Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Gook Luck Indeed
Engine Studio and I are doing digital images for NAT’s production of Tommy, pretty much what we did for Alice. Check episode 12 of the progrum to see what I’m talking about
My job is to Photoshop the heck out of images to make them fit in with the story. There are a boatload of them. I’m turning to Google Images for a few.
In one scene in particular I need a crowd of hippies standing around.
So I Goggled, “hippy,” “hippy crowd,” and got little luck. Then I Goggled “protest march.” Most of the images had people standing around looking all happy, and very much like they were wearing the protest march as a fashion accessory. Hmmm, how did these people grow up to be yuppies? I thought briefly about Goggling “Future Sell Out.”
Next, I tried to think of milestones in hippy-dom. “Woodstock.” That returned more images of the more recent Woodstock than useable ones from the ‘60s. And there were crowds, but not the right ones. And too many signs for corporate sponsorship.
Then I tried “Kent State.” I didn’t get crowds. I got the other images you would expect: Cops with mortars, bodies, contrails of a tear gas canister lobbed at folk, riot gear, a few book covers on the subject.
But then in absurd Artaudian surrealism, there is a picture of a happy, shiny, bubbly, effervescent, college-bound, pretty young woman with a Kent State sweatshirt on. Right to her upper right is a picture of bazooka (or something) -wielding National Guard types. The caption below her reads: “Good luck at Kent State.” In-fucking deed.
I thought this was funny, and the more I stared at it, the more I cracked up. It was late, and I had been working tons. I still think it is funny today though. Not the death, and that dark day in our history, the juxtaposition. Think of if this bubbly cheerleader looking gal was there at the moment. Humor. Dark humor.
My job is to Photoshop the heck out of images to make them fit in with the story. There are a boatload of them. I’m turning to Google Images for a few.
In one scene in particular I need a crowd of hippies standing around.
So I Goggled, “hippy,” “hippy crowd,” and got little luck. Then I Goggled “protest march.” Most of the images had people standing around looking all happy, and very much like they were wearing the protest march as a fashion accessory. Hmmm, how did these people grow up to be yuppies? I thought briefly about Goggling “Future Sell Out.”
Next, I tried to think of milestones in hippy-dom. “Woodstock.” That returned more images of the more recent Woodstock than useable ones from the ‘60s. And there were crowds, but not the right ones. And too many signs for corporate sponsorship.
Then I tried “Kent State.” I didn’t get crowds. I got the other images you would expect: Cops with mortars, bodies, contrails of a tear gas canister lobbed at folk, riot gear, a few book covers on the subject.
But then in absurd Artaudian surrealism, there is a picture of a happy, shiny, bubbly, effervescent, college-bound, pretty young woman with a Kent State sweatshirt on. Right to her upper right is a picture of bazooka (or something) -wielding National Guard types. The caption below her reads: “Good luck at Kent State.” In-fucking deed.
I thought this was funny, and the more I stared at it, the more I cracked up. It was late, and I had been working tons. I still think it is funny today though. Not the death, and that dark day in our history, the juxtaposition. Think of if this bubbly cheerleader looking gal was there at the moment. Humor. Dark humor.
// posted by Tim @ 1:21 PM 
