I'm working on a Mystery Project that requires some digging into the ancient past: 1984.
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was a big song that year. Ah, the classics!
HERE's a video clip.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
If You Film It...
Sometimes people will see it.
On the heels of good news about one friend fund-raising on Kickstarter for his short film Perfectly Normal, comes an email from another friend, one who has been filming documentary footage about kids and mentoring. They just got a little bit of footage on their local news, a piece about a Hawaiian educational non-profit called Grow Some Good: . http://www.flickr.com/photos/southmauischoolgardens/6903708954/
I guess the moral here is to just DO whatever it is you feel called upon to do - trusting that there will be someone else out there interested. Finding that audience is obviously the tricky part.
On the heels of good news about one friend fund-raising on Kickstarter for his short film Perfectly Normal, comes an email from another friend, one who has been filming documentary footage about kids and mentoring. They just got a little bit of footage on their local news, a piece about a Hawaiian educational non-profit called Grow Some Good: . http://www.flickr.com/photos/southmauischoolgardens/6903708954/
Image from Grow Some Good.org
I guess the moral here is to just DO whatever it is you feel called upon to do - trusting that there will be someone else out there interested. Finding that audience is obviously the tricky part.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Lull? Not So Much
The speed of this set designer's life is picking up again:
Today there's an interview with an almost-new client. I worked with them years ago for basically what change they could find under the sofa cushions (plus tasty cookies), but this time it's all a little better funded and at a new address. Meanwhile, I've learned that the builder for another set will no longer be building - there's going to be a scramble to see how that gets done. Waiting on a director's phone call on a third show (I better nudge 'em, that deadline is approaching). A forth show has had a sad delay, but now a production meeting date is set... for which I need to get a sketch in gear. Oh! And I've accepted the offer of a favorite show in - wait for it - Prague! Cool, huh? You'll be hearing more about these shows: Mistakes Were Made; Boeing, Boeing; Ruth; Sweeney Todd; and the Dallas Theater Center's Summer Stage program.
Plus, of course, I've been figuring out income taxes. If you have your own business, taxes get, um, annoying. All those receipts! Mileage! (Man! I drive a lot of miles to theaters.) Calculating the exact square footage of the home studio versus the entire home in order to prorate the costs of electricity etc. as business versus personal costs... Taxes are very annoying. Especially if you replaced a car this year, as I had to. (Saga of Scenic Rides 1 & 2 HERE and, for those of you who find other people's struggles with taxes as funny as I do, here are last year's rants: Tax Rant #1, #2, and #3.)
That explains why there was no post yesterday: I was too annoyed!
Sigh.
But it's Spring! Easter almost. I'm feeling better - family and friends are well. The taxes look like they'll turn out okay. And the recent tornadoes that ripped through DFW spared my neighborhood. So life's good.
Today there's an interview with an almost-new client. I worked with them years ago for basically what change they could find under the sofa cushions (plus tasty cookies), but this time it's all a little better funded and at a new address. Meanwhile, I've learned that the builder for another set will no longer be building - there's going to be a scramble to see how that gets done. Waiting on a director's phone call on a third show (I better nudge 'em, that deadline is approaching). A forth show has had a sad delay, but now a production meeting date is set... for which I need to get a sketch in gear. Oh! And I've accepted the offer of a favorite show in - wait for it - Prague! Cool, huh? You'll be hearing more about these shows: Mistakes Were Made; Boeing, Boeing; Ruth; Sweeney Todd; and the Dallas Theater Center's Summer Stage program.
Plus, of course, I've been figuring out income taxes. If you have your own business, taxes get, um, annoying. All those receipts! Mileage! (Man! I drive a lot of miles to theaters.) Calculating the exact square footage of the home studio versus the entire home in order to prorate the costs of electricity etc. as business versus personal costs... Taxes are very annoying. Especially if you replaced a car this year, as I had to. (Saga of Scenic Rides 1 & 2 HERE and, for those of you who find other people's struggles with taxes as funny as I do, here are last year's rants: Tax Rant #1, #2, and #3.)
That explains why there was no post yesterday: I was too annoyed!
Sigh.
Van Gogh's Almond Blossums, believed public domain image
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Kickstarter
Most of us have now at least heard about Kickstarter, an innovative way to crowd-fund arts projects: ask publicly for pledges (kinda like NPR does) and, if enough people are interested in your project and they pledge enough money to meet the stated goal before the deadline - Viola! - cash for creation! The tricky part is that a goal has to be fully funded if the project is to get any money. So The Word has got to Get Out.
A knuckle-biter.
Well, that friend I told y'all about raising funds for a short film Perfectly Normal... made his $ 20,000 goal! (More HERE.)
So... Kickstarter works. At least some of the time. Good to know.
A knuckle-biter.
Well, that friend I told y'all about raising funds for a short film Perfectly Normal... made his $ 20,000 goal! (More HERE.)
So... Kickstarter works. At least some of the time. Good to know.
Kickstarter image from gigaom.com POST
Production Design
Just found a very interesting interview with Laurence Bennett, the production designer for the film The Artist. HERE at Pushing Pixels.
It's all the more fascinating because he talks about designing a black and white film about the making of black and white films. In order to emphasize the difference between The Artist's "real" locations (actually, of course, sets) from the "sets" of the film-in-the-film locations (also, of course, sets), he built the "real" sets using color (filmed in B&W) and the "set" sets using only B&W then filmed in B&W. Clever! There have to be subtle differences that I need to go back and stare very hard at.
