Toys
I am a bad capitalist. I don't buy a lot of clothes... I don't have a car... I don't even have a flashy mobile phone that can download a pizza directly to a harbour side condo to be spilled down a designer shirt onto suede Italian designer lounge. None of those things have a whole lot of interest for me. Except for maybe the Pizza, Mmmm pizza! Anyway, I grew up inside a national park surrounded by endless bush, not having a backyard full of poisoness snakes and a house full of more poisoness spiders is as much luxury as I really need. So as you can imagine I don't have a lot of 'toys'... well... except when it comes to film-making. Then I have some of the best toys imaginable.
Luckily I don't need to buy those types of toys every week, they're rather expensive. One of the problems I'm trying to solve for the Sprites production (still haven't come up with another name for them yet - Scamps seems to fit their song better than the other names) by doing the Easter film is my continuing poor results on digital compositing. I have these wonderful chroma-key drapes I got for my birthday (THAT's my type of toy!) but still haven't had wonderful results using them. Which is all very annoying. The main problem seems to be lighting, I can't get it even enough over the drapes.
So I rectified my bad-capitalist status on Friday and bought a kit of three daylight temperature lights for my studio.
Aren't they beautiful! Well, they are to me. Now, the reason I've been putting off buying lights like this is that they are not cheap. $2-3K not cheap. Except for this kit. These are not superdooper film lights, so they only cost a few hundred (which is a marvel to me), but they will fix the problem I've been having with lighting, and hopefully in turn fix my problem with compositing, and hopefully in turn enable me to make my fun little show featuring puppets out in the bush. And that's about all the reason I need to buy expensive 'toys'.
There's something I haven't done in ages... ask a question of you lot. So, what's your favourite luxury item and why did you buy it?
posted by G3T Films at 3/03/2008 09:55:00 am
Take: 26
before I get to the Question...I have a suggestion; call them "spirds" They have wings & the best representation (that I have noticed, anyway) is the birdguy, carrotlegs.
Ok, the question;
Luxury items tend to change with the focus for me...I have never really had a desire for fancy autos, jewelry, or houses. & Since my divorce living simply is a luxury.
I love your luxury item because I can understand the excitement it holds for you. That is good enough!
The last "luxury" item I bought were a set of 1940 paint by number pictures of geisha women, I paid 1.00 apiece for them, but...even though I don't want to clutter my new apt. with "stuff" I had to have them! I love them. I want to marry them.
Mon Mar 03, 02:11:00 pm
The worst of mine was Lattes. I would get them when I was stressed or exausted, which is often. They are about $3.75 a piece, which really adds up.
I have recently found instant espresso, to which I add powdered milk, and it's comparable to a latte. So as of now, I have absolutely no vices. I am perfect.
Mon Mar 03, 03:34:00 pm
I also pay a gay man to spread hot wax on my body and rip it off my skin repeatedly for a half hour to an hour. Afterwards I give him a $10 tip to "thank him" for his "good service"
Mon Mar 03, 03:37:00 pm
Love this post, so funny and relatable.
I always buy art supplies as my luxury. Once many years ago I had only $14 to my name and spent $8.50 of it on art supplies. Who needs food, right?
I'm about to open my purse for a wildly expensive (for me) camera to shoot my film. It's a luxury because I could get by with using odd pieces. But gotta have it for some reason.
Although, nothing could beat the $7,000 it cost me to set up my first Mac system with all the spiffy software in 1993! Remember $100 for giant clunky Syquest "diskettes" that held only 1 MB!? Yeesh!
Tue Mar 04, 04:22:00 am
8 grand on electrical work for the glass hot shop....so that is not an item...fine.
Might be the spring suit I am about to purchase to go surfing....
Gnat.
.
Tue Mar 04, 06:15:00 am
L>t, Spirds rhymes with turds. That is not going to work.
Japanese geisha pictures rock, although I did think most of the traditional paintings are done in inks and wonder if the translucent inks would cover the 'numbers'. Did you complete the paint by numbers? Or were they already done? Or are they just going to sit in the set?
Tue Mar 04, 08:49:00 am
Hmmm, Diana, Waxing and coffee. Yeah, when you don't have much money having a well made coffee sure does feel like a luxury.
Just don't do the waxing and the coffee at the same time. You may end up having to pay a bigger tip if you burn him... then again, he may enjoy that!
PS. Of course you are perfect! But we're not talking about vices here... say, like, trail mix!
Tue Mar 04, 08:53:00 am
Hey Shelley, I do have to say that when I bought the lights on Friday I did think of you and your upcoming purchase. My lights aren't nearly so special as a camera. Cameras are da bomb!
Yeah, I remember buying my first home edit suite and camera, the personal loan ended up at about 12G at the time. The loan is long dead. The camera still works superbly.
I always bought smokes instead of art supplies, but I could keep myself entertained for hours telling stories to a 50c pad of paper with a pen.
