Tuesday, October 26, 2021
In Vest Meant
Brief note to say that I built a little loom from a wooden tray and combs, etc., and used it to weave the large mouse puppet a little traveling coat in his color green. This will be his costume for the big trip to the Secret Season as he slips into Rana's apron pocket for the trip.
Monday, October 25, 2021
Truss Me!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, for the first time anywhere, the Halfland cottage with a very strong and solid roof, secured to outer walls at the edges and held together with a wooden truss. When I grab the truss and try to rattle the roof, nothing moves! Nothing.
We attached the cupola to the rafters rather than try to keep them all removable because I can film the cottage interior from any side around the tree. I found that I only needed certain walls to come out; the one to the right of the front door, the bay window, and the bedroom window. Kyelynn had the grand solution of installing a new upright post at the door threshold to attach the rafter directly which leaves the wall there (seen in place above) able to come in and out as needed without altering the roof in any way. Feels like sorcery. A Half House.
Two truss beams sandwich the rafters in such a way to allow me to install the handmade candlelier on a pencil (which makes me laugh). I had given up on including this prop in the house because I couldn't get it to look as though it was hanging but to actually be rigid before. In this new setting, it was easy. I've filled the holes Upstairs Clare had left in the front door using small dowels and then staining/aging them with acrylic and chalk washes.
Here you can see the FANTASTICALLY textured 100-year-old fence wood (that 1/2L patron Shari gave me a few years ago) to the door's now (more narrow) threshold and it looks like it should have always been there! It matched the Answer Tree as if it grew into place. Thank you, Shari!
The fasteners have been painted to match and holes/seams filled.
I'll need a new latch for the inside of the door as the new upright made the opening significantly more narrow. I hand-cut the beautiful old wood to cover all four sides of the new post, as well as the existing left side. It made the round entry rug weirdly half-placed under the front wall but I figure that's On Brand for Halfland and not worth demoing walls to move. I'll fix it by planting grass.
Everything can be fixed by planting more grass! Remember that!
I tested whether the Rana puppet could still fit through the door and she can
but it looks tight so I won't be showing her moving through the doorway in the film. Not a problem.
Look for the upcoming post about the finished pulley prop for the water barrel on the porch seen on the right!
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Model Citizen
and how it would function for all the set's needs.
I made the whole set room with windows and all outlets and pieces of stage/rigging/furniture/saw horses/lens holder/tables needed in order to verify and perfect the plan.
The actual LIFE-SIZED rigging build was completed this week with Kyelynn and it went very well and the key key was having made and studied the model all the way through the process. It allowed for problems to be worked out and for new insights and ideas to emerge on the fly.
An intractable issue is how much smaller the room is compared to the insane expanse I had (at the 4k sq' loft previously). But this is what I have to work with so I'll be grateful and make it work. It's tight, and the long shot is no longer long, but at least I can proceed to shoot scenes shortly. And I have light! And I'll have sky the way I must have it.
Upcoming Post: How tent posts (!) Yes, beaucoup tent posts! and huge swaths of sheer voile blur my world.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Artist Alert: Alice Fox (AKA a RISD Rana)
Just saw this short video about artist Alice Fox in the UK. She has found a focus for her work in mainly using or reusing materials found on the plot of land she is the steward of. Her work is elevated and fine, meaningful and textural. A noble and admirable artist to me and very much akin to my personal sensibilities, her output is mind-bogglingly prodigious, my Halfhat is off to her.
Very natural world, noticing closely and making use of what is available, very sophisticated fine art. It struck me that she was akin to my main character Rana, the wise goat woman with allegorical authority over wisdom and memory, with one important difference.
Where Ms. Fox took her values and talents into an elevated fine art aesthetic, I took a back alley to goofy bugs at a party, a rustic, rough, craft style. More storybook than museum. Paul asked me if I felt regret over not having been to a school like the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) as we always admire the work of people who have degrees from there. It always seemed to us that that school, in particular, took its students into a magical room where creativity and art and the world of art-making were explained to them privately and exclusively. So his question came from years of observing the difference between what they do and what I do (or don't do).
