A Day in the Life

Last Friday, a British film crew crew came in on behalf of the History Channel to shoot some footage for a special on ... Lincoln! That was a shocker (in Washington now, every other thing is about Abraham Lincoln).

The crew had a team of 4 - director, videographer, sound man, and general fixer. They filmed parts of our new Lincoln exhibit (see?) and then shot some of Tim talking in front of parts of the Civil War exhibit. Then it was my turn.

I talked about surgery and amputations in front of the large mural in the Battlefield Surgery exhibit, then about reparative (ie plastic surgery) in front of the case that Alan and Steve did in that exhibit, and then talked briefly about Field Day, our picture of a pile of amputated limbs at Harewood Hospital.

Then the fun began. We went back to the Archives where they turned off all the lights and set up some of theirs with blue filters for that spooky 'archives' effect. I'm thinking we need to switch over to this permanently to cut down the number of walk-in requests. Then they filmed me turning the movable aisle handles over and over again. Then walking into an aisle over and over again. Then opening a bound volume of Civil War photographs over and over again. I think you're getting the picture (and this was a very good crew, who were working quickly).

I'm not a big fan of doing tv - it's too much like making sausage. Still it's neat when one of your neighbors rides by and says, "I saw you on tv yesterday" as happened to me last week.