CSI Miami

I dread “upscale” gigs with my Viper. I absolutely dread them. I may have an upscale car, but I am very far from being an upscale person. I can eek out hip and trendy or business casual, but upscale makes me very nervous.

And apparently, on this particular show, they needed everyone in yellow, green or white… Three colors I just don’t own. The only green I’m inclined to wear on a regular basis is camoflage. The only yellow I have are three car T-shirts and an electric yellow, long skirt suit from 1986–with shoulder pads like a football player. And white…well, I’ve got tons of T-shirts and a few ugly, draping polyester dresses from the late 70s-early 80s. (Think Falcon Crest…Dallas…Dynasty…yeah, eww is right!)  So, when I had to come up with something for this gig, I was utterly terrified and lacked a helluva lot of confidence in what I was wearing let alone what I brought and I just really felt like the gods were conspiring against me.

But the casting director said production was more interested in our cars than in us…so maybe I wouldn’t get yelled at by wardrobe, hair and makeup people for not having what the call required. Good golly, I was hoping so…

I showed up. I parked. We all waited for awhile. We moved our cars. We lined up so the director could pick and choose who was going to walk through frame. (I silently did cartwheels in my head because I knew I wasn’t going to be used. I didn’t look anything like the other people there.) I of course wasn’t chosen, but they loved my car. We moved our cars again and they wanted my Viper right in front. We ate.

After lunch, the Director, AD (Assistant Director) and DP (Director of Photography) were so excited about my car (some of the crew even thought it was a production vehicle, not a background car!) that they had me put it in a different spot so they could do this really great dolly shot along the side of it.

I love it when whatever car I bring inspires the production guys. I absolutely love it. Of course, that means my car can never be seen again because it got a close-up, but whatever. It’s always fun to see the guys get excited. “Can you put your car over here and I’m gonna do this dolly shot and sweep up from here so we can see your car there and be able to get all this other stuff in frame and it’s gonna look really neat and thank you for bringing it because this is gonna be awesome…”

Of course, that’s always the first shot of the day and my car gets to be in deep background the rest of the day. Not that I’m complaining. I just see a pattern and think it’s a blessing and a curse every time it happens.

So, needless to say, after moving my car out of frame for the second shot, all I did was sit in holding and read a great book about Medieval life. I got about half way through it because it was so awesome I didn’t want to put it down.

Next, we were signed out and I went home…taking somewhat of a long way because I’d seen my fair share of traffic this past week and didn’t want to sit in any more even if that meant circumnavigating the globe to get home. Plus, I was in a friggin’ Viper. It doesn’t do 5mph willingly!

More Cancan Leeloo!

I found some more pics of me and the rest of us Cancan girls from the Lux After Dark halftime show of the 2006 WorldCon Costume Masquerade.

The following pics were on a website with Danny Low‘s photography of all the costumes. Thanks a million, Danny!!!!

This was definitely an experience I will never, ever forget. First, just being in the room with so much talent. I learned a lot about sewing and costuming throughout the whole adventure.

Gotta have a shot of the girls with the legs, of course. We’re wearing cancan dresses for goodness sake! It’s virtually impossible to resist holding them up.

This was the final tableau of our big dance number recreated backstage for the photographers. You can’t really see, but yeah, I stretched out so much that I could sit with my chin on my hands, elbows on the floor between my outstretched legs. This took months. Granted, I was pretty heavily into yoga by this time, so it was an extension of something I was already working toward. However, yoga is not done in a corset, but Cancan dancing is and it was a whole new ballgame to get that flexible despite my innards being compressed.

Once again, yes, I know I look nothing like Mila Jovovich and this pic is proof! But I did have a wonderful time and I did keep my costume. Leeloo will be returning someday. I don’t know if she’ll be doing another Cancan, but she’ll definitely cruise through a few conventions over the years. So much time and effort went into that costume, I’d hate to let it languish in my closet.

Can’t get enough of Cancan Leeloo?

The other day, my husband asked if I’d posted any pics about my adventures doing the Cancan while dressed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element…which turned into an internet expedition to see if anyone had posted other since last I looked. We’d had a camera meltdown and couldn’t take pictures of our own, so we’re depending on the great ‘net to provide what would’ve been otherwise lost to us.

I’d already posted some pics from Hazel (here and here). But I’ve found more since then.

For the record, yes, I know I look nothing like Mila Jovovich. She’s awesome. I, however, am not so much. I might someday get to be as awesome as she is, but I was certainly not while at WorldCon 2006 dancing the Cancan in an outfit I’d built which had been inspired by the one she’d worn in The Fifth Element. I’m not a dancer and likely never will be. But there was still much awesomeness in the experience I had. If nothing else, it serves well as a conversation piece.

Now for a new pic…

I found this one posted on Flickr by dragondawn. I don’t know you, but I thank you!

While wearing a cancan dress, I just had this strange compulsion to flip it up. I dunno why. It’s just one of those things, I guess. It’s a dress that’s made to be held up, so why not? Life’s too short not to live a little…

A little more Leeloo

I gotta limber up again for these last couple pics… Let me put my corset on, too…

Special thanks to Lawrence M. Green for taking this pic of my stretching out. He was always at rehearsals helping out with whatever we needed and I truly appreciate all his hard work.

