It's Okay to Be "One of Those People"

Egad! I’ve been neglecting this blog. I started it after reading Austin Kleon’s book "Show Your Work," and it was supposed to be a place for me to share my process with The World.  I also started a Tumblr for things that interested me, just like Austin’s scrapbook.  Then I wondered if I should have a Tumblr for process as well. Then I got overwhelmed by the idea of multiple blogs. 

And the days went by.

And then I got distracted by a multitude of things.  Oh no! Would I become “one of those people”?  The ones who never finish anything? 

Then two things happened.

1. I decided that I would maintain a single blog that would be for sharing process AND things that interested me.

2. Right around that time I discovered PuttyLike.  It’s a website dedicated to people who have many different interests and skills and embrace that as a strength rather than a weakness.  These are people who haven’t necessarily specialized in one thing in terms of work.  Some of them are thriving.  The others are getting there!  

What do you call these individuals?  Renaissance souls, scanners, multipotentialites.  The mastermind behind the site, Emilie Wapnick, coined these terms.  I call that brilliance.

Words fail me.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to have discovered this group of people.  I can connect with them through what’s called The PuttyTribe!!!!!!  I don’t feel like such a freak. 

And I can be one of those people who doesn’t necessarily finish everything.  Having so many interests and being “distracted” by such a variety of things keeps my mind wedged open and makes it easier for me to connect with more kinds of people.  Being a Jack of All Trades has made me a Master of Several!  So being a multipotentialite has actually enhanced my life.  I knew this but had forgotten.  Seeing successful scanners has made me remember.

Thank you, PuttyLike and Emilie Wapnick for this fantastic gift!

We’re approaching the end of PuttyFest, a time to make The World aware of multipotentiality, but I hope you’ll still jump over to the PuttyLike site and poke around, perhaps read the article on not finishing what you start (Yah, I can really relate to that article, "Oh, she's just being Zee.  Who knows what she'll come up with next.  How cute.  Maybe this year she'll get serious and get a job.")  

 I hope you go there, and I hope you stay for a while!

It's done: Nine Sisters!

It really is done!  Or as done as it'll be for a while!  

This was my first short film shot on a DSLR, in a studio, and with more than two actors speaking. It's riddled with mistakes, but I think people, certainly normal people (non-filmmakers, hahah!) can still enjoy it and think about inspiration and how far we'll go to find it!  I'm exhausted and happy, and grateful to everyone who helped, supported, and encouraged me.

In all its glory:

Buying Marbles

There are no marbles to be had in Monterey.  Not at Target, Walmart, Dollar Tree, Michael's.  Granted, I didn't venture into the independent toy stores, figuring I wouldn't want to spend what they were asking, assuming they were even asking.  I wanted some inexpensive ones for practice during auditions.  To see how many I would want.  

As it turned out, most of the actors I wanted to audition flaked out, so I cancelled aforementioned auditions.  I'm going to use actors I know and trust and who will have fun on this project.

Finding yellow marbles wasn't as simple as I had imagined, either.  Google "yellow marbles" and you get marbles with yellow in them, but not necessarily solid yellow ones, and they might be vintage marbles that cost more than I want to spend.

I've ordered a few individual marbles from Marbles Marbles! and several bags from MegaGlass.  In both cases shipping is (a good deal) more than the cost of the actual products.

And, because I can, I'm including this link to absolutely gorgeous images of marbles, nay, glass art by PyreXions.

Inspiration, the Short Film

After editing this version of "Nine Sisters" and beginning the dubbing process, I realized that I had cut out all references to the Nine Muses, the Sisters, so I needed a different title.  Muses bring inspiration, right?  So that's what I chose as the title for this, the Spanish-language version of "Nine Sisters.  In all its glory . . .

Finding Voice-Over Talent

My go-to place to search for talent is Fiverr.com, where people are willing to do the damnedest things for $5.  Many are doing so for portfolio-building purposes.  So I searched for voice-over artists.

Some were non-professionals.  They had only the microphones built into their computers (I wanted better quality).  Some promised to read my text "with enthusiasm."  Hmmm.

Others had experience but didn't respond to email or responded very slowly.  

A good number had experience voicing commercials but not playing roles like Shakespeare and Hemingway.  

Some sounded great but were asking for more than $5.  Egad!  They wanted me to pay them what they were worth!  For my no-budget film.

Lastly, some didn't speak Spanish.  

It all sounded so glorious in my head, and I thought it would be interesting to my Spanish interpreter/translator colleagues as well as something to put on my translation résumé.  I wanted Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf to have slight British accents in their Spanish, and I wanted the rest to have accents from different Latin-American countries.

As it turned out, I got only one native Spanish speaker, and she had only two lines as Petrus, the seriously creepy woman at the beginning.  

And as a last resort, I recorded Edna's voice myself.  Wowza!  It's really strange to see actress Penelope Morgan speak but hear my own voice in my odd-sounding Spanish.  Hahaha.

It was frustrating and slow, but exciting when it finally came together in my video-editing software.  Not perfect, but I'm very pleased, and it makes me laugh.  I hope it entertains others as well!

Dream Bedroom

If I'd had this as a child, I would've been a kick-ass filmmaker by now?  No, well, perhaps if I recreate this now, I'll become a kick-ass filmmaker.  I'm all about Yoda!

Parenting Done Right pic.twitter.com/wSZQRpnyn4
— Darth Vader (@DepressedDarth) March 2, 2014

Fake-Mustache Etiquette

I borrowed this fake mustache and beard for the Shakespeare character in "Nine Sisters."  The actor wore it twice, for 3 hours each time.  As I was returning it to my Costume Fairy Godmother, I wondered if I should have bought a replacement set.  It seemed somewhat disgusting to wear facial hair worn by someone else. 

I had bought a package of double-sided tape, cut into strips, specifically made for attaching this faux-cial hair, erm, faux facial hair, and I did give that to the Costume Fairy Godmother.  She said she would clean it, but I got distracted and forgot to ask how and with what.  Rubbing alcohol?

Most of the actors I know are women and have never had to deal with mustaches, so they didn't know.  

I should also mention that I asked how to affix the hair.  That and my research gave me two answers:
1) eyelash glue.  Apparently that isn't good for such a large surface
2) spirit gum.  I'd read online that spirit gum was EVIL.  Hard to remove.  Smelly.

So I was glad the store I went to, Olympia Beauty Supply in Seaside, California, had the double-sided tape!

The actor said the facial hair was very uncomfortable, but I think he really liked it.  Hahaha!

One last thing.  The facial hair cost $30, as I recall.  Oh, rats!  Was it $40?  I don't remember because, again, I borrowed it.  The package of tape was $8.