1) Halloween--not at all strange to come in to my office this time of year hearing the theme to John Carpenter's Halloween on a constant loop. Dry ice has made an appearance in my office...and home...several times. As I type this, 4 inches from my keyboard is a gold metallic candle in the shape of a skull that someone (who rules) gave me as a gift a few days ago.]]> 2) Horror Movies--This was kind of by accident as I realized not long ago how many I've seen. (Especially werewolf movies for some reason...)
"It was sooooo not funny!!!! It was terrifying. I thought I finally found an adhesive that wouldn't dissolve the sugar but I was so wrong and the 'clinking' sound of the cubes hitting the table all night made me feel totally powerless. Thank God Greg and Jeanne (Graves) were so understanding and that it ended up looking good anyways! It was one of the few projects that I've done that I shook all the way to set not knowing if it would actually be ok."
"We overnighted this 8x10' monster to Alaska and then proceeded to drag it up and down muddy cliffs and glaciers. I could have used 3 assistants on that job but it was just Jesse, his assistant Joe Tanis and the location guy. There were gale force winds that blew it over; there was quicksand like mud that we glopped through. Oh, and, the incoming tides which rise 20' in 15 minutes.....Alaska is amazing mother nature in your face."
"The spine was an awesome project conceptually and to physically put together.
I got great satisfaction with it being able to move like a real spine despite being metal parts from Home Depot and it was the beginning of what has now become a signature of mine -- body part sculptures."
"This was my first still life (thank you, Jody Quon). My introduction into thinking macro. I love the clarity and simple graphic quality of it. The team at the Times was sooooo good."
"My house looked like a terrorist lived there. We ripped apart countless computers and got buckets of i-things and had an affair with the glue gun. I worked at table height and then would climb up into the rafters of the house to photograph the piece in progress to keep us on track. I still have those pieces in my basement waiting for apple to call and buy them ;)"
"My biggest job to date. I location scouted and paid a farmer for an acre of corn (BTW the corn all leaned back up the next day). 200x250' T laid out with 8 miles of string in a grid. I didn't know if I did it right until Vincent came down off the helicopter. Whew!!!!
Francecso was a pleasure - funny that even he did not understand what I was doing until he saw it from above. I chose corn so his crew would not affect the imprint of the edges but later found out that I was allergic to corn pollen. Hence my short appearance in the last part of the film... I was mutating by the minute."
Have to say, whenever I see the latest moving cover, moving feature, or moving photo I am amazed and excited and jealous! Love, love, love the potential.
Then a few giant gorillas in the room start grunting at me.
1) I am watching a MOVIE DEMO on my slick, fast, powerful computer at work with a turbo internet connection. I am not sitting with my ipad by a lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with no wifi or 3G. Hell, I can't easily text someone up there and I'm going to be able to watch a hollywood hottie finish her pole dance on the cover of magazine xyz on my ipad? (hey...i hope so....but you know...)
2) The cover shoot and feature is now a small movie. Very cool, but are they going to do that 10-12 times a year for every cover? Ya know, at the end of the day keeping the lights on at any business is about charging people more for your product than it cost to make it. That's called profit.
He is also SOOO right about how much this feels exactly like the internet boom of the late 90's. It's uncanny. Everyone scrambling and spending and speculating because no one wants to be left behind and everyone wants to be the first and to be seen as the "inventor" or the "innovator".
Ultimately some amazing new things will be coming out of all this and i am always rooting for good, innovative work and the people doing it.
I just fear we will see a version of what always happens with any new technology; the advent of computers, image editors and font programs in the early 90's and the web boom of the mid to late nighties. A little bit of real-world permanent innovation, and a whole lot of mess.