REM & Improv Everywhere

Some of you may remember a stunt I posted on by Improv Everywhere a couple months ago. A group of I think 300 agents infiltrated Grand Central Station in NYC and froze simultaneously for five minutes. If you haven't watched it yet, it's surely worth it.

Well a couple days ago REM posted this video, which IE was calling a shameless ripoff.

I guess it kind of is. I mean they're obviously doing the same sort of thing, and that is in fact a ripoff... sort of.

Wired Magazine picked this up yesterday and made a few counterpoints. The main one being everything is copied from something these days, so what's the big deal? While I don't agree with that statement necessarily I think it could be fair to say this video was inspired by, rather than ripped off from the IE video. It's even possible that they thought of it independently based on a common influence. Thill at Wired says, "It has been done before, differently and similarly, which is to say that the frozen-in-time routine is hardly an 'original idea.' As James7777777 commented on Geek Gestalt, the U.K. spoof Just for Laughs pulled the same trick almost a decade earlier, albeit in a convenience store rather than Grand Central Station."

So you could say it's not a ripoff, get over it, except that yesterday in response to the backlash REM PR people apologized, admitted that "us on team REM love the stuff you guys do," took it down and are currently redoing the video to include a nod to IE. By taking those steps, REM basically admitted that yes, it was in fact a ripoff. Honestly I don' t think there's anything wrong with that, and I'm even impressed that they're taking steps to repair the hurt feelings. Because in this case that's all it is... as far as I can tell there was no possible legal action IE could have taken as far as copyright stuff goes. (Lori, are you out there? Am I right about that?)

Here's my issue. In spite of REM's response, I don't really think this was a ripoff. For one thing the REM version doesn't take place in Grand Central Station which takes one degree of similarity away. As far as the style of the stunt, as James pointed out, freezing in a public place to confuse and weird people out? Been there. The main connection between IE's stunt and REM's stunt was the number of spectators and agents involved and the simple admission by REM that they ripped it off. That isn't enough of a similarity for me. The biggest single difference between these two videos in my mind is intent.

The purpose of the REM video is to look cool (and it does). It also succeeds wonderfully in capturing the attitude of the band REM. While the spectators involved probably didn't know what was going on, the people freezing were likely paid actors, or at least an informed group of people who wanted to be associated on video with REM rather than the stunt itself.

The IE video on the other hand uses hundreds of agents who, before they meet up right before the stunt, have no idea what they're going to be doing. In away the spectators, while even less informed, are every bit as involved as the players. And the main difference is that in IE the intent is to play, to confuse, to interact with people and spaces. This is fundamentally different from the purpose of REM.

I guess my point is that while it might have been copied it's not even possible for REM to ripoff what IE did in Grand Central station. It's the difference between art and marketing.

And since we're talking about Improv Everywhere, I'll finish off with the latest IE video from the The Boston Society of Spontaneity.

Accidental Art

A while ago, before Matt moved in here so REALLY a while ago, we printed out some photos and left them in the car. We forgot about them and recently found the resulting images:
Ok I've got these tagged as a drawing so people can find it when they want to look at my artwork (though obviously these were not intentionally created) because they're so cool. I'm fascinated by how the colors have blurred, and I especially like the mix of the complete lack of order with remnants of the original images.
Ten points to whoever guesses what the photos are about first. Hint: they're all pictures of the same thing or things.
This might be fun to play around with sometime, print out some actual artwork and get a dropper filled with water. Could get some cool effects. Not so different to what artists have been doing to watersafe ink with alcohol for ages I suppose, but easier.
That one ought to have made it pretty obvious, but here's a couple more chances if you don't have it yet:
And if you don't get it on this last one I give up on you.
Anyone?

Picturing Matt

Some of you may have noticed that pictures I post on this site with Matt in them do not actually show his face. That's at his request, because Matt would prefer that his photograph not appear on the web. I can understand this. Obviously I have my own photo on the web, have made a conscious decision to do so. As an aspiring artist and writer I need to market myself, and I believe part of that is having my image available.

