Germaine accepts her crown. |
It's been a week of movie stars and glamour gals. My mom is always happy when I photograph women for some reason, so this entry should make her happy. Ok, maybe not.
~hehe~
Remember I said I photographed a bunch a people for the opening montage for the aGLIFF Film Festival? Well, apparently the shoot caught the eye of some of the drag queens who perform at Sidekicks/Extreme.
Germaine (I hope I am spelling that right!) called me up and asked if I would be willing to photograph a dozen or so gals for media that they will need over the next year. I jumped at the chance because it sounded like pure fun!
I had visions of dozens of drag queens getting out of their cars in front of my house while my "Mrs. Kravitz" neighbors wondered what the heck is going on NOW at my house. It just sounded like a fun thing to do.
All week I was excited about this photoshoot. But first…movies! The Film Festival is BACK!
On Thursday, the aGLIFF film festival kicked off. The opening movie was Eating Out, and I was psyched to go see this one.
This year the festival is up north at the Arbor Regal Cinema. It takes a good 30 minutes to get up there. Traffic is pretty bad, and I miss having the festival so close by at the Metropolitan. Got spoiled. All the Northern queers are happy to have the festival FINALLY close to them. Getting up to that theatre by 7pm requires me to start out just after 6pm, peak rush hour. But I guess it is only fair that the "Northerners" finally catch a break.
I am a teeny tiny bit disappointed in the size of these theatres. There is something satisfying about sitting in the same theatre that you saw Spiderman 2 or the Matrix and are now seeing a big 'ole gay movie . Size does matter! The opening night movie was played simultaneously in two theatres to accommodate that many people. Dividing the crowd up. I loved the Metropolitan cuz we would fill up those giant stadium theatres, really making you feel like you are part of something big. But perhaps with two smaller theatres they could actually accomodate more people than one large theater?
In the Arbor theater's favor is that the smaller size theater gives it a more intimate flavor, so it is not without it's charm. You don't have Alien Vs. Predator meatheads rubbernecking while you buy tickets- but that is not without it's charms too.
One other thing. The organizers of the event, Scott, Sandra, Bobette, Bruce et al...they work really really hard on this, and it is purely volunteer based, so these little nitpicks have to be taken in perspective of all the hard work they do to pull this off. Despite these little quirks, I am in awe of all they do. So thank you!
aGLIFF also had an opening movie just for the gals. A brilliant idea, as I am sure they have felt left out in the past as lead movies tend to be gay boy oriented. It was kinda strange being at an opening night movie with only a few gals in the audience. Maybe they could stagger the movies, cuz I sure wanted to see D.E.B.S, the campy take off on female super agent movies with a lesbian twist.
The opening film, Eating Out, was an over the top comedy filled with sex games, hot guys and gals, and a very engaging story arc. Very much in the theme of 16 Candles and Pretty in Pink, but with gay characters. It was very sexy and campy in a good way. Not bad campy (like Surge of Power playing on Friday night..skipped that one based on the video I downloaded from their site..ugh!) Nor was it brilliantly campy like last year's opening movie Girls Will Be Girls. This movie had some memorable one-liners, and pretty good acting despite the deliberate campy delivery.
And loooooooorddddddddy..the boy who played Marc. Swoon! Ah to be young and that beautiful.
After the movie we walked over to a giant tent they had placed out in parking lot for the opening night party. We didn't stay long as we were hungry for real food and not finger foods, but honestly didn't even get close enough to see what they had catered in. Our minds were on a sit down meal. I think this tent idea worked pretty well. Not having to shuttle by bus to another location really made the party seem well attended.
The opening montage reel that had my picturess in it was embarassingly bad. I had asked him not to include my name in the credits, as I didn't have any creative control, but he did anyway. Thankfully, the credits were longer than the acid trip freaky montage, that organizers have been cropping that part off before they start each movie- well, at least did at the movie I saw a couple days later.
