Hi Y’all!
Whew! I finally got a few minutes after the Christmas holidays to chat with y’all. It doesn’t seem like it was a month ago that we held our premiere. We had so much fun that we wanted to share some of the fun details with you.
On November 21st, 2015 it was a very snowy day in the Michigan Thumb area. Of course a fun time was had by all as we wouldn’t allow it otherwise – snow or no snow. After all we are The Hard Hat Belles and where else can you have fun laughing your head off and learning something in the process.
A LITTLE SNOW WASN’T GOING TO STOP US!
We started our event off worrying about the weather as the snow was coming down pretty fast. Our shoveler could not keep up with it, bless his little ole heart! Seriously, he was shoveling constantly. By the end of the evening when we finally headed home after clean up there was 11″ of snow on the ground. Honest to goodness we drove home going about 25-35 mph.
Autographs anyone?
Wiebke and I were stationed in the front foyer as our guests came into the event. At this time we were not in our infamous costumes.
KUDOS GO OUT TO OUR BRAVE ATTENDEES
After every one of our attendees (who braved the weather) showed up and were seated our emcee got the show started. First came the introduction of “ourselves” and our staff (those important little people behind the scenes, we just love them). Who would have ever thought that we needed a whole staff of five besides ourselves. I have to tell you that God has been very generous in placing the exact individuals we needed in our path to fill in the gaps. Each one of them is as committed to our adventure as we are and we are sooooo grateful.
NEXT WE GOT THE STAGE READY TO FILM OUR VIDEO
Now let’s see, do I have everything?
Talk about filming in advance. We really wanted our audience to feel the full effect of an actual film session. Yes, our filming session. Especially as this is where we have so much fun and laughs when we goof and do retakes.
When we first talked about this, Wiebke and I decided we needed something that our audience could actually do or create this year. Some ideas they could take away with them and use them this holiday season. But we also wanted to be able to film for next Thanksgiving season.
Are you ready? Not sure who is asking who.
Still it had to be something they could get their teeth into (well, not really, but you get the meaning). After banging our heads together and rattling out some ideas we came up with some simple centerpieces with items everyone has on hand. We even surprised ourselves with what we were able to come up with – yay!!
FINALLY THE FILMING
Hopefully, no one noticed, but we were so nervous filming in front of a live audience. We just stayed focused filming, going through our process, that at first we didn’t notice that NO ONE was laughing with us. We looked at each other, but of course we couldn’t say anything – we were live after all!
Memorizing our lines
What in the world was going on? We couldn’t figure out why no one was laughing at our antics. I was in front of the camera performing (or trying to) thinking, what is wrong with everyone? Are you serious, no laughing? No clapping? Y’all know that background laughing you hear on live taping of shows you’ve watched? Well, imagine total silence from the audience. I thought we were funny. Wiebke/VeeBee thought we were funny. But there were no laughs or clapping…hmmm (stay tuned as we found out later what and who the problem was and you will just crack up).
SO VERY THANKFUL
After we completed taping of the show we thanked all those who helped us along the way.
Those brave souls who drove home in 6-11″ of snow.
Move this, move that, quiet on the set!
Then it was time to schmooze with our guests and serve them cake and beverages. It was during this time that we found out that our video editor had told everyone while we were on the set that no noise please. He didn’t say, “no talking, however you may laugh and clap.” Nope. No, he did not. He said NO noise….well that explained it. It was definitely VERY quiet on the set. You couldn’t even hear a pin drop! For a minute or two we thought maybe we didn’t have what we thought we had… to make others smile and laugh while learning. Whew, that was really weird and scary for a few minutes.
Yep, it’s official – we are here to stay! So stay tuned at our youtube channel (link below).
Thanks to all of you for attending our premiere via in person and virtually! Remember our first episode will be aired on Wednesday, January 6th, 2016 with a blog referring to the video on the following Monday.
Please enjoy the video below “Behind the Scenes with The Hard Hat Belles.”
Please like and subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel (y’all will see a little red tab that says “subscribe” to the right) to receive notifications of the latest releases.
Love & Hugs,
Denine & Wiebke
