Movie Camp - Day 2

Here are highlights from Day 2 of Movie Camp!  We got a lot done today, but there's a lot more work ahead of us this week!  President McKinley is in the shoot tomorrow, and we'll be filming with Frankenstein on Thursday!  (Today's film clips are at the end of this post)

And some film clips!

Movie Camp - Day 1

Movie Camp began this morning!  We have a great group of kids who are really enthusiastic about film making.

This year's movie is a Frankenstein theme!  Here are some highlights from today's shoot (film clips are at the bottom!):

And some film clips:

Stay tuned this week for more highlights!

Test track done!

Chris and I just finished a test track for the new audio buttons in the Street of Shops!  It came out FANTASTIC.

I had a vision in my head for the Gas Station tracks, so that's what we did first.  It begins with background music called "Lazy Gumbo" (see credit below), followed by the "ding! ding!" you used to hear at a service station when you pulled in.  Then Brad Black from Downtown Ford in Canton begins reading the first script about the type of gas station we have in the Street of Shops.

It is exactly what I hoped it would be!

Next we will be matching up more background music that we downloaded from Stock-Music.com with the scripts we've recorded.  I am also going to be downloading more sound effects to complete the experience you'll hear when you push a button.

We hope to have all the new buttons in place by our September 20 event "Taste of Our Town:  A Progressive Dinner in the Street of Shops."

Free Background Music titled "Lazy Gumbo" provided by Geoff Groberg and Stock-Music.com

Living in a miniature world today!

Today I am sorting the dollhouse exhibit applications to figure out what we have room for in our cases.

There are some great houses!  The decisions I have to make today will be difficult, because it's all about size.  The bigger houses are spectacular to look at, but we have to be able to properly protect them when we share them with the public.

I have my own dollhouse, which is unfinished and living in the workroom of our basement right now.  I had intended to get it ready for the 2012 dollhouse show, but I've been preoccupied this year with my "full sized" house!  We bought our first home one year ago this week, actually, and while it wasn't a fixer-upper by any means, we've had lots of projects to do in the past 12 months.  Talk about a learning curve!  Wow.

So the long and short of it is, my dollhouse isn't ready yet.  I will do another dollhouse show in a few years, so I will reset my goal for that.  In the meantime, I can live vicariously through the amazing miniaturists who will be sharing their work with all of you in October!

Button progress!

Today our first three guests came in to record their scripts:  Brad Black (Gas Station), Bill Gouge (Cabin), and Bob Belden (Saloon).  Chris has been hard at work editing the recordings today, and they all sound fantastic!

The next step is to get the music and sound effects to complete each script.  Some have been easier to find than others.  For example, I found the sound of a Model A starting and driving off, but it's actually really hard to find a cracking fire for the Cabin!

For the Saloon, we're planning to have the piano music that was previously playing in the Saloon play from the digital recorder when a button is not engaged.  Then we will take the music volume down for the voice to be heard.  It's all very exciting to be updating this and using the best of modern technology!

We'll be recording additional scripts in the coming weeks and tweaking them with music and sound effects too.

Stay tuned as we move forward with this project!