Behind The Scenes

by Suzanne Andrews

Have you ever worked so hard on a project and elated that it FINALLY got done?  We've overcome so many hurdles creating our next Functional Fitness series for PBS that I'm breathing or perhaps heaving a sigh of relief!   

What am I referring to?  Travelling across the country filming 10 episodes in spectacular outside settings was not without setbacks.  We got some amazing footage and were thrilled to see that after working out in 90 plus degree heat, climbing steep mountain sides with camera gear threatening to topple off our backs just to get to the prime filming spot; surviving frightening turbulent plane rides with rough weather; getting up at 4 AM and working till the wee hours of the night; listening to countless hours of music scores to find one that matches - it was all worth it.   

Than the unthinkable happened - our computer crashed!  All the footage gone before we had a chance to put it on another hard drive!!!  I took a deep breath and started thinking of a solution. Where are we going to find a company that can fix this?  We were in a remote location in Texas.  As a rehab clinician, I think "Ok, that's the problem, now what's the solution?"  After much searching, we found a  place that could helps us.  This place works with the FBI so I thought, "they must be good."  It took longer than expected, but after three long months, they retrieved the footage.  

Now it was back to Florida to tape a couple more episodes with special guests, Tosca Reno, New York Times best selling author of Your Best Body Now and the Eat-Clean Diet series and Teresa Anne Power, best selling author the book ABCs of Yoga for Kids.

The clouds kept appearing and disappearing while Tosca showed the chair workout (that makes you really sweat and burn fat!) and me demonstrating the standing version in Metabolism Booster Weight Loss Workout, so it took many extra hours to finish taping as we had to have continuity with the lighting.  

While filming the chair yoga version of  Family Yoga for ADHD, (Attention deficit disorder) with Teresa Power, who did the standing modifier yoga poses, I also guided a child demonstrator, Bea, and glad that I rehearsed with Bea several times before taping.  She was sweet little girl and did a great job.   

Crew, talent, location - we were set.  Everything filmed and than the unthinkable happened.  I couldn't get a hold of my editor who had all the footage!  I called, left tons of messages, emailed and nothing.  I worked with him on my first two series in 2008 and 2009 and he was very reliable so I was concerned that something happened to him.   

Finally, I got a hold of his wife and she said he was sick but they would get me the footage back - unedited.  I was just so relieved and we would edit it ourselves.   

And than I didn't hear from her - what was going on?  She finally got back to me and her computer with all of our footage crashed!  It put us a year behind schedule, but we finally got all the footage back and edited the series ourselves.  All that sitting made me gain weight so it's no accident that I'm doing a series of live weight loss walking classes in Ormond Beach, Florida in Janury 2018. 

The Functional Fitness with Suzanne Andrews®  series has undergone and passed quality control with our home station and is now closed captioned and being sent off to our distributor! 

To save time, we are giving our distributor 5 of the ten episodes for broadcast and the other episodes we'll place as extra workouts on our upcoming DVD's.   

This is what our show is about...and I say our because Functional Fitness with Suzanne Andrews® is produced for you with love, sweat and tears (mostly joy)!  

Produced and hosted by rehab clinician and original creator of modified exercises, Suzanne Andrews in the continuing series Functional Fitness with Suzanne Andrews® helps people 40 plus who want the choice of doing exercises sitting on a chair or standing improve their quality of life by increasing mobility, bone strength, ability to perform activities of daily living with total body strength and conditioning moves making joints healthy and pain-free.  

Based on the fitness techniques of being Functionally Fit, each 30-minute episode features a fitness edition to help overcome specific health conditions naturally. In Functional Fitness with Suzanne Andrews, you'll feel an immediate increase in mood, flexibility, strength and heart health with medically proven exercises that show rapid results for real people. Proceeds from the DVDs produce more episodes for people over 40 and provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on the PBS TV series.  

Thanks for taking the time to be with a very important person - YOU!

Suzanne Andrews founded Functional Fitness in 2008, the most popular fitness series for boomers and seniors broadcasting on over 159 Public Television stations throughout the US and Canada. Read Suzanne’s inspiring comeback story of how she survived a near fatal accident, From Deaths Door to Producing a National Fitness Series. Feel free to send Suzanne a message here.