For reasons of his own, Matt doesn't want his photo online but as he does intend to publish, and in some ways, also needs to market himself, he would like to have some kind of image associated with himself. He came up with a rather clever compromise I think, by asking David Mack to draw a picture of him. David Mack is best known as the writer and illustrator of the popular Kabuki series of graphic novels which are some of the most beautiful comics I've ever seen. I mean, ever. Mack did a quick $20 sketch and agreed to let Matt use it as the image for his websites. Matt is currently using it as his blog "photo." I suppose this might get more complicated later on when Matt does start publishing, but then again, maybe not. David Mack seems pretty laid back and is also one of the nicest artists I've met at a Comic Book convention.

Camera Counter Culture

I never wanted a camera phone. I bought this crappy chocolate back in March and didn't notice it had a camera until a few days later.

So why did I start doing this photo-a-day thing? Because my phone's memory is already filled with photos. After careful erasing I've got 200 photos left.

Everyone has those, "Gee, I wish I had a camera," moments. When I was an undergrad at ND I was returning to my dorm one day from the student center and I stopped mid-step in astonishment to look at the library. It was painted neon-pink from the sunset. It was one of the coolest natural lighting phenomenas I've ever seen. I had one of those moments then, and after a minute of being frozen in place by awe and indecision I ran like mad to my dorm to grab my camera. Of course by the time I returned the light was gone and I wished I'd just stayed to enjoy it. Then, a few years ago, driving in downtown Cleveland I was struck by the beauty of the buildings rising out of the fog. Not that I could have taken a picture even if I'd had a camera handy, but still, it gave me that feeling. Fortunately, fog and Cleveland are pretty constant bedfellows, so I've had many opportunities for further cool shots.

And now that I've GOT a camera phone, whenever I get that feeling, it's slowly followed by the realization that I do have a camera. Often my reaction is too slow to catch the moment, but I get it far more often then I did before.

This all made me think about the next generation, the kids that are growing up in the information age. This statement makes me sound pretty old I guess, and I'm not that old, but I'm not a child of the information age. I remember not having a computer. I remember not having a cell phone, much less a camera phone. Hell, I remember having a walkman that played cassettes. My point is that although people of my generation are generally very adaptable, we're used to rapidly changing technology, we're not quite as used to it as the new generation. We adapt, but the kids change as rapidly as the technology.

Soon enough, everyone will have a camera, all the time. Unlike me, these kids won't have that half second hesitation that makes them miss the moment. I'm just curious as to how this change could affect the face of photography, of imagery, and of art.

Shakespeare Horror

I'm reading a literary satire at the moment called The Eyre Affair. I'll be writing a review whenever I get around to finishing the book, but for now I want to discuss something that's described starting on page 180.

The main character is meeting her ex-boyfriend for a night out at the theater. Here is the show they're planning to see: "No other play but Richard III had been performed here for over fifteen years, and the theater itself had no company to speak of, just backstage crew and a prompter. All the actors were pulled from an audience who had been to the play so many times they knew it back to front. Casting was usually done only half an hour before curtain-up."

So basically it's Rocky Horror Picture show... for Shakespeare. How freaking cool is that? Why don't we have something like this? I wonder how hard it would really be to produce it. Of course in our society it would actually be quite difficult because it would require a full house worth of audience that's dedicated enough to Shakespeare to memorize it, well enough to banter about it and improv. Not real likely I guess. Still it's a nice idea.

The show in the book ends with the Battle of Bosworth, with the majority of the audience participating. "...fortunately this time no one had been seriously injured during Bosworth." A pink toy horse was supplied in response to Richard's anguished cry of "My kingdom for a horse!" Really a fantastic idea, even if it's a bit far-fetched in application.

*Images are stolen and linked. You know the routine.

New Ideas

I recently joined a new blog called Illustration Friday Night. They post a word or phrase every week and contributors have the option of posting an illustration in response. The blog itself is a response to a blog called Illustration Friday which, as they put it, tends to be a little tamer in theme. Friday Night is supposedly a bit edgier or, as they put it: "the only manifesto is to keep things fairly real and raw." We'll see how that goes, I think having a space to post, with decent artists to sort of spurn me could be very helpful. There's another site I wanted to join, Sugar Frosted Goodness! but I think they actually want you to be a professional Illustrator to contribute, which I'm obviously not at this point. Some of the artwork on there is really amazing, my favorites are Michelle White and Mattias Adolfsson.

