Special Studio Guest: Increda-Shel!

This bright beautiful creature is Shel Wagner Rasch. She's half (HA!) of the real life Super Hero duo, Justin and Shel Rasch and their amazing animation production company, Stunt Puppet Pictures, where they make heartfelt, creatively detailed, and astoundingly well-performed stop motion animations. Their last short, Gerald's Last Day has garnered numerous well-deserved accolades around the world.

Shel and her family are the most organized, effective, and achieving bunch I've seen. Through a highly efficient schedule structure, Shel and Justin get every important thing actually done and accomplish all their significant dreams, one by definite one.

Somehow, in the midst of all that, Shel wanted to take the time to visit Halfland, see where I was at on the set, and graciously offered to make suggestions. I showed her what was new since her last visit, we ate and yakked about the important things in life, she solved all my worst set problems, and then flew out the window like Superman. Poof! She's superhuman like that.

Before she left, Shel figured out how I could reinforce the cottage set walls with simple hardware (that can be painted up to blend) and secure roof supports solidly to the stationary walls, with removable roof panels dropped into a metal I-beam shaped channel of some kind that I re-purpose from a home improvement store.

These suggestions were incredibly helpful, definitely, but the biggest difference Shel made on this visit was to suggest that I secure the wall panels to the set with long tie-down bolts! That may seem obvious to everyone else, but it would never have occurred to me. I was trying to use lame little pegs in holes that wobbled and never could be made solid in the layered wall material. This new way, allows me to go ahead and trash the wall bottoms and ram them up with a long bolt, slathered in iron-strong Propoxy until you can drive them down the road like a tank--Bouhyah! And then fasten them down from underneath the set with heavy duty nuts until they need to be removed during filming.

Thank you for coming over, Shel. Thank you for being a wonderfully inspiring person, thank you for lending me your able mind for my set, and thank you for speedily putting all things right--in a flash!