After the most horrendous winter we’ve seen in a good long while, I think it’s FINALLY safe to say we’re officially approaching Summer. Next weekend we arrive at the Vernal Equinox and this muggy week beckons in a hot next few months. To celebrate the warmer days, here’s a collection of our warm Summer Memories from the 2011 and 2012 rehearsals for The Dick and The Rose:
We at the Outcast Cafe are very proud to announce that our short film COYOTE GIRL has been accepted into the 2015 Snake Alley Festival of Film in Burlington, Iowa! “Dedicated to showcasing the best shorts from around the world, with a strong emphasis on story,” we are honored to be a part of a festival recognizing these accomplishments.
This is our second film to go to Snake Alley. In 2013 One Year’s Crop was nominated for Best Documentary ! In celebration let’s take a trip down memory lane:
Artistic director, writer, actor, artist Robert Biggs talks about One Year’s Crop. Very interesting to watch now and draw similar parallels from his interview to our newest tale, Coyote Girl.
Here are some pics of the last time Biggs and Sims were at Snake Alley:
It’s a pleasure and an honor to return to “the crookedest film festival in the u.s.” And let us know if you’ll be joining us at #SNAFF2015 !
Courtesy of one of our original Ministering Angels, Dylan Wittrock, we are happy to send you on a journey down memory lane. Here is a compilation video of our promotional efforts on the Royal Mile at Edinburgh Fringe 2011, shout out to Bob and Mickey for all their hard work:
With a few raw materials, an old coyote skull, some petty cash, a rough idea, and a good dose of faith in hand, off I went to make a puppet!
When I returned to the Berkshires in late June of 2013, Biggs presented me with the top half of a coyote skull that he’d found and a plush coyote, about four feet long, constructed of muslin and stuffing, by the lovely Emily Justice Dunn, creator of our Drape and Baby Noah from “The Dick and The Rose”. We had discussed, while I was still in New York, the upcoming story he was spinning into play and screenplay form, and that in this story we needed a talking Coyote. He told me to take inspiration from Emily’s sweet pup, mix it up with what we learned in Tom’s workshop, and dive boldly into the experiment of making an approximately life-sized Coyote puppet for an upcoming short film and play.
So home I went to do some research on Handspring Puppet company, the amazing South African group that Tom worked with on War Horse, a company that has been producing incredible animal puppets that move in lifelike ways while maintaining a creative, homespun, story telling aesthetic in their overall look. I knew this is what I felt inspired by and envisioned for Coyote. Before I moved back up to the Berkshires, I’d had the good fortune of being invited to puppeteer with HiveMind Theatre Company in their short puppet play at St.Ann’s Warehouse’s Toy Theatre Festival. Over the rehearsal period, I watched puppets be tinkered with and built from wood, fabric, paper, glue, paint, staples, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. Witnessing the work behind Chan Thou’s Tuk Tuk also gave me confidence to dabble in the unknown.
And so several months of experiments began as I started on what I envisioned as a two to three person, Bunraku-style, life-sized Coyote puppet. I started with a rough, wooden skeleton. I used the size and shape of Emily’s plush Coyote, as well as photos of coyote skeletons found online, to create templates out of large sheets of masonite that I had on hand. Then, I planned to connect them with wire, dowels, and backpack strap (a useful, strong material that Tom suggested). The main part of the skeleton consisted of a ribcage with a front and back piece of masonite and wire “ribs” connecting the two. A hole was cut in the front piece to allow for the neck stick of the head to come through and the back piece was designed with a wrist rest so that one hand could manipulate the shoulders and head together. The rib cage then connected to a spine, which would have some hips constructed in a similar fashion to the shoulder piece, with an identical, dowel-sized hole for the tale. The legs were built of masonite, dowel,and backpack strap with appropriate joints and as natural movement as possible ( this inspiration I pulled from Handspring), and the feet were weighted to potentially relieve the puppeteers of excess manipulation.
Then came the head. Building roughly in the format taught by Tom Lee, I created a coyote skull out of crumpled paper and masking tape. Mounted on a short dowel (functioning as the neck, and also as a mechanism to control the head from within or beneath the body), I took the rough skull shape and added finesse with fine, transparent paper (similar to the traditionally-used rice paper) and watered-down wood glue. After completing the moveable top half of the skull, I also made a working jaw. Biggs wanted an active tongue, if possible, so I began to play around with trigger systems and got a little in over my head. I’m no engineer and that’s for sure! But, with a little help and patience, I managed to rig a spring trigger inside the mouth to move the jaw from the hand which would be inside the rib cage, and saw potential to make moving ears/ tongue.
