Want to Know What it’s Like to Shoot a TV Show All About Veganism and Animal Rights? Check Out This Photo Essay by Derek Goodwin!

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It was so thrilling for us to recently feature photographer, vegan cheese-maker, ukelele player (who knew?), and Jivamukti yoga expert Derek Goodwin on the Our Hen House TV show (a co-production with Brooklyn Independent Media). I have been a fan of Derek’s work for a long time now. Few others can capture the beauty and power of the animal world, the vegan world, and the activist community than Derek can. If you haven’t yet watched Derek on Episode 25, I hope you get to that. In fact, I’ll embed it here, just in case you’re feeling lazy:

(I should note that OHH Associate Producer, Tim Ettienne, did a smashing job of weaving Derek’s photos in, in post-production, don’t you think?)
Mariann and I have such a blast working on the Our Hen House TV show with Brooklyn Independent Media. Take a look at this one-minute glimpse at some of our favorite moments from Season 1:

When Derek joined us for Episode 25 (from our current season, Season 2) a few weeks ago, were were lucky enough to have him bring his camera along. So many of you have written to us asking us what it’s like shooting OHHTV. And now, thanks to Derek’s beautiful camerawork, you can find out!
(As a bonus, Derek is offering Our Hen House fans a 20% discount off his photos with coupon code HENHOUSE. Just go to www.derekgoodwin.com, and pick out what’d you like! Support your local vegan photographer/do-gooder!)

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We start by getting our make-up done by the fabulous Kerrie Ann Murphy, who is not only talented at make-up artistry, but she also happens to be a vegan, animal rights advocate. Plus, she’s married to Marina Benedetto — the brain behind Yeah Dawg, my favorite ever plant-based hot dog company! (Be sure to watch us stuffing our faces with the Dawgs when Marina was on our TV show last season.)


While in the green room, as Mariann gets her make-up done (all cruelty-free products, of course), I go over the script and assets (photos and videos) for the day’s shoot.



After we’re both dolled up, we head to studio control to go over the episode with the fabulous crew at Brooklyn Independent Media.

Here I am with Leslie Hayes, our show’s director.



Time to hit up the Hungry Ghost Cafe, which is at the BRIC Arts Media House where we shoot, for a coffee.

Now we head into the studio for some last-minute tweaks…

Then we get mic’d up. This is our producer, Ro Johnson, helping us out.

The fabulous Cynthia King was one of our guests that day.

My mic kept slipping around. Here’s our Production Assistant, Curtis Boone, fixing it for good.

Curtis also always makes sure the coffee cup is filled.

Time to queue up the teleprompters. We have two of them, as well as four cameras (plus an additional one overhead).

We record our segments out of order. We start with the guest segments, and then we record “ramblings” (which is the top of our show) last. We do have a lot of fun…



On the day Derek joined us, after the shoot was over, we relaxed on the (inside) stoop steps at BRIC and hung out a bit.




Before calling it a day, Derek snapped a few more photos at the subway.


(Our coats are from Vaute Couture, in case you’re wondering.)




The Our Hen House TV show takes a lot of work, both in terms of pre-production (probably about 30 hours per episode for that alone), the shoot itself, and post-production. We love doing it, and feel lucky every single time we’re at the studio, working alongside such an incredibly talented team. We also just found out that any day now, two bus stop shelters in Park Slope, Brooklyn will be decked out with enormous ads for the show (which makes me feel a bit like Carrie Bradshaw).
This particular shoot that we’re documenting today was especially fun, because our guests — Cynthia and Derek — brought a special liveliness and inspiration. And a huge special thanks to Derek for these glorious shots.
Hope you are enjoying the Our Hen House TV show! Don’t forget, you can catch up on all episodes over at ourhenhouse.org/tv.
Here’s the most recent promo (also just one minute long) for the show!

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As a bonus, here are some of my favorite animal photos that Derek has taken…