My posting will probably be a little scant over the next few days because I'm dealing with finals preliminaries...

Blog fun

I've been playing around a bit more with blog elements. I ended up wasting a lot of time for almost no changes at all, which is sort of the nature of web design.

Either I'm a lazy web designer or an extremely over confident one. I have no copies of the html content of my blog, so if I make changes that don't work out I just have to remember what it is I changed. I don't really recommend this but so far I haven't had any disaster's. I did end up adding a border to my bio photo because I didn't like how it looked either nudged right up against the green box, or with a white bar in between. I think this looks much nicer even if it is a bit "neat" which kind of irritates me.

Something I'd like to get done soon is to replace that header image. Although I think it's a cool image (and is part of the reason I chose this template) it's not actually my image so I feel a bit stupid claiming to be an artist when I haven't even created the dominant image on my blog. I've been putting it off though, because at least one of the images is going to require watercolors and they're a pain in the ass to set up. I've got all my drawing tools nicely organized and in easy reach now, but my watercolor supplies are buried in piles of stuff. In fact I'm not even sure I even have any usable paints at this point... last time I did a watercolor the paints were all crusty and nasty and it was that much more of a bitch to get color out of them. So I think the header image might be a while yet.

One new addition to the blog is the sidebar section of "Books I Love." I'll be adding more here over the next few days, and they'll probably change over time, but I'll try to keep the list down to fifteen or so. I think I'll also eventually add a "Books I've read recently" section, but probably not for a little while. I'll also be doing more reviews. I've just joined Amazon's Associates program which basically means if you visit Amazon through any of my links and end up buying something, I get some money. Don't worry, I'll warn you if the book I'm linking blows.

Earlier today I finally had a chance to gather all (or at least most) the books I own that I have not yet read, so I should have some interesting new things to read, depending on how motivated I'm feeling. I tend to re-read books I've read a thousand times rather than starting a new one. Which is why I'm lumping my favorite books with the unread ones: I really have no excuse to say, "I've got nothing to read!" as Matt has heard me whine plenty of times.

Drawing of the Day

Starting today I'll be posting a new drawing every day (except possibly when traveling: for example this weekend I will probably not be posting drawings). This one is a political cartoon inspired by yesterday's veto override!

Illustrators of the Never

So I've received my last and probably final rejection from Illustrator's of the Future, let me tell you why I'm annoyed. First, I find it irritating that they always encourage entrants to enter more work in the next quarter of the contest, when the announcement comes far too late. I got my rejection about a week ago... the deadline for the current quarter was December 31st. That's about a month too late. Yes, obviously I can enter in the next one instead but I'm bitching here so bear with me. The other reason I'm annoyed is that this is the third time I've been a "semi-finalist" which means absolutely nothing. Now, the suggestions provided in the current rejection commented that my submissions looked a bit sketchy and unfinished. This is true enough, but I'm fairly certain that if I'd originally submitted my three best from my thesis show it wouldn't have been an issue. I would have done this, but I was trying to show some variety, now I don't think that's what they want. Ah well. I entered a fantasy art contest, should find out results in April. I doubt I have much of a chance, but I've seen worse make it in so, who knows? I'm also currently taking an illustration class which should hopefully allow me to broaden my portfolio. I have four sketches to do before tomorrow, then I get to start work on a color characture of Brian Froud. I'm always a little nervous about working in color, but for this I'm basicly imitating Brian Froud's style and making him a goblin or something, so it should be fun. In the world of literature, I have yet to receive any notice (good or bad) from Asimov's Science Fiction, where I submitted "Oh the Rats get into Everywhere." I'm meeting with a professor this week to talk about the story so hopefully by the time I hear one way or the other it will be better and ready for publication. "Silk Laces" was rejected from Fantasy Magazine, I haven't decided where to send it next. Probably either Realms of Fantasy or a journal I can't remember the name of that is supposedly dedicated to new writers... so I might have a better chance.

