Stable as a Table

It's a new Day in Halfland as my husband Paul is now managing my schedule. I'm actually getting things done that I'd normally stress over for months yet never actually do. I'm very very good at being creative but doing things in reality, especially if discipline were required, has eluded me nearly in total. But no longer. All I do is say what I'm doing and he makes sure I'm doing the correct priority and staying on track when I get discouraged. Enormously valuable, priceless help. I have Paul to thank for his making my minutia his concern when he's already so busy and we have Sven and Gretchin to thank for introducing us to Twitteriffic, the beautiful Twitter 3rd party application that makes this new management so easy to do.

Saturday I was able to lay in the cardboard base for the entire main set. I couldn't believe how LARGE the set is and how small the cottage and tree now look. The scope of it caused me to question whether I am Richard Dryfus on steroids with this, not just making a giant mashed potato mountain but now the entire desert landscape around it too. I decided that I am not off my rocker and this is doable and will be an incredible film.

When I saw how much square footage would need papier mache-ing I enthusiastically thought of throwing a papier mache party here, inviting everyone I know in Los Angeles to come over and get messy lending a hand to finish it in short order. May still do that (let me know if you're interested) but at this point, I think I can do it fast enough on my own, will see.


I screwed thick cardboard box flats into the wooden set bases and then supported the cantelevered ends with free cardboard tubes from the factory next door. I am shocked at how strong and stable the set base is. It doesn't even wiggle when jiggled! This is going to work fine for building up the topography in paper, wire and plaster! That's me wearing extra sweaters on my frozen arm returning a cottage wall panel in place.

Character Progress

I've also discovered the joys of inDesign's table features. It allows me to create fast and easy tables of all kinds to better visualize the project's progress. Above is the current status of Halfland's characters. This table shows how many characters will be built, the order of their appearance in the film series, who has sketches made, armatures, sculptures, etc. all the way through to ready to shoot. Only two puppets are finished all the way at this point. But many others are underway and this charts their progress.

There's more to say, like how I realized this morning how to make an inchworm crawl up the paper roses on the trellis with micro magnets that I have. (going to have add a little worm to the chart now) and how there may be mini smiling lizards cast into the chandelier. I also discovered a paper-cutting folk art called Rimambelles (thanks to ULLA and Meggiecat!) that will now replace the puppets in the last scene. Now Jessica (Rose Red) will be cutting out the characters in paper, both as scene titles and under the final credits. Samples of that in the next post along with showing you the little Time Flies puppets in progress. I've got three foam clay sculpts made and am looking to find watch parts to add to them.

This is so fun, now back to other work... Wishing you every joy.