Most of you are aware of the featherwing Baron that Scott Stisser, Larry Goates and I videotaped in March. Many of you have that tape, and some have sent back to us constructive comments for which we are grateful. Some have also asked that we write down what we did so that they might learn from our approach. Our hope then and now is that others will do similar tapes so that we might learn their approach to different salmon flies.

First of all, take your time putting it together. We met once several months before and played with the camera, lighting and background. When we did the actual filming, we had only one day to do it. We started at 8:30 a.m. and finished at 70:30 p.m. with only a couple of meal breaks. Two days would have been better. Also, doing a preliminary fly and practicing with our team together would have helped. A written script may not help, but having an established plan would. Know what you want to show and what you want to leave out. We chose to keep it under two hours, and with that time limit it was impossible to show everything.

Our team size of one tier, one cameraman and one gopher (Larry wants you to know he was the gopher) was very good. We found it beneficial that all team members understood salmon fly tying concepts. (One more cameraman would be useful if a second camera was used.) The gophers is the busy person making sure all materials are prepared in advance and in order. Also, that person must keep the tying area clean of unnecessary items that would cause a poor background to film against, as well as simply being handy for whatever.

Ours biggest problem was the limitation of the camera. It was an excellent Panasonic with a macro Feature. The problem was that in macro it required being 1 1/2-2" from the fly; therefore, it was impossible to tie with, so we had to use several drawings. (We would have used drawings anyway, but possibly not so many had the macro worked from a greater distance.) I wanted to film the fly from the tier's view point. In order to get the correct angle to the camera (which was to my right and slightly above my shoulder) I had to rotate and tilt the fly, an awkward position to tie from but not insurmountable. A large, steady tripod was of tremendous help. A consideration might be to have two cameras with an editing feature, showing different angles. Also, a fade feature would have smoothed out transitions between steps.

For lighting, we chose photo floods of warm color and two fluorescent lamps to tie under, one being daylight and the others a pinkish tone. We tried one flood, two floods, bouncing floods, etc., but our best seemed to come from one flood sightly from the camera's night and slightly behind. Have plenty of photoflood bulbs, since life expectancy is only about two hours, and turn them off when not taping. Our chosen background came through trial and error. What looked good to our eyes was not what the camera necessarily preferred. We finally went to white butcher paper on the table and as a rolled backdrop. The only exception to that was when we wanted to show detail in a crest feather, and for that we found a blue velvet-like material to be the best.

There are numerous other small suggestions, such as have a materials list and a completed fly to show at the beginning. Also, have a color TV on hand to review steps when they are completed. Cue cards were a joke for us, so next time I'd memorize what I felt was mandatory to say. Get the best camera(s) you can find. A good source might be your local college communications department and a student looking for an unusual project. If you do it at home, get rid of the kids, cat and dog and remove the phone from the hook. Last but not least, relax and have fun. Don't get me wrong; it was work but gratifying work.

If you have a specific question I have not addressed of a comment that wasn't covered here, please white to us.