Candy . . .

The Tarsem-directed, as-yet-untitled Snow White project (why not just call it Snow White? Hello?) released some pics today of the scrumptious Eiko Ishioka costumes. I am a fan of Eiko's in a major way; she pushes the limits of what fabric can do, and creates some seriously dramatic looks in all the films she works on. The Cell, The Fall, and Bram Stoker's Dracula got their singular look from her designs.

She is not a costumer, though. If you have her book, Eiko on Stage (which I do, of course), she talks about costume designing like sculpting fabric on the body, and one of her problems, consistently, is that she tends to design things that can't actually be produced or worn. She has no background in clothing, as most costumers do, so it makes her an unlikely designer. Yet, the things she produces elevate the art of costume design, and truly set the tone of whatever film she's working on.

The designs for the new Snow White film look like no exception. Check out a few slideshows here and here. And drool away.

Long and Winding Road . . .

I have often said that if there's a complicated, difficult way to accomplish something, I will usually pick that. I have a tendency to take a simple project and go the extra mile with it, and then throw on another mile just for kicks. These are never projects that end up making me money, of course; usually, I'll spend more money on these types of things than I ought to, getting a freakish reward out of doing something "right".

My latest potentially expensive project is the packaging of my audiobook for "Outcast". These are not CDs that I'm putting up for sale; I'm giving them to a few members of my family as gifts. I'm sure they would be perfectly happy with receiving a few envelopes with CDs in them, and call it a day. But, can I stomach doing that? Of course not. Instead, I'm planning to package the CDs in a ridiculously elaborate fashion, for no reason other than my own satisfaction at doing it.

Its at times like these that I figure I probably ought to stick my head in a bucket. But instead I'm going to forge ahead and produce something that will drive me crazy for the next month or so, until I get it right. I'll document with pictures of course, because, crazy always needs to be documented.

A Voice . . .

Principal recording for the "Outcast" audiobook was finished yesterday. You can't hear it, but that was a big sigh of relief I just let loose;)

Now that I'm on the other side of the experience, I can finally look back and reflect on what an undertaking it was. I'm not a professional VO artist, and while I had a good time recording my book, I'm not sure I would necessarily want to add VO to my repetoire. Even with the relative ease of reading my own words, which often eliminated potential errors in pronunciation and inflection, I still made numerous mistakes and did a lot of rerecording. If the chapter was particularly long or I decided, for schedule reasons, to record more than one chapter at a time, fatigue brought out even more errors. I can't even tell you the number of times I would simply stutter over a phrase, ruining a passage, or just plain read a sentence incorrectly so that it made no sense at all to the ear. Stop, cut section, rerecord. Each chapter took at least 45 minutes to record, sometimes much longer before I was satisfied. With 36 chapters, that represents more than a day's worth of recording.

A note about voices and dialects: good god, I did some questionable dialect work on this recording. Dialects are one of my specialties, and I'm usually pretty good at getting an accent to sound passably authentic. But, recording "Outcast" required me to snap very rapidly into and out of a lot of different accents, from Cockney to Deep South, to French to the twang of the West. And, in between, I had to snap back into my own voice, to read the narration. There were times I did this relatively well; Benjamin usually stays where he ought to be. There were other passages I struggled with, and overall I'm not terribly pleased with a lot of my dialect work on this recording. Poubelle in particular ranges all over the frigging map, her Cockney making it all the way to Australia by way of the South Bronx, stopping off in Canada a few times just for kicks. There was one day when I was particularly tired and feeling strung out, and I started to feel like all the characters were sounding like Jessie from "Toy Story". But, as much as I beat myself up for imprecision, I know my audience, made up of friends and family, probably won't wince too often, and will be far more forgiving than I.

All that being said, I'm still incredibly glad I decided to undertake this project. I started writing when I was in grade school, and one of my favorite teachers encouraged me not just to write, but let me read my stories aloud. I was already a burgeoning actor, and reading my own characters was exciting and incredibly fun. Now, years later, I remember that experience. The characters in "Outcast" are some of my favorite creations; I know I shouldn't show it, I should love all my characters equally, but damn if Jack, Ben, Jonah, Poubelle, Doc, and Jeremiah aren't some fantastic people I wouldn't mind hanging out with. And, there is something emotionally cathartic about taking characters I already care about deply and giving them a voice; they leap off the page now in a way they never did before. I could already hear them speak their words inside my head; it's kind of like letting everyone else inside my brain to hear what I hear when I'm writing something.

Now, I get to start burning CDs and putting together packaging. Next step: Holiday presents! I'm going to try to have a prototype done for when my sister visits at the end of the month, so I can send her home with hers. I'll take pics and post when I have them;)

Un-heroic . . .

DC just took a rather unprecedented and controversial step, re-releasing 52 of its titles and rebooting them. Many long-time fans of books like Justice League, Batman and Superman cried foul, but many (myself included) thought this was an intriguing idea, a chance for non-fans, often intimidated by a long-running book's complex mythology, to get in on the ground floor. It was a chance to gain new fans, and to take a familiar book in an entirely new direction.

Unfortunately for DC, this seems to mean taking a few of their titles in an entirely new, pandering, low-brow direction.

Now, I have been reading comics since I was a little girl, and I grew up with books like Batman and X-Men, and while I always loved many of the heroines I always wondered how they managed to fight crime while sporting triple-D's (surely these got in the way of punching a criminal in the face). But, I accepted a certain amount of objectification because I understood that comics are intended for a mostly-male audience, drawn by mostly-male artists, and men like to look at gigantic boobs. I kept reading because I got to see Catwoman kick ass and shoot sassy comebacks at Batman, and I got to see Rogue kick bad-guys in the head and call them "shugah" while doing it. Sure, they were unrealistically sexualized, but they were heroines with brains and usually decent dialogue, and they were around to move the stories along.

