Progress, BPAL, unspeakable horror
Oct. 17th, 2007 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonI got home earlier than expected from dance class last night and was able to make my very noisy, everybody will know where I am at all times anklets. I was not able to get a web flyer done, but I did talk to Sashi and get her airplane ticket set up, which is more important anyway. Really liked her on the phone, I'm feeling very good about the whole event. I would very much like to get the flyer done today but I need Tribe to be functional so I can grab some Sashi photos from her gallery there. Please, Tribe, get back up!
Hoping to get all my Voodoo Dolly sewing done tonight so that I can do a dress rehearsal on Friday, which would give me a little time on Saturday to fix anything terribly wrong. I definitely have to practice while wearing my hairfalls, because a) I tend to throw my hair around a lot when I dance and b) the hairfalls have metal skull beads in them, so if I'm not careful I'm going to end up bonking myself in the face.
I got a new batch of BPAL imps, mostly with a New Orleans/Caribbean theme so that my perfume will match my costume on Sunday. Hey, when I get obsessive, I get obsessive! Today's BPAL is Port Royal: "The Sodom of the New World! -- touted as the richest and wickedest city in all creation! Port Royal was the center of 17th century Caribbean commerce, a notorious safe harbor for pirates, and the site of our third flagship store, which was, sadly, destroyed in the earthquake of 1692. Spiced rum and ship’s wood mixed with the body-warmed trace of a prostitute’s perfume and a hint of salty sea air on the dry-down." So I smell like a salty ho, in other words. I really like the spiced rum and ship's wood elements, they create a scent together that is musk-like but with a touch of maybe cedar. It was a little too sweet for me when I first put it on, but I'm liking it more as it mellows out. I guess that would be the dry-down. The sweetness has changed from aggressively sweet to more like a beeswax sweetness. I don't know if this will be my Voodoo Dolly perfume, but I would wear it again.
I watched The Call of Cthulhu last night. It's a relatively short silent film made in 2005, intended as an homage both to Lovecraft and to silent film. I can see why one would want to take the silent film approach to the Cthulhu mythos, because the melodrama of Lovecraft I don't think translates all that well to modern film, not if one remains very true to the source. So I applaud the idea, but for the most part the execution just didn't work for me. I had two main problems. One is that even though the film makers tried to make the film look old with superimposed scratches, random hairs, etc., the images under the effects looked too modern. I think it's because the contrasts were too sharp. In real films from the 20s, the whites are always shadowed and the blacks are always grainy, adding an artfulness and subtlety that was largely lacking in The Call of Cthulhu. The other is that modern actors just don't move like the actors of the silent film era. They rely on words (even when not audible) and the precision of the camera to convey their actions, expressions and emotions. The old silent film actors made grander, more dramatic gestures and expressions, using their entire bodies to get the moment across to the viewer. I know that Delsarte training was very big then, and you can see it in those movies. So the quality of the filmwork and the physical behavior of the actors was very jarring and to me largely ruined the conceit of the silent film*. It felt more art house than genuine. That said, though, there were some good points. Clever camera work and set building conveyed some of those unimaginable angles very effectively. The whole ship at sea part was the best bit of the film for me. I would say it is worth watching if you are a Lovecraft completist or if you are particularly interested in film making.
*A good example of how modern actors can achieve a silent film look is Shadow of the Vampire. Everybody clearly did their homework for that.
Hoping to get all my Voodoo Dolly sewing done tonight so that I can do a dress rehearsal on Friday, which would give me a little time on Saturday to fix anything terribly wrong. I definitely have to practice while wearing my hairfalls, because a) I tend to throw my hair around a lot when I dance and b) the hairfalls have metal skull beads in them, so if I'm not careful I'm going to end up bonking myself in the face.
I got a new batch of BPAL imps, mostly with a New Orleans/Caribbean theme so that my perfume will match my costume on Sunday. Hey, when I get obsessive, I get obsessive! Today's BPAL is Port Royal: "The Sodom of the New World! -- touted as the richest and wickedest city in all creation! Port Royal was the center of 17th century Caribbean commerce, a notorious safe harbor for pirates, and the site of our third flagship store, which was, sadly, destroyed in the earthquake of 1692. Spiced rum and ship’s wood mixed with the body-warmed trace of a prostitute’s perfume and a hint of salty sea air on the dry-down." So I smell like a salty ho, in other words. I really like the spiced rum and ship's wood elements, they create a scent together that is musk-like but with a touch of maybe cedar. It was a little too sweet for me when I first put it on, but I'm liking it more as it mellows out. I guess that would be the dry-down. The sweetness has changed from aggressively sweet to more like a beeswax sweetness. I don't know if this will be my Voodoo Dolly perfume, but I would wear it again.
I watched The Call of Cthulhu last night. It's a relatively short silent film made in 2005, intended as an homage both to Lovecraft and to silent film. I can see why one would want to take the silent film approach to the Cthulhu mythos, because the melodrama of Lovecraft I don't think translates all that well to modern film, not if one remains very true to the source. So I applaud the idea, but for the most part the execution just didn't work for me. I had two main problems. One is that even though the film makers tried to make the film look old with superimposed scratches, random hairs, etc., the images under the effects looked too modern. I think it's because the contrasts were too sharp. In real films from the 20s, the whites are always shadowed and the blacks are always grainy, adding an artfulness and subtlety that was largely lacking in The Call of Cthulhu. The other is that modern actors just don't move like the actors of the silent film era. They rely on words (even when not audible) and the precision of the camera to convey their actions, expressions and emotions. The old silent film actors made grander, more dramatic gestures and expressions, using their entire bodies to get the moment across to the viewer. I know that Delsarte training was very big then, and you can see it in those movies. So the quality of the filmwork and the physical behavior of the actors was very jarring and to me largely ruined the conceit of the silent film*. It felt more art house than genuine. That said, though, there were some good points. Clever camera work and set building conveyed some of those unimaginable angles very effectively. The whole ship at sea part was the best bit of the film for me. I would say it is worth watching if you are a Lovecraft completist or if you are particularly interested in film making.
*A good example of how modern actors can achieve a silent film look is Shadow of the Vampire. Everybody clearly did their homework for that.
