Work Dragging Along

Inspiration and skill unite.

I have been able to do some good work. I finished the Nun costume for Pippa, and even glittered her up a bit. A glittery nun? Well, this is OZ and we are DRAG QUEENS after all. It went together beautifully. Of course as I was finishing the wide white collar, my co-star/co-producer/co-writer/co-everything called and as we talked he suddenly reminded me of a costume I had completely forgotten. A mushroom headed Queen of the Psychadelic Forest.....don't ask. (This illustration is by his hand. We are both artists!0

One day soon, I'll have to summarize the plot of this movie ( if that's possible) and tell you more about my co-everything.

Bad news about The Pink Briginda dress. I tried it on last night and it's more of a mess than I thought. Had to trash it completely. Hope I can find ten yards of pretty pink fabric at the dollar-a-yard table at Walmart. Cuz I'm gonna have to make it from scratch.

Tomorrow I finish Queen Boudica ( the Green Sydney Opera House one?) But I'm falling behind. 6 wwks and ten costumes to go. YIKES!

कोस्तुमेस किंग अलोंग ७ वीक्स तो गो

Well,
the costumes are coming along slowly. I should be further along by now. We are filming the week of October 11th, and I've assigned a costume or three per week. Ran into some snags this week. Though my scarecrow costume came out exactly as I pictured, the big evening gown is a disaster. I was trying to recreate the gown Glinda wore in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz for "Briginda" who Geoff will play. I had made a poofy wedding dress for one of his characters last year for easter Tales, and so I tried to use a trick I saw once, spray paint. I know , *GASP*!!!
I chose a more vivid pink spray paint than the original gown; I actually bought a lavendar and a duller rose color to. The gown came out looking rather ghastly. The lavendar did not blend well with the brighter pinks, making it look old, rather than the subtle magical effect I was going for.
I'm going to keep playing with the dress, adding some silver glitter glue swirls and some sequins and hope that pulls it together. I fear I may have to buy more fabric and drape it over the nightmare now. But I can't make it over from scratch; i can only afford about $30 to waste a week.

Also, Geoff has a character called Pippa who I am designing a rather dramatic nun like costume for. Including the big "Flying Nun" style headpoece. Tried to make it tonight to know success. Thankfully, Poster board is cheap, and I should be able to get this one done by finding the right combination of design and fabric folding. Another of Geoff's characters is a mythical Warrior Queen ( from one of his own books, seperate from Oz) and the headpiece I made for her is like a combination of a green light house and the Sydney Opera House. This one turned out ALMOST right. One of the ridges is uneven with the others.
Sigh. I hope inspiration and skill will gather in my sewing studio here at Drama Queens Studios tomorrow.
I also have to start working on writing half the scenes. Geoff and I brain storm bi-coastally for about 3 months and then we write the script together. So far, he has written 4 of his assigned 10. I have yet to begin.
Am I devoid of inspiration? You try being creative and inspired in the heavy crotch like heat of Central Florida in summer.

Welcome To Drama Queens Studios

Welcome to My New Blog Spot!
What is drama Queens Studios? Well, it is somewhere in the realm of independant films, student films and home movies. Basically my best friend and I ( whom I will call Geoff for the purposes of security) started filming ourselves lip syncing in drag 9 years ago. This eventually developed into a 40 minute Christmas Special designed for ourselves and our friends and families to watch at Yule time. Then we started experimenting with different story outlines and styles. We are now preparing to begin our next project in October. It is to be titled The Oz Millenial Spectacular.

Our movies are quite clean, no sexual content at all ( sorry to dissappoint, But Geoff and I are not attracted to each other.) We are the main stars, with a recent new edition of my friend Toddy who makes cameos throughout several of our films.and we have many different characters with different looks and personalities that we love to mix up and put into different scenarios.

We come up with the ideas together, plot them and film them. I handle pre-production ( costumes and props) he handles post production ( editing). As for sets and backgrounds, right now we are enjoying the blue screen technique, and it works out pretty well, though it is a laborious process for Geoff to deal with.

So in this Blog, I'll be discussing my COSTUME DESIGNS and execution, preparations for the new picture .

Why do we do these if not for money? Well what would YOU do if you were brimming with creativity, but there was no money and accesible audience to perform for? For us it's like an artist making a painting for his own home, a mother sewing a quilt for the guest bedroom.

Sure, we'd love to be famous and do something with these films, but we are still finding our way. And Geoff is getting ready to post some of our films somewhere in cyberspace. It's a long process.
But we love to do it. I hope you'll want to read about it.

Your Drama Queens Studios representative,
Stephen England