#I Am A Camera

[mrmousetolliver]

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (1939). Cover art by James Avati.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Above, Julie Harris as Sally Bowles in the play I Am a Camera, based on the Berlin stories of Christopher Isherwood. The play was, of course, later adapted into the musical Cabaret. Below, Katharine Cornell congratulates Harris on the play's opening night, November 28, 1951, at the Empire Theater.

Both photos by Robert Wands for the AP

[mary-maud]

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking... Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.

Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

[do-you-know-this-play]

[pygartheangel]

[momma2boys]

WIP game:

Rules: Make a new post and post your latest line from your WIP & tag as many people as there are words.

Thank you, @calaisreno, for the tag!

This line is from I Am a Camera, my current WIP which is woefully overdue for an update.

In the months leading up to the liberation of Paris, Sherlock was instrumental in bringing to justice another master of hiding in plain sight, a man my friend has described as the epitome of evil: the man known as the Butcher of Paris, the Scalper of the Ètoile, the Monster of rue Le Sueur—Dr Marcel Petiot.

I won't tag nearly as many of my favs as there are words since 1. Calais tagged all my favs already and 2. I shared a nice long sentence to assure my readers that I haven't abandoned them.

@keirgreeneyes @blogstandbygo @thegildedbee @elldotsee @iwantthatbelstaffanditsoccupant @missdaviswrites @fluffbyday-smutbynight @mama-orion @totallysilvergirl @vulpesmellifera @helloliriels @arwamachine

[darkbloomiana]

[peanutbuttaz]

How it feels to be a camera

[visplay]

Chris: I am a Camera is a British comedy set in pre-WW2 Berlin about an artist who is swept away by a wild and broke lady, Patrick McGoohan’s first film as a German medical bath specialist, interesting setting, Watch: When Free.

[mikkeneko]

PSA to fan creators who don't have a lot of regular contact with children: They are almost always bigger than you think. A 1-year-old baby may already be walking. A toddler is likely already hip-high. A 10-year-old may already be taller than at least one of their parents. A 14/15 year old may already have reached their adult height.

[hinamie]

itakugi sillies fr the soul

[xitsensunmoon]

My first ever comic con! And first cosplay too. Of course it's gonna be my boy :] Ramblings about the process are under the cut(Let me know if?? You would want me to elaborate with process images for any of the steps?)

The costume took me forever to make, as I've never done any machine sewing, sculpting, fabric dying or spray painting before but learning all of these was so fucking fun!! I never realised just how many different skills go into making a cosplay but it was so worth it!!!

Almost all of the clothes(except the hat) were purchased first as bases, but all of the detailing was added by me. All of the fabric used was originally just scraps that I was given for free so I needed to learn how to dye and dye all of the stars, they were originally white.

The sewing machine was its own beast that brought me tons of frustration from the lack of skill and knowledge (it was devastating to find out that 95% of fuck ups were my fault and not the machine's lmao). But as a result, a hat sewn from scratch, all of the fur trims, embroidery on the corset, stars and the collar(which is very hard to see on the pictures unfortunately) was all added manually. The stars and the stripes(on the back of the cape) were attached using heat-and-bond adhesive (I WISH I knew about such thing just when I started working on this. It would save me so much time and nerves.)

Then I found out about polymorph(mouldable plastic) and it has become the next thing I wanted to learn, to sculpt the claws and the fangs(yes, they're handmade jfksjs). The claws I then primed and painted in trillion coats because I wasn't satisfied with the colour of the spray paint. The fangs I moulded to my own teeth and then stained with tea to match the colour of my teeth :)c

As for makeup, I used Mehron Paradise water activated paints. At first I wanted to try to save money and bought myself Snazaroo instead, which unfortunately turned out to be a waste. Snazaroo didn't hold on my face for longer than 2 hours, cracking and peeling awfully. Mehron on the other hand survived 11 hours of me smiling, talking, emoting and such and didn't even crease at the smile lines(I'm actually shocked about that). It obviously works like any other makeup which means your skin texture and wrinkles won't go anywhere but Mehron's elasticity pleasantly surprised me. It did obviously smear from sweat and saliva(if you're eating and licking your lips) but if you don't touch the skin it just dries again, self setting. But if it's dry it's fully smear-proof. Highly recommend!

And last but not least, I've decided against painting my hands as it was very risky that I will stain everything I touch at the smallest hint of sweat. So instead I got myself gloves-tights(? Not sure how they're called but it's made from the same fabric as tights) and painted them with normal acrylic paint(did you know you could dye fabric with acrylic paint? I personally didn't), then heat set with an iron and voilà, they're reusable, my hands are not stained after an exhausting day and I don't stain everything I touch. It worked wonderfully which honestly was a surprise as I was really sceptical that acrylic paint will somehow stay in place.

I think this whole thing took me minimum of 6 months with big-big breaks for my school and life in general. But I'm really proud! This project taught me so many new skills and I couldn't have been happier about learning new knowledge, even if it sucked to fail in the meantime.

Everyone at the con was really nice and gave me a large confidence boost even tho it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Taking photos with other people was really awkward/new for me as I hate cameras so I really had no idea how to pose/behave in front of one. But that's okay I think. This whole experience definitely made me want to do this again, so I think that will come with experience. Thank you for reading this far, hope you enjoyed this little summary :)

[hai-nae]

do you even lift bro? (i keep havin to set my pen down to giggle at this wip so it's slow goin)

[silverformymonsters]

Strong, piercing eyes. That dangerous smile.

[bubbarnes]

“... one more time over here, please.”

[sentientsky]

“i love the x-files!”

the x-files: