The newspaper props.

 The stack on the right is for the opening of the film, when it gets dropped to the ground. The single one on the right is for one of the extras to hold before the Golightly shoots past.

Here's a closeup of the newspaper. I'm pretty happy with how this came out, although modern newspapers are four inches narrower than the papers from 1870. Weird, huh?

Ready for the shoot?

 So today I went to Target and bought some organization. At least, that's what I was telling myself as I picked up large plastic boxes with which to organize my props/weapons/etc. It worked, mostly, but it also showed me that I have a lot of stuff. If I need to do another period show? Hahahahahaha. No problem.

 Here are all the costumes on a "Professional Target clothes rack. With wheels." Well, professional or not, this thing is gonna make Saturday morning easy peasy.

I have a lot of guns. Granted, one of them is my friend Marks, but still. Pretty awesome!

The fateful telegram...

So yeah. I found some awesome Western Union vintage telegrams from the late 1800's and recreated them using the new moniker United Union Telegraph Co. I made up a fictitious president and changed some of the fine print to create this prop. I also used a manilla envelope cut down to the right size and reglued with rubber cement. Looks convincing enough to me!

Props for the shoot!

Here's my spread Friday night. Blimp/spaceship- mostly done. Book? Not even started.

Here's some of the props in their "native" environment. Mad scientist blocks, a toy fishing boat I picked up last May in Greece, a Primer and a Battledore from the eighteen thirties... Once the kids were added, it started looking crowded!

This is the book that has young Mulvey entranced at age eight- the thing that is going to inspire him for the rest of his life. I made it out of cardboard. What's really cool is that Jules Verne mentions a bunch of scholars, priests and writers that wrote about travels to the Moon and back before anyone really applied science to the problem. I used illustrations from Cyrano de Bergeracs story about the Moon, Edgar Allen Poe's tale of moon travel and a score of others. The results were pretty amazing.

I'm not sure if they even had a book like this in 1851.

This is the rocket ship that Fanny found so inspiring. 5$ bird house from Michaels, with a bunch of rivets to add a little foreshadowing.

This lantern was made from CB2's gear candle holder. We found these cheap wall sconces at Lowe's, pulled out the wiring and hot glued the gear onto it. Then we added the glass cups. Wow. Too bad you can't really see them in the shoot.

And here's the final blimp toy. Since the birdhouses were pretty cheap, I bought a damaged one as well. I ripped off the nose, sanded a part of the rim down so it could lock on to the back and then I made the gondola out of some thin wood sidings, balsa accents, wagon wheels I found at Kit Craft and rivets. Lots and lots of the little buggers.

Rehearsals went well...

Everyone arrived about 10:15. It took a little while for the kids shyness to wear off, but after a while the performances we were getting were great. Cut some stuff out of the dialogue (haha silent film) to make it easier on them, and got some great ideas for some camera angles.

The props turned out really well, although I over-engineered the book so it wouldn't fall apart and now it doesn't open all the way. *sigh*

Have plenty of duct tape to mount the tripod to the ladder, though!

This is fun!

We'll start shooting after lunch. Everyone is on break now.

One more day until the shoot!

Been driving about like a madman getting stuff we need.

Props are done, except for Mulveys Moon Book. I found tons of great pre Civil War era illustrations of the moon and its creatures which Mulvey leafs through before he disassembles his blimp. Which looks awesome, BTW.

Tomorrow we prep the room for shooting, I need to get the picture of the president printed and finish off the book. Then we'll be ready!

Huzzah!

I just received the first part of Jake's costume...

...And the second part should be arriving tomorrow.

Everything is on schedule!

If the second half of Jake's costume arrives tomorrow, we're a go for shooting on Sunday.
The plan is to be at my house at 10am. My friend Mark and I will be setting up the room Saturday for set dressing.

Jakes costume consists of pants, socks, shirt and bracers (suspenders) and possibly a hat.
Alexi's costume consists of a dress. If she doesn't have white leggings please let me know so that I can get some for her. (Period is not mandatory, as long as her legs are white.) Also, if you have a light colored hair ribbon, please bring that as well.

Karen's costume consists of a dress and a bonnet. If you have dark, narrow shoes, please bring those. Period isn't a must as we never really focus on your feet.

I do not have a makeup person. I do have makeup. Alexi and Jake should darken their lips a little bit and we can powder their faces to reduce glare. The lighting will be bright during the shoot, but once it goes post I will relight to make it look like candlelight during the day.

We'll rehearse for as long as we need (I'm budgeting about two hours) and then we'll start shooting. I estimate it will take about four hours, so unless I need extra coverage or something unplanned turns up, we should be wrapping no later than five.

I will provide lunch at the very least- I think a six foot sub and drinks should cover it. If we run past five I will order pizza.

Herman I. Copperthaite introduces Adventures in Science!

Here it is. Remember, we made this entire thing in less than eight days (five of which I was working so I couldn't spend that much time on it!) All in all, I think it is pretty impressive, and I hope that you also get a laugh or two while watching!

Mulvey's Lunar Oxygen Rebreather (or... The Tube)

One of the things that was suggested in early versions of the script was for Mulvey to be doing something (anything) while Grimmauld was arguing with him. I heard the same kind of comment from several people so I decided to introduce Mulvey's intent to go to the Moon here.

He's trying to build a device that will allow him to breathe on the lunar surface. Most of the Victorians had mixed ideas about what mysteries the Moon was hiding and a big one was whether there was an atmosphere or not. In Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, the French Adventurer Michel Ardan plans to travel aboard the projectile and, upon arrival, wants to hunt for whatever game might be found there. In  Around the Moon, one of the men aboard the capsule fancies seeing buildings of some kind on the dark side of the Moon. For my story, Mulvey and Grimmauld actually do land on the Moon, and they do need these tanks. I wanted something similar to the tanks in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

I drew an early storyboard that illustrated some kind of tube like device with a light on it, but of course I would have to build it. And what I discovered was that my initial drawing wasn't really detailed enough to look physically interesting.

So I did a better, bigger sketch of it but that still didn't really work out, as it still looked like a tube. In fact, Teresa frequently asked while I was building the damned thing "So how is your tube doing, honey?" which had implications I wasn't sure I wanted to answer.

What it came down to is improvisation while I was building. So under the tutelage of Dr. Grymm, I finished it up and while it still looks like a tube, it also looks like it does something.