GuitarViol meetup for movie B-roll and…
A pleasant surprise at the meetup! Tina Guo!
Okay, this was scheduled to be a small off radar (not so public) B-Roll session meetup of GV insiders for the upcoming “GuitarViol; The film composer secret weapon” documentary. The idea was we were going to shoot some footage in the shop and Capture what meet ups are like (we haven’t done any since last year). We would get some anecdotal quotes and interviews from people we are close to and perhaps a few hand picked Composers. Typically I advertise his events on Instagram but this time it was really just about gathering a few people with some cameras rolling!
An unexpected Instagram with Tina Guo playing a borrowed TogaMan GuitarViol came to my attention a week prior. I forwarded the link to Dale Turner Who has been working as a production coordinator interviewer on the film team. He reached out to Tina and invited her! (she showed up!)
Some background:
Back in 2008, I put up one of my YouTube blogs (in the days before google took over!) A random commenter name Tina Guo caught my attention and I checked out her stuff. Turns out she was an excellent young cellist with a relentless work ethic! I followed her channel and she came out with a self produced video entitled Queen bee. It was clear she had a knack for Metal shredding on electric cello as well as serious classical! Video production and costuming was also in her wheelhouse apparently! This video got the attention of none other than Hans Zimmer and the rest is history! I’ve watched Tina build an incredible career over the years! Pan ahead to the present, and There was a video of her playing one of my instruments at a session!
So, last week, I was pulling my hair out otherwise getting the shop ready and trying to get some instruments finished for a Saturday event I felt completely unprepared for! (Thanks Dale Lol). I was looking forward to it but let me tell you I’ve been going through a lot lately! The last few years have been brutal and trying to recover from the flaccid/volatile/nuked post Covid economy and keeping shop open in the midst of the 10x Xen/x engineering/launch has been pretty challenging! (Understatement!) Anyway Dale got back to me and told me she was actually going to show up! My imposter syndrome kicked in! [PS - much of this written during insomnia hours on my iPhone. Pardon typos LOL]
I came to the shop early that morning to make sure the shop was ready for guests. I had to get a set up ready and then clean the shop! Ugh! Juan arrived early to help me with loose ends. Dale brought some goodies and pizza! Terry started setting his cameras up. Gradually the guests started to arrive after 3PM. And yes TINA showed up! There were some dialogue, playing, and camera action. Eventually TIna started playing my instruments and a Jam ensued! It was like a surreal dream! (yes she is really really THAT good!) And yes, The cameras were rolling!
A lot of other things were happening as well! Past protégées (Jude Wright, Keith Horne, My son Andrew, and Juan Martinez) we’re also on hand for interviews and quotes On camera (for the movie). A GV client Pat Dmitri, A very talented jazz guitar player, came by to pick his long-awaited GV up and hung out as well! We were all treated to his exploration of the instruments chordal pizzicato aspects! What a memorable (much needed) great time!
Regrettably, I did not get everybody in the crowd in these shots as our hands were full! There were more peeps here than these pics suggest. Even Randall Cummings customer #2/3 from 2003 with his solid body of the day! Mike Lyn came with his 2020 Johan G build. (Both deserve their own essays!) It was amazing! Juan whipped up a custom length peg in a jiffy (on the spot, see above pic) to accommodate Tina’s cello playing stance! This atoned for the crime of pouring a good bottle of Cabernet into his fresh fruit Sangria concoction LOL! (My inner Paul Giamatti “Miles” from Sideways grimaced in horror). Fortunately it was pretty good! Last year, Juan made sushi rolls on the spot! More to come I hope!
Then, there was the “No Snail boxes” scene akin to no stairway in Wayne’s World. Jim annoyed me with his exaggerated snail box carve back in 2010 (his personal build). PS, both Jim and I worked at the real Wayne’s World Store Cassells Music back in the Y2K decade.
Good times!
Stay tuned and stay inspired!
Reach out here