However, my patience began to ware thin. I was struggling with maintaining focus and inspiration as well as solving what felt like challenging physics, and I was reminded of why I chose the artistic path that I did. I’m a collaborator, and find my fuel in the melding of my passion with others. I was having a really hard time working mostly alone, in silence, assembling a creature I couldn’t yet bring to life in a satisfactory way. There were other issues, too. The head I’d worked so hard on, was much to large and long for an actual coyote. The body was becoming too complex to manipulate with ease and we weren’t sure that we’d have more than just myself as a puppeteer, especially for the film, so I needed to get back to the drawing board and work on a simpler, smaller, more accurate puppet for a single puppeteer. The good news is that I could focus on just the top half of the body for the film’s sake. I decided to start from a place of necessity, the bare bones of what the puppet needed to do, and to come from a puppeteer’s functional perspective rather than a design-oriented angle. But this a tale for next time…
Happy #tbt (Throw Back Thursday) everyone! Can’t believe our shoot of Coyote Girl is becoming a memory. Keeping the sweet memories fresh with another exciting sneak peek of a still from our short film. To keep you all up to date, our movie is currently being authored in Santa Cruz, CA. Looking forward to having those mastered discs very soon! Keep your eyes out at your local film festivals and we’ll release info about our circuit for Coyote Girl A.S.A.P:
Outcast Café is hard at work on our future projects. Our team is spread far and wide right now (and so is our film Coyote Girl) before we come together again early this Spring to start work on the next installment of Robert Biggs’ original works. We can’t wait to tell you more about are plans for the Spring of 2015, but first lets all go back to some past adventures in a little image throwback. Enjoy!
We’re very excited to announce that we are now on the way to getting Coyote Girl out into the world. Sims and Biggs are hard at work completing the Withoutabox application for submission to a handful of national and international film festivals this upcoming year. Meanwhile, Rick and Biggs peruse the film on the big screen for any final edits or adjustments. For your viewing pleasure, here is another gorgeous still from our short film. I think it might be my favorite:
As Coyote Girl’s post-production phase comes to a close, and we prepare to submit to festivals, we are happy to share this little sneak peek behind the scene shot with you! Take a look at Outcast Cafe recording the cello soundtrack (Composed by Robert Biggs and performed by Jonah Thomas)
last Monday at Pilot Recording Studios in Housatonic, MA.
January has been an amazing month for Outcast Café! We have spent the past two and a half weeks officially entering the production phase of making our second short film, Coyote Girl, the poetic version of the 90 minute play script Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe. After spending about two weeks on location in Westfield, Illinois the team has dispersed and continues to work on post-production for the film as well as upcoming projects for the company. Here is the next installment of our adventures on location from the perspective of company member Gail Shalan (Riley Ann, Coyote):
Thursday 01.15.15
9:03 a.m.- Despite the promise of an early morning again today, the weather forbids our last effort to capture the drone shot in scene 7. Rick is awesome and emails me the night before, so I get a couple extra hours before our final day of shooting begins. Some sun salutations and serious journaling are in order.
11:13 a.m.- With the morning off and no plans to get going until after lunch, Biggs takes the opportunity to give me a further glimpse at the geography which makes up the history of our little tale. We plow through muddy roads that cut across fields and fields of ghosted corn. It’s sunny and warmer than it has been. Golden light floods the truck. In the usual fashion, each time we pass a certain piece of acreage, I get a detailed backstory of how the land came into, or passed from, Biggs’ possession. We go all the way to the far corners of the South Place, opposite on the property from David’s house, loop around through the land that lays so low it floods most of the year. We actually drive straight over a semi-frozen river and onto a special plot of land preserved by the government as a graveyard and conservation landmark. Here I hear the charming account of the time my dearest childhood friend, Robert and Deborah’s daughter Emma, was brought here in her youth and asked in wonder:”So… do we own dead people?”… perhaps, in a way. And on a more serious note, it’s the spirits evoked by this tour of the Biggs Farm, those who’s remains are buried in the graveyard, or the native people’s who may be in the fields, as well as the stories those who’ve moved on have left behind, which bring a reverence to the last day of my participation in this particular iteration of our tale of life and death. I’m glad to bid farewell to this understated character of our story. The magic of filming “on location” is not to be belittled on a project like this. It’s a memorable morning for sure.
2:34 p.m.- We meet the others at the smokehouse again for lunch and somewhat tragic news. This morning, while attempting to capture a drone shot for scene 3 in which the drone flies perilously close to the side of the house, an self-inflicted draft caused a crash landing. Being rather new technology, and quite expensive, the machine has had it’s run on the shoot and must be shipped out to Japan (I believe) to undergo repair. We toast to the drone, enjoy our last proper pulled pork, discuss travel to the airport tomorrow and head back to the Home Place to begin our final work day.
