QC

So we're scheduling a big gang commentary track for Day 2 this coming weekend. And I figure that somebody should actually watch the movie the whole way through before we do that. Right?
For me this is one of the most excruciating tasks while making a movie because every little mistake or error looks like a huge painful stab-me-in-the-eyes apallment. It's really hard for me to watch. (To which you can say: "Hard for you to watch?! How about us?!!" Ha!)
And of course I see mistakes like traffic in the background and other things which shouldn't exist in a post-apocalyptic world. There are a couple color-correction issues (especially in exposure where the close shots are stopped down a bit because the lens was wide open for the wide shots, if you know what I mean then you know what I mean.)
So far I have 6 out-and-out mistakes in Act 1. The exposure could be adjusted for dozens of shots, I don't know if/when we'll get to that. Only one of those big blatant errors is a picture mistake. The rest are all audio.
Oh, and if you're looking at my notes: "E.D." stands for "Extraneous Dialog." No. Really.

How I Intend To Trick My Band

You know, when we started Tyrannosaurus Mouse, I said "We have to figure out what we'll wear." People who aren't musicians said "Shouldn't you be more concerned about the music first?"
I told them "No."

And, of course, I was right. The music would come. The real trick is what we look like.
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Tricking the Mouse
Now it's probably true of most bands that the members feel a bit foolish putting on costumes just to play some rock 'n roll. But the cold hard truth of the matter is that the band simply must look like "something" on stage, in videos, or in the picture on the album cover. Which is why, of course, I went to so much trouble getting a psychedelic band jacket.

My second task is to get the other guys to wear stuff which is cool and makes sense aesthetically in the Tyrannosaurus Mouse world. We actually have a fair range of styles we can wear to achieve my vision. There's Hussars jackets, or heck -- anything from the 15th through the 19th Centuries, and whatever variations in-between.

I think I can convince the drummer to go with a subdued steampunk look. A nice shirt (he'd look great with ruffles in the front, but I don't know if I can go that far) and a nice 19th-Century vest. Something like a bar owner might wear in the Old West. Best would be a pocket watch, of course. He's easy to dress because he looks good and even though his natural garb tends to be more casual he'll look so fantastic he'll just have to acquiesce.

The bass player has been talking a game about him wearing a cape, but I have a feeling he may bail out on that idea. Luckily for me I know his wife likes him in rock-star clothing (and he does look good in anything sexygroovyjangly). And he'll do whatever his wife says. So all I need to do is talk to her. I think a cape and a tophat would be perfect on him. Plus I'm totally envious of his ability to grow a mustache.

I don't know how I'm going to get the keyboard player in a fez and smoking jacket. I'm still working on that.

You'd think that the band would make all kinds of noises about what they're willing to wear. But they'll all just talk among themselves about "Is Drew serious about having naked girls dance for Tyrannosaurus Mouse?" Note that the answer to that question is "yes."

Your Three Things for Today

If someone snipes your domain (meaning they buy it before you renew it) you apparently have 30 days to get it back. At least that's what this article says.

I am growing weary of spending $70 a month on AT&T's iPhone plan. I can't really use my phone in my apartment anyway. I've been looking at other plans.  Considering how little I use my phone I'm seriously considering a $2/day pay-as-you-go plan.

Hey, do you want to know what a stage manager does in the theater world? Then check out this article.

Ice Weasel

This is the present mix of "Ice Maiden". I had to cut new guitars starting with the first chorus because the guitar on the original track had gone out of tune to a rather stunning degree. Probably as a result of me hitting the guitar too hard during those big open choruses. The other problem with that guitar part is that it's hard to play in tune in any circumstances because it's so high up on the neck.
Arie will add Hammond to the choruses and possibly cut a new electric piano track (it's up to him.)
If nobody has anything specific to tell me about what to do with the vocals then we're leaving them as-is.
Lastly, is there an extra phrase in the intro? Should it be deleted?

UPDATE: I need to clean the vocal track because there is a lot of hiss in it. I'm thinking some multi-band expansion as well as some straight-up de-hissing.
I actually kind of like the vocal track, although I may have just gotten used to it by now. It's always hard for me to tell because I'm way too close to the music. This is why I rely on the other guys in the band to tell me what to do. Ahem. That's a hint, guys...
The intro is way too long. There are some nice keyboard melodies there, I suggest we cut it down to about 16 bars of keyboard loveliness.

One Last Blink

One Last Drink. What this song is missing is a piano part and a screamin' Hammond solo.
Now that I think of it, you know most songs in the world are missing those two things. When I become King that will be rectified.
In any case, I post this mostly to make Ethan happier about his introduction, to get people used to the other thing I did in the intro, and to give Arie a clue about what's going on before he comes in to record his screaming Hammond solo.

