Behind the scenes of 'Ask This Old House'

When Steve Fening wanted to install landscaping lighting at his house, he didn't call an electrician. He contacted "Ask This Old House."

Fening of Brecksville, Ohio, e-mailed the PBS show in August after reading it was planning a trip to Ohio and was looking for homeowners to appear on the program. Recently, an "Ask This Old House" crew spent the day at his home, filming a segment on landscape lighting that will air sometime this season.

It wasn't exactly Hollywood. But then, TV isn't always glamorous.

Fening went along gamely as the proceedings inched forward. He listened raptly each time Scott Caron, the show's master electrician, would explain the steps involved in installing a transformer and low-voltage lights, even when the same scene was shot five or six times.

Sometimes a misstep or a muffed sentence would force a retake. Sometimes the same scene would be shot at various angles or distances so the takes could be spliced together into one seamless sequence, like a video jigsaw puzzle. Even the distant sound of a neighbor's leaf blower, which had stopped and started during the shooting of one scene, was recorded so it could be dubbed beneath the speakers' voices for continuity's sake.

Caron did most of the talking — and occasionally, the misspeaking.

"I'm going to install these pathway lights that are only 18 inches tall. Doesn't really matter what I'm saying right now," he deadpanned as he realized he'd messed up his lines.

"That's what I've been working on. Not thinking," he said with a laugh.

Unlike most shows, "Ask This Old House" and its parent series, "This Old House," are shot with only one camera. That presents challenges, producer Heath Racela said, but it's more effective than trying to position multiple cameras to capture the finer points of a home improvement project and educate the viewer on how it's done — the show's bread and butter.

"We sometimes say it was the original reality show," said Racela.

The camera transmitted its images instantly to handheld TV sets, so Racela and others in the crew could see exactly what the lens was seeing. Director Tom Draudt and associate producer Cliff Nash stayed close to each shot, coaching Caron between takes on what to say and how to move.

The discussions could get specific. Should Caron refer to a tree as a maple, or just a tree? Should he talk about lighting "this tree," or "this style tree"?

She said she didn't entirely believe her husband when he told her he'd e-mailed the show and gotten a call back. "I was like, I won't believe it till they show up," she said.

Fening said he's a fan of the show and often watches with his children, Abigail, 7, and Andrew, 4. The kids are so familiar with the program that they refer to it as "the building show."

He submitted about five ideas of projects he's been wanting to tackle and was pleased when Nash called him the day after he sent his e-mail.