As I mentioned earlier, Claudia and I decided to create a cooking show called Cooking up the Past using recipes that had been created after examining the diets of past cultures. We wanted to get people involved and interested while also educating them about archaeology. In order to best do this, we decided to break the show up into three episodes, as Ethan had advised, yet each of the episodes had a similar structure. Claudia and I interviewed a number of people, and each video begins with some clips from the interview. Then we move on to Claudia in the kitchen, cooking along with witty banter and information on archaeology. And in the last two videos we have interviews with archaeologists at the end. Although, the episodes had similar structures, we gave every one a different theme.
Episode one is about what archaeology is and what it hopes to accomplish. Claudia and I cooked two dishes made by the Mayans, and educated viewers about important basics of archaeology.
Episode two is Roman themed, but the central topic is technology. As we cook up a Roman dish from the past and talk about the Rome Reborn project, we also learn about application and use of technology within the field of archaeology. We finished off the interviewing our own Prof. Ethan Watrall, and we asked his experience with technology in the field.
Episode three talks about pseudoarchaeology, but it has a twist. Claudia and I explore common misconceptions about the past and have a delicious dish. Prof. Pollard, an archaeologist, talks to us about the causes and origins of pseudoarchaeological ideas.
After eight hours of filming and countless more of editing Claudia and I finally finished the videos. We were hoping to have the links to the videos, but unfortunately vimeo would not allow us to upload the videos for free, and youtube was talking 1000+ minutes to upload. Therefore, Claudia and I turned an external hard-drive in to Ethan, but we are still working to post the videos on youtube and will provide the links as they become available. We will also be showing the videos in Claudia’s room to all those that we interviewed. A couple of them already saw sneak previews and were impressed by both the videos, and what they learned.
Despite the fact that some of the film was lost and some fancy editing had to be done at the last minute to cover it up, both Claudia and I were pleased with the project. We think it gets some basic information out to the public while being entertaining. We had a great time making the videos and learned a lot ourselves. We are also really excited to watch the videos with everyone tonight and are still very hopeful about youtube.