Small Star Seminar

Close to 20 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the movie Glory Daze (1995) starring Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Alyssa Milano, and French Stewart. It's a tad cheesy, but I still like it. It's one of those coming of age tales where life beyond college seems scary and unpleasant. A group of friends attempt to hang on to their college lifestyle, but ultimately grow up by the time the credits roll.

The film features a soundtrack jam packed with a bunch of punk rock music from the 80s and early 90s. As I was into punk rock pretty heavily in those days, this only made me get more into the movie. The odd exception to the punk rock line up on the soundtrack is a song called "Baby" by a band I had never heard of called The Billy Nayer Show. The song, with its vulgar lyrics sang in a way that makes it more funny than shocking, grabbed me immediately. I became a fan for life.

Over the twenty years since I started listening to The Billy Nayer Show, they have put out several albums and provided the soundtrack to the feature films The American Astronaut, Stingray Sam, and Crazy & Thief, all written and directed by their lead singer Cory McAbee. The movies and music have always resonated with me.

In April of 2015, Cory McAbee released his first solo album, Small Star Seminar. This concept album presents ideas from a fictional motivational speaker. Most motivational types will tell you to get the right attitude and reach for the stars. This speaker lets you know its OK to remain silent, accept your station, and reach for the stars inside your own mind.

After the album was released, Cory put out a call for members of Captain Ahab's Motorcycle Club, a global art collective he formed in 2010, to pitch in and make a film based on the Small Star Seminar album. Presented as a fantasy documentary, the film is to be made up of live show footage as well as scenes of Small Star Seminar literature being disseminated to people on the street. The album and the film concept intrigued me, so I decided to hop on board and get involved.

Not being a film maker with expensive equipment, I decided to go the promotional artwork route. I began by throwing together a poster for the fictional Small Star Corporation and their even more fictional Department of Astroneurology. I really enjoy the concept of looking for stars in one's own mind and went for a retro vibe; something I might see in the halls of a campus in the late 1960s.

I had become friends with Cory McAbee on Facebook and sent the image to him via message. He responded that he loved the image and this was enough to get me jazzed up to make even more images for the project.

I also went about tracking down a local venue for Cory to perform his new material and get footage for the movie. After a lot of emailing, a venue was locked down and a couple of camera operators were located.

A visual element to be captured in this film is the handing out of brochures to strangers to let them know about the Small Star Seminar. Cory has designed his own brochures but encouraged anyone to create their own. I sat down and cranked out the inside and outside panels of a tri-fold brochure over a couple of days.

When Cory finally arrived for his gig here, it was a pleasure to have him as a house guest and get to know him. He has an infectious enthusiasm and you can't help but be in a great mood when he is around. My wife and I spent two of the nights he stayed with us watching YouTube videos Cory suggested while drinking beer. It was an absolute blast. There is no better house guest on Earth.

This project has been wonderful inspiration when it comes to creating graphics. It helped me decide to go back to school for a graphic design certificate. It's a great feeling to be part of a project that is so inclusive of everyone's ideas and artwork. I've learned a great deal about the whole crowdsourcing movement and see it as a wonderful option for creative types looking to put together a project but are limited on time and resources.

It has been exceptionally gratifying to see my work reach beyond my local area. Promotional videos for the Small Star Seminar tour posted on Facebook include the artwork I have contributed. Cory has handed out the brochures I designed in Iceland and all around the United States. A tour stop in Marfa, Texas revealed his fans had plastered the town with the poster you see to the left. Someone even took to Twitter so chastise Cory for such antics (regardless of not being the one to put the posters up).

The film is far from complete. As of this writing, Cory has only completely one leg of his concert tour. He has amassed a ton of great footage and hopes to add another ton or two before editing begins. In our conversations during his stay, Cory has let me in on some plot points and concepts the film will explore and I am excited to see it all come to fruition.

If you want to participate in a fantastic crowdsourced film, please head over to smallstarseminar.net and sign up. Make some art and get it to Cory. He will genuinely appreciate your efforts and you will be contributing to a film I know is going to be great. Below you will find more images related to this project. Enjoy.

The Marfa Vandal strikes!

The Small Star Seminar tri-fold brochure

Cory and friends handing out Small Star Seminar brochures in Iceland

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I Ain't 'Fraid of No Project: Proton Pack Build Part 2

Synchronicity

Dan Aykroyd is a weird guy. When it comes to Ghostbusters, this guy came up with a name for every part on every device. In fact, in a behind the scenes video featured on the disc for the Ghostbusters video game released a few years ago, Mr. Aykroyd goes so far as to let you know he's taken the liberty of pricing out a working prototype of the fictional equipment he designed. When I was a kid I had no idea the Proton Pack had a parts list. Thanks to the internet, I now know what it is I happen to be working on at any given step of this project. I suppose it is helpful to give these things names rather than say "the roundish doodad with the thing sticking out of it," but it definitely feels weird to describe a fictional part of a fictional device by a proper noun.

