Photo update...Viral?

Updates!

After sorting through the hundreds of photos, we picked about 100. And by we, Brashani did. They look awesome. Mind you, picking just 100 was a huge task.

Within that 100, we need to pick out about 25 that will be used for various advertising and marketing materials.  We plan on creating posters, business cards, media kits and the like that will bring about much anticipated buzz and chatty chatty.  Brashani and Collete look fantastic! I really can't stress that enough. The photos came out great, but they are not complete.  Until we get them touched up, we won't be able to publish them just yet! Boo! I know. Very sad. They will be up soon! Promise!

Speaking of media kits, I have been putting together various viral marketing items that will be used for everything that we can put out. I designed two different flyers that were in style of the old playbills from the 20s. When looking at a TON of these, I realized how quick the point they were. They pretty much summed up everything and enticed the reader.  I was trying to capture the language and I noticed that they were rather witty at the time.  Granted, it was hard to decipher the lingo and all that, but I pretty much took a lot of the phrases verbatim and kind of tweaked them with some of my own made-up one-liners.  In addition, I got some lines from the musical itself and threw them towards the top.
The orangey one is the playbill/advertisement of the night of Velma's arrest and the other is Roxie's and Velma's show.  If you are NOT familiar with the musical or the movie, they end up teaming up, despite their differences and put on a show at the very end. The movie has been out for several years.  If you haven't seen it, GET IT! Its awesome.  Yes, yes. I'm aware that I may have spoiled the show, but seriously. The show has been out for more than 20 years.  And I had to post these, because they're awesome.

Anywho, here they are. When they are printed, I plan on stressing them a bit and make them look a little more authentic. I have to say, the easiest part was typing everything up. The pain was putting those two freaking tommy guns to spice them up a little.  They came out pretty good, I think.   The media kits are still in development, but they will definitely include these two flyers. I might end up putting websites on the back or something so they aren't just stand alone or confusing.


Stay tuned for more updates!

- Brashani and Christian

Indie GOGO

OK, so we are trying ANOTHER crowd fundraising type site called Indie Gogo.  Like Kickstarter, its a funding website that anyone can donate to.  If you have a cool artistic project, this is the place to be.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Chicago-in-Boston-2011?a=39385&i=shlk

Its really exciting because we want to get the word out as much as we can!  We believe in this project and its overwhelming potential 100%.  We are trying our darndest to get what we can out there. Any thing, any donation will be helpful.  So as of now, we are on 2 funding websites so we can get help for this MASSIVE production.

All these fund raising websites are REALLY important to the development and cultivation of artistic expression. When someone believes in their creative project and want to spread their message and share it with others, I think its a really beautiful thing. Especially if the person wants to challenge norms and stand out of the crowd. Its amazing to see the growth and eventual success of ALL these projects. I wish that all of them could be funded.


We want to realize our dream as well because we want to see our creative expression come to life. Why should we sit around and let people decide what roles we can or cannot play? We believe in ourselves and believe in others who want to go beyond the boundaries and create something amazing.

George Harrison put it best. Find something you love. Share it with as many people as you can, and everything in life with come to you.

Stay tuned.

Brashani and Christian

Photo shoot. DONE!

We were lucky! A rainy night didn't stop us! Obviously! Since we...were inside. However! Everything came together great!


We just had our photo shoot with our amazing photographer Caleb. Brashani and Collete dressed in their outfits, wigs and straight jackets and posed for a few hours. We shot everything in the basement of the Footlight Club in Jamaica Plain.

Now here's an interesting thing about the straight jackets. We really lucked out on those. Brashani wanted a very distinct look for the outfits. She had envisioned torn up straight jackets, with additional buckles.  In addition, she wanted Roxie and Velma to be in glamorous makeup and garters and bras.   We searched high and low then finally went to Amazon and found them there. For like...30 bucks each. Pretty sweet. She got them over to Robyn, our costume designer, and she shredded them up.  The lower midsections were torn up and additional buckles were added. I could talk talk talk about it, but you really need to see the pictures.  The concept was pretty awesome.

We had straight jackets and glam on the backdrop of a dark and dingy basement that really gave the feel of an asylum.

We had some pretty amazing shots. We could tell Brashani and Collete were having fun.

A nice contrast was created between the glam and asylum look. As quickly as it was over, the next day, Caleb sent us the contact sheets and everything looked amazing.  We need to pick out a few then send them off to be touched up.

I don't want to give away too much, but I can tell you straight up, it will be really hard to pick our favorites!