At the moment I'm worrying about applying for an internship at Cleveland Magazine. They say they are looking for journalism students (which I am not) but since I'm the editor of a student magazine I'm hoping that will give me at least some edge in applying. I'm meeting with someone in career services on Wednesday to spiff up my resume.

Updates

I now have a flickr profile and site that you should definitely check out. I'm proud of some of the pics, but annoyed that I can't yet figure out how to control the order in which they display. Anyhow, go see it here: Let me know what you think!
In other news my story "Silk Laces" was rejected from Fantasy Magazine, now I'm trying to decide where to send it next. I still think I'll go through all consumer magazines before I hit the small press, but ultimately that's where I expect it will end up. I'm still crossing my fingers on "Oh the Rats Get Into Everywhere" which I sent off to Asimov's Science Fiction... I think that's a long shot but with that story I think I may actually have a chance to get into a consumer magazine. We'll see. I'm not exactly holding my breath, but I think there's a chance. I'm also waiting to hear back from my final try in Illustrators of the Future. *Shrug*

Casting the line again

So I sent my "Silk Laces" story out to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction today. As I said before, I think that's a little out of my league, but I figure it doesn't hurt to try (well actually rejection letters do hurt considerably, but maybe I'll get lucky and they'll include feedback!). On the advice of one of my profs I made several edits to the story which actually make it sound a bit more mature (hey I wrote it when I was like 19) so I think I may be able to get it published somewhere. I had planned to send out my story: "Oh the Rats Get into Everywhere" which is a creepy military sci-fi story I wrote more recently, but I'm entering that into some school related contest so I'll wait on it.
I recently wrote a fairly racy story... and I get to workshop it tomorrow which should be interesting. I have no idea if its any good... I've been staring at it for too long.
Finally finished the rough sketch phase of my stupid comic book, next step is doing the watercolor backgrounds. That should go a little faster at least, but I still don't think it will be done before Christmas. Oh well.

No Future

Well I did finally hear back from the Writers of the Future contest. A while ago admittedly, but I've been putting off posting about it. Needless to say I was not a winner, not a finalist, did not even merit passing comments. Oh well, I'm not as depressed about it as I could be, after all it's a contest and... lots of people enter... I still think the story I sent in is publishable, so now I try doing it the hard way. Time to start sending it to magazines. I'm going to try the consumer magazines first, I don't really think they'll be interested but its worth a try. If that doesn't work I'll start hitting the smaller press mags... I expect to have more luck there. For now though, I'll start with The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
In unrelated news, I'll be taking an illustration class (my first) next semester, so that should be a good opportunity to pump my portfolio. I really ought to email that Mark guy from Marvel, if only to get more good pencils to do inking samples from. I'm also going to start illustrating stories in The Vindicator (I'm the Editor of a student magazine). We're working on getting a website up for the Vindi, when we do I'll post a link here. If nothing else comes of that, at least I'll have some good tear sheets.

More Waiting

I sent in my entry to the last quarter of Illustrators of the Future on Friday, just barely squeaking in before the September 30th deadline. (Postmarked, not received) I'm still waiting for the results of the third quarter's Writers of the Future contest. Right now I'm sort of working on a novel, but I haven't got much of an attention span so I don't know if I'll ever finish it. So far I do much better with short stories, but the older I get, the more possible a novel seems. We'll see how this one goes. I'm also working on illustrating a comic for my independent study... it's not going as quickly as I'd like, but I've left plenty of space for procrastination (my favorite study habit) so hopefully I can at least get the mandatory first ten pages finished-nice and the rest nicely laid out. Next semester I'm hoping to take an illustration class with the same guy who's doing the independent study with me. It's fairly time consuming compared to what I'm used to right now (I've gotten out of the habit of three hour studio classes) but I think it would be good for me and I'm hoping (hoping) that most work would be completed in class. I'll have to take a look at my other options and see how this might fit in.

