The Beyond crew has come and gone. They consisted of an Australian director, a camera guy from Pittsburgh and an audio guy from Metairie. They shot an interview with us on Thursday, plus some scenes of us walking around our gutted basement. (Earlier in the day they got a termite expert to examine our damage, but I wasn’t there for that.) On Friday they got scenes of Xy working on a gardening project with some kids at school. Then they got some shots of me editing ROX video and uploading it to rox.com. (We had to fake it, because we still don’t have internet at home.) And this morning Xy and I did a ROX shoot, and they shot us shooting, and of course we shot them shooting us. Oddly enough Rob, the director, seemed mighty adverse to being on camera. Too bad for him!
It remains to be seen if viewers of their program will be able to discern the name of our program and the address of our website. They’ve got the footage to do it, but it’s in the hands of an editor in Australia. Hopefully there will be some collegial solidarity there. Us video editors got to stick together.
If we don’t get a spot of publicity for the site, I will feel burnt for letting them use our creative work (ROX #93). Actually I feel a little burnt already — they didn’t even buy me a drink.
Xy and I continued shooting even after the Beyond crew departed. I took the camera with me to our polling place and videotaped myself voting. It was really funny how this freaked people out. Taking a camera into the voting booth seems vaguely illicit, but I doubt there’s any law against it.
The voting went smoothly and there wasn’t even a line. Maybe Li’l Kimberley got her act together for once.
So you guys don’t ever get paid for your contributions to the show?”didn’t even buy me a drink”,.you mean they just come ,shoot and go like they are doing a project on,say,a mountain?Sounds so unprofessional to me.
Did they mention your full name? Googling on your given name gives this page as the first result, so I’d think that people watching the show might be able to find you that way.
Dane, I think it’s pretty standard practice that the people you see in such shows do not get paid. We’re not “talent”; we’re subjects. Your mountain analogy is apt. I might have asked for a licensing fee for the use of our video, but I didn’t.
Jon, they certainly have our full names, but I don’t know if they’ll be featured in the final cut with any prominence. If I have to rely on people Googling my name after watching the show, though, I’ll still feel burnt. They’ve got to see and hear ROX and rox.com — anything less is an insult.
Oh, and for the record Li’l Kimberley didn’t have her act together. I heard the Secretary of State all but took over the elections.
Took my camera in there and took a picture of my vote. For giggles.
And I was just going to say that Al Ater took over the elections, which is why it went terribly smoothly. Although I had some of the same officials from last year.
Looking forward to the next episode of ROX.com. Let us know if any of this Australian show airs on the boob tube.
[…] This dream of having a camera crew in my house appears to me to be directly inspired by the occurrence of just that very event for a blogging friend, who recently described some of the experience here and here. (The main page of his very interesting blog is right here). […]
[…] “This House Must Go” goes to air on TLC this week. Portions of this show were shot in our house back in April. Dates and times are below. I’m assuming that the times are Eastern. JUN 10 2006 @ 10:00 PM JUN 11 2006 @ 01:00 AM JUN 17 2006 @ 08:00 PM JUN 17 2006 @ 11:00 PM JUN 25 2006 @ 02:00 PM […]
[…] If it was just a matter of coming into our home and interviewing us, that would be the end of my critique. But it’s more complicated. I let them use our creative work, namely, snippets from ROX #93, depicting our evacuation and my return to our flooded home. It’s gripping stuff, if I do say so myself, and I think it adds to the interest of the program. I didn’t ask for financial compensation in return. All I wanted was a little publicity for our show and/or our website. I said back in April that if I didn’t get that, I’d feel burned. […]