I recently wrote about how absolutely terrified I was of an upcoming project.  A 10-lession video course for Curious.com on how to make a duct tape dress!  Well, I am now absolutely thrilled to announce that we did it!   The class is now officially up and running and I’m thrilled with what we’ve done!  

Here’s how it all came to be:

JANUARY 13TH, 2015

4:30 AM - Our household awakens, coffee is consumed, anxieties discussed (mostly mine), outfits ironed. Out the door we go.

8:15 AM - We arrive in downtown San Francisco in our overloaded van “Pig”.   Meet the crew and begin ferrying our gear to the film location a block away.  Due to the nature of driving and parking in San Francisco, we had to schlep everything around the corner, across the street, and halfway down the block.  This was cause for many raised eyebrows as a parade of duct tape clad mannequins made their way down Market Street.  

9:00 AM - The crew gets set.  We have exactly 10 hours to get everything done; set up, shooting, lunch, tear down, and clean-up.  It’s a lot to accomplish.

10:15 AM - Cameras roll.  Our 9-person team is amazing.  3 weeks of prep has paid off.  Our model Jess turns out to be easier to cover than our mannequins.  This speeds up the process of creating the base dress!  This is a huge relief.  I was worried that alone could set us back an hour.  By lunchtime we have the 3 most complicated lessons shot.

1:30 PM - The crew breaks for lunch while I work on finalizing a few steps for the next lesson. I’m too nervous to eat. Even though I’m the “talent”, I can’t get out of my producer head, which is looking at the clock and thinking “tick, tick”.

4:00 PM - Our additional models show up for the duct tape fashion show.  We are actually on schedule!  I have a minor panic attack when I realize that the shoes in Lesson 9 are taking forever to cover, but other than that, we are good.

6:00 PM - We rap.  We’ve got exactly 1 hour to be out the door and loaded before my film crew goes into overtime.  Remember, we have to go down the block and around the corner!  

6:58 PM - We're out.  The crew is loaded and on their way!  The rental space is clean and orderly. They lock the doors at 7:00 sharp.

7:10 PM - Freda, Scott and I hit the road with a hastily packed truck, 7+ hours of footage (we had 2 cameras rolling at all times), and an elated feeling of accomplishment.

JANUARY 14TH, 2015

6:00 AM -  - Scott begins the daunting task of logging, loading and editing 7 hours of footage and then uploading it into curious' awesome lesson interface.  10 lessons, a promo video and a bonus fashion show.  He works tirelessly for 3 straight days, and delivers the finished product on January 17th. 3 full days ahead of schedule!

JANUARY 29TH, 2015

The class goes live on Curious.com!  We all breathe a huge sigh of relief knowing that each one of us put in as much as we humanly could to make it the best course possible.  Are there things I would do differently?  Are there things I would add?  Absolutely!  But hey, isn’t that what sequels are for?