Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Other Uses for Christmas Lights

There hasn't been a Christmas tree in my life since that scrawly one in Greece some years ago but I saw some Christmas lights on sale after the big day and how could I walk away from something that's so obviously a stage prop when it's so heavily marked-down.  So I didn't.

The next trick is to find if they will electrocute me if I wear them.  Typing this article is the evidence I was not electrocuted but stoners have a high tolerance for electricity because we fookin' love it.  Anything which makes sparks will fascinate a stoner all day long.  Unknown if James French was a stoner but he was a murderer.  Prior to his execution in the electric chair, he said to the executioner, "How about this for a headline:  FRENCH FRIES?"

Note:  the bit about James French is true.

Silas didn't fry but it wouldn't have made half as cool a headline as Mr French although that, alas, was his last.

The thought for these has been floating about for some while as those marginally-aware of their surroundings (i.e. sit down American voting public) will know Christmas was some time ago.  Here in the po' house, we don't care about that as every day is Christmas because you're thankful for anything that comes.  That's one of the hazards of not being po' as they're never never satisfied with anything.

The Christmas lights are needed for a video clip in which some type of monk is on the porch for the Rockhouse and he beckons those lost in "The End of the World in Fort Worth" to come inside.  What we want to avoid is the image of, hey, there's some crazy guy covered in Christmas lights.  This is where the magic of smoke comes into it but that magic is about thirty pounds to move outside ... but ... now there's a helper.  The smoke may add the touch of surrealism I need to make it interesting and it hasn't rained in a day or so and that means there may be a chance at it.

Adding this clip will not finish the video but there's not much more to be done with it until there's enough compute power to make it happen.  However, that doesn't mean every single thing has to stop.  The cameras work just fine so there's nothing to prevent shooting more video clips until I run out of memory on their SD cards.

All this preparation is for a video clip which will be useful for about ten to fifteen seconds.  It might be cool to add some people appearing and disappearing on the lawn but that's got the danger of looking kind of Monkees who so pitifully looked like they were trying to look like Beatles.  There may be some value in having people walking toward the Rockhouse and then they poof but that may seem like Night of the Living Dead.  That has some appeal but painting rockers as zombies doesn't do much for me as zombies go to Washington and not rock concerts.

More to come.

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