More modern miniatures on TV!

Raum für Raum just posted a link to a German TV piece on modern miniatures. It's all very exciting, except my schoolgirl German isn't quite up to a full translation. A pity as they interview some stars of the modern miniature world in their studios.

And I get a look in too: there are shots of the FLICKR Modern Miniatures group and close ups of some of the photos I took of Div's miniature Rose Seidler House.

EDITED TO ADD:
There's an English version here.

Gee, that was fast!

I got home from ANU Film Group this evening to find this evening's episode of The Collectors up on their website already. You can watch the clip here or download it from here.

Are you a first time visitor? Perhaps you'd like to see what happened behind the scenes at the filming. Or explore each house in detail (see the sidebar on the left for links). Have any questions? Leave a comment!

Hear yea hear yea!*

A comment on my last post from Susan made me realise that I possibly need to be proclaiming the news a little more widely and obviously...

If you want to see what The Collectors have done with my collection you can:

* Watch ABC 1 this Friday (April 30) at 8pm

* Watch ABC 2 next Monday (May 3) at 6:05pm

* Wait until they load the episode up to the download section (which seems to be very quickly) and watch it online. At this stage I have no idea if you can see this from outside of Australia. (If anyone wants to check and let me know, I'd appreciate it...)

* Beg me to let you borrow the DVD version which I'm assured will be turning up in my Post Office Box sometime soon.

Oh, and my plans have changed so I won't have to stop at Hungry Jacks on the Freeway to Sydney that night to watch it (it's not what you know, it's who you know...), I can watch it at home. Assuming I can work out how to find ABC 1 on one of my TVs...

(*aka Word up!)

It would seem I'm fated to never see The Collectors

Remember the original airing date for my segment on The Collectors? And how at that stage I was pretty sure I was going to be busy that night?

Well, today this turned up in my mailbox:Friday the 30th? That would be the evening I'm planning to drive to Sydney for the following morning's miniature show.

I suppose I could watch it on the Monday. But first I'd have to work out what exactly ABC 2 is and where I find it on my TV. Looks like the vodcast is still the way to go (or just waiting and watching the DVD...)

and weird things are happening...

Remember I said that The Collectors had provisionally scheduled me for Easter Sunday?

Well, they're now back to screening on Fridays.

And the schedule for next week is up.

With no mention of my segment.

Am I on the cutting room floor? Have they got the funding to fly me to Tassie after all?

Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll find out eventually...

I have a date (sort of). And am simultaneously dumped.

News from The Collectors: they've tentatively scheduled the dolls houses for 4th April. And have decided they don't want me to sit on The Big Red Couch. So I guess that means there's not an op shopping junket to Tasmania in my future after all :-(

Actually, if that does turn out to be the final airing date it works out rather well, as that's Easter Sunday. And I've already promised that weekend to the Community Arts team at The National Folk Festival. In fact there's a rather good chance I might have to get someone to record the segment for me* to watch later, especially as I've just noticed Eddi Reader is returning to The Festival and will surely be playing Sunday night...

(*Oh hell, I'll just vodcast my segment to my ipod in true 21st century style!)

I've decided. Days off are dangerous.

Especially when they involve trips to Trash and Treasure before breakfast with an out of town blog buddy, a visit to one of the two op shops open on a Sunday in Canberra, a wander through the National Portrait Gallery (and their very dangerous shop: I have a $20 gift voucher burning a hole in my wallet) followed by a visit to The Old Bus Depot Markets.

(Today's top finds: another Hornsea piece for the almost-collection: 50 cents, Y's Buys Belconnen. Letters from a vintage Milleranagrams game: $2.00, Y's Buys Belconnen (so much nicer than Scrabble tiles, don't you think?). Wooden file drawers: $45, Rose Cottage Antiques. The closest thing I think I'll get to Library card catalogue drawers)

Rooruu mentioned I had my first airing on The Collectors recently: if you're interested enough to want to see it watch here (at around 26:32 for about a blink and a half)

Our creative space (because I just realised it's Thursday)

The only way I think I can deal with the photos from today is just put them in chronological order and add captions. Settle yourself in, as this'll be a long (and image heavy) post...

Nasty Collectors people lept on me first thing in the morning with the interview questions. So no photos of that and I really do wish I could have a do over. Never mind, I'm sure they'll make me sound coherent (and, hopefully, a little mad)

Then it was time to move onto the closeups. Here's Justin plotting how to approach my Reac chair display (while muttering how Adrian would kill for them)and Greg shooting them:

Justin and Greg discuss a scene they've shot earlier (I think the conversation went something along the lines of "We could have her walk in this side, stop about here and say something. What do you think?"):Back in The Room of Temporary Non-Shame, Greg sets up the lighting for a scene we did shooting me through the window of the Triangand tests it out from my side of the shot:

Me, overact? NEVER!(But TV isn't as glamorous and exciting as you might think...)Greg shoots the other Triang as Justin and I act as stage hands, opening the fronts just so. Several times:

During the filming of The Mickey flat (one of my earliest miniature creations), Justin gets sidetracked, asking if I actually knitted thiswhich opens the way for me to show him some real miniature treasures: Over in the other corner of the room you might notice there's a party happening (and the puking man has moved houses)

At 2pm, while eveyone's concentrating on work I'm concentrating on the growling of my empty stomachand, since TV people appear not to need to eat, I grab my standard go to snack du jour: cold rice pudding eaten from the can (Because, you know, TV is so glamorous...)