4:06 p.m.- First scene of the day features only the Old Man, so I settle up in the “green room” with my moving playlist I’ve made titled “Coyote Girl” and relax into the zone of Riley Ann’s final stretch. The goal for me, is to keep the energy level and focus clear until we begin scene 15 around 6 p.m.
6:30 p.m.- Scene 15 is gorgeous. I love working on this. It’s all close-ups. I feel like I’m finally understanding what part of me is framed in what shot and how to make the slight adjustments which give me control over my performance without damaging the organic experience of the moment. Day 4 is off to a good start. We capture several different options to chose from in post and Rick seems quite happy with the results of my work, which feels very validating, knowing he’ll be making those final cuts.
8:48 p.m. – Time to film the death scene… duh, duh, duh. While there is a bit of extensive choreography, the first few takes of the master go very well. When we sit down to watch them played back for a lighting or sound adjustment, however, we notice a major problem: The issue with what started as a play and has been made into a film (and this is not the first time we’ve worked our way through this challenge) is that sometimes simple, physical choices that work for the stage without a doubt, we just can’t get away with on film. In the continuous shot, from the Old Man’s last breath through Riley Ann’s long farewell, it is very challenging for Biggs to hold his breath, especially with the irregular nature of the “dying breath”… and it’s entirely impossible to mask the blinking of his lids, as the necessary lighting shines right into his eyes. We spend a lot of time trouble shooting this problem, and eventually, I believe we come up with a combination of distorted light and cutting the shot.
11:39 p.m.- While, technically, the former scene took a while to capture, the good streak of artistic work continued. I’m feeling confident, and yet, remaining in a very heightened emotional state for the character. Or rather, flowing in and out of it repeatedly, attempting to preserve energy, but not being able to hang onto much. I figure we’re good, though. When we rehearsed the scene last week, we ran the entire screenplay through, or as much as possible. This, in turn, created the pattern that Riley Ann gets up from her dead father’s body and takes her Coyote boy to the window with her, staring out into the abyss in what, at the time, was fairly extensive and very fresh sorrow and loss. Knowing I needed to be in such a tender state, I revved myself up and remained incredibly emotional throughout the process of our first several takes. But something wasn’t working. The shot was coming off as incredibly theatrical. It felt too heavy. It just wasn’t right. Biggs came in and out of the door, trying to give me sensitive and delicate directional nudges, but it wasn’t fixing the problem. Not sure if it was the bright lights and entire crew staring at me and my puppet in a somewhat unrehearsed moment that made me feel like I was failing, or the fact that I’d made Riley Ann completely frenetic and out of sorts, but I just wasn’t moving in the right direction for what the scene needed. I found myself confused, frustrated, feeling unprofessional and like I was wasting everyone’s time…. It was 1 a.m. on our last day of shooting, which thus far had been a roaring success for me, and I couldn’t get my shit together.
After a mini conference with my directors, Biggs and Rick, which yielded some useful conversation about what we determined earlier that week; what remained useful, and what we should scrap; and some other options to try, I took some very, very deep breaths and we began again. It’s quite possible that the scene had morphed, that the story had taken a turn none of us had foreseen, that Riley Ann actually had earned to come out the other side of her struggle and into the unknown. Beneath the dense wave of embarrassing emotion, and the thick wall of struggling communication, we had some how excavated a beautiful, truthful, and completely surprising final moment for our film and for our shoot. It was the epitome of the gigantic learning curve this entire process had been.
Wednesday, February 11th, 11:41 p.m.
I’m not sure I’m conveying the moment in an articulate manner, but when I woke up in the morning, with a few hours of deep sleep and a promising plane ride home to my beloved, I felt utterly proud, excited, and revelatory of a new chapter of my own work as an actor, as well as a large accomplishment for the company. Now, I move on to new projects, and tell you readers about fond memories, while our talented team puts together a gorgeous, potent, relevant short film called “Coyote Girl”.
Thank you for reading our log of the on location film shoot last month. If you would like to keep up to date on Coyote Girl‘s process, please check in with this blog frequently and follow us on twitter and instagram: @outcastcafe
January has been an amazing month for Outcast Café! We have spent the past two and a half weeks officially entering the production phase of making our second short film, Coyote Girl, the poetic version of the 90 minute play script Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe. After spending about two weeks on location in Westfield, Illinois the team has dispersed and continues to work on post-production for the film as well as upcoming projects for the company. Here is the next installment of our adventures on location from the perspective of company member Gail Shalan (Riley Ann, Coyote)
Wednesday 01.14.15
6:55 a.m.– SURPRISE!!! My phone rings a wake-up call just before 7. Good thing my ringer was turned on nice and loud! I’m a pretty heavy sleeper and am still adjusting to these country hours of up and down with the sun. Expecting to not go in to shoot until a bit before noon, I’d set my alarms in a relaxed fashion. But so goes life on a film shoot! The lighting is perfect! The wind is dead! We gotta get this drone shoot now, baby, or it ain’t gonna happen! Adrenaline surges and I hop on out of bed, looking very much forward to the coffee promised at the Home Place.
