Catch up

No the pictures aren't relevant. But a blog with pictures is more enticing, isn't it?

Okay, so we migrated to linux. That took longer than anticipated. Plus we were thrown out of our offices by our hateful landlord. It's temporary, 4-6 weeks they claim. But it's insanely disruptive to get 24 hours notice before being put on the street. Since they bought the building a few years ago they've done nothing but lie and scheme and sabotage tenants at every opportunity. I really never have encountered humans as scummy as these folks. Weird, because it's not impersonal. The landlord comes over to the building and treats people like shit. He seems to really hate having people in his buildings.
Anyway, sorry, we've been incredibly disrupted by this, so we're a touch angry. We've had to move a video studio, a recording studio, a photo studio, our offices and all of our computers for designing databases and websites and other things we do. Our creative world and our professional world were both put on the street until December or January.

Anyway, now we need to catch you up on Disembody.

Janet, our lawyer, is working on the contracts. The hitch there right now is that Susan, the gallerist, isn't able to discuss the gallery's end of the deal until December. So, we're moving ahead with a 1/50th of the gross for every $1000 invested. Essentially we're gambling that she'll go for the offer we made her. This whole project is a gamble on human interactions, and ultimately that's the point of it anyway: making art together, there is no single artist creating Disembody, it is a collaborative work between many people. (We would argue, and will in a later post, that all art is collaborative, but that aspect of the business is hidden away for mythological and commercial reasons)

We can't think of a better way to make art than by working with a slew of amazing people; finding ways to involve everyone so that an entire roomful of people feel exhilarated about what they've made together.

Yosh, our perfumist, is thinking about a scent for the architectural models. Something popcorny and sweet. We're very excited. Each architectural model will be a working theater in scale. It will play the film. And it will smell like a theater. So faboo.

As well, we'll be introducing two new scents at the concession stand of the actual theater:
Vime for Men, Disembody
Vime for Women, Disembody
Each will be available in a limited edition of, umm, we're not sure how many, somewhere between 13 and 23, we suspect.
They will be captured in handmade bottles. We're pursuing a friend of The MVM to make the bottles. If he can do it, they will be fabulous. If not, we'll find someone else and they will be fabulous.

Time for another picture.


Oh, and more good news, we have a producer. David Lockhart is onboard. We'll finalize something in a week when he gets into SF from LA, but for now it looks very good. We met David on a film we produced. He's not just a producer, but as you'll see if you visit his website, he's also an actor. So we produced him a few years ago and now he may be producing The MVM film for us. He's outgoing, aggressive and charismatic, all characteristics necessary for a producer. He's also connected in LA, another important characteristic.
And he's a rock n' roller. Yup, he sings in a band called The Stereo Blasters. C'mon, you gotta be a little excited about a producer who is in a classic rock band, right?
David is the one in the bottom right-hand corner.


What else? Oh, it looks like Kam can't do the architectural drawings. But a friend from CCA, Airason Heard, is looking at the proposal and may do it for us. Airason is pretty amazing. He's a tech and theory geek with an amazing vision for integrating the human and technological into buildings. With luck we'll be able to post a few of his drawings for the project in the coming weeks.

Once we have Airason's drawings, we'll be getting a brochure printed at our fave printer A. Maciel Printing. It will be bound at Pettingell Bookbindery. We are thinking a small edition of 7 or 8, so that we have something tangible to give investors right out of the gate. The book itself will be a work of art with bios of the folks involved, plans for the project, early behind-the-scenes footage, ephemera from the project thus far, etc.
Marcella Faustini and Elise Irving will be designing the brochure with us.

Finally, I have an incredibly exciting lead on what might be some serious funding accompanied by a distribution deal. Yeah, I mean, it's just hearsay at this point, so I'm not going to say more, but it's going to be so super exciting if we get a chance to pitch these people. It's actually incredibly exciting just knowing that opportunities like this are already appearing. Our spirits are high today.
And atop that, one of our LA contacts has a few investors ready to talk to us when we are down in Tinseltown come December.
So, all is coming along well.