I've been neglecting this journal lately, but for good cause.
Some time ago, my friend Ronn Brashear (he directed Haunted Trails in 2000 then moved to California, and he's a magician and magical thinker, also known as Sam Haine) contacted me and let me know of a need they had, to make televisions wig out as part of a magical effect. I thought, sure! I can do that! And said I would do it.
Time passed.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, they said, yes, we need it, can you do it by the end of January? Sure! I started my research and quoted 'em $2,000... they choked a bit (they had budgeted $500), but said they might be able to do that.
So then I did MORE research and lowered my cost to $1500. And they were good with that. Then I learned that it wasn't the end of January, but the 22nd or so. I had not much more than a week to invent the damn thing.
Thus began my struggle with hardware.
So Sunday night at about 6:00pm I drive south to SA, just an hour and a half away. Get to the hotel. Not long later, I meet up with Ronn (who is a consultant on the show) and we go out to eat and I learn about the effect they are doing (my first introduction to the actual trick).
Oh, some background.
TLC/Discover is doing four shows (in a series) of magic featuring "Man of Mystery" Alain Nu... and each show will have something like 20 or 30 effects in it, so Alain is totally working his ass off, and he's actually pretty stressed out by it all. But he also has good consultants helping him, like Ronn and also, for this shoot at least, Bob Fitch. The show should air between April and June, accounts vary.
So Alain calls up about 9:00pm and we go to his room in the hotel. Magic detritus littered the space, and it was cool. And from there they started hashing out the scripts for the next day... really. They are writing this thing as they go along, no rehearsal, nothing. Just a list of tricks, times, and locations and an outline. The poor bastards are really behind the 8-ball. I threw in my 2-cents worth here and there, for what it was worth.
This goes on until 2:30 in the morning and I stagger off to my room. Where I spend ANOTHER half hour making sure it works, and doing some re-writing of the effect to match the current script. Then I sleep until about 8:00 am Monday.
Here are the players in this fun day:
Ronn Brashear
http://www.samhaine.com/
Alain Nu
http://www.nu-magic.com/
Robert Fitch
http://fitchmagic.com/Fitchbio.htm
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=88537
Read Bob's pages. He was AMAZING to work with, AMAZING to watch him work with Alain... it was AMAZING to even be in the same room with him. Damn! I mean, the man's a living legend, a god among magicians and performers... dude!
So, I had an interesting day Monday.