About Video Production
An important objective of the website project was to create educational videos to include performances of period music on selected guitars in the collection. Additionally, we wanted to include informational interviews with guitar scholars, covering a wide range of topics including luthiers, performers, composers, and the guitar’s varying role from the Renaissance through the late nineteenth century.
The first video shoot was held at San Domenico School in Marin County, California in early January of 2019. The school was closed for winter holiday, so we would have uninterrupted use of their exceptional concert hall on a quiet and empty campus. The video crew set up early in the morning. Jeff was tasked as the audio engineer and beginning at noon, Jon Mendle, Adrian Murillo, Jeff, and the video crew spent the next 10 hours recording performances on 15 guitars.
Eli Adler
September of 2019, Jeff Wells journeyed to the University of Cambridge with videographer Eli Adler to interview renowned guitar historians Christopher Page, Erik Stenstadvold, and James Westbrook at Churchill College. Eli brought in a video crew from London, and proceeded to shoot five hours of discussion, covering a wide array of eclectic topics from Francisco Corbetta at the Restoration Court of Charles II to the diary of Nicolai Petrovich Makarov. The result of these discussions can be seen in the Interviews section.
The COVID pandemic arrived in February of 2020, and it wouldn’t be until December before our next shoot. Eli Adler joined Jeff once again – this time at 32Ten Studios in San Rafael, California. This was the location where famed film producer/director George Lucas had orchestrated special effects for his Star Wars films.