It's all the more fascinating because he talks about designing a black and white film about the making of black and white films. In order to emphasize the difference between The Artist's "real" locations (actually, of course, sets) from the "sets" of the film-in-the-film locations (also, of course, sets), he built the "real" sets using color (filmed in B&W) and the "set" sets using only B&W then filmed in B&W. Clever! There have to be subtle differences that I need to go back and stare very hard at.
Sketch by Laurence Bennett of a restaurant scene in The Artist, from the Pushing Pixels site
Just for fun, here's a link to one of my B&W shows, last year's Death is No Small Change.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Update
In a lull here (that's another story), but in this low-energy limbo the reading continues...
Latest is a novel As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, a mystery about the death of a Manhattan plastic surgeon. This book, like many of Issac's, features a smart-alecky woman protagenist, so I enjoyed it. My favorite of her books has to be Shining Through, where a smart-alecky and brave Brooklyn secretary out-spies the Nazis, with a side dish of cookery. (But that story, alas, was made into a truly terrible movie; watch her Compromising Positions with Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia instead.)
Reading a good mystery has to be one of the kindest inventions ever for biding time - whether you're waiting on a dentist, a train journey, or healing. Enough plot and puzzle to distract the surface of the mind happily, while not demanding serious concentration the situation does not allow. A good a mystery provides amusement and charm and even, sometimes, enough human truth not to waste the time spent. And a really well written mystery becomes comfort brain-food... You can revisit a favorite sleuth's adventures - Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple - even though you know how the puzzle will be solved.
That it will be solved satisfactorily is one of this genre's charms.
Favorites?
Josephine Tey's Bratt Farrar, Miss Pym Disposes, and The Franchise Affair (Earlier POST) (Squidoo page I found HERE)
Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Whimsey series, especially Murder Must Advertise and Busman's Honeymoon (Earlier POST quoting her on writing)
Lindsey Davis' Falco series, starting with Silver Pigs
Latest is a novel As Husbands Go by Susan Isaacs, a mystery about the death of a Manhattan plastic surgeon. This book, like many of Issac's, features a smart-alecky woman protagenist, so I enjoyed it. My favorite of her books has to be Shining Through, where a smart-alecky and brave Brooklyn secretary out-spies the Nazis, with a side dish of cookery. (But that story, alas, was made into a truly terrible movie; watch her Compromising Positions with Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia instead.)
Reading a good mystery has to be one of the kindest inventions ever for biding time - whether you're waiting on a dentist, a train journey, or healing. Enough plot and puzzle to distract the surface of the mind happily, while not demanding serious concentration the situation does not allow. A good a mystery provides amusement and charm and even, sometimes, enough human truth not to waste the time spent. And a really well written mystery becomes comfort brain-food... You can revisit a favorite sleuth's adventures - Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple - even though you know how the puzzle will be solved.
That it will be solved satisfactorily is one of this genre's charms.
Sherlock Holmes public domain image messed with.
Favorites?
Josephine Tey's Bratt Farrar, Miss Pym Disposes, and The Franchise Affair (Earlier POST) (Squidoo page I found HERE)
Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Whimsey series, especially Murder Must Advertise and Busman's Honeymoon (Earlier POST quoting her on writing)
Lindsey Davis' Falco series, starting with Silver Pigs
Sunday, April 1, 2012
At Home
That's the title of the latest Bill Bryson book (latest to me anyway). The guy just has a way with explaining things! At Home gathers research - and extremely odd facts - about pretty much everything around the modern western-style house, adding engaging, funny, and/or appalling background to our daily lives.
Some facts have that inevitable "duh!" quality of a truth we should have known, as with the appearance of the modern dining room.
Until the 18th century, people tended to eat where they happened to be. In medieval times family, friends, servants, traveling strangers, their dogs, and rats all often lived, ate, and slept in the single great Hall. (The kitchen might be the only other room.) Through the 1700s houses developed more rooms, but these were (to us) strangely undifferentiated in use, all rooms - even bedrooms - were used for all purposes. Chairs and "occasional" tables tended to live shoved against the walls until needed for a card game or a greasy snack.
But as expensive and easily stained upholstered furniture grew more commonplace, so did separate rooms for gravy. Living rooms grew separate from dining ones.
Just think: if clear plastic sofa covers had been invented in the 15th C, Thanksgiving turkey with gravy might be traditional sofa food.
So I'm working my way through this fun grab-bag of a book...
I've escaped the terrifying chapter on fleas, bedbugs, and rat infestations (put the lid down on the toilet - take my word for it -just do it!) and am now reading about poisonous wallpaper and lead paints. Fascinating stuff!
Some facts have that inevitable "duh!" quality of a truth we should have known, as with the appearance of the modern dining room.
Until the 18th century, people tended to eat where they happened to be. In medieval times family, friends, servants, traveling strangers, their dogs, and rats all often lived, ate, and slept in the single great Hall. (The kitchen might be the only other room.) Through the 1700s houses developed more rooms, but these were (to us) strangely undifferentiated in use, all rooms - even bedrooms - were used for all purposes. Chairs and "occasional" tables tended to live shoved against the walls until needed for a card game or a greasy snack.
But as expensive and easily stained upholstered furniture grew more commonplace, so did separate rooms for gravy. Living rooms grew separate from dining ones.
Just think: if clear plastic sofa covers had been invented in the 15th C, Thanksgiving turkey with gravy might be traditional sofa food.
Family dinner, public domain image messed with.
I've escaped the terrifying chapter on fleas, bedbugs, and rat infestations (put the lid down on the toilet - take my word for it -just do it!) and am now reading about poisonous wallpaper and lead paints. Fascinating stuff!
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