Tuesday, 7/7

Did I forget to mention it?

I received a note from someone who had noticed that yesterday I mentioned I'm putting together a Third Street video for the History Center, and wondered what happened to the walking tour, which had been planned for tomorrow night. I thought I had written about that, but seeing as how it's 2020 and nothing is working right, I may have forgotten about it.

Oops.

No, Stephanie, it's my sad duty to report that the tour for tomorrow night has been axed. Concerns over social distancing and spacing along some very narrow sidewalks along Third Street led the History Center to put the kibosh on it. We'd been trying to figure out ways that we could safely put the tour on, and had a lot of different ideas thrown on the table, but in the end it just wasn't to be.

Bummer.

So instead of a walking tour I'm now working on putting together an hour long video about the street. It'll be like a super-sized version of the “Pieces of the Past” clips I did earlier this year, and it'll be available on the History Center's website for viewing (with a donation, of course). Even though we've never tried anything like this, it's probably the best solution we could come up with in a very bad year.

So we have that going for it.

I have no idea when it'll be ready for viewing. Putting together a tour and putting together a long video are two very different things, and while the research I've been doing can still be used I now need pictures, videos, and a written script, then hours upon hours of editing it all together. It's kind of like going from making a cake out of a box to making a cake by hand, multiplied by, I don't know, a thousand.

That's why I don't know when the video will be ready.

In fact, I'm meeting someone who's offered to help in a little bit. He works in video production, and has offered to shoot stand-ups, interviews, and even fly a drone around Third Street to capture some really cool images. If it works out, it'll add quite the spectacle to the production. It'll probably add on a few days to the production schedule, as well, but it would be so worth it.

So that's the story about the non-tour tomorrow, Stephanie, and what's taking its place. Sorry I forgot to mention it earlier!

(jim@wmqt.com)