Dave Perry — a friend, fellow film shooter and motorcyclist — let me help out this weekend on a film shoot for “This is Josephine Brown,” a short movie where he wrote the script and is shooting as cinematographer along with director Michael Boyd and a cast of local actors in Roanoke.

An educational day for me, who is used to “run and gun” journalism style shooting of video and not the detailed preparation that setup, blocking and other activities are required for even the shortest of scenes.

Dave put me to work with the clapboard as the guy who stands in front of the camera at the beginning of shooting each scene and announces “This is for Josephine Brown: Take One Scene (1-15).”  That’s right.  We did 15 takes to shoot one scene.

Dave and Mike started work on the 20-minute film in July and shooting continues.