I. The Raw MaterialWhen I'm done beta-reading a ms about the shoguns today, I'm taking these supplies over to Bink's.
They are the beginnings of my first live-action movie. Can you guess what they are?
Does it help if I tell you those drapey rubber things inflate to 2-foot balloons?
Yes!
These are the supplies to make papier-mache fly heads! The wire strainers will be the eyes--Bink's idea (she used to work in theater production)--and I have some shimmery fabric to cover the heads. We'll need some paper towel tubes for the proboscis (what's the plural of that?), and probably some other odds and ends, but that's all doable.
I've already even scouted one location--a nearby defunct meat-packing plant. We could film in the scary-looking loading dock, which is open because local restaurants use it as a parking lot.
So, I've got a character, a star (Bink! she actually has a dregree in theater! and she's an artist, which is to say semi-unemployed and free to spend afternoons glueing strips of paper onto balloons and then putting the result on her head!), and a location to start.
I trust the plot will evolve out of this.
I find if I throw my heart after something I love (the fly costume, which attracts me hugely), the rest follows. Of course, sometimes I end up in a swamp, but so what?
(Ooohh--swamp monster...)
Anyway, I'm thinking a 2-minute movie with a $50 budget for my first production, so what could go wrong?
[Do you find yourself needing emoticons that don't exist--or do they? I do: "Irony" is one; "rhetorical question" is another.]
I could provide a sophisticated analysis (or several) of the attraction half-human monsters hold for uber-civilized psyches;
but the truth is this is the flowering of long-muted teenage glee.
Stay tuned.
3 comments:
Hmm. The Fly project doesn't sound bad. And yeah, if you already want to papier mache anyhow, then it sounds like a good project for it. I always find that I'm my happiest and do my best work when I can come up with a vehicle to do something that I already want to do, instead of just having to manufacture all the ideas from scratch. It leads to more organic storytelling than what you would get if you had to laboriously come up with one path after another just to tell a story. If you let your mind just do what it's been doing, following it naturally with your imagination, it's a lot less work and a lot more fun. I'm rambling.
And, if you do a fly thing with papier mache, there could be a lot of opportunity for camp and humor, which is something that is too often missing in professional, big budget sci-fi. And you're great at humor. So have fun with it. It sounds like a good project!
How exciting!!! Fall is such a good time to begin something new and exciting, don't you think? All the Jewish holidays about starting fresh fall around this time, and it just gets me in mind of launching. Clearly, you too! Tell Bink I said "break a leg."
Definitely! Fall is the time for yellow pencils and pink pearl erasers, apples dipped in honey, and campy, funny sci-fi endeavors!
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