Producing my first video – Starting a Border Collie
In 1981 I was competing in a sheepdog trial in Saskatchewan. The
local school in Carnduff had recently bought a video camera and one
of the students recorded the whole event. After the trial we all went
to the school and watched our runs on their TV.. This was the
first video camera I had seen and I was just amazed at the
possibilities especially as I had always been a very keen photographer. I now dreamt
of owning my own video camera, but they were expensive at that
time.
Through this time I had often been asked to write the odd article
about training Border Collies. These articles were always well
received and so in 1983 I decided that "it was time to take the
plunge" and make up a video on starting Border Collies. So I
proceeded to buy my first camera. With a friend's help, I wrote out
a plan and then went and filmed the pieces I needed for the video.
Editing was out of the question as the quality loss editing with VHS
was so great that by the 3rd generation I would have little left to
show the viewer. So I shot, rewound, checked the footage, reshot
again and so the process continued. I eventually ended up with a 2
hour video called Starting a Border Collie.
When I started this project my intentions for the use of this
final program was as a training guide for my puppy buyers. I had no
further intentions than that. At that time, there were no other
commercially available video programs offered on training Border
Collies anywhere, whether in the UK or North America, and the idea
of a wide distribution hadn't really occurred to me. After I had
finished the video, a neighboring sheep farmer, to where we lived in
Nova Scotia, asked me what plans I had for the video now that I had
finished it. I told him that if I managed to sell 25 copies at $40
each I would retrieve much of my investment in my camera, and I
would be happy at that. I remember him laughing, "You'll never sell
25 copies of a video on training Border Collies. Who do you think
will buy it?". Soon afterwards a fellow in Ontario saw a copy of the
tape. Following that, a visitor to Nova Scotia, from Florida,
borrowed a tape that I had given to a friend. Both wrote to me
telling me to advertise the video as it was a great idea. So I did.
The response over the next few years was
overwhelming.
(Border
Collie training information)
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