Stayed tuned for the finished photos!

- Brashani and Christian

Business, business, card?

Oh yeah, and we finally put together a logo for SnowWolf Productions.  Its pretty exciting.  If you didn't see it in the first blog since I added it...like 5 minutes ago, here it is!

The image itself is kind of interesting in the fact that when I was adding the snowflakes, they started looking like a night sky. 

Now that we have a logo, we can start putting in our various marketing and advertising materials! 

The first thing we did was create a business card that simply read on one side "Psychopaths have taken over Chicago."  The other side had our new logo and websites so we can start spreading the word. We REALLY need to start raising some flow for this production.  Its rough, but we really need help. The fact Chicago is so recognizable is one thing but the fact is we want to do something different.

Heres a look at the card, front and back.

Once they arrive, we are going to distribute them everywhere we can.  We need to get the word out!

Stay tuned for more updates!

- Brashani and Christian

Jesus Christo

Last night, we caught Jesus Christ Superstar over at MIT's Musical Theatre Guild. My roommate, Shawn Gelzleichter, directed this rocking and hard-hitting show.   We wanted to support him, and up to this point, I had not seen the movie or show, but Brashani had seen the movie. I was, however familiar with the music beforehand.  We wanted to check it out, see a friend or two, and help get some ideas for own production and marketing.

The show depicts the last days of Jesus Christ, from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, and the events leading up to the crucifixion.   This version, however is not set in its usual biblical time, since the show itself is a bit anachronistic, with the music numbers and a lot of the lyrics.  Shawn had decided to set it in Warsaw Ghetto/Prison Camp during the German occupation in Europe.  That in itself was a very strong choice.   Shawn had made very good choices depicting several scenes, specifically a scene where Jesus is bombarded by lepers, utilizing everyone in the cast to really give the feel numbers that needed Jesus' healing.

The set, designed by Luis Loya, another roommate of mine, was put together incredibly well. The use of the brick walls, chain link fences and levels really created a cramped and desolate environment, only have Jesus Christ being the light in this established world. In many ways, we want something similar for Chicago with the look and feel of the Insane Asylum.  We could see a lot similarities.

The show really focused on Judas and his struggles to maintain some level of peace in his eyes and his love for Jesus. The role was extremely well played by Rich Fulkerson, who nailed the high notes and the rock, while still creating the inter turmoil of this misunderstood character.

Brad Smith played Pilate, a man who has his own demons to deal with, must do what he has to do, while showing us that in turn, he just as human as the rest of us.  His singing was spot on, especially through his darkness moments.

All in all the show was very solid and it highlighted the emotional moments depicted in the story. The musical had a lot of depth, with the music and scenes.  With Chicago, there is a lot of opportunities to bring forth the emotion of some of the characters so we are able to create real people.  When we are diagnosing the characters, we want to avoid fake depictions and really dive deep into their psychoses.

At one point, the cast came out during the show into the house and handed out brochures that talked about Jesus and to spread the word.  This viral approach created a connection to the audience, another aspect we hope to bring into Chicago. With our skyline flats, we hope to do the same.  Also, the brochures sparked an idea of having something similar in our media kits, maybe letters of admission to the insane asylum for Roxie and Velma.

After the show, we talked more about marketing ideas with Shawn over dinner.  His direction gave us a lot of good ideas as well as sparking some as a result.  We should have some cool stuff out soon.


Stay tuned for more updates!



Photo
Jesus Christ Superstar show logo
Copyright MIT Musical Theatre Guild 2010


 

The days so far...

Well we just had our first production meeting with our Lighting Designer, Walter Eduardo, our Set Designer, Matt Meeds and our Director, Mark Childers.  Our Costume Designer, Robyn Giragogian popped in a little later.

It looks like everything is on track. We discussed our scene break downs, the latest designs and some further discussion on where we need to head. Its all very overwhelming. 

Matt showed off the latest designs and they all looked pretty impressive. As far as what we are going for, with the down-trodden asylum with peeling paint and crap around, as well as the fantasy zone of the stage, Matt looked like he nailed it.

We've created a very special look for the back of the stage in order to make it seem like it was an insane asylum, with the lighting and look.  Downstage, we have 2 sets of stairs and a lower platform that will be the fantasy world where people will break out into song.  We also had the designs for flats that will be in the house behind the audience.  On the flats will be the skyline of Chicago, creating a real environment for the patrons who come to the show.  We really want to bring them into this world. The cast will also be making their entrances and exits through there as well.

