Sunday, December 27, 2009
Well it was nice out today so I got some fun outdoor painting done on new set construction....We use a lot of wood stain (it's like color and solvent or something that you rub on wood, it keeps the wood grain visible & nice) around here and the stuff and my skin don't get along- especially in winter! If anyone knows of a good wood stain remover that won't take all of my skin with it lemme know! As my pal Rodney said last year, "Did you ever think this kind of thing would be on your list of problems?" Nope. Never. Not at all. Must stop typing now, mineral spirits are making my hands tingle with...um...I'm gonna say joy just to keep it positive!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Through rain and snow and...
When we were on the road to Basel we stayed in a hotel one night. Early in the morning a loud noise woke Brent up. He bolted out of the bed and said "What was that?! What fell?!" thinking we were still at home and the wind, which was particularly reckless the day we packed the car to head to Florida, had destroyed something in the yard. The more that gets built onto the set the stronger it gets I think (knocks on wood).
Here are some wintery photos I took today...the snow really makes the house facades in the yard look even more like drawings!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Brent Green in the Graveyard
Today I am sitting here with my coffee and my computer and in walks Brent with a plywood gravestone. And another plywood gravestone. And another. I immediately cycled through a list of people he could have murdered but, no, like most things, it was film related. He built an indoor graveyard in our barn. I helped make the black background but in no way am I an accomplice!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Shape Singing
It's really strange to see Brent's booth in between two super abstract booths...like his world exploded into a world full of shapes! I never really got abstract work- I think people project a lot of themselves onto it and a separate medium is usually needed to act as an interpreter...I wonder if there is any other narrative work at the fair I'm missing?
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Miami? No, Miami BEACH.
I've never been to Miami. I also keep getting corrected that I am not actually in Miami, I am in Miami Beach. But I am actually sleeping on my sister's floor in North Miami Beach. I'm helping Brent install his booth in Basel. I mean Basel Miami. I mean Basel Miami Beach. Also, I've never been to an art fair.
Part of this install involves making two walls of the booth look like wallpaper. It's based on a design for a drawing/lightbox about the film and my smart self suggested getting a stamp made of the design...
So...after a 20 hour drive with a trailer filled with stuff I began my stamping! It wouldn't have been so bad if the convention center soundtrack today didn't start with the permeating bass of south beach, meander into Bowie/Bryne territory with hundreds of art handlers bobbing there heads to signify recognition and end with JAZZ! Just straight up jazz after 9 hours of stamping. I'm going to sleep now. Sleep on the floor. In North Miami Beach.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Sound Effects
You know in movies when you see some old spectacled man walking shoes across a table on a radio show for sound effects? That's what we do here at Nervous Films! All of our film sound effects (or foley! ooo fancy!) basically come from this box of random stuff and other things I bang on to simulate sounds- today I was banging on a canoe, I'm not even sure what the sound was for? Other noises recorded today were a lot of hinges turned angel wings and some wooden-block-cardboard hammer nailing action!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Ode to Our Friendly Kersosene Heater
The film is filmed in stop motion- the acting, the dialogue, everything! (I'll get into the crazy details of that later...)but the strangest thing that I never payed much attention to was the lighting. Since there's a pause between each frame natural light changes just the tiniest bit between shots so if there's a long scene the light will change drastically. This is why we film a lot in the freezing night with our friendly, extremely dangerous, pre-owned kerosene heater (picture the end of a rocket ship but slightly smaller)...you can sort of see our heater friend in front of the scaffolding in this picture- his wheels make him even more unstable for our safety!
Friday, November 20, 2009
I was always the tallest...
Brent told me he wanted me to make a twelve foot long dress. So I did.
Then he told me he wanted me to stand on twenty-something foot tall "legs" on a tiny platform wearing the dress. So I did that too.
I don't think I will ever forget the disgusting feeling I got when I watched them pull the scaffolding away.
Then he told me he wanted me to stand on twenty-something foot tall "legs" on a tiny platform wearing the dress. So I did that too.
I don't think I will ever forget the disgusting feeling I got when I watched them pull the scaffolding away.
Cold
The set is outdoors...which has upsides and downsides. I think the biggest downside so far has been when we heard this horrible noise last winter and looked out the window to see a sheet of ice the size of our barn roof destroy one of the walls surrounding the set- ice can bend steel & cut 2x4s in half! An upside of the outdoor set is that the cold weather forced me to buy this snazzy hunting onesie at a thrift shop that vaguely smells of deers blood and feels like wearing your favorite quilt! I also love that it's covered in various paint colors from the set so I am camoflauged there also!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
"...but Easter's over!"
Brent wanted the eggs to be vividly colored so they'd show up on camera nicely. Dyeing eggs when it's not Easter makes you feel insane. Like carving a pumpkin in July. It shouldn't make me feel crazy given how ridiculous dyeing eggs is no matter what season but it did...
We went to a farm near our house, Al's farm, to get the eggs. We asked for a half dozen and went home with a dozen and a half. He runs his farm in a different era- rabbits running around, buckets of drying scallion bulbs,a small grove of blueberry bushes, beehives, a few goats for milk, all kinds of different chickens in coops- all run by him and his hands. The first time he gave me a zucchini it was so huge I kept insisting it was an unripe eggplant.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Real Moon is a Lot Bigger
The moon for the film is made out of wood- thin balsa wood and routed down plywood. The real moon may or may not be made out of cheese. I also heard today they found water on the real moon but it was on the internet so it may or may not be true. Brent kept getting excited about the size of his moon and I kept having to remind him that the real moon is much, much bigger...
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Mary Wood
The character I play in the movie collects bird eggs to sell at markets. She makes birdhouses with trap doors in them so she can sneak into their homes and take away their unborn babies in their eggs. That makes it sound sinister. I don't think it's sinister. We accidentally left eggs in them when we were shooting so most of the shots in the film with the birdhouses I am curling up my nose, choking down vomit because the smell was so horrible...
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Leonard & Mary
The film is called Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then and is a true story about a man named Leonard Wood who lived outside of Louisville Kentucky. He found out his wife Mary was dying and he wanted to save her life. He built a house around her that he thought would heal her. He played music to God hoping for miracles. He even wrote her a letter over a decade after she died begging her to communicate with him somehow.
...we have a box of tapes of his piano hymns that he banged out towards the heavens. I think he might have killed a few angels with them.