A Day with a Film Crew

This is my life right now

For the next month or so, I’m going to tell you book tour stories

Life has become kind of crazy in the run-up to book publication, and it’s hard to think of much else. So I thought I’d share a little behind-the-scenes-on-book-tour stuff for those of you who are interested.

Also, it’s hard to make illustrations while running from city to city, so I’ll drop in some random bits of art from the archive to liven things up.

Also—would you like to enter to win a copy of my new book? Head over to GardenRant by Sunday July 7 to get in on this one.

I did a big thing last week

Television! How does it work?

Last week, I flew to San Francisco to meet a film crew for a big national TV segment about my book. I can’t give you too many details, and the air date is uncertain—sometime in August, maybe?—but I can talk about the experience.

A TV appearance might sound terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be.

Plants, wicked and otherwise

Many years ago, I was walking down the street in New York when I got a call from my publicist. TLC’s show ‘Cake Boss’ wanted to do a segment about my book Wicked Plants. The show’s producers had seen the book, knew that Brooklyn Botanic Garden had made an exhibit based on the book, and they cooked up the idea of holding a book launch party at the garden, where Buddy would deliver a cake, I would be surprised and amazed, and that would be the show.

I was terrified! I’d been interviewed on TV before, and it was awkward and weird but I tried to do my best. A reality show about cake seemed like something I was entirely unequipped to deal with.

So I called my brother, who works in television, (I wrote about him last week) and he said something that changed everything forever about how I felt about these high pressure TV situations: He said, “They want you to do well on this show. It’s not their job to make you look terrible and show the world what an idiot you are. Your role here is to be surprised and delighted by the cake, and they’re going to do everything they can to help you play that role. They’re on your side.”

(I can’t find a clip of that episode to show you, but YouTube will happily take your money if you want to pay to watch it.)

It was SO HELPFUL for me to hear that from my brother, and I’ve repeated his insight to many people over the years, including the tree collectors in my book who are also being interviewed by this show-that-will-not-be-named. If you’re on a positive, upbeat show whose job is to provide an entertaining and enlightening half hour of television, everyone on that crew is rooting for you and eager to help you.

Working with top-notch professionals is an absolute delight

Here are some professional people being delightful

If you follow Hollywood gossip much, you’ve heard stories of nightmarish toxicity on set. The kind of thing I’ve done—these national shows who are basically showing up to do a segment somehow connected to my book—are a million miles away from that.

I’m struck, every time I do a show like this, by how extraordinarily capable, professional, and cheerful everyone is. The whole crew, from the host/reporter/on-air personality, to the producer, to the camera and sound people, to the security guards, to the assistants, are all people at the top of their respective fields. They show up early, they know their roles, their gear is in order, they’re prepared, and they are relentlessly focused on quality. For instance:

They filmed me sketching, and the sound guy liked the sound of my pencils rattling in their case, so he stopped to drop a mic on my art bag so he could catch that sound.

An assistant ran over to grab a chair for me to sit in while I sketched, and the camera guy looked at this red plastic chair and said, “Can we get a blue chair?” (He was kidding, but only because that was absolutely the tone of the entire day.)

The producer somehow managed to simultaneously order lunch for the entire crew, while going over a list of shots with the camera guy, while also listening to the reporter talk through her ideas for the next segment, while also telling me what to do to get set up for my next thing. He does five things at once, never breaks a sweat, and never stops smiling.

What’s most amazing, though, is how genuinely interested everyone is in the thing that they’re making TV about. The security guys were curious about the book and interested in my art. The producer really stopped and listened so he’d understand my perspective. The reporter had been listening to my casual chatter with far more attention than I’d realized, and had wonderfully insightful questions as a result.

Everything ran on time. Minor mishaps happened and were quickly patched up or set aside. No one got mad. No one pouted. Everyone understood that the way to succeed, without making everyone miserable and running over schedule and over budget, is by showing up with flexibility, good cheer, the ability to instantly forgive and forget, all while being at the absolute top of your game. It’s really amazing to watch.

This experience just reminded me that if you’re making a project that is all about quality, everyone involved with the project should have a high-quality experience while they’re doing the project. The process, and how the people are treated, has to be excellent if you want an excellent outcome.

Speaking of mistakes—I made some!

A weird self-portrait. Things don’t always go well.

The great thing about being in my fifties is that I’ve given up on the idea of being perfect and I’ve just accepted that I’ll screw up sometimes and it isn’t fatal. Maybe everyone else was at the top of their game, but over a long day of filming, I managed to scramble names and dates and places, I gave a tree the wrong name, and I had a hell of a time re-starting my answer to a question every time we had to stop mid-sentence to wait for an airplane or helicopter to fly noisily overhead. There will be some unusable footage because I screwed up.

But fortunately—there’s lots of footage!

I don’t know exactly how long this segment will be, but let’s call it fifteen minutes. To get that fifteen minutes, they spent at least three days filming (only one day was with me), and during my interview, the reporter used a classic reporter’s technique of asking very similar versions of the same question over and over to get slightly different answers from me, so they’d have lots of options to choose from.

I’m accustomed to that approach so it didn’t rattle me, but it did call on my ever-dwindling supply of intellectual resources to figure out another, more clever, more compelling, more concise way to say basically the same thing I’d already attempted to say, so that they’d be able to drop that perfect line in just when they needed it. Hope I pulled it off!

That’s it for now! Stay tuned for more adventures on the road

I would love to see you on book tour! Many of these events ask that you pre-register.

Please join me for a live virtual book launch party on July 16! Details here.

Questions? Comments? I’d love to hear from you!

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Paid subscribers are painting BIG TREES!

Although I’m on the road, I’ve made a bunch of art lessons to go out while I’m traveling, so the tree party is not stopping! For the price of a couple colored pencils, you can get art lessons sent to your in-box every Friday, plus the full archive is right here for you. Your support keeps this whole enterprise afloat! Much appreciated.

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The Bit at the End

I’d love to see you on book tour! Many of these events ask that you pre-register.

Order a SIGNED copy of my new book, The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession, from Broadway Books in Portland, OR.

Come find me on Instagram, or see paintings for sale- Right here

Order signed copies of some of my books from my husband’s bookstore, or order my books and many books I love at Bookshop.org

Take one of my online writing or art classes here