“Bitsa This, Bitsa That”
Unbalanced preproduction continues to chug along. We have a modest handful of volunteers and low-cost laborers assembling various aspects of the show that will, I hope, bring some of the script’s ideas to life. We’re tackling two of the most challenging bits right now: character/costume design, and set design for Wendy’s fantasy world.
I hired Greg Miller, a talented young illustrator, to read the script and sketch out Mongor and Carl, our two fantasy creatures. His challenge was to create characters that would look menacing at night but comical by day. I think he succeeded:
Mongor the Heart Gouger
I love the yellow orbs, which evoke a kind of ragged clown-suit. My challenge is how to implement this design in the real world with a micro-budget.
Through the magic of eBay, I found a custom leatherwork shop, who quoted me a totally reasonable price for this custom work. I think their customers primarily come from LARPing circles; check out their gallery on flickr. Dealing with them, even across the Atlantic, has been a pleasure, and they send me progress reports every so often:
Mongor’s front, raw leather
Mongor’s front, partially treated
A horn from eBay. I do not condone the slaughter of cows for film projects (only for meat and revenge).
I’ve also got a wonderful pro bono seamstress who has agreed to work on some of the other costumes. It’s fun to see pieces slowly assemble, and our basement looks like a defunct Halloween shop.
As for Wendy’s fantasy world, we still haven’t figured it out yet, but the working idea is to slide-project fantasy images onto the apartment walls in order to evoke a different world without actually having to create the world. Shoestring, people!
If you are bored you might enjoy these projector tests, created with my camera, a Kodak Ektagraphic III (generously donated by Matt McLaughlin), and a 150W cheapo fresnel. If you are not bored, I recommend you utilize your time for something more productive or fun. Life is short, the internet is forever.