I do have my name in the sponsor reel. I think they are having some tech difficulties, as all the images, including just text based ones, are so jaggedy and pixelated that they are practically unreadable. I sure hope they get that fixed, cuz some of the major sponsors are gonna get bitchy.
After the movie, a familiar face emerged from the crowd.
Tomas is a model that I had photographed in Costa Rica back in November. We have been emailing each other occasionally since meeting. I knew he was going to be in Ft. Worth for the next couple weeks, and just Friday afternoon he emailed me to tell me he was going to come down to Austin next week.
Apparently, not 20 minutes after mailing me, his buddy he was staying with wanted to come down and attend the film festival. No time to call or email me back.
Bill spotted him in the crowd right away, but I thought, “Naw..can't be him…he JUST emailed me that he won't get here till next week.”
Sure enough it was him and he came over to say hi, grinning from ear to ear. We made arrangements to meet for lunch the next day.
On Friday I waited at home for Time Warner to come out and fix some Internet connection problems I have been having, then went and picked Tomas up for lunch.
I gave him a whirlwind tour of Austin, which of course includes a trip up to Mt. Bonnell to get a scope of Austin. Tomas is such a sweetheart. I dropped him off so I could get back to work. I am hoping he does make it back to Austin again while on his Texas tour.
On Friday night, I purchased the DVD Girls Will Be Girls, in honor of all the drag queens that would be arriving the very next day.
Bill hadn't seen this movie, and he laughed soooooo hard I feared hey might have wet himself.. Astrophysicist!!!
On Saturday I got a bike ride in, and went down to the gym to workout before the Drag Queen photoshoot that I had scheduled for 1pm.
The drag gals showed up on time, but not in full on drag. But they definitely caught the eyes of a few of my spying neighbors.
Steve, the owner of the bar, came along to help out and coach the gals. What a super friendly guy he is! I got a little dirt on the bar community too. I haven't even been to Sidekicks/Extreme, despite me constantly promoting Peter Dean's Spunk parties that happen there every month..
The location of the bar is in a space that has been a revolving door for new businesses. It's been a doomed spot. But with parking so bad downtown, and so many frat boys and girls moving into the Warehouse District, it's just no longer fun or safe to wander that part of town.
So I really want Sidekicks to take off and be a success. It's not near the other bars, so it suffers from not being in the “bar hopping” rounds. I hear that business is really picking up, and it sounds like Steve has a large variety of events for everyone to partake in. More power to 'em!
The girls arrived in mass, and they scattered about the house getting their make-up on, wigs, dresses, fingernails…the place was a blur of beauty products!
I'm sorry, but I can't remember everyone's names. We took about three hundred shots in a variety of outfits. The gals had asked for a black backdrop, but so many outfits were primarily black, that we switched to a white backdrop. I wish I could find a way to have both backdrops up at the same time so we can easily switch. Oh well, some day maybe I can afford a real studio.
Here is a montage of images from the photoshoot.
 
 
 
 
All the girls were a joy to work with. Both Bill and I had so much fun that it hardly felt like work. I want to thank the gals for a great time and being so friendly.
Once again I asked the “models” to remember me when I am doing my giant fundraiser for the bike ride next year, so I did the shoot for free, and hopefully I will get a big-ish donation for the ride.
Saturday night we headed over to the Arbor again for the movie Cowboys and Angels This movie was friggin awesome! It's the story about two guys who end up renting a flat together. One is gay and city smart, the other is straight, drab, and a newbie to big city life. The acting was superb, the cinematography excellent. Really would like to see this go up for an Oscar.
The story wasn't really a gay one. The story followed the straight character, but the friendship that formed between the two flatmates transcended stereotypes you see in most movies. Go see this one if it comes near ya!
One last thing..speaking of videos.
I heard from my hosts this week about getting the videos online. It sounds like CCBill signed all the contracts and the videos “should” come online later this week!!
CYAIN7
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