Going Again

I am on a journey.  A noble and valiant quest, risking all that is precious to answer one of the greatest questions of our age.

WHAT IS A GEEK?

The Geek Test offers some criteria

If I had a pound for every time the answer to that has been "You are" I would have much more time to spend with my family.  But I have never really been given any explanation of what it truly means to be a geek.  I enjoy science fiction, own a computer and have a strong aversion to sports, but that goes for a lot of people.


Of course if Jon Ronson is right and the world is run by psycopaths the role of the Geek must be critical to their success.  The heads of Microsoft and Apple must have some appreciation of this.  (Am I the only person left who doesn't own an iPad by the way?)  Because the best - and kindest - definition has to be from DJ Blu Peter "Someone who pays attention to the minutia of life"

A details man in other words.

My current detail is the reconstruction of the great animation stage in the new house. I'd run out, anyway, of all those little jobs that need doing in a new home: patching up the dodgy wiring in the living room, descaling the waterworks, finding that sweetspot on the thermostat that's right between sahara and baltic and properly colonising the shed.  It's called the Gillespie Stage by the way, in the manner of the Richard Attenborough Stage or the 007 Stage at Pinewood.  It has been a lesson in getting on with it and finishing the damned project before I move in future.

Finally, it fits!

Actually one of the first and most precious boxes to be transported was the one containing the very carefully packed polystyrene and plaster rock face.  Precious because everything else in my life: the equipment, clothes, crap and books can all be replaced more or less like for like. This set, on the other hand, is a completely unique object, the destruction of which would render eight months of work on the project utterly worthless (that's including the footage already shot)

Chaos behind the scenes

So the rebuild has given me a very thorough appreciation for set designers who work in touring theatre. The various modules of the set were organised so that the cracks between them were disguised by natural crevices and overhangs.

Thought I was being clever, didn't I?  Unfortunately - and I cannot explain why - the surface of the stage floor appears not to be as completely flat as the one on which I built the set, despite being one and the same.  The gaps took some man-handling out of existence in spite of the small scale of the thing, there are some holes I can't seem to shift.  I shall just have to be cunning with the photography and, unlike the first take on the new stage; I shall have to pay very close attention.

Specifically, I shall have to not start shooting with a principle character's eyebrows mysteriously absent.

So much for details....