The wallet was empty because they gave it to me and I haven't gotten around to filling it up yet; once again, by the point in the evening at which they asked for donations above and beyond the ticket price, I was feeling too warm and fuzzy to resist. They were giving away these really neat bookbags as a thank-you gift for additional donations; the book bags were recycled from the big, colorful vinyl cloth banners they hang around the city to advertise the festival and they were very, very cool but I was going to pass on that because between working in publishing (where there are a lot of giveaway bookbags floating around looking for homes) and doing swim support (where the schwag bags are always these great little nylon drawstring bags), I could have a side business running a SoHo bag table on my lunch hour. When I said I didn't need a bag, though, they mentioned that they had wallets, too, and that's something I've been thinking about getting ever since a friend gave me a really nice purse for Christmas. My old one was falling apart - the new one is a hundred times nicer than the old one, which was a cheap street-stand knockoff, but it's just enough deeper that cards and cash get lost in the bottom of the pocket where I put them and I'd been thinking a wallet would help in the finding of things. When it turned out that the wallets were made out of Secret of Kells banners (boy, did I love that movie - still waiting for the Seal Wife one that was supposed to be the studio's next production!), well, SOLD. So that's how I woke up with an empty wallet the next morning.
The tiger is about 3.5 inches tall and claims to be harmless, although there was a suspicious scene that took place midway through the evening...
Once again, half the fun was seeing what all the weird and wonderful characters that were created.
Here was most of the cast of characters.
This year, I got there a little bit later and didn't see anywhere near as much hesitation, but there were a number of us there for the 2nd time and I think most of us who'd come last year came with some thoughts of what we were going to do this year. I was personally wavering between a tiger, a penguin, and a stumpy little monster - could've gone either way but the first clay that caught my eye when I walked in was a lovely tigery orange, so that's what I did, and I thought he came out rather well.
Pre-prep prize, though, definitely went to the repeat attendee who brought wire armatures for her characters, this year, plus props. She's a design instructor and has access to something that I'd heard of a few years ago as being in development, but had no idea actually had come into existence - a 3-D printer! That's right - she designed a wire-frame version of this director's chair using a CAD program - and then she hit "Print". And there you go, one toy director's chair, right there in my hand!
One more noticeable - and fun - difference from last year? A lot more interaction between the participants and our characters! If you watch the last one, it was pretty much set up that each of us did our own little scene with our own one or two characters -
This year, there seemed to be a lot more team efforts - partly from people who came as a group, like these friends -
After we finished watching those, the forms for additional donations were passed around, and then it was on to the grand finale of the evening, a preliminary rendition of our evening's production, "Channel Surfing". Last year's premise was "The Auditions" - this year, the idea was that all of these little scenes were being seen as a person was channel-surfing on a TV set.
Heck, if TV sets had that many channels of pure silliness, I might even go get one - it came out well!
Can't wait to show you the final version, we should be getting it any day now.
2 comments:
Love the tiger, and I have read about the 3D printers would love to see one in action.
Thanks! I would love to see a 3D printer work, too, it was fascinating just seeing the product, but I still can't picture how it works!
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