We also ran into some problems with our lighting. Apparently, we’ve been using too much light and it’s washing out the color of the food. So we’ve got to re-shoot everything. Bargh…

Like any creative project, this one has thrown us some curve balls.

But it’s still been fun.

It has given both of us chances to work in our favorite creative roles.

Him: Woodworking, cooking, photography

Me: Writing, storytelling, video editing

And I guess I can add “directing” to that list now.