Dave and Dave’s Excellent Blog

While it looks like Dave may be just watching TV or downloading something off the Internet that might get him in trouble… he is actually starting the mammoth process of editing the “Strange Pennsylvania” documentary. 

Before things got to this stage, WQED’s Digital Avid worker bees, Amy, Ryan and Andy were able to get all of the tapes we shot on the road “digitzed” into the Avid Adrenaline for us to edit into a show.  WQED is acutally a state-of-the-art HD production facility and we have 2 weeks to turn that mountain of tapes into an hour of fantastic television before we hand it over to Frank (our cameraman, now our finishing editor) so he can make it as watchable as possible, prepare it for closed-captioning, and make sure it’s ready to feed to the Pennsylvania Public Television Network for broadcast across the state.

Many of you might not know that Dave, Frank and myself, in addition to being model citizens and fun TV people, are also highly capable digital non-linear editors who spend most of our workdays editing TV stuff on WQED’s Avid Adrenalines.  Frank also teaches digital editing at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. 

 By the looks of things on the monitors, Dave is beginning to craft the “Lawnmower Racing” story which was the first piece we shot for the program.  That means we have a loooooong way to go!  And yes that is a putter leaning against the console to Dave’s left.  Editing and working on his short game… very nice.  - Dave H.

If you’ve been reading the blog entries from the ”Strange PA” trip, you might have noticed that we tend to work food into a lot of the posts.  While we were on the road last week we received notice from PPTN (the Pennsylvania Public Television Network) that they would fund our next program after “Strange PA,” called “Eat Pennsylvania 2: The Second Course.”  For those of you who know us and our work, you may remember our Telly-Award winning documentary “Eat Pennsylvania: A Keystone Plate Special with Dave & Dave” from 2006.  This will be the sequel!  If you’d like to get your hands on a DVD of the original “Eat Pennsylvania,” just go here: http://www.wqed.org/genl/shop/misc.shtml

While we were on the road shooting “Strange PA” this summer (as well as “Offbeat Museums” last summer), we were always on the lookout for those cool places to eat that are institutions in their own areas and stand the test of time.  If you’d like us to include a gem that you know about (it has to be in Pennsylvania), just drop us a comment here or e-mail it to us at daveanddave@wqed.org

      Dave H.

After 966 miles, and a fairly quick drive from Philly to Pittsburgh (thanks to the powerful hemi-like engine in our QED minivan), the Strange PA shoot is now over. All we have to do now is edit the approx. 30 hours of footage into some kind of show that makes sense. That starts in 2 weeks.

For now, it’s time to find out what I learned in the van. Here we go:

Gillian Anderson (X-Files) is NOT a British actress. She was born in Chicago.

There are 5,280 feet in a mile, NOT 3,700.

James Buchanon was the only President who came from Pennsylvania.

If I ever appear on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” I will be using Frank’s father-in-law as my lifeline.

The air at the Sunoco in Malvern, PA is free. FREE! And somewhat wispy.

When you look at power lines, if you touch the top line, it will mess you up, even if standing on a lift.

A case of Lowenbrau can help with creativity, but only in Bedford County.

Route 32 along the Delaware River might be the most scenic drive in PA.

Don’t try to park in New Hope, PA on Sunday.

The empire is falling.

Thanks to everyone who helped us on our trips this year and it was really nice meeting everyone. Big shout out to Greenpeace in Phoenixville, Yellow Book, the guy who went to North Hills High School, the TV crew from Maryland, Little Anthony’s Pizza in Coatesville, Asher and his mom, the Patient Creatures, everyone working in the kitchen at the Copper Kettle in Chambersburg, Woody Poles, and Mother Nature for holding off on the rain until our last day of shooting (which was inside).

    Now, we rest. - Dave R

While in Philadelphia shooting, Dave, Frank & I do have a few food traditions that we always try to stick to.  Our first stop in town is always Geno’s for authentic and essential cheesesteaks.  Frank & I do “wiz,” while Dave R goes provolone.  For some reason we’ve never even looked at Pat’s just across the street and have always just chosen Geno’s.  The place NEVER disappoints.  This may very well be the quintessential Pennsylvania sandwich… and “wiz” is a bit strange!  When in South Philly, Geno’s is a MUST STOP.

Something else we discovered while shooting our “Eat Pennsylvania” documentary a few years back was a gelato place called Capogiro.  It’s a family-run joint that has been open  in Philly since 2002.  You can check them out online at http://www.capogirogelato.com/main.html .  This stuff is crafted in small batches with top notch local ingredients.  You can mix & match flavors and sample anything in the case.

Great quality and great taste!  

Sadly, one of our food traditions, breakfast at the Broad Street Diner is no more.  We discovered that the rough around the edges, no nonsense, old school diner closed recently.  Oh well… there’s always the Melrose Diner!  -Dave H.