8:25 a.m.- Turns out that farm air is more fickle than we thought. The conditions aren’t conducive, so we post-pone the drone shot of Riley Ann driving up the road until a later time and decide to scrap the exterior shot of scene 7 that Rick had mapped out and forgotten to get during the long day of shooting yesterday. The guys still have plenty to capture, and to be honest, I don’t mind at all. It’s a real joy being on set, witnessing the commotion and the artistry at hand. Establishing shots and tid-bits are taken care of. In a couple hours we will start work on scene 13, the second Coyote talking scene. I can go ahead and get out of Scene 7 make-up and costume and into our look for scene 13, involving much more weariness, a pair of sweatpants, and a jacket.
10:56 a.m.- Diving right into scene 13, we attempt to figure out how to get a continuous master shot and again run into problems with getting the puppet on and in place in enough time, especially in the tighter corners that we have with this frame. We split the scene in two: A section of Riley Ann carrying a waste bin (…filled with waste) out and in the back door while the Old Man sits as witness to the chaos, and a section of Coyote’s pure frustration, revealing Riley Ann, and ultimately Riley Ann and the Coyote bidding the Old Man farewell.
1:46 p.m.- While I certainly struggle with comprehending the logistics of my shadow in the shots on Biggs during the first half, the rest of the scene is pretty seamless. It’s a bit of an emotional blur, as I attempt to maintain, or go in and out of, the state where Riley Ann has to be to start this fury. But I practice Terry’s advice of staying present only when I need to be as Gail, and protecting my mind, space, senses from the buzz around me inbetween takes. We’ve done a lot of work to get to this place, and the story begins to carry itself just about here. At least for me and Coyote. It’s challenging for Biggs to play this tender moment against Coyote who at times simply cannot make eye contact (even if I could tell where he was looking from below the table) because of the frame needed on the back of Coyote’s head. But the work remains ever poignant and beautiful, and Coyote feels very triumphant with his performance, as well as the new skills he’s picked up on camera.We wrap the scene in good time.
3:15 p.m.- Now’s our golden moment to capture the driving shot. With our last few hours of strong daylight, the gents head out to the field with drone in tow while I get costumed quickly for the first Riley Ann look. With a 21st century walkie-talkie system (iPhones), Sims crouches in the back of the Pick-Up while I master reversing down a semi-frozen dirt road in heels. After about the 8th take, I’m about ready to sign up as a stunt woman for the next Fast & Furious flick. Okay, not really, but it’s a lot of back and forth on about a quarter-mile of turf, I get pretty comfortable. Finally, we get a shot or two that seem useable and get cut for dinner.
6:03 p.m.- Biggs skips the meal as he needs the hour or so we have to apply full body make-up for scene 10 in which the Old Man is caught dreaming, singing, and dancing naked under the full moon (insert full moon pun here). When we get back I settle into my coziest costume, a set of hideous teacup p.j.’s. and lie down on a couch while Josh assembles the most gorgeous artificial moonlight through a lace curtain that I’ve ever experienced. Once settled in and rehearsed, as this scene takes a bit of combat choreography, we begin shooting the incredibly violent and upsetting piece. This scene is TRULY Coyote’s first appearance in the film, and it’s easy to feel how necessary a device the puppet/character is to our emotional little tale. While there are barely any words, very brief action, and a peaceful beginning and end to this moment in the story, it’s emotionally the most wrenching for me, Gail, on this journey. I don’t want to spoil too much, but in scene 10 the essence of the deterioration and redefinition of Father and Daughter is apparent in an instant, as is the necessity of the puppet device for both characters involved. If I were to pick one scene to sum up the story, I think it would be scene 10.
8:55 p.m.- Our second shadows-on-the-building shot has been scrapped. Rick feels he has enough from yesterday to make the piece work, and we have priorities to complete. Our final bit of filming for today is to get some footage of Coyote in front of a black screen called “Elements” footage which Rick will later lay on top of a shot or two that looks out the window. This will create an effect of Coyote staring into the window from outside. I quickly sew up the poor guy’s crooked mouth for his closeup while the guys set up the next shot.
9:28 p.m.- Blindly led through the most avant-garde element of this entire process, Coyote and I show off his tricks to Rick in front of the screen. By which I mean Rick quickly figures out a directing technique of guiding Coyote’s gaze in a rhythm and various directions to get the image he seeks. It’s pretty weird, wacky, cool stuff. Coyote rocks it, per usual.
10:03 p.m.- The day is a wrap! Wahoo! Final day of shooting is tomorrow. Early shot is planned at 7 a.m. so it’s off to bed I go.