Polaroid Photo

Fri
14
Dec '07

Tempest build, Day Two

Hello, learning curve, my old friend.

El wire installedWe focused on the intestines today. Starting by inserting the El wire into our latest concoction and looking to see if we liked the way it glowed. Behold! Something that looks good with the lights off and on.

With El wire, unlitIn this shot, the El wire is lit, but we are under normal room lighting. The red comes from Festive Red Holiday Saran Wrap, which is a bad idea for food products, but makes great intestines.

Sausages?Jane gets all the credit for this idea. In addition to looking just disgusting, the saran wrap nicely holds the cotton batting in place, and gives the bubble wrap some traction.
Adding the bubblewrap
Jane cut the bubble wrap into strips and coiled them, making it easy to just wrap them at a diagonal around the giant coil. This part went pretty fast. The batting and saranwrap was slow.

UncoiledWe put the bubbles on the outside, which really catches the light well and looks all suction cuppy. Gross, huh?

The coil on the floor.  Big.The problem is that it’s huge. Ginormous. I don’t see how we are going to fit one of these under a skirt, much less six of them.

So far my only brainstorms of how to deal with this are not so hot, but maybe they’ll give you an idea.

1) We could have the coils preset under the stage floor and have them rituallistically attached to Ariel in a very sick and dramatic fashion — which totally breaks the idea that she has torn herself apart to become the harpy.

2) I just saw a giant inflatable puppet that Jane Catherine Shaw made. Huge. Twenty feet tall and entirely made of translucent plastic tarp. She had a hose running offstage to a fan, which was pretty quiet. The puppet really got whipped about and appeared to be durable. We could try inflatable tentacles.

Otherwise, I’m at a loss. These things are the size of a human torso.

Erica and I will keep building them tomorrow, just so they have something to rehearse with. I’ll also experiment with the inflatable option, just so you’ve got a choice.

With the Contra Here’s one with the contra, just so you can see it.
Tangle of wire
Look! Spring steel in a tangle.

I have some video of the boat, but am a wee bit tired so I’m heading to bed since I don’t have any direct questions about it. I really do need guidance on the tentacles though.

Talk to you soon!

Fri
14
Dec '07

Wrapping Christmas Presents (with Feline Assistance)

Last year, Alma Alexander posted about wrapping Christmas presents (with feline assistance). I’ve just had reason to remember why this post is so true and so funny.

Fri
14
Dec '07

Shimmer announces the Clockwork Jungle Book

Looking for a writing challenge? Look no further.

Shimmer is pleased to announce The Clockwork Jungle Book. Think steampunk animal parables! It’s a special double-length issue, guest-edited by George Mann of Solaris Books, scheduled for Autumn 2008. Now accepting submissions. Read the guidelines for more details.