On South 22nd Street in Philadelphia lies the College of Physicians, home to the Mutter Museum.  (The word “Mutter” has those two dots over the “u” kind of like that metal band “Motorhead” with the dots over the “o”)

The Mutter Museum was founded to educate future doctors about anatomy and human medical anomalies.  Uh oh!  Yes, this is the place you’ve heard about, or perhaps have seen with all of the jars of assorted body parts and other icky things.

Conjoined twins, a skull collection, 2,000 items extracted from throats, colons, brains and even a growth removed from President Grover Cleveland!  The “strange factor” appears to have blown right off the chart. - Dave H

I’m having a bit of trouble with YouTube at the moment, so until that is resolved, you can just click the link below to see a short video of Dave & Dave actually ringing rocks!

http://youtube.com/user/babycondor21

Of course the segment for the “Strange PA” show won’t feature Frank & I goofing off, more like Dave & I goofing off!

Seriously, I think it will be more like a cross between an episode of “Lost” and a drum solo from Rush’s Neil Peart… only more explosive, eerie and yes… Strange! - Dave H.

We’re now south of Easton and north of New Hope, PA in a 7-acre boulder field called Ringing Rocks Park.  This natural wonder lives in Bucks County, is open 365 days a year, and is free for all to enjoy. 

This has got to be the only park on the face of the earth where everyone walks in with a hammer in their hand.  We also saw one guy with a 9-iron and another with a chrome trailer hitch.  The “bring your own tools” thing allows you to take a whack at the boulders and try and get them to ring.  You can also pick up a piece of rock and use that too.  If you do it just right it actually sounds like you’re clanging metal pipes.  Weird?  Sort of.  Strange?  You bet!

Hammer Time!  We’ll post actual video of giant boulders ringing on our next installment! -Dave H.

Well we’re now knee-deep in blob mania after taking part in the runout of the theater. Dave R & Frank were perched atop (yes on top!) of our van that was somehow parked almost directly across the street from the theater amidst the huge crowd so they could get the big wide shot. And where was I? I was using our secondary camera (an HD mini dv) and against the advice of the police officers present decided to stand right in the middle of the street exactly where the crowd would run so I could get action closups. The other photographers weren’t all that happy with my position either because I was in all of their shots. But we’ll do just about anything to get the good shots and make “Strange PA” as fun to watch as possible. You’ll have to wait for the show to see all of that footage!

I’m happy to report that after that mayhem only 1 person slammed into me and it was a kid so I think he got the worst of it! -Dave H

Just west of Philly lies an interesting town called Phoenixville.  I guess I was expecting it to be like Phoenix, just without the dry heat.  What we actually found was a pretty cool place with a lot of charm due to its restored old buildings and storefronts.  The centerpiece of the town is the Colonial Theater which just happens to be the movie theater featured in the film, “The Blob,” which is why we’re here.  “Blobfest” celebrates the classic 1958 sci-fi flick that starred Steve McQueen and was shot completely in Phoenixville and some of the surrounding towns.  As you can see from the photo, people were lining up in droves to be part of the 450 citizens who later that night would re-create the scene from “The Blob” where everyone runs screaming from the theater away from the scary red ooze! 

Blobfest goes on for the entire weekend with lots of events including a scream contest, tin foil hat competition, parade, screenings of the film, and music from the legendary Neanderthals… the band that time forgot!  What a stroke of luck!  The guitar player for the Neanderthals is none other than Eddie Angel, also the guitar player for one of my favorites, as well as one of the best live bands ever, Los Straitjackets!  This will be killer!  

We’re here shooting tonight and Saturday, so we should be able to capture a ton of the kooky madness that is Blobfest.  Did I mention the Neanderthals were here???  Oh yeah.  Plenty more to come from this stop… -Dave H. 

http://www.theneanderthals.com/          http://www.straitjackets.com/

So it’s Friday and today we are driving from Gettysburg to Phoenixville to experience Blobfest 2008.  One problem.  We detected a potential camera problem today that could derail the whole shoot.  While checking our tapes from the Little Horse Farm, he detected a missing pixel, which means a little circle of video was missing from the tape.  Must be a camera problem.

Since we are on the road, you need to be able to improvise.  So where does one take their camera to be fixed when you are hours away from your TV station??  Of course, you take it to a Hobby/Train store.

So we found our way to Tommy Gilbert’s Hobby Shop and met the owner who was able to hook us up with a couple tiny tools to take the lens off and see what was going on.  Frank did his best impression of MacGyver but after a very delicate operation by Dr. Caloiero, the problem still existed and now it looked like we had a bad monitor, not a bad camera.  But we needed to find a place to test the monitor.  Of course, Tommy knew a guy.  That sent us up the road a few miles to….

Jeff Bucher’s Video/Sound Productions.  Jeff is an independent producer here in Gettysburg and he had tons of equipment.  Obviously, he gets PBS producers in his place all the time with faulty equipment, because he was very helpful in providing us with a way to see what the problem really was.  After some fiddling, turns out it was a monitor problem, not a camera problem which means a big WHEWWWWWW!

Frank was so happy he was able to share a laugh with former President Jimmy Carter.  Now, it’s on to Blobfest!  -  Dave R