Okay, now to WorldCon, waiting to head over to the Masquerade. Chaz (aka Hazel) shot the following pics, too. I swear if he hadn’t been there, I might not have had any documentation of me in my costume. Thanks, Chaz! 🙂

Jason was nice enough to go with me…

I was kind of nervous, and by this point very tired. The nervousness was more like an old friend to me, though. Back when I did a lot of theatre, even though I was running the light board, or sound board, or pulling the grand curtain, or running a followspot, or being ‘the person who clipped in Judas before he hung himself in Act II’, I always got a twinge of nervous energy. When the audience was ready to be entertained and it was my job to support the entertainers, there was a certain thrill in that. And this time, I was actually an entertainer!

My number one goal–one that’d measure the amount of success I had on stage–was to not fall off the stage. It’s no secret that I can’t dance, so as long as I just did the best I could and most of all, had fun, I’d be fine so long as I didn’t fall off the stage. It was a pretty good drop and I didn’t want to get hurt. In all honesty, I have no idea if I did the routine correctly. The darn wig killed my peripheral vision, so I have no clue how I did. But even if I screwed up, I did it with gusto. I did it like I meant it and I had fun while doing it. And no, I did not fall off the stage. Therefore, in my own mind, I was a huge success!

And there’s just this funny thing about cancan dancing…and wearing a cancan dress. It made me do something I would never do in my regular life. I always had this strange compulsion to hike up my skirt! Even before going on stage to dance, I must’ve flashed the entire audience. Guys took pictures and I proudly held up my skirt. I dunno what came over me. While wearing a cancan skirt, all I wanted to do was hold it up. That, in itself, was a little adventurous experience for me…

There you have it. I…as Leeloo from the Fifth Element…danced the cancan at Worldcon 2006.

Up next… I…as the non-skirt-holding-up car chick I really am…remove an intake manifold in about twenty minutes just to prove I can do it. Although putting it back on took a little longer…

Cancan Leeloo…

Let me warm up a little…

A little more. I was at the center of the cancan dance finale, so I had to limber up a bit more than I already was.

Okay, now let me get into my costume. This is a dress rehearsal.

Colleen, Amy, Maria, Myself and Wendy… We were the dancers of L’Etoile Rouge.

My costume isn’t even all the way together at this point. The 20 safety pins holding my suspenders up didn’t show up in the pics, but you can kind of see the sides flying off in the breeze. As a geeky costumer thing that doesn’t show in the pics either, I built the suspenders out of two pieces of vinyl. The front from shoulder to bottom of skirt and halfway around is one piece and so is the back. Yeah, royal pain in the ass, but ultimate challenge at which I succeeded! (Can you tell I surprised even myself?! I’d never worked with vinyl before.)

Notice my lack of rhythm? If I wasn’t holding my skirt so high, you’d see that I had a big grin on my face. I can’t dance, but I sure can smile!

I built my stockings… To give you an idea of how tough they were, imagine working with a fabric so stretchy and sheer that no less than twenty times, I had to disentangle it from my coverlock machine. I only had to cut the fabric out of the machine once, though. The needles would go right through it and hang up and snag and piss me off!!!! Grrr… I still shudder at the memories. The stockings turned out great, but in my opinion, they were kinda hinky. I was just very lucky that they turned out as well as they did.

Okay, remember I said I was the center of the finale? There isn’t a pic of the fantastic tableau at the end, but here’s an action shot. Yes, that’s my foot in my hand and my leg is straight. I’m also wearing a corset under the dress. Yeah, ouch… But I did it!!!!!!! Not bad for a gal with zero dance experience, huh? Oh and did I mention that I spun around and then switched legs and spun again?

I tell ya, I love a good challenge and this adventure afforded me several. There are so many things about it that I just can’t believe I did! Too many to count. The experience was downright incredible as far as learning about sewing, designing, thinking ahead, dancing and driving (I had to drive an hour each way for rehearsals.).

Special thanks to Chaz (aka Hazel) for snapping these pics and letting me post them here.

Otherness: Rift is now available!

In celebration of my first solo novel being released from Samhain Publishing, I’m posting a somewhat cancan-Leeloo-related pic.

This was the day that my best friend Eddie went with me to Hollywood to get an orange wig. Leeloo’s hair isn’t traffic cone orange and this was the only non-traffic-cone-orange wig on the Boulevard it seemed. No, I didn’t wear the peacock outfit to Hollywood, I bought it there, though. I love vintage shops…

Yeah, in this pic, the wig is too long to be Leeloo from the Fifth Element. My hairdresser did an awesome job hacking the wig into shape, but you’ll see her masterful handywork when I get the Leeloo pics up.

I’ve already got a set of sleeves lined up to put onto the peacock jumpsuit. Now, if I could just find the time to do it…

This last weekend was spent working on my car. Jason made the mistake of not believing me when I said, “Shit, I can take that intake off in about twenty minutes.” He didn’t challenge me to do it, but I still felt the need to prove that I could. I’ll be posting those pics as soon as I choose the better ones. And, yes, I did it in about twenty minutes. Neither of us had looked at the clock because it hadn’t been a real challenge, so I don’t know down to the second how long it took me.

