* (restored)
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“It’s a book that used to be a movie, instead of the other way around.”
I have this slight but persistent interest in the genre of the photo novel. Maybe it’s because a childhood friend of mine had a stack of garish, violent old Mexican photo novels back in the early 90s that I used to pore over whenever he and I hung out. I just think it’s curious form, at once really logical and equally peculiar. So I asked Dennis if I could create a post here to lay out the history of this minor genre, only to find after searching very hard for the details, there basically is no thorough, definitive, or even semi-half assed information on photo novels or fotonovels out there in cyberspace. I found exactly one sketchy, uncredited personal account of the genre on one offbeat webpage. I reprint pieces of it below along with some of the not many samples I managed to gather in my search. So this is not in any way the paean and informational scouring I’d hoped to put together here. It’s just a little nod in the photo novel’s direction in search of any thoughts, opinions, or memories you guys out there might be harboring. — Timothy T
‘Am I the only one who remembers Fotonovels? They were a uniquely ’70s creation, and they seemed to come and go within about two years. Two movie-loving friends of mine who’d also lived through the ’70s had only a dim recollection of Fotonovels, if that. Maybe they came and went so fast they didn’t even have time to leave a footprint in the collective cultural memory. The fotonovel was an attempt to bring back and modernize the original photo novels, which flourished internationally in the early 60s. But compared to photo novels, which were lurid, violent, seamy affairs often based on original stories, fotonovels were usually G-rated, cut and dried, faithful renditions of blockbuster movies, or, on occasion, narrative picture books tied to the romance novel genre. …
The 60s
‘For the uninitiated, Fotonovels were quickie paperbacks that most often told the story of a movie (generally a movie with youth appeal), although original creations without movie souces were not infrequent. Fotonovels’s stories were told through full-color photos or stills; the dialogue was rendered as printed text, with open speech balloons (as in, say, DOONESBURY) pointing to whoever was delivering the dialogue. Fotonovels were apparently never welcomed with open arms. They were fair game for ridicule. Stephen King, writing about INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (whose 1978 remake was Fotonovelized), went off on a tangent in his DANSE MACABRE: “If there is a lower, slimier, more anti-book concept than the Fotonovel, I don’t know what it would be. I think I’d rather see my kids reading a stack of Beeline Books [porn paperbacks] than one of those photo comics.” …
The 70s
‘Informally, I’d place the original Fotonovel US life span from 1977-1979. There may have been more after that, but I sure wasn’t spotting them in drugstores. I was around 8 or 9 during the “peak” of Fotonovels, so I’d collected quite a few of them, most of which I eventually sold at yard sales for a quarter each. I remember having SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, ROCKY & ROCKY II (these were combined into one Fotonovel), the aforementioned INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY, and perhaps several others I’m forgetting.’ …
The comeback: first wave, 90s
‘Why is the Fotonovel making a comeback now? Perhaps someone noticed that the marriage of text and image on the Internet has been slightly successful. And for movies that don’t lend themselves to straight text novelizations, like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the format seems a good match. Though on the other hand, BLAIR WITCH depends almost entirely on its cinema-verite camera jiggling for its impact; as a Fotonovel, it looks like a collection of grainy photos, with text. It’s the shittiest-looking $9 paperback I’ve ever seen. $9 may seem pretty steep, but the cover price on my old copy of the LOVE AT FIRST BITE fotonovel is $2.75 — a fairly high cost for a quarter-inch-thick paperback in 1979. That was probably one reason Fotonovels went under before: A book composed entirely of full-color photos is expensive to produce. …
The comeback, second wave, early 00s
‘Personally, I think they’re blowing it all over again. If they set their aim a little higher, both demographically and artistically, they’d clean up with uncensored Fotonovels of beloved Gen-X classics like CLERKS and RESERVOIR DOGS. (PULP FICTION would probably be too long to fit into a standard Fotonovel.) I would also go with primarily verbal movies — they’re making their old mistake (with BATTLEFIELD EARTH and DINOSAUR) of trying to convey a big-budget, big-screen experience within photos the size of a baseball card. A talky movie like CLERKS, which kinda looks shitty anyway, wouldn’t lose much by being Fotonovelized. You could even do a flip-page cartoon of Silent Bob dancing to “Violent Mood Swings,” the way they had Travolta doing flip-page disco in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. …’ — TimothyT
Some offshoots
from Herve Guibert’s ‘photo novel,’ early 90s
Chad Michael Ward’s ‘Black Rust,’ 2003
Photo novel zine, undated
Jorge Simes Fotonovela No 3 Book No 1 (2000)
from ‘The Johnny Torture Series’
‘You don’t know what it was like to be a geek in the 1970s. There was no VCR and what we liked wasn’t taken seriously by those who produced things. It was rare to come across professionally-published things outside of a few cheap magazines (Famous Monsters of Filmland). Some fanzines managed to get good quality still photos, like Cinefantastique. But on the whole, photos were rare and scripts were even rarer.