My answer is no. It wasn't in any way possible for me to have gone that route in life. Not in temperament nor responsibility. And I find a certain homogenized quality in fine art education that isn't interesting to me ultimately. So no, I don't wish that I had a proper art education or understanding.
But sometimes I do feel unimportant with my little bugs and such. Even more than my fear of not being able to complete this massive project in the next few years is a visitation of objective perspective that the entire endeavor is perhaps not Art at all.
There were years that I wanted Halfland to receive (eventual) film festival awards or awards from specifically the annual MacArthur Foundation (unbidden) genius award, that would signal to myself and others that I am talented, that I am worth something of actual value in the opinion of learned others. I wanted that so powerfully it used to actually hurt my stomach in a grip of acute desire. But not now.
At some point over the last few years, all that dropped away naturally, like mud dissolving in the rain.
Making Halfland, even these stages of building the sets and puppets, only imagining the end results, is already fully fulfilling.
I was driving my 96-year-old ballet teacher to an appointment recently and commenting that I felt an urgency to finish Halfland or I feared it would remain only a permanent potential. He corrected me, as is his way, that even the thought of something is already something.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Doing 1,000 Things at Once
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Giant Whacking Lens for Dreamy Storybook Film
I had a small amount of very old Ice Resin leftover and cast the missing brake part using the wonderful Composimold product to create the mold. Kyelynn was amazed at what mold-making could do.
![[lens.gif]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_u6p5H_ALavY/RefsFe2fdLI/AAAAAAAAAH0/XFltzQzVejo/s1600/lens.gif)
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Underground Stuntworm!
making it feel more dimensional and full.
On the side of the underground set I used leftover dirt cloth made back at the loft (perhaps for this purpose) to make ridges and groves for the silk-covered worm puppet to wriggle into and around.
The puppet itself is made on a plastic ball-jointed armature, covered with layers of tight fabric wrapping cinched with wire to enhance its many hourglass curves. The final layer was a ruched tube of silk that had been sun-faded outside for a long while. It just looked right so I used it. Coated it finally in a flexible iridescent medium that makes things appear to be wet, to contrast with the flat matte of the dirt.
I shot these test shots with a small fresnel magnifying lens to add the Halfland atmosphere and slight analog distortions I need to make it all feel dream-like and poetic. I found that if I draped myself in black felt, I could control the flares and glares.
Friday, August 13, 2021
Halfland's Velvet Underground
Took a box (not hard to find these days) and started taping brown paper into crumpled rolls and taping them to the inside surfaces. Painted that with a nice brown/burnt umber acrylic, and then sauced around seeking a clean material to texture it with.
Coffee! Watered down glue and my magic matte medium slathered on and then heavily dusted with rich Colombian coffee that had long gone stale. I wondered too late whether handling ground coffee for days would be dangerous but Google wasn't saying.
I build up the set with real roots and ancient fossils, rusty metal bits, a coin, a shell from an ancient sea, and three stones-coming-conscious sculptures I'd made years ago tucked into the folds of textured paper.
I wanted this set for a single transitional shot of the macro-scale grass tufts above, panning downward into the earth's inky darkness. BOOM--next scene! From the Bug Party scene among the large grass blades panning to the black of the underground set, then up, right into the Writing Mouse's underground house set!
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Welcome, Kyelynn!
I've Got All The Answers!
Friday, April 30, 2021
Farewell, Mother
a. Life.b. Paid for my Ballet Lessons from age 11 to 16.c. My Husband, whom she introduced me to when I was 19.d. My Religion, same as above.
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Halfland's Final Form
It's an art object. A small version of the scenes play out inside the bottle for viewing. The scenes are brief and compose chapter series of the story. The small digital projector hidden inside the base can play for about 2 hours per charge. And any new series releases can be downloaded from a future Halfland site so your glass bottle theater stays up to date with the whole tale.
It's as though Halfland is real but taking place somewhere else. You can view it as if by dreaming, slightly removed, captured.
There. Now you know exactly what's inside my mind.
Hoping everyone is staying well.