Lee, Erin and I had a meeting via skype. It was pretty rad. Kathryn had a cameo at the halfway mark, I asked about the weather in SF. Because of the meeting I had to stop playing donkey kong for a little while, but it was worth it for sure. Erin and I both have projects to work on.
My list looks some thing like:

• test confession booth
• check out flex book / media catalog
• test 4 streaming webcams
• test 2 time-laps cameras
• setup online media hosting
• install reference wiki

The confession booth gizmo is basically built. But I think I should test it a bit more over the next week. Lee and I talked about setting up a media wiki. Lee mentioned it might be a good place to keep track of all of our reference materials. Anything we are using as inspiration etc would get mentioned in the wiki.
Our meeting was super fun and I hope everyone gets a chance to be a part of a video conference at some point in their life.

I have mixed feelings on using skype… most of the issues that matter to me are privacy issues.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Issues

I mentioned to Lee that I thought it would be best if i fed-ex the home made electronics rather than attempt to fly with them in my check baggage.
….

still from Sedmikrasky (Daisies), 1966, Czechoslovakia

Kathryn finished the first hot pants yesterday, and Carol-Anne came over for a test run.

They are something else!

I spent part of yesterday trying to sell books, De Chirugerie which we got from the investor, and a few of my own which are art monographs worth $100 or so each it seems.

Also, made a new budget. It’s not online yet. I’ll tackle the ephemera section of the site very soon, promise.

The new budget is the first to include in kind items. It is rather revealing. Even without pre-production labor, we are looking at over $50,000 in loaned equipment and services. It boggles the mind. The actual budget for Disembody could be near $100,000 once we figure in labor and cash expenditures. Cash expenditures looking like they’ll be somewhere around $22,000. Which I guess is good news for investors, because those costs (plus labor incurred during the two weeks the show is up - approximately $10,000) are the official budget against which profits are measured.

Thinking about the budget in these terms, we’re actually very close to achieving our goals. We’re only about $7,000 away from what I want in our cash reserves for materials. Of course, we’re more like $20,000 away from what I really want available in investments. There are still a fair number of items I’d like to have in the concession stand, and a few build issues I think we have left unresolved. But still, to think that we are only $7,000 away from pulling off a project with a budget approaching $100,000 is pretty awesome.

In less dry news, last night Kathryn measured Keturah and Carol-Anne for their hot pants. Kathryn has already cut out all of the pieces of C-A’s hot pants. This is certainly going to be one of the stranger elements of the shoot.

Afterwards, I met with Alex to talk hardware needs for the editing, capturing, logging, dialogue recording, etc. We ran into Skye at the bar where we were meeting. I got a list of specs from Alex as to some of our more specific equipment needs. And Skye and I talked over some of the editing and conceptual aspects. We’re going to be certain to have AfterEffects on the editing machine for him.

This morning I received the investment pamphlet from Erin. As always with her work, it is fabulous. I’ll post it online when I find time to post everything else. That should be soon. I only have two more weeks of thesis ahead, and I finish moving my stuff down to LA in just over a week. Once in LA I should be focussed exclusively on Disembody (okay, except for that little thing called making a living) through de-install in August.

Tonight I am meeting with Hanif to discuss my thesis and Disembody.

Finally, Han and Marcella both sent me links to Frieze articles recently:

Reality In The Age of Aesthetics

Public Relations

Well, how unHollywood of me to not mention how Amy and I ran into Bruce Willis on Robertson and Melrose the other day.
We were coming back to DDCLab after Lunch and I was watching these two kids horse around in the crosswalk and ran into this tall, skinny brunette. Literally, ran into her.
I apologized and she apologized and then her and the man she was with followed the kids across the street, calling out to them to slowdown.
And then Amy said to me
“That was Bruce Willis”
And I said,
“What? Huh? What?”
And turned around and yeah sure enough it was Bruce willis.

Star sightings, they’re just not that exciting.

In Disembody news, however, we have great excitement. My friends Honyo Ote (in Tokyo) and Kathryn Wood (in SF) are going to help out with the film.

Kathryn is a seamstress. She worked professionally making clothes for a decade before her wrists started to go. Now she does custom jobs, mostly for theater (she’s an actress).
Kathryn wears a lot of clothes she made for herself and they are always superb.
She has agreed to make usher and usherette outfits for Jack and I.
I did mention my friend Jack is coming out for the 19th-26th to be my usherette, didn’t I? She’s 16 and will be a fabulous worker for Disembody.
And now she and I will have matching outfits for the big show!

Ote (pronounced oh-tay) is a graphics artist. His illustrations decorate all of Nobu’s CDs. I am making a page for him on Vime. So you’ll be able to find some of his work there soon. Until then if you go to the Stowe-Pembleton Project on Vime, Ote did the cover art for Confusion Bleue and Hommage An Klaus Kinski.
Anyway, Ote is going to do the illustrations for our Japanese distribution campaign.

So exciting.