‘Then Richard J. Anobile came along and made every geek go WOW! He pioneered a new kind of mass-market paperback that came to be known as a Photonovel or, trademarked, Fotonovel. Orgasmic cries could be heard throughout fandom when that book appeared. Those kinds of books have gone away because, really, who needs them now that we’ve had VCRs, DVD players, and, today, streaming video?
‘However, technology now makes it possible to create our own. That’s a Kindle displaying a PDF with screensnaps made from an episode of Eastenders. The directions for doing that are here: iPlayer for Kindle
‘I’m not up on the kind of software that’s available to do it with American broadcast TV or even DVDs. However, when Rubicon was on the air, there was a LiveJournal site that offered HD screensnaps from episodes — that I now see could be compiled into a DIY photonovel. All that was missing from them were the captions. So I have to think this is possible outside of using the UK setup from that post.
‘Maybe someone out there will attempt this. It’d be interesting to see the size of a digital photonovel with two snaps per screen (portrait mode) or four snaps per screen (landscape).’ — Mike Cane
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*
p.s. Hey. I was interviewed about the reprint of my first novel CLOSER at ZonaMotel if anyone wants to read it. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, many losses. That’s what I heard/figured about the Jarmusch and thanks. I think there are only two or three films by him that had much of an impact on me. According to the forecasts, love is really going to need extraordinary powers to cool me or anyone off for the rest of this week. But they call him love for a reason. Love opening an Ice Cube Museum, G. ** Adem Berbic, Whatever Jesus did yesterday, the French didn’t seem to think it was worthy of closing much of anything. The LA distance is nothing like London’s. It’s kind of subtle and, I don’t know, friendly. Bosnian coffee … I don’t think so. Is it a store purchase thing? I’ll find out. The Pont Neuf cave doesn’t open until June 6 which is just as well given, you know, the current skies. But I can easily walk there, so expect a report, what, next week? Stay dry and scribbling. ** Alice, Luckily my apartment has big windows on both sides so whatever breeze there is outside makes appearances herein. Maintaining the machines … that seems like it would take highly specialised skills. If you have them, then I think you’re kind of godly. ‘House of the Dead’, ooh. Zac and I desperately want to set a film at a theme park, but they cost a zillion euros to rent, and so that’s an eternal pipe dream. Although one of the producers of ‘RT’ just got a job at Disney World in Florida, so … POP was dreamy. To my child eyes at least. There was a ride where you sat in a spaceship and ‘traveleled’ into outer space and landed, and, when they opened the door, they’d constructed the surface of Mars in this giant warehouse, and you could go explore Mars until you got bored. Sigh. I went to Marineland, yeah. I found it really depressing even as a kid. It was just lots of whales and dolphins and stuff trapped in tanks and forced to perform for visitors. This week just see visiting friends and the usual film stuff I think. You? ** _Black_Acrylic, Me too about pencil sharpeners. Any film that comfortably fits in the genre ‘romantic comedy’ is a bridge extremely too far. ** Carsten, Hi. Sorry I haven’t gotten to your email yet. I blame the heat. I will. ‘Taipei Story’ is basically a soap opera on mood depressants and happening in unbearably slow motion. The Jarmusch is now officially a future in-flight entertainment possibility for me. ** jay, I guess Churchill had a moment in the US. I think Trump is into him, so maybe he’ll have a tiny comeback. Big agree about The Weird Museum for Boys and Girls. Certainly one of the most externally inviting museums ever. Thank you! Chapter 6 is maybe my fave part, and it’s also kind of the novel’s engine. Yes, come to Paris when the time is right. T’would be awesome. ** Bzzt, My LA friends haven’t reported in yet, but, if it still exists, the Graveline Tour is lots of fun. And on kind of the same note, Hollywood Forever Cemetery. There’s usually cool new lit stuff/events going on at Stories bookstore in Silverlake. I’ll hope for more tips. Thick skin is key. ** Angusraze, Hey! Good to see you! I’m good if a bit overheated by our heatwave. Sorry about the label shit, but I’m sure it’ll just be freeing ultimately. Sure, I like your ‘Sluts’ adaptation ideas and proposal. If it got sort of solid and serious, you’d have to talk to my agent to get the rights from my publisher and that kind of stuff, but, sure, get started if you want. Thanks! I’m the one who has done most of the submitting and fundraising stuff due to our miserable, do-nothing ex-producer. Fundraising is really hard, let me forewarn you, unless you can get grants or something. I’ve been mostly stewarding Zac’s and my film into the world and writing/finishing the script for the next film for the last while. But all’s