The tape is about to start rolling on Sunday morning for an episode of “The Woodwright’s Shop” with Roy Underhill. I’m so nervous about being a guest on the show that I can feel my morning coffee surging in my throat — about to pulse forward like a brown Trevi fountain.
Roy pulls on his hat, which his mother gave him about 35 years ago, over his thicket of hair and picks up a foam tube. I think: That’s… weird. It looks like one of those foam insulators that you wrap around your pipes to keep them from freezing.
He walks over to one of the cameramen and whacks him mercilessly with the foam sword, and the cameraman submits meekly to the mock beating. Then Roy walks over to the next camera operator and administers another stage whuppin’.
But when Roy approaches Mike Oniffrey, a cameraman and set photographer, Oniffrey resists and parries Roy’s attack using a long metal pole (where did a cameraman get a metal pole?). The two men re-enact a scene from “Star Wars” and suddenly the show has begun and I’m babbling.
Today we shot two episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” for its forthcoming season. One show is about the importance of the fore plane and the impotence of the smoothing plane. The other show is about how to build the English Layout Square that graces the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
I have appeared on a fair number of television programs in the last 20 years, but those were nothing like “The Woodwright’s Shop.” The crew of “The Woodwright’s Shop” is tiny and close-knit. The entire program is shot in one take – there is no series of cuts that are spliced together. You either get it right the first time or you do the whole dang show over again.
And then there are the beatings…. Aw, who am I kidding? Most TV sets have people who beat you.
The first show on Sunday we did was about the English Layout Square. I was happy with my performance because I made only three embarrassing errors.
1. I cut myself. Yup. Just as the cameras started rolling I nicked my left index finger with my panel saw. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see the wound, but I’m trying to stop the bleeding for the first five minutes.
2. I threw Roy’s mallet off the bench during the show. I meant to just put it down, but the thing went flying off the end of the workbench. Lucky for me I had a second mallet on the bench and I just pretended that nothing happened.
3. I grabbed the wrong piece of wood when I demonstrated how to cut a bead on the square. I was supposed to put it on one of the legs of the square, but I grabbed the horizontal brace instead. Roy helpfully pointed out the error.
Despite all this stupidity, the cameras kept rolling and somehow didn’t record me wetting myself, which is what I wanted to do.
And this first taping of the day was the tame one. The second show was like “Pretty Woman” meets “Fight Club.” More later.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Roy wanted me to tell you that his show is free to all PBS stations. So call your local station and demand they run “The Woodwright’s Shop.” And don’t let them tell you that they can’t afford it. No more “Teletubbies” — we want the Woodwright!
Congratulations on the mostly successful filming!
I’ve wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your episode featuring The Joiner and Cabinetmaker… that is what really propelled me to do what I always wanted to, work with hand tools as much as possible. It really was as simple as that moment, watching that show. When you said that you had spent the past many months reliving Thomas’s experience, I said to myself “I need to do that”. And now I am! Thank you, Mr Schwarz (and Mr Underhill!)
Looking forward to seeing these episodes and it’s great to hear that there’s another season coming. I took a class with Roy and one with Bill Anderson at Roy’s school in May of this year and they were both fantastic. Can’t wait to get down there again. I asked Roy, as I’m sure EVERYONE does, about who owns the rights to The Woodwrights Shop episodes and what are the chances he’d put them out on DVD. I believe he mentioned maybe trying to get them on an iTunes type forum because it would just be too much for him to do DVD’s. Sounds like a job for a primo publishing company like Lost Art Press? I can’t get enough of watching on the web and on my PBS station, but I hate that all I get to see is the last 3 or 4 seasons. It would be so great to be able to purchase older seasons on DVD. So what da ya say, maybe a joint venture between Roy and Lost Art Press? PLEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEE!!! I KNOW they’d sell like hotcakes. Or cold IPA.
Jamie Bacon
Real anarchists don’t watch TV. I hope to watch online.
I suppose I don’t see how watching something that is available for free on public broadcast is somehow inferior to watching the exact same thing through a paid internet subscription (most likely through a very large corporation). Perhaps I’m just not a “real anarchist.”
So, have you ever asked Roy (I feel I can call him Roy, but it most likely is Mr. Underhill to me) about the magic disappearing and reappearing axe in the show’s intro sequence?
Sounds like fun. I already record all the Woodwright shows. So, I’ll be watching.
> the impotence of the smoothing plane
They have pills for that nowadays. ;^)
Free. Really?
I’m surprised I don’t see hours on end of TWS with a 30+ year catalog of episodes to choose from.
Trees planted during the early episodes could be used to feed current projects.
You have the best job ever!
It is never a really good TWS show unless there is blood. This time it was Chris instead of Roy
You and him need to make a show on how to build a first aid box. Also an outhouse, cause if you need a first aid kit, you will need an outhouse next. I’m anxiously awaiting to see the show. I’ll look for the squirting blood, I mean the new stain coloring. Good luck and have drink before the shoot.
Thanks UNC TV!