Ilustratorious

I've decided to give the Illustrator's of the Future contest one more try. It's been twice now that I've tried it, I admit that's not enough to justify being overly discouraged. Both times I received a letter congratulating me on being a semi-finalist. I realize this is a good thing, but in some ways it robs me of being angry- I can't exactly rant about how they wouldn't know talent if it bit them in the ass when they've at least given me a nod. The last letter suggested that they were more interested in an older style, so this time I'm going to send them what I consider to be the three weakest parts of my thesis. I've already sent them the other two pieces, they liked them, and I think the weaker parts are still fairly strong. You can view the pieces I'm talking about at my website: www.hadesarrow.com (another shameless plug). Go to the gallery, the first, second and forth thumbnails (top row) are for the pieces I intend to send. The third thumbnail (top row) and first thumbnail (second row) are the two parts of my thesis that I've already sent out. We'll see, I'm no longer holding out much hope, but I figure it doesn't hurt to try.

I made Google!

Well my website finally made Google. Google thinks it's of no importance but I can handle that... at this point my website really is of no importance. It's a nice step anyway, and I'm more than a little suspicious that the timing coincides with my first post on blogger. I've had a live journal for a while, and a myspace for a while, but this is the first time my website has shown up on a google search. Anyway I don't really mind. I guess this also means I should find some spare time (ha!) to start updating my site. My site by the way (another shameless plug) is: www.hadesarrow.com.
In other career news, less encouraging, I heard back from the Illustrator's of the Future contest. I had entered in the first quarter and received notification that I was a semi-finalist (in other words hadn't won squat but at least they were interested). So I entered again... this time in the third quarter, and as I had followed the "suggestions" the contest judges included in their letter I had high hopes... so... I was slightly disappointed this time when I was, once again, a semifinalist. Better than nothing I suppose, except, really, a semifinalist IS nothing. No suggestions this time either, just a comment that of the three drawings I sent in they preferred the oldest of the bunch... not a great sign I'd say. I wouldn't take it quite so personally except, well I've SEEN some of the illustrations that make it into publication... and I KNOW I'm better. Ah well, art is all about perspective I suppose, there's nothing I can do about it if their perspective sucks. O:-) I may enter the contest next year (no way I'll be ready by the last deadline of this year) but for now I think I should focus on other things. I'm working on an independent study making a comic out of a story I wrote a little while ago. I'm not even 6 pages in and I'm sick to death of it, but I do think it will look pretty decent when I'm done. If I'm happy with the result I'll send it in to Dark Horse's New Recruits contest. If I don't have any luck there I'll try image... or one of the other companies that deals more in complete stories... but I'm not sure how interested they'd be in a single book story.
Still waiting and hoping to get some samples from the guy from Marvel. I'm going to email him once a week until he sends me some. I'm not in the least offended that he keeps forgetting me... after all... he doesn't need me at all... and I definitely need his help to get into the business (or some one's). So my challenge is to keep bugging him... without sounding impatient, pissy, or like a kiss up. On second hand maybe it would be ok to sound like a kiss up. Hopefully... eventually, it will work. If I can get some pages to ink I'll be one step further than I am now... even if he never takes a look at them when I send them back, at least I'll have some Marvel inks to show next year when I go to Wizard World.

Waiting

My name is Meagan Call, I'm a 25 year old woman, trying to start a career as a writer and illustrator. I have a bfa in studio art and am currently working on an mfa in creative writing. I think I'm about the the point where my craft is good enough to be published... I'm just waiting for someone to realize this. And then preferably give me lots of money to do what I love. I went to Wizard World Chicago in August... and met someone from Marvel who said they liked my inking enough that they'd like to see what I can do on Marvel pencils. So now I'm waiting for some pencils so I can give that a try... then I'll get to wait a little bit more to see if they might actually have some work for me. I'm not quite optimistic, but it's still a step further than I was before the Wizard World convention. The other big thing I'm waiting for right now is contest results. I entered a story in The Writers of the Future Contest and illustrations The Illustrators of the Future Contest. They are supposed to notify entrants of results (one way or the other) 6-8 weeks after the contest deadline (which was June 30th), but it's not all that surprising that they're running late. I get the feeling that's sort of the norm. But that does mean that I'm waiting for results that could come tomorrow... or not for months yet, I have no way to tell. So we'll see, I'm more hopeful about the illustration contest, I think I've got a pretty good shot. The story I sent in was so weird that I can't even guess if I have a chance with the writers contest... either they'll think it's brilliant or they'll think it's terrible.