London "Aye"

Today was a great day...I felt VERY international as I walked around town grabbing more footage for the new web-site feature that I was writing about in my last post. I had originally planned to do an intro bit on the Ferris Wheel they call the London Eye. Serene shots of the skyline drifting behind me as I talk and talk and talk...you know that kind of "glamorous" travel footage.

But here's the thing...I'm afraid of Ferris Wheels (if you need a reminder, just read my melt-down post from the one I rode in Tokyo). And every once in awhile I go through a period of claustrophobia (now being one of those times). So all in all, with a 10 hour flight home ahead of me in two days, I rethought my London Eye idea and went for the more immediate cinema verite of the streets.

London...OUTSIDE "the bubble"

And man, it was almost too verite. Sure, London is picturesque - but JEEZ IS IT LOUD! I was trying to find places to film that looked London"y" without me having to say, "and here I am in London," but it's a little tricky 'cause I was filming myself, so I also had to find places where I could prop the camera on a garbage can and not get too embarrassed in front of onlookers as I shouted at it.

('Cause it's a weird phenomenon...set up a camera aimed at yourself, start talking and faster than a speeding bullet you'll gather a crowd who thinks your Anderson Cooper on assignment).

After the London Eye/Parliment shots, I picked a spot with the Tower Bridge and Gerkin building in the background that looked like a quiet enough place to shoot. LOOKED is the opperative word 'cause right below me on the Thames out of camera-frame there was a guy on one of those houseboat/barges welding and riveting his heart out. Now, of course, he lives here so I'M the one out-of-line about getting frustrated, but just when I'd get lucky enough to NOT trip over my words, I'd get UNlucky with the sound of an ancient air-compressor suddenly banging out over the sound of my melodious voice, drowning out my self-importance.

Hmm....maybe that would have been better, now that I think of it.

Anyway, the point of all this filming is to make our web-site more interactive. As you might have noticed, we've moved around the video we have to give tips, advice, company history, etc. for those who want it and I figured the next step would be to start doing web-site specific pieces to flesh out your viewing experience. Mine will be up soon on the Product page (once we figure out the editing process) and then Beau will shoot one about staging for the Services section.

They're likely to be primitive to start. I majored in Theater, Keri in Art and Beau in Horticulture, so don't go expecting Film School quality out of us. These will be more like the "retail" version of amateur porn.

Oops....did I just cross the line? Ahhh, the beauty of blogging.

Savage London

Savage London? Now there's an oxymoron for ya over here in civilized England - unless you're talking Celts, Football hooligans, or shoppers on Saturday morning fighting over a trinket on Portobello Road.

Actually, while "Savage London" is the name of a cool t-shirt shop over here, I was really taking a picture of the "Portobello Market" sign up there on the post.

I came down to Portobello Market this morning for two good reasons...to see what I could see and find what I could find...and one self-aggrandizing one: to shoot a "shopping the world" segment for Homescapes' web-site.

Regular visitors to our site might have noticed that we're always tweaking to try and keep current in the big wide world of the net. So, since Beau and I are always getting razzed about the "we travel the world so you don't have to" line in our commercials, I decided to bestow a few pearls of wisdom from the road on how you, too, can do it yourself the way the natives do. In this case the savage Londoners at the Portobello Road Market.

Portobello Road Market is one of those hustley-bustley kind of traditions aimed squarely and democratically at EVERYone's pocketbook. There's stuff for locals and tourists alike. I went there with my friends Joe and Gina. Joe's in London working and Gina, as of two months ago, is a local so that kinda proves my point (though it's a bit of a cheat to poll one's own friends).

I tried to get them in the shots, but I didn't want them to "act" so it was harder than I thought to get candid footage. Gina was on a quest for a black pashmina (which seemed like a long-shot in Spring) and luckily she found one, so keep your eyes open for her video debut when I get the video uploaded.

Speaking of Spring (and self-aggrandization), I was emailed the other day by an editor from an industry magazine asking about trends, and I rattled on about this and that. I always get a little nervous about that kind of thing, I mean after all, what do I know really? But y'all know I'm not lacking opinions so I gave mine. One of the things I'd noticed at the trade shows was how even though the retro thing of big bold color and patterns was still going strong, it was morphing more and more toward a softer, more feminine look. (I mean heck, we've even done that with our web-site backgrounds if ya hadn't noticed.) And lo and behold, right there in a store window, I saw that trend going strong over here too.


Phew. I may not always be clever and original, but at least in this case I wasn't wrong.