The above image is from the new 52 title Red Hood and the Outlaws, and it is of one of my favorite DC heroines, Starfire. If this image was the worst the book had to offer, it would slightly annoy me. But, as I said, I've come to expect a certain amount of pointless objectification in comics. What really annoys me about what's been done to Starfire isn't about how she's being drawn now. It's about how she's being written.

Starfire has always been a fish-out-of-water, an alien who doesn't always get Earth customs, but who is a pretty sweet character who manages to kick ass too. She was a member of the Teen Titans (and subsequent groups), not due to the size of her breasts, but because of her actions, her desire to help people. To be a hero.

Now . . . I think a 7-year-old female fan says it best:

 " . . .she's not doing anything but wearing a tiny bikini to get attention . . .I want her to be a hero, fighting things and be strong and helping people. . .because she's what inspires me to be good."

The new Starfire does nothing except sleep around and wear skimpy clothing. That makes me really sad, because I remember my 7-year-old self reading comics and looking up to Wonder Woman and Psylocke and Jean Grey.

If this were the only example of DC pandering to the sweaty teenage boy who wants new jerk-off material, it would irritate me, but I'd move on. But they've managed to ruin my FAVORITE DC HEROINE too, Catwoman.

 

The relaunch of Catwoman in so relentlessly smutty and pointless that it's almost obscene. And, I'm not in the least a prude; I don't mind seeing two characters get it on. But, there has to be a point to it. Batman and Catwoman end up having full-on, completely anonymous sex in the last panel, in costume, just for reader-titillation. These are not two characters who have had a slow burn for several issues, where they have had to grapple with their conflicting aims and views or have flirted with each other and almost-but-not-quite made out. These are two random people who don't even know each other yet. What's the pay-off besides a little voyeurism? That's not why I read comics. If I wanted porn, I'd get porn, for Christ's sake.

DC, I'm really disappointed in you. Comics are for more than just horny 14-year-old boys, and women can be heroes, and not just party favors with boobs. It's shameful that you should need to be reminded of this.

On Privacy and Blogging . . .

I had a post ready to go this morning, regarding a very personal topic. I had been inspired to write about it because of something I read, and motivated by the thought that my story might help someone else going through something similar.

But, overnight, I thought long and hard about whether or not to publish it. I know I write a blog, and everything I put out into the ether lives on, in its own, limited way. It raises the question of what is private for public bloggers, and where the line should be drawn between what gets shared, and what doesn't. I think its a question a lot of bloggers face, and maybe it comes down to bravery: what are you strong enough to share?

I don't think I'm brave enough to share this. I'm pretty sure I'd have a hard time dealing with it if I got any ridicule or scorn for this issue. Until I can say, "it doesn't matter what other people think, I'm putting it out there anyway", I just can't.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, dear readers.

Forgotten and Fabulous . . .

A short while back, I blogged about Nancy Upton and her sheer fantastic moxie, entering the ridiculous and insulting American Apparel plus-size model contest and using it as a platform for satire. After I blogged about her, we got into contact and about collaborating on a photoshoot someday; we have similar taste and style, and working with her for Seamstress of Avalon sounded like a whole lot of fun. I don't think either of us thought it would happen this quickly, though!

She contacted me a week ago to let me know that AA was flying her and her photographer out to LA for the weekend, and did I still want to do a shoot? Did I? I went into full prep mode, and on saturday headed into downtown LA to meet Nancy and Shannon, get Nancy into makeup, hair and costume, and we all trekked out to Griffith Park to wander around the Old Zoo.

Basically, the Old Zoo is this run-down, overgrown, abandoned zoo not far from the present-day Los Angeles Zoo; it was built in the '30's and abandoned in the '60's, and still stands. People shoot there all the time, and walking around, I can certainly see why: old rusted cages covered in grafitti and rather spooky-looking rocks sprawl over beautiful land that looks out over the city. We couldn't have found a more interesting location (though, we almost didn't find it at all!)

It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun; I can't wait to see the pictures Shannon took, and to post the new pieces in my store. I loved working with both these girls; they were an absolute joy. Stay tuned for pics!

Always . . .

Bridesmaids just came out on DVD, and I'm taking a second to say, unequivocably: rent it. Especially if you're a chick. Guys will laugh too, no doubt, but this really is the Hangover for women: hilarious, raunchy, and just at the edge. It has that uncomfortable humor too, like the Office: you squirm because you can see that it hits too close to home, you can feel the character's embarrassment like its your own. It is also truthful and heartfelt too. So, to sum up: hilarious. Raunchy. Truthful. Edgy. Heartfelt.

There's no downside here, unless you dislike laughing, or it causes you intense pain from a recent abdominal surgery, or something. Every actress is at the top of her game here, especially Kristen Wiig (who I hope to see more of as she finally starts to catch fire in Hollywood).

Side note: I was thinking about this movie long after I saw it, and not necessarily because of how funny it was. I identified pretty strongly with Kristen Wiig's character, a woman in her thirties who was trying to live her dream and saw it slip away, embarrassed by what a fuck-up she had become and humiliated by her poverty, always making the wrong choices. It was tough for me to watch a few scenes; Wiig does not flinch away from the embarrassment, or go easy on herself. Her car in particular reminded me of Serenity! It was refreshing to see a real woman onscreen, dealing with basic issues (not just trying to fit into her Manolos). The movie had personal meaning for me, and while my dear readers may not identify as closely with her character as I did, I still highly recommend Bridesmaids. If you have a hoo-hah, you will probably find it funny.