good. You take care, sir. xo. ** Bernard Welt, Hi! Mary Renault, there you go, that’s her. You got titillation from her stuff? I think I tried one, and it was so beige I couldn’t handle it. Wow, talking with Wallace Shawn, so nice. Cool about the bomber reader. You know Kramer? How trippy. That guy’s a character, at least from a distance. Shane Parish is great. His transmutation of Autechre into guitar is really something. And he’s in Bill Orcutt’s great Guitar Quartet. Very cool. You’re really busy. Busier than even me maybe. With more variety. So sad that the Recollects has gotten so popular or picky or whatever the problem is. Grr. Lovely to catch up, pal! xoxo. ** laura w, Yes, Connecticut was in the house! I do know Holy Land USA. Never went there, but I think I’ve had it in thematic posts here. NYRB has done some really great reprints: Brainard, Carrington, Gaddis, Darius James, Henry Green, James Schuyler, etc. All the best for your week! ** Laura, Hi. We go to Amsterdam on Saturday. We’re going to be so quickly in and out of there that I don’t think we’ll get to see or do much of anything. I have structuralist films on the blog every once in a while, so … eyes peeled? I’m out of it on the poetry venues du jour, so I don’t know. Instagram, why not? Could be a good start or something? ** Ted, Yep, melancholy central on those museums. With a slight counteracting effect of amusement. In most cases. Your photography sounds plenty interesting. Your characterisation is alluring. To me anyway. I really like tight, concentrated work. So I for one am intrigued. What will you do re: ‘The Tempest’? Perform or do behind the scenes things or … ? Paris is dreamy to live in. I recommend it to everyone. The heat is a definite problem this week, so we’ll see. Some friends are visiting so I’ll at least duck in and out of the shady parts with them. Camel Blue! For some reason they seem just right. I don’t even know why. ** Steeqhen, The heat hasn’t murdered me yet. Friends and their brains and articulations are so underrated even though their value is a given. I hope ok turns into whoa. ** naemi, Hi. Blub: what a nice, ridiculous title for such a place. I don’t think there are any waterparks anywhere near Paris at all. Which I just realised and which seems extremely strange. 9 years, wow. Apart from the hassle of gathering documents that can be hard to gather, my visa thing has been pretty easy so far. I think I seem harmless to them. Your novella or whatever you end up tagging it sounds quite exciting. For the past year I’ve mostly been writing the script for Zac’s and my next film. I think it’s finally at the finish line. There’s an interest of putting out a selected short fiction book by me, so I’ve been wrapping my head around what would be in that. And I’d need to write one or two new things for it. I keep waiting for an idea for a new novel, but it just hasn’t happened, at least not yet. That’s me. IOSS MAMA: When I was living in Amsterdam, Jos Smoulders recorded me reading things for a sound project of his, and then it got finished and released around the time I moved back to the States. Other than being recorded, I wasn’t involved in it at all. Bon week! ** HaRpEr //, Yeah, I’m putting low expectations on myself until the heat dies. Here it’s supposed to stay awful through Sunday. ‘Tonight’s the Night’ is my favorite Neil Young album by far. It’s incredible. And ‘Tired Eyes’ is my favorite song on there. Synchronicity. I think ‘Blood on the Tracks’ is really overrated. Him trying to get back to what he did when he was at his greatest, but it sounds gentrified to me. ** Nicholas., NYC’s museums seem to have mostly been survivors. Your friends were really thinking about your outer realms on your birthday. That’s interesting. And helpful, obviously. I think I agree. Me, surviving a heatwave. That’s the overriding activity of mine at the moment. Drinking lots of cold water. Nothing fancy. ** Okay. Years and years ago, a kind fella who called himself TimothyT and who was an aficionado of Fotonovels shared his knowledge with us here on the blog, and maybe it’s the heatwave, but I thought his post deserved to return to life. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Dennis !! Oh, photonovels of both I Dream of Jeannie and Herve Guibert. That’s my kind -of DC blog post! I’ll read yr Zona Motel thing. So loveleee to see you and Zac snowballing in appreciation. I have a QA with Lily Lady appearing in Zona Motel imminently (I think). Yes, Super Furry Animals in London were wildly discursive and adventurous, incl sub-bass electro stompers and country-ish numbers that swayed and lilted. (Hey, I’m a music reviewer!) Im in Scamsterdam til tomorrow but alas there will be no Effterling visit 🙁 …. Long story but my son Paul has been having travel probs. Next stop: Switzerland swing into Milan, where I shall I’m doing a talk with Sabrina and editors from Mousse and Hollywood Superstar Review. (my new fave rag) Talk soooon xoxox Jack
Don’t think the Fotonovel ever had much of a life here in the UK but today’s post is a charming one alright.