My latest progress with the Pack involves a part called the "Synchronous Generator." Neat. To make this, I once again followed the advice of Mr. Thomas Galvin, prop master. Using another foam board pattern, I cut out the basic shape of my new part from both luan and Styrofoam. I cut in a six inch hole in the center for running electronics later in the project.

Using more of the awesome wood glue, I sandwiched two layers of the styrofoam together and placed the luan layer on top. It is glued to the Motherboard in the same fashion and "clamped" using a pile of old encyclopedias I got off Craigslist for another project.

Synchronicity II

Post glue, pre-book clamp

The next day after the glue had cured, I took a palm stander to the edges and made it as smooth as possible. This is where things get stupid. I needed to cut a bunch of strips of painters masking paper in the measurements needed to do three to four layers to cover the exposed foam. Not many folks know this, but foam has a negative reaction to most spray paints: it has a tendency to melt. Seeing as I have to paint this thing later on in the build process, it is probably a good idea to seal in the foam somehow. But how do I attach the paper to the foam, you ask?

Mixing an entire bottle of Titebond II Wood Glue with the same amount of ounces of water, I get a killer papier-mâché mix. A word of advice: buy a workshop. This step was just plain awful to get through. I did this part on the floor of my garage. I had to have the door open and it happened to be breezy. Great. It isn't much fun wrangling strips of paper while you're elbow deep in liquid wood glue and trying to keep the application smooth. There are no pictures of this process due to obvious reasons.

The French can suck it.

After letting the whole thing dry for a day, I used an X-Acto knife to trim off the excess masking paper and hit everything with the sander once more. There were some problem areas that needed filling so I applied some spackle and sanded a couple of times.

Overall, I would say this is coming along nicely. At this point, most the really time consuming work is done. I'll continue to pick away at this a little here and there, but I have a bevy of other projects demanding my attention. With a due date of next June, I think I can take my time a little with this one.

Stay tuned for more updates on this and other inadequate workshop frustrations as they develop...

Dry wall spackle is essential to any Synchronous Generations

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I Ain't 'Fraid of No Project: Proton Pack Build Part 1

I like to attend nerdy Comic Con type events. I walk around and buy over-priced merchandise and try to find great independent artwork to hang up in my house. As much as I enjoy these types of events, I have never dressed up as some sort of pop culture character and blended in with the other costume crafting geeks. I decided for next year's Comic Con I will join the ranks of those with too much time on their hands and become something I have wanted to be ever since I was five years old: A Ghostbuster.

Brought to you by X-Acto!

Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favorite movies. I know the entire movie front to back. It's one of those movies where everything came together to make something fresh and original. I've seen it countless times including on the big screen.

In order to be a Ghostbuster you really need one essential piece of equipment: the proton pack. I've scoured the internet and to buy one of these unlicensed nuclear accelerators requires a load of bread to capitalize. Instead of shelling out 800-2000 hard earned dollars on ebay, I have decided to build my own. I've done a ton of research and decided to make a quasi-screen accurate version. It won't be perfect, but it will definitely be passable.

After a lot of pouring over diagrams and YouTube videos, I've developed my own plan to put together my pack. A lot of the base technique I lifted from a series of videos by prop maker Thomas Galvin. 

Using A combination of measurements from Mr. Galvin and a couple of other sources, I designed a template for the "motherboard" of the Proton Pack. This shape gets cut out of 3/4 inch plywood and two pieces of 1/8 inch luan.

Unfortunately, I don't have much of a workshop. In fact, I borrowed the jigsaw I used from a co-worker in order to make my cuts. I also had to put together a ghetto compass for drawing the curves in the templates by clamping a Sharpie and a nail to a metal ruler. It worked surprisingly well.

Another technique lifted from Mr. Galvin was the removal of the bulk of the 3/4 inch plywood sheet by cutting it into a frame rather than a solid sheet. This really drops the weight down while keeping the overall board integrity intact.

The three pieces of wood then get glued together. I used Titebond II, electric boogaloo. The trick to gluing wood together is using clamps. As you can see in the photo below, I ran out of conventional clamps and had to resort to some "off-schedule" tools.

So far, this project seems to be going well. I feel it will be far more rewarding to put this prop together rather than chumping out and purchasing a pre-made Pack. Stay tuned for more progress as it develops.

Yes, those are jumper cables on the left.

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Welcome to Manfrotto Labs

This here is a blog. The internet is festooned with them. Personally, I don't read them regularly. Sure, I stumble upon plenty of blogs in my quest for knowledge; a tutorial here, an editorial there. When it comes down to it, however, I'm not really into the art form. So why not start one of my own?

Perhaps I should clarify: I'm cheap and largely inept at web design.

But why do I need a blog in the first place?

Simple: I am an artist. I don't particularly enjoy the stigmas (stigmi?) hauled around by the title, but I can't think of another label for my brand of shenanigans.

I tend to hop all over the mediums when it comes to creativity. I make zines as a large part of my output, but I dabble in graphic design, music, making instruments, and whatever interests me that particular week.

In this blog you will find more detailed posts about my various projects. For those of you with short attention spans, this blog has a Facebook page to provide you with the Cliff's Notes version. Please like the page for the full Manfrotto Laboratories experience.

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