Its all coming together, now we just need some moneys to back everything up.   We should be getting everyone's bios up shortly so you can check them out here and on our website.

Stay tuned

- Christian and Brashani

Photo

Michigan Avenue late 1920's
Copyright 2005 David R. Phillps

Kickstarter

In addition to Boston Dance Alliance, we are also raising money through Kickstarter!

What is Kickstarter?  Well, at first we, like many others, had NO idea what it was.

Turns out, its a grant-like website for all different kinds of artistic projects. Like, A LOT of different projects, ranging from video games to original plays and upcoming bands. Its filled with all sorts of things. 

Basically, you have an idea, a movie, a song, a band, a show, whatever, and you pitch it to Kickstarter.  You set a goal of a certain amount you need, say like, 10,000 dollars. Then after you get approved, you set up a page to help raise funds and your target date, which can be a maximum of 90 days. You spread the word any way you can and try to get "backers" to help fund your project. If your time runs out and you haven't succeeded, your backers get refunded. So its really a battle against the clock. Most projects do get funded, surprisingly so we thought this we be a good idea. Another great feature is that you can set rewards for certain amount of donations, like donate $25 or more you get a hat or a dvd, depending on the project and what they offer. Its all pretty neat.

We were actually surprised that a good deal of the projects got funded, but if you think about it, a lot of them were very unique and thats what people like. Plus, its good to have some wealthy friends.

Some of the original films were quite interesting, as were some of the written works people were trying to launch. We definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to launch any sort of project. Since ours was something a bit different as well, it seemed like a good idea.  We hope that we can get enough backers to help with Chicago.

Check it out! 

Our project is currently being funded and we are looking to raise at least $4000.00 in 90 days. 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1407682743/psychopaths-have-taken-over-chicago

We are planning on jazzing up everything once we get some more pictures, which hopefully we be rather sooooon.

Stay tuned for more updates!


- Christian and Brashani

SnowWolf Productions Presents...CHICAGO

Thats right...For its debut show, SnowWolf Productions, our new theatre company, is producing CHICAGO at the Cambridge YMCA in Central Square in the spring of 2011. We couldn't be more excited or scared at the same time. Its really a bit of both.

How it happened
In March 2010, the two of us (Christian and Brashani) were getting antsy in the theatre world of Boston. For years, we had been doing several shows here and there, but we wanted something more.  Brashani immediately wanted to do Chicago, though the chances to get the rights was a bit slim, considering how popular the show was. Chicago is a wonderful show. No doubt about that. To say the music, story and dancing are amazing is a bit of an understatement, no matter who you talk to. We contacted Samuel French, but never thought we could get the rights.  However, the next thing we knew we had the rights lock and loaded for April of 2011.  Granted, we realized at that moment, it was a huge undertaking and we had to make sure that we wanted to do this.

Our vision
Society has always been fascinated with human behavior, particularly abnormal psychology. Some of the best fictional characters that have captured our hearts demonstrate full blown psychopathy. The six Cell Block Tango murderesses of Chicago are classic examples of cold-blooded killers that show no signs of remorse. It is almost natural to read this script and see these characters as diagnosable, dysfunctional members of society. In our production, these characters will be placed in what appears to be a natural setting: an asylum for the criminally insane. In other words, we wanted to go in complete different direction and uncover something new in the story.  Aside from all the glitz, dancing and over abundance of black everything, we wanted to find and explore more. All of the characters, except for the lucky ones, will be diagnosed with a variety of personality disorders.  Roxie Hart is through a crime of passion, suddenly finds herself a part of this world, but quickly breaks away and create a delusional fantasy world where her ordeal is translated to a rise to stardom.  Along the way, she finds her greatest soon-to-be rival for the spotlight, Velma Kelly, a jazz star, whose commitment to the asylum was more of her doing. For this particular production we want a size and gender diverse cast and we want to break the norms of the typically cast musical.  Instead being cast on how people look, we want to cast people based on talent, no matter how big or small!

Where we're at right now
Right now, we are still in the early stages of production. We've held several meetings and discussions already to get the ball rolling. We are doing the show on our own and we are hoping to raise money that will help pay for some of the larger costs.

We are sponsored by the Boston Dance Alliance
http://www.bostondancealliance.org/

Please select SnowWolf Productions when you make your donation.

Stay tuned for our next update!

- Christian and Brashani




All urban decay photos done by the brilliant Mr. Motts, Photo © www.opacity.us