I. The Raw MaterialWhen I'm done beta-reading a ms about the shoguns today, I'm taking these supplies over to Bink's.
They are the beginnings of my first live-action movie. Can you guess what they are?
Does it help if I tell you those drapey rubber things inflate to 2-foot balloons?
Yes!
These are the supplies to make papier-mache fly heads! The wire strainers will be the eyes--Bink's idea (she used to work in theater production)--and I have some shimmery fabric to cover the heads. We'll need some paper towel tubes for the proboscis (what's the plural of that?), and probably some other odds and ends, but that's all doable.
I've already even scouted one location--a nearby defunct meat-packing plant. We could film in the scary-looking loading dock, which is open because local restaurants use it as a parking lot.
So, I've got a character, a star (Bink! she actually has a dregree in theater! and she's an artist, which is to say semi-unemployed and free to spend afternoons glueing strips of paper onto balloons and then putting the result on her head!), and a location to start.
I trust the plot will evolve out of this.
I find if I throw my heart after something I love (the fly costume, which attracts me hugely), the rest follows. Of course, sometimes I end up in a swamp, but so what?
(Ooohh--swamp monster...)
Anyway, I'm thinking a 2-minute movie with a $50 budget for my first production, so what could go wrong?
[Do you find yourself needing emoticons that don't exist--or do they? I do: "Irony" is one; "rhetorical question" is another.]
I could provide a sophisticated analysis (or several) of the attraction half-human monsters hold for uber-civilized psyches;
but the truth is this is the flowering of long-muted teenage glee.
Stay tuned.