Agreed about romcoms. Back in the day I took a girl out to see A Snake of June which is surely in the running for worst date movie ever. Both of us enjoyed it though.
Fear not, staying dry here is easier done than said right now – notwithstanding the little swim I managed yesterday. Hm, I’d like to investigate the friendly distance. Does LA feel open or closed, space-wise? I’m trying to find formulas to convey the jaggedness of London’s distance in what I’m writing now, even though it really only takes place in one area so far, although I can cheat by having some of the characters fly into City Airport and get a birds’ eye view. Watch this space. City Airport is also enjoyably bizarre and I hope I actually get to fly out of it once before it’s closed for being the eco equivalent of a war crime.
You buy Bosnian coffee as a bag of powder which you cook in a little pot thing on the stove. There’s only a couple bodega-esque stores in London which stock it, and none of them are near me. Not sure where or whether it lives in Paris. As a last resort I could bring the kit with me and try to cook it up over a lighter, Trainspotting-style – the analogy is apt, because you feel like you’ve had enough caffeine for a month after a shot of it. The Bosnians are a very stimulated people, which is ironic because they’re also pretty mellow in temperament.
I didn’t know Fotonovels were a thing, but I’d really like to handle one. You know my thing about crappily-produced books, and the slide from something being jarringly crappy to the crap being bound up with your understanding of it as an object. It makes me wish I’d been more into weird movie tie-in novels as a kid as well.
Hi!!
Congratulations on the Zona Motel interview! It’s funny that you mentioned the Leo interview in it—I’d just read it in Smothered in Hugs a few days earlier.
Which Jarmusch films would you say made an impact on you?
I’m buying a ticket to love’s museum ASAP. Love forced to smile through a work meeting that’s a complete waste of time, Od.
Hi Dennis! Thank you so much for the reply! My next step is to annotate my copy of the book, I thought of putting some coloured tabs on particular pages I think would suit each of the cinematography styles and then colour code them in the screenplay if I get round to doing that. Yeah, the grant thing, I have a few friends that have made indie stuff and they say mainland Europe is good to look for grants, a lot of sort of Central European countries do grants for foreign films and the bfi here in the uk are really good with that, if I managed to get the rights from the publisher that would make it easier too coz it’ll be sort of, hit the ground running type thing from any sort of production standpoint blah blah blah logistics logistics you know what I’m talking about. Primarily I’m just really happy and heartfelt that you like my visual interpretation of the work, I feel like nowadays with websites like LPSG and the stuff you post on here from the escort sites it seems like it’s one element of the internet that hasn’t actually changed a lot, probably because it’s sort of so niche in a way that it’s skipped modern day moderation tools and national legislation as a way to dilute those corners of the internet.
Have you been listening to any new music btw? I’ve been listening to demos from next album, I’m gonna be working with HANZ of triangle records on some percussive elements for next album
Also watched wild at heart for first time yesterday and thought it was beautiful, the sort of gaudy sexual and violent nature of it was really tenderly paired with the warmth and genuine character of like the main cast. The ending made me cry lol
Much love
Ryan
Good morning, Dennis! Your museum and foto-novels posts are magnificent. Not far from your (once-existing) hotel on Meguro Dori is the Meguro Parasitological Museum, which focuses on parasites. Do you know of this museum? Did you write or post on this place? I have always heard that foto-novels are big in Mexico, and perhaps in Central and South America. Oddly enough, I have never seen one or held it in my hands. I wonder if there is a “Man from U.N.C.L.E. Foto-book – or even The (British TV show) Avengers?