Cancan, part 1

I gotta start at the beginning when it comes to my cancan adventure. Not that starting at the beginning will make the adventure more understandable, but I like to think it helps.

I get this call from a friend of mine, “Hey, would you mind putting on some fancy clothes and having your picture taken? It’s for the Hugos.”

I reply, “Ummm…yeah, okay, sure.” and head down to the LASFS clubhouse with a pile of gowns and a couple of oddities. They loved the get-up I’d built for the 1999 Grammys for when I was a seatfiller.

And quite frankly, I love it, too. I rarely wear it because I really gotta have a reason to. It’s bright teal velvet and never fails to stop traffic because it’s so unique. When I designed it, there wasn’t supposed to be a shawl, but while sewing the neckline, I screwed up. By that point, there was no turning back. All I could do was hide my mistake by piecing together my scraps into the shawl. In the end, I’d created a sort of superhero look, but I still think it kicks ass.

This was probably the closest I’d get to having a Hugo of my very own…and how cool is it that I got to pretend they were magical weapons? (Or at least that’s what was going through my mind as I posed. I was conjuring a Hugo rocket-powered forcefield or something!)

Anyhow, during the course of this mini-adventure, Maria randomly asked, “Do you dance? …Or…wait…would you like to dance? You can sew and we’re doing a halftime show in the Masquerade at WorldCon. It’s a lot of fun and we make our dresses. Wanna do it?” (Or something like that. I just remember she kept describing it long after I’d stopped truly comprehending what she was saying. I was stuck trying to wrap my brain around dancing in front of people while wearing some kind of costume that I would build.)

And then this little thought goes through my head: “How utterly strange to be asked. When else would I ever be asked to participate in such an adventure? I should do it. I can’t dance, but so what. This’ll be fun, a great experience and probably an even better story to tell.”

In the end, Maria (second from the right) and Wendy (second from the left) roped me in and I’m so glad they did. The experience was everything I’d hoped for and more…it gave me a good excuse to put my yoga flexibility to work.

Y’know, putting this entry together makes me want to dust off some of my other clothes and snap some more shots. I wish there were more hours in a day.

Special thanks to Chaz Baden (aka Hazel) for all the wonderful pics.

I’m like totally fer sure

Over the weekend, I got to see Berlin in concert. I had a fantastic time.

More importantly, I got to wear a ‘like totally’ 80s dress.

Which reminded me that I really gotta take more pictures.

busy girl

After cancan-ing my little heart out at WorldCon last month and then enjoying a visit from my parental units this past week, I’m pretty darn exhausted, but pleased.

Otherness: Rift comes out in less than two months and I’m beside myself with glee!

‘Course there’s also tons of work to be done in preparation for that big day, but one step at a time is all I can handle right now.

As I’ve blogged before, I’m currently producing a wine review video podcast website at www.wineass.com and good golly has that kept me busy in such an awesome way. I love to learn and much learning I have done. Perhaps there’s a novel or two in the experience as well.

And I’ve been sewing… Not just my Leeloo {from 5th Element}-Does-Cancan costume (still awaiting pictures ’cause we had a camera meltdown at WorldCon). I’m trying to shovel out my beautiful craft room and in order to do that, these projects new and old need to either be finished or tossed.

I’m votin’ for finished.

First up: A pair of jungle green satin pants with a royal blue lace overlay–complete with appliques. Sounds kinda bizarre, huh? It probably will be. I’m not far enough along to know for sure!

Pardon my little chuckle here, but I’m multi-tasking… I’m exporting a freshly edited video while blogging and while waiting for my iron to heat up. I feel like some odd combination of techno/textile geekage has come over me.

And I LOVE it!

Life changes, sometimes quickly

I haven’t forsaken my blog, I swear it. I just got very sick and then very busy. During those sick weeks, my life sort of got rearranged…for the better, but it’s just not the same thing it was before RT.

Part of the change was because I agreed to do something rather odd… I agreed to dance the Cancan while costumed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element. Come to WorldCon and catch the costume Masquerade. The show I’m dancing in is the half-time show.

Yeah. Not only am I soooooo not a dancer, I also had to build my costume. Believe me, cancan dresses are quite involved. I’m about half way through construction and while I love it, good grief, what a lot of work!

But the one thing I can say for certain is that I’m learning a lot. A helluva lot.

Also, in the life changing department, Jason and I plus a couple friends have started up a wine review site featuring video podcasts. We’re trying to break the barrier between wine snobs and the general public. We don’t want to use colorful language (ie. our reviewer would never describe the ‘nose’ of a wine, he’d say, “smells like…”) and we want to be accessible to everyone, not just people with boatloads of money.

See for yourself at wineass.com.

I’ve learned so much just in these last couple months, it’s incredible. I have learned how to edit video and sew a mean pair of bloomers.

But, I tell ya, I can’t wait until September…or at least until after WorldCon so that my life can chill out and get back to…uh…well…”normal”.

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