More Warhammer Words

Iho-stick = a drug that's smoked. It seems to be smoked as much as tobacco so I suppose the amount of psychoactive drug in it is relatively small.

Craproaches = the interstellar equivalent of cockroaches, obviously.
Spout = the chamber of an automatic weapon.  You might refer to the number of rounds in a weapon as "Ten in the clip and one in the spout."
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Kangas says I should see Perfect Getaway by Twohy. I shall do so.
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Our own Katie Hannigan is producing a comedy show here in New York. Be there and be square:

The Love Triangle Show

Wednesday, January 19th, 8pm

Happy Ending Lounge

302 Broome St.

Cats... and cats.

How are there David Wellington books I've never even heard of?
SF Signal likes Heretics by S. Andrew Swan.
Calico and Lynx. What's funny is that apparently the calico was originally identified as a Persian, so the link has "Persian" in the title, even if the article itself doesn't. That happens to me sometimes too.

Our Songs (Part II)

Mouseverture:
UPDATE: right at 12 minutes I want a clean - sound guitar solo. And I want it to be better. 
It looks like Lou has won and there are in fact no vocals in this song. And that's not just because I'm too lazy to write words and sing, no, it's because once again Lou was right. It's much easier to go through life doing what Lou says, because eventually you're going to do what Lou says anyway, you may as well start out that way.
So the big questions be:

1. The first guitar solo section, I kinda feel like we're the (New?) Riders of the Purple Sage. Is that really appropriate for Tyrannosaurus Mouse? It might explain my "cattle herding" yells. But is it really part of the rest of the song?
2. I might be able to fix that with putting a more Pink Floyd-ish delayed rhythm guitar in that section. What do we think of that?
3. Is the Hammond solo too long? I can listen to Arie's solo for any amount of time. So I'm no judge. Really, I don't think 30 minutes of distorted Hammond is even getting close to "enough".

Jabberwocky:
Arie is doing a new keyboard solo. Other than that, this is probably our hit single.

Ice Maiden:
If you have a better idea for the vocal then just tell me.
The song will get Hammond in the choruses.

Arabesque:
The only thing I can think of to do with this is to take out any bits we don't like. Otherwise it's finished.

Mercury:
The vocal is maybe not finished yet. I don't know. More updates to come.

One Last Drink:
The beginning phrase of the verse (where there's no singing) needs something. I'm thinking piano playing a slow dotted pair of notes in fifths. 

Thing in E:
Right now this is in limbo. It's a beer commercial. Nobody knows. Nobody's tellin' me nuthin'.

Actor Girl Drew

Lookit me! I have a Flixter page.

Oddly, in my Google Alerts which brought this page to my attention thinks I'm both a girl and an actor:

Andrew Bellware has starred in over 4 movies. Her first role was in 'Alien Uprising'...

Although I can't actually find that text anywhere on my Flixter page. My flute player's husband is a Flixterite (I just made that up, but it's hella better than what they call people at Yahoo.) Anyway, her dad was the keyboardist and music writer for the KGBeats. You'd think that would get me a big ol' page with a picture and everything, but nooooo. ;-)

Album Updates

Well, all this time since we recorded our basic tracks for our album I should have finished the vocals. But I didn't. Heck, there's a lot of vocals where I haven't even done a single pass.

But here's our list of songs. The big thing that's been on my little brain is whether my vocals were actually working in these songs. Nobody's objected so far. And by that I mean that I have so little distance from the music and the singing that I can't even tell if the vocals sound like I'm even in the same band as everything else. Lou said he didn't notice anything, which is a good sign. Ethan says they're in the ballpark.

1. Mouseverture
2. Jabberwocky
3. Mercury
4. Ice Maiden
5. Arabesque
6. One Last Drink

Honestly, that's plenty of music for an album. Many discoveries have been made in the creation of Tyrannosaurus Mouse and this album. Firstly, we're kind of a "jam band". Second-wise, we're not really as "ambient" as I thought we'd be, we're a harder-rockin' act. Thirdsicle, the more conservatively we play, the "bigger" we sound -- fewer notes makes us more huger.

There are lots of places for custom lapel pins.  Amplates makes custom badges.
You know, we'll probably just start with some stickers.

Never Interrupt Your Enemy

When he is making pancakes.

Drew Bonaparte

Chinese Food Rule

For the longest time I've been repeating the same mantra to producers regarding making feature films. And the mantra has gone like this:

Do. Not. Sign. A. SAG. Contract. 

That being said, the terms of SAG contracts aren't nearly as onerous as they used to be. That's because there aren't any "deferred" contracts in SAG anymore.* so your daily minimum pay will be $100. With the costs of the employer's side of payroll taxes, you should probably calculate that at about $122/day of cost.