Re. what we were emailing about: no sweat, I get it. I don’t exactly know my publishing schedule either. The book’s supposed to come out this year, & a few weeks ago my publisher contacted me with a heads-up that we’ll get started soon—with formatting, editing, design etc. I gather. So very late 2026 I imagine.
Today I hit up Ariel Resnikoff & Bob Holman for blurbs. Do you know you’re on the latter’s website (bobholman.com)? A video of you doing a poem on Poetry Spots. Didn’t know that was his series. Also caught up with his on-the-street performance of the poem “We are the Dinosaur”, which was a blast. Are you in touch still? Also Resnikoff, know him?
Actually the new Jarmusch would work well on a plane, seeing as it’s about transitional spaces. But isn’t he too arty for airlines?
Note: this was written a few days ago on a lunch break but then I had to deal with something lol.
Hello, hello, hello ! How are you ! Sorry for the absence, I started a new job at the start of the month and it’s been hectic; feeling very fully settled into routine. It’s a 9-5 but that’s prac-tic-ally island of the lotus eaters compared to my last gig –plenty of time for seeing people and writing and reading. Funny that C-Comics is on this list, I’ve had it for months but have reignited my interest in it when I realised I have enough money to get a tattoo done. Brainard’s detournement style comic-book pairings with poetry give the words a lyrical quality I find difficult to see on the page when they’re just themselves.
Right now, I’m encouraging a friend to publish a pamphlet of his poetry, and I think this kind of approach would suit his work also.
Another one of my friends seems to be starting up a small-press –which is very good news for me. I’m set to publish ‘Alphabayt Daemon’ with him; which is still in its first draft, but I’m feeling good about it. I think it’s going to be published in a can as 26 different pamphlets (one for each character) — which is an ordeal I suppose.
Also me and my husband are in Paris 16th to 21st August — first holiday abroad in my adult life ! I’m excited! Where’s good for meeting cute french guys ? Any good art shit I should check out ? You about for a coffee ?
Hope you’re well !
Openly a Valentine: Diesel Clementine
Have you and Zac considered making an animated film about a theme park, if that would be the sole way you could direct one?
Fotonovels were far bigger in Europe, I believe. I can’t recall seeing any around when I was a kid. Does the Johnny Torture series have any connection to that company which produces pseudo-snuff movies acting out their customers’ fantasies?
Night Flight didn’t really include live clips they shot themselves, but there was an ’80s show with a similar name that presented live music. The series was created by Stuart Shapiro, who wrote a book in the ’70s about midnight movies and worked as a film distributor. Around the time Night Flight ended, he directed MONDO NEW YORK.
Hi Dennis,
Hervé Guibert’s Suzanne et Louise in the post above! I love his work a lot, and even though I haven’t read anything by him in a long time, reading his name catches my attention right away. I was genuinely convinced that I knew HG from a post of yours about Crazy for Vincent, but maby I’m wrong, because the only post I can find is about To The Friend Who Did Not Save My Life (and while searching, I also came across the great post about Bernard Faucon!).
I’ll be at the Film Museum in Frankfurt this weekend to see The Turin Horse by Béla Tarr. I’ve never seen any of his films, but a friend of mine likes them, so I’ll see. And I’m just happy to do something nice there, aside from work. Oh and the following weekend The Face Of Another by Hiroshi Teshigahara will be shown there, I’m really excited for that!
And thank you for this interview!
Hope you have a wonderful week!
‘Tired Eyes’ is so so beautiful, indeed.
Phew, I’m glad I’ve met someone who shares my disinterest in ‘Blood on the Tracks’. As a teenager I was obsessed with Dylan’s electric trilogy and I occasionally go back to them but in truth, I think that obsession has left me. I think he only did something magical for a brief but great period. I like Neil Young because at his best he still used a lot of placeholder words and leaned into his inadequacy. Not everything had to be super perfect, but the entire effect is genuinely very poetic, whatever that actually means.
I reckon that Punk magazine one is probably one of the few here that is a bona fide expensive collectors item. The 90s ones are so ugly, I love them. I remember as a kid I had this picture book by William Steig called ‘The Flying Latke’ which includes a mix of images and drawings and features famous actors like John Turturro. I haven’t thought of that in years but it just came back for some reason. Weird to look back on now and it’s so of it’s time and obviously never caught on as a format.
