My Parents on HGTV

In all my efforts toward the making of a home renovation show, I failed to mention that my parents beat me to it!  A couple of years ago, my parents' kitchen and master bedroom was featured on an HGTV kitchen and bath show.  My mom gladly gave the tour on camera, and described how my dad (who did NOT want to be on tv) did a lot of the work himself. 
http://www.greatroom.com/Shows/KDE-1113.htm

Another Day of Shooting

Well another great day of shooting our little show pilot....beautiful weather, great people...
One more small step in the making of a home renovation show.  We have a great new addition to the team, director/producer/videographer Matt Abourezk, and hair/makeup artist  Kathleen Richards.
Here are a few production stills:

my view....

"Shoot Update"

Well kids, the editing in the first sequence of the sizzle reel for this new show idea is moving along swimmingly.  In a side note I can't believe I just said swimmingly...
There is something very odd and narcissistic about editing and producing video of myself.  It's like I am two separate people - Brian "the host" and Brian "the editor".
Normally, I have an editor and producer cut together the sequences of a television show.
But I love doing it so much that I wanted to do it this time.  And I realllly want it to be cut a certain way.  After all this is just a 5 minute sizzle reel to help sell the dang thang.  The only downside is that I have to look at my ugly mug on the screen for hours at a time.
It is a fine line when producing one of these types of reels; you don't want to put too much into it, because the chances are very good that it won't get sold. BUT you don't want to just slop something together either.
Here are some production stills from the very lean and mean shoot, day one:

"HGTV and Stuff"

We had a great shoot on saturday morning, despite the hurricane-like conditions. The hour or-so footage we shot, will be whittled down to about :45 worth of finished material to be a part of 4 minute sizzle reel. Though I wore my baseball hat, I didn't shave, or wear any fancy boy clothes on camera for this shoot, I DO have very specific ideas of how I want this to look overall, so I am going to edit the whole thing and create all of the graphics myself. So if there is anyone to blame how it turns out - it'll be me! But I think it'll be pretty super fantastic.
In other HGTV news...
"The Creative Edge With Brian" seems to be getting revitalized over at HGTV. We heard from the various departments involved in selling our little mini-shows to sponsors. If you don't know, "The Creative Edge With Brian" are little :30 quick-tip mini-shows I created with the help of Seven C's Productions and Mindsmack. HGTV loved the idea and we got the green light last fall to produce, but it all seems to rely on the sales team actually selling them before we can can produce more. Anyway, there seems to be some movement..which is good news. The graphics need to be tweeked though. The graphics packages I made for the show didn't fit in with HGTV's new branding style. So they provided us with static graphic elements that they created...from there I animated them (which I am still in the process fo doing). Anyway, Below is an example of one that I did (using my original graphics, and the old title):

HGTV and ME

Life is funny.   I reached out to Lindsey Weidhorn in HGTV show development, hoping to get answers to questions I have, in the making of a home renovation show.  Guess what?  Not only was she more than happy to oblige, but she wanted to interview me, on her blog!  So while I am organizing her thoughts together, check out my answers to her questions in  "10 Questions With..." on The Inside Stoop.

"New Shows: What is HGTV Looking For?"

I'm sitting here watching HGTV, and wondering - what's the next big thing?   I have watched this network since the beginning, I know it inside and out...the hosts and their backgrounds, the shows, the production companies who make the shows, everything!  So what do viewers want?  Well, I certainly have some ideas.  A LOT of ideas.  The upper echelon at HGTV have told me personally that "..you are the perfect host for HGTV Brian, now bring us a show!"   Ok, that's one hurdle in the making of a home renovation show.
Now, the show.  (sigh).  What makes a home renovation show succesful?  Honestly I do not know.  What do you think?  What do you like in a show?  I do know a general outline of what HGTV wants;  here is what they told me:

• New faces.
• A great story.

2 years ago we pitched "2 Hands: Life with Brian".   Though they loved it, it was just bad timing.  Here is the promo I cut together for it:

I think I am going to go straight to the source, and get some insight, right?  Let's see if we can get someone from show development at HGTV to do a quick Q & A here.  Hopefully it will give you and me, an inside look as to what to expect from HGTV in the coming months, and what they are looking for in new shows.  That should help, in the making of a home renovation show.