While I'm munching the team works on. Greg tries to create a flickering TV effect upstairs as the party rages on below

(he's hoping to add me into the right hand side of this shot due to the magic of the blue screen*)
(Oddly, the team seem to be a little obsessed with shooting footage of rooms with TVs in them)

Finally, very late in the afternoon, they get to the Kaleidoscope House, which is lit up like a giant boiled sweet:Then, after Miss Daisy vomits her hidden contents onto my kitchen floor, we head up the road to the ABC studio. Miss Daisy seems to think that if she parks here she might become a TV Crew car. I didn't want to dash her hopes...Inside, the crew ponder how they're going to approach the challenge of getting me into my dolls housesbefore Justin and I check the authenticity of the ABC's reception's Swan chairs(Big thumbs up for the ABC then!)(Have I mentioned that working in TV is glamorous?)

By this stage of the day my brain is starting to hurt as I go through the "So I start with the chair pointing in this direction, say these works to the camera, smile (in a natural way) before swinging around to face that miniature TV screen that I can't actually see on the green cloth?"But, finally, around 5pm, we're done. It's a wrap (or whatever the official phrasing is...)Now I have to wait patiently to see the end result...

(*Which ended up being the green screen because I was wearing jeans and they didn't want me to to be legless)

My next career move?

Maybe not: they kept telling me today not to overact. They didn't realise that's how I usually am...

More photos to follow: it was a long day (they arrived at 9:30am and I left the ABC studio at 5pm). Then I had red bubbles and fush und chups with friends to celebrate.

And now I have 158 photos* to sort out.

(*They said it was odd being on the receiving end for a change)

I asked The Collectors

if they could do something like this for me. Fingers crossed...

What I forgot to ask: "When are you arriving tomorrow?"

Oops...

Things I hope don't happen around here in the next 36 hours

(In no particular order)

1. Cod id da dose

2. Gastro/ food poisoning

3. Uncontrollable blood nose

4. Migraine

5. Earthquake

6. Power cut

7. Burglary

Lunch and dinner

Yesterday I had lunch with Adrian Franklin as research for next week: and last night, on the way to the theatre, a friend and I spotted this at the supermarket by the university:perhaps it's what you're supposed to eat when you've just failed your exams?

A song for The Collectors

Who are coming to visit next Thursday:

(There will be a mini Working Bee this weekend chez TSS, as I don't have just one room to clean, but eighty one. And that's not counting my full sized house...)

OK, OK. I was wrong and you were right

Well it would appear from your comments and emails that saying "not at the moment' to The Collectors is akin to asking the Queen if she'd mind rescheduling her garden party because I have something else arranged for that day. I have also been set straight about just how privileged one is to be invited to sit on the big red couch in Tasmania...

So, Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief or not I emailed them today and they and their cameras are coming to visit The Room of Shame (hopefully much tidied) next month.

Happy now?

What's been happening round here since I last blogged*

(A dot point post)

* I received an email from someone wanting to use a photo I took of Good Living Growers' Market in a book about the very urban renewal project our class went to a talk about two weeks ago. Very weird synergy.
* A Terence Conran book I didn't even know existed until I found it (and bought it) during a preliminary search of resources for my Designers in context class arrived.I inhaled it (both literally and figuratively) while I waited for my bus and spent a happy few minutes mulling over the fact it was fully tax deductible...
* I spent yesterday (of course) at Craft ACT: envelope stuffing in the morning and attending our Ruth Lane-Poole symposium at CMAG in the afternoon (with time out to cut up pears and arrange crackers, cheese and biscuits on plates for the afternoon tea.)

OK, I lie slightly. I also found time to take photos of the inside of one of the doors in the CMAG women's toilets (as you do): it had got me thinking about ways to combine the two components of The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief:* Back upstairs at Craft ACT, more photos of one of the works for our upcoming Unravel exhibition which gave me even more food for thought...(If you've not already worked it out I'm exploring ways that my stringybark can be transformed into some kind of woven object (like a kete), fabric or rope: I suspect there is a large amount of research into traditional Aboriginal use of stringybark in my near future...)

* I spent yesterday evening reading a Library book which was due back yesterday. And drinking wine. From a cask.

* At 6am this morning I was rummaging round the Dyson website and preparing a presentation for tonight's class.

* To add excitement to my workday (spent in spreadsheet hell), I finally received a call from The Collectors, asking if I could be available for filming (see the owner of the CMAG exhibitor before me's clip here) A free trip to Tasmania? Errr... Can we talk again next year when life isn't quite so frantic and I don't have a Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief?

* Tonight's class was spent looking at lots of designers' websites (there is some utter dross out there) and watching the Freestyle DVD. I was going to link to my blog post about seeing Freestyle in Melbourne but it would seem that nightclubbing, drinking, op shopping, buying stationery (and learning to use predictive text) was far more interesting that some boring design exhibition)

* At breaktime I was sidetracked from the coffee drinking and chatting by an exhibition by Mirree Louise Bayliss in our cafe. And, serendipitously, more inspiration for The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief:(Is it just me who thinks that picture looks like a plan of Canberra?)(images courtesy of the website as I'd left my camera in the classroom. Artworks by Mirree, a Contemporary Aboriginal Artist from Wiradjuri country in NSW. Visit her on Facebook or visit her website.)
* And then I got a lift home, wrote this post and will soon collapse into bed.

The End

(*Was it only yesterday morning?)