Hometime
The move, Hometime summary and other business related stuff
Apr 11, 2008 13:24
This will be a meek effort to try and become current in a single entry.
The move. Or maybe I should say, The Move. It somehow needs that kind of impact to share what it was like.
I have this bad habit of assuming that if I live long enough (+200 years at this point), I will find a use or a purpose for nearly everything. Consequently, I don't throw much out. This is fine if you have the space to stash all of this crap (for lack of a better term), but if you are moving into a space that requires storage discipline, life can quickly get kind of, um, stressful.
The bottom line is we are moved, the new space is awesome (photos forthcoming) and I think my thumbs are only sprained and not broken. I am still renting half of my old space (saw room, portrait studio and more stashed crap), which is my way of not throwing stuff out.
The photo above was taken last Sunday from Barn Bluff. This gives you an idea of where we are located amongst the other buildings in Red Wing. The people waving in the inset (squint very hard) is the Missus and my older brother (who is one year older today).
Hometime summary. 'Amazing' seems like an appropriate adjective.
The Hometime show was originally broadcast a month ago and is usually shown at different PBS affiliates around the US every Saturday or Sunday, moving from East Coast to West Coast. I think some of the major markets in California will broadcast this weekend.
We have made a lot of new friends from all over the country and the added business has been very nice. I feel very fortunate to have had this level of visibility and there are a number of interesting opportunities and partnerships that have emerged from the Hometime project. I should have something more concrete to share soon. Good stuff.
I want to thank Dean Johnson and his entire crew for thinking of us.
Other business related stuff. We are completely up and operational in the new location. We are still straddling two locations, so that requires a bit more forethought and planning. The new neighborhood is terrific; much more jogger and baby-buggy friendly. The intention will be to use the outside of the building itself as a gallery. This will make more sense when we do it, rather than try to explain it.
And finally, a video study group is forming in Red Wing, with the eventual goal of showing independent video projects. The AV Club of Red Wing. Every member will be required to have white tape on the bridge of his or her glasses. E-mail me if you need more information, but in the meantime, "Save the Chief".
Hometime, part deux
Mar 11, 2008 16:51
It has been a lot of fun tracking the feedback from the Hometime show. The show was released to the PBS affiliates last weekend and each affiliate creates their own schedule. In any case, over time most of the PBS affiliates broadcast the show and this slow 'unrolling' allows me to watch the traffic patterns.
We only track trends and do not spend too much time drilling down into the 'Rabbit Hole' of data out in the virtual world. So far, Tennessee, Ohio and Maine have been especially active with follow-up from either the PBS.org or Hometime.com web sites. Since Saturday our web traffic is about 3x the normal volume and the typical visitor is spending about 4x the average time looking around the web site. This means the overall visit quality is increasing, which is a good thing.
Locally, the show will air this coming Saturday. The Red Wing paper did a terrific feature on the show last weekend, so that should raise local awareness as well. Stay tuned, I'll report more, later.
Hometime
Feb 25, 2008 10:55
Just to recap; The PBS television show Hometime came to our shop last year to film an episode. This episode is part of a season-long project of completely building out a luxury town home and our job was to scan, print, stretch and install custom designed art. Hometime has been broadcast nationwide for 22 years and has a very loyal following.
It wasn't until the last month that we received final confirmation of the Hometime episode that we participated in. PBS has kind of a funky way of doing things in regards to schedules. PBS does not have the same kind of competitive pressures as the other networks, so they allow the local affiliates to pretty much schedule at will and around any fund raising activities they might have going on.
So, the bottom line is that our episdoe (#2206, Town home: Finale) will be broadcast nationwide on March 8th and in the Red Wing area (TPT, Channel 2) on March 15th at 9 am.
What can we expect? I have no idea. Hometime is carried by 240 PBS stations and is broadcast 340 times per week. The typical episode is seen by about 1 million households and 1.2 million viewers.
Bill Gibb was the producer/director for our episode and Bill told me that it typically takes 8 hours of filmed tape to produce 8 minutes of on-air footage. I saw our episode and there is about 7 minutes of dedicated air-time in discussing our portion and through most of the show you can see the art in the background. One of the best parts for me was the shots taken of the Red Wing community at large. Bill followed-up a suggestion to take some footage from Memorial Park and got some terrific footage of Downtown Red Wing.
I have several tools in place to try and measure what kind of impact the show will have and I promise to share as the results unfold.