Tue Mar 04, 09:01:00 am
Gnat, no, it's not an item. But did your life depend on doing that electrical work... probably not. No, it was done to enable you to do the work you prefer to do, in the place you prefer to do it. I believe it's a fairly luxurious thing to be able to spend 8G to enable a passion. I would totally rule that in.
...and the Spring suit... mind you... They're kind of essential if you want to go surfing.
Tue Mar 04, 09:06:00 am
I dont have a problem with trail mix. I could stop at any time if I wanted to.
Tue Mar 04, 10:22:00 am
Go on, stop then!
...
You're not stopping!
...
Holding the bag of trail mix behind your back, smiling, and none too surreptitiously putting the trail mix in your mouth and chewing is not considered stopping.
...
Diana, I can see the chocolate on your teeth.
...
it won't get any better until you admit you have a problem!
Tue Mar 04, 10:30:00 am
I've got a passion for old Russian cameras and have spent quite a bit on them. It is fun trying to figure them out and see the results. I think I enjoy them more than the digital camera I bought.
Wed Mar 05, 12:23:00 pm
That would be magic! Playing with Soviet cameras, now that's what I call some fun. Do they take standard 35mm or do you have to cut and perforate other stock? Do you have a site where you've uploaded any of the photo's you've taken?
I once saw an old soviet 16mm film camera that was completely white. Looked like it was something from A Space Odyssey 2001. It would certainly give those white Ipods a run for their money in my book.
Wed Mar 05, 12:39:00 pm
Heeeey! Rather than calling them Spirds they could be called Brights! That totally fits in with the song... and it would totally annoy these people because they show is full of little puppet nature spirits :) I like that!
Wed Mar 05, 01:55:00 pm
Good idea!
It does fit your fairy characters better then a group of real people. As if the rest of us were dims or something...I'm all for annoying them.
Thu Mar 06, 01:13:00 pm
Hey Mr. Rich! Just came by to see if you are playing nice over here or not. Yeah equipment is not cheap is it. Ballet shoes for me went for about $80 each and I would sometimes go through about 2-3 per performance and practicing and classes. Well when you do that every day then you can do the math...ouch! Glad I don't and didn't have to pay for it and perhaps when some people who donate to the arts see the figures they will donate more. Oh the things that are necessities of the job. That light looks pretty cool actually!
hope all is well with the reformed Satan ;)
Ta-M.
Thu Mar 06, 03:01:00 pm
Well, you know what these people are like L>t, if you don't agree with them you're obviously dumb. As though diversity of ideas is a bad thing. As for the name, yeah, it suits the characters quite well!
Fri Mar 07, 11:47:00 am
Hey Ballerinagurl - Long time no see. I always play nice.
As for equipment, yeah, Luckily these lights will last longer than your ballerina shoes. Although I do have a habit of blowing globes through careless handling. The daylight globes cost roughly the same amount as shoes. Guess I'll just have to be careful.
Fri Mar 07, 11:51:00 am
Hi, just flown in to say thanks for leaving a comment the other day about the hare. I've just had a quick look and spotted your Bunny and Carrot Legs very cute. Today's luxury item ... sunflower seeds for the feathered fly-ins ;)
Fri Mar 07, 03:29:00 pm
Making the rounds, the contest is on.
Ornament if you guess for first and the marble for sending them to me. You know the drill, you might end up with a whole collection of marbles before it is done.
Gnat.
.
Sat Mar 08, 04:12:00 am
Rich, a latte habit IS a luxury. If you just buy one, its not, but if you buy them a lot, it is. 2 lattes a week adds up to $360 a year, enough to buy the ear of a beautiful handmade bunny. There is even a name for it in personal finance circles- it's called "the latte factor" re: small purchaces made often that add up to a lot of money.
I don't know if Australian culture is the same, but in an American city, there is a cup of coffee in the hand of 1 of 10 people. 1 of 4 in a downtown area.
Having my hair ripped from the roots of course is not a luxury, it is a neccesity.
Sat Mar 08, 05:53:00 am
I just found out from my daughter that the slang for those drive up coffee places springing up all over is "Crack shacks" :)
I'm getting hooked on Yerba Mate. it's a mellower buzz then coffee.
Sun Mar 09, 02:14:00 pm
Bimbimbie! Nice to have a fellow nature loving Aussie about.
Ahhh, sunflower seeds. You will be popular :)
Mon Mar 10, 11:27:00 am
Gnat, the shout out is all yours!
Mon Mar 10, 11:28:00 am
Aussies are certainly great lovers of coffee and the Latte factor as well Diana.
I was chatting to someone the other day, I think it was one of the Americans at school, who was saying that they were speaking to an older Italian gent who claimed that he'd never had better coffee anywhere in the world than Australia. I found that hard to believe but from what everyone says (international people I meet) nothing is worse than American coffee.
How is it possible that Americans have fallen so deeply in love with something they don't make properly?
Mon Mar 10, 11:34:00 am
Wow L>t, another stimulating beverage other than tea of coffee. I'd give that a go! What a coup!
Mon Mar 10, 11:36:00 am
Post a Comment
<< Home