Today I read ‘The Pepsi-Cola Addict’ by June-Alison Gibbons, one of the so-called ‘silent twins’. A long story if you don’t know it, but in the 80s there were these sisters who were selectively mute and only interacted with each other. At the age of 16 they locked themselves in their room and worked on their own novels. This book features a fourteen year old boy addicted to Pepsi who ends up in several odd scenarios. There’s the typical stuff of first time writers, but there’s a real vision that shines through it all, and it’s very funny too. I have an interest in awkward sentences and if it’s possible to write something that is ‘comfortably stilted’, which is a phrase I made up. Anyway, for that reason it was a good find, and I recommend it if you haven’t read it.
@TimothyT thank you for this post! <3 i love fotonovelas. my grandparents had tons lying about for some reason so i grew up w them— literally just cried reading your first excerpt lol what w the missing dad and the promise to reunite him with his baby daughter for Christmas, then poor Johnny’s genital abuse by drowning (?) was really funny but that’s the joy of the medium imo. it makes sweet stuff even sweeter while horrible stuff just becomes super amusing. it’s the weird correctness of the visuals and the narrated suffering style for me, i suppose. anyway, i thoroughly enjoyed all your excerpts and for sure everything marriage-related is worth mentioning bc it’s quite at the heart of the thing, ‘we’ll never consumate, be crystal clear on this!’ yea yea super clear lol
@DC hope you get to overhear some kankersmth or other at least! ^_^ instapoetry, blergh =D unless you’re Fatimah Asghar obvi. hmm i’ll try my hand and perhaps be put in jail. but if i do it you’ve got to check it out, it’s only fair.
i’m all emo today bc i’ve finally been listening to Dagmar Zúñiga’s In Filth Your Mystery is Kingdom and ughhh Dennis… it’s like the most goldenhoured, liminal, religious, actually mysterious thing ever and also the freest. i normally love it whenever anyone aces smth but this one is lowkey making me want to give up artistic expression, it’s too good lol.
it’s also the big Eid today and i’m gonna spend it in crisis wondering how someone can write so well as to decide to render most of her words unintelligible— there’s this super beautiful song called Her Master’s Voice, p Blanchot-esque in that it’s sort of nothinged and thus says a lot… anyway, it’s this waltz on a totally intoxicating 4 track or whatever, right, and when the vocal melody ascends and you can actually understand her it’s suddenly like… glory. ugh. she’s so good. you should listen if you haven’t ^_^
to have a name, huh! hope today is a bit extra to you even if you’re not celebrating, yesterday was Arafah’s day which means a lot is forgiven (so today we dress up).
<3
P.S. reading your interview later!
loved the interview today! really interesting insight on the structure of the novel and the structure of the series as a whole- i reread closer a few weeks ago but i wish i waited now. still, it gave me a lot to think about.
btw i meant to ask! have you played/heard of the cube escape games by the (dutch, incidentially) developer rusty lake? it’s a series of flash game point and clicks that were ported to the app store/pc when flash died and had a whole second life there. one of my favorite series- it’s a heavily inspired by twin peaks and can get a bit on the nose with the references but the games are original enough they don’t feel entirely like a pastiche.
also the mention of guibert activated me- i went through a semi-big guibert phase like two/three years ago lol. ghost image still holds a very dear place in my heart.
hey dennis! too shy and burning up due to the heat to think about anything. but just saw there’s a stavanger date now for rt. i gotta see if i can catch it.
Hello, Dennis! Whew, amazed I can even look at a computer screen right now. I’ve been spending a lot of time staring at one today. My stage scenery class requires us to render a 3D model and the program we have to work with is a nightmare unless you somehow have a supercomputer to run it on at your disposal. I can barely load it on my personal computer (which might as well be prehistoric), so I’ve been using my school’s public ones.
As for what I’ll being doing for The Tempest, well… still uncertain about that. Before I even signed up, I gave the director my best puppy-dog eyes and begged her to let me run either lighting or sound because 1) I’m not much of an actor and 2) I enjoy being behind the scenes much more, but I’ve heard the show is a little shorthanded, so I might be thrust into a role whether I like it or not. On the bright side, it probably won’t be a major one since I have no training in classical theater and I doubt they’d just thrust me into that.
I’m glad my photography sounds interesting! If this isn’t too self-centered of an offer, I’d be glad to compile some of my pictures into a Flickr album or something and share it here. Oh, also, the interview was a great read. The “pervy old French guy” is such a funny archetype to me, honestly. It’s one of those character types that I can’t really pinpoint where I first saw it or noticed it, but it’s just sort of an inherent knowledge, I guess, haha.
Have fun with your friends, and stay in the shade!