If you have an average cast of 4 people on a 12-day shoot you have 48 man/days. That would be an extraordinarily small number of man/days for a feature film shoot. In any case, it would end up costing a minimum of $5856.00 to hire actors under the SAGINDIE ultra-low-budget agreement. And this is in addition to food and transportation of course.

The special "Chinese Food" rule here in the Pandora Machine (the rule that we have Chinese food almost every day) is based on the fact that Chinese lunch specials are very, very, cheap. And you can get vegetarian, vegan, whatever you want. Also, ask yourself this question: when you're shooting in Metuchen, NJ, on a Sunday do you really want to try any of the town's other cuisines? Right. I thought not. Chinese it is then.

Food will likely be your single biggest cost. I mean, unless you're foolhardily going to spend like $200,000 on your movie. Then the sound of distributors laughing at you at losing money will be your biggest cost. They will laugh heartily and it will cost you dearly in emotional pain and suffering. But hey, if you put a star in the movie (at between $5000 and $10,000 a week) you might be able to make back as much as $125K. 

*They even make fun of how horrible an onerous their "deferred" contracts were on their own FAQ page. 

Class War

I don't know whether I should post this here or at Puppies and Toast (my politics blog). I'll post it here because "theater" is one of the open topics of Pleasure for the Empire.

Apparently the average stagehand makes a half-million dollars a year, and they don't have to do any work at all! I mean, what kind of brain-power does it take to move some chairs around and hang some lights? Ha! I mean that's what I read in the paper so it has to be true, right?

Here's an article by the bozo James Ahern of the North Jersey paper the Record from last year about the money stagehands make. It's a very moralistic essay about how arts are suffering yet these stage hands are making so much money. The story was originally "broken" by the New York Times*. And now New Jerseyans, who pay for arts in New York, are paying for these high salaries of workers in these hard economic times when everyone else is taking pay cuts. I mean, everyone except for those at the very top. Those people shouldn't have to take cuts.

Here's a most telling quote from the article:

Gillinson, who doubles as artistic director, was paid $946,581, nearly twice as much as O'Connell, the props manager, but not out of line for top arts executives in Manhattan.

 So, certain jobs are perfectly reasonable to be paid well for. But other people making half that are the problem? Why doesn't Ahern ask Gillinson to take a cut in pay?

The article, as many articles do, contradicts its own thesis by the end of it. It goes on to explain that these dudes who make upwards of half-million a year are working from 8am to midnight. My thumbnail estimate of their base pay is that it must be about fifty bucks an hour.

Another thing the article doesn't say is how freakin' hard this work is. I'm sure that's because Mr. Ahern has no idea.

So I'd like to invite Mr. Ahern to come to my little off-off Broadway theater, Manhattan Theatresource, and do a load-in or a strike. We won't work you for 16 hours though. No, we have very easy days and we're used to interns who don't know what they're doing. We will be easy on you.

We'll have you strike the lights (the rented ones, not the ones which are part of the rep plot -- do not screw that up, read the blueprint carefully). Run new cable.
Then hang the new lights for the new show (hey, how long can that take? We're only a 50-seat house, not like Avery Fisher or the Met.)
The floor and the set are waiting for you to finish dealing with the lights overhead so that job has to be done accurately and quickly.
Then you load in and finish the floor and the set. You'll be the most junior member of the crew, so you'll have lots of help doing those things. Just don't break anything, it's all very expensive. And hope that the set designer calculated how big the set pieces should be in order to get them up the stairs and through the door. If not, you'll be cutting them down and re-building them either on the street or in the entrance-way of the theater.
Remember that we have a rehearsal and a run-through tonight and the lighting designer still hasn't focused the lights (which will involve you being up on a ladder in the dark).
And if you are not indeed on the verge of tears, or have run from the building clutching your hands which got burned from neglecting to pay attention to which part of which lights were hot, we will make you the props master on a run of a show. And if you screw up the location of even one of hundreds of props during the short 6-show-a-week run we do, there will be hell to pay.

How's that sound, Mr. Ahern?

Then you should wonder if theater professionals should make about $50/hour plus overtime.

*I don't know why he didn't link to the article.

First Thing This Morning

A broken antler pushes open my chapped, crusty lips. I feel a dirty, cracked hoof, unsteady on my moving tongue, push off the back of my throat. Stumbling onto my already drool-crusted pillow, a disheveled and disturbingly damp yak named "Drizzo" crawls out of my mouth.
He takes two steps away, headed toward the bathroom or the kitchen, I don't know yet. But he stops for an unsteady moment and looks back at me with one bloodshot eye. He says in a slurred morning voice:
"Man, you don't want to go in there."
And he turns and walks away.
It's another minute or so that I realize he was talking about my mouth.