For day five of the sketch challenge we go back to Mr. Andersen with the Princess and The Pea. This one was really easy frankly the only creative struggle you get when pulling this title from the magic Tupperware is choosing what angle you’re going to use for the ridiculously high stack of mattresses.
To be honest though, I don’t think that the Princess and the Pea is one of those stories that survives childhood very well. It’s just too silly. These day’s if I think about it at all it’s from Carol Burnett in Once Upon a Mattress.
Okay for today’s challenge I got one of the more obscure ones, though a classic example of one of the common motif of a magical elixir giving someone the ability to understand animals, with the White Snake.
Though there were plenty of options to go with this one I figured I had to go with something with the White Snake of the title. I think I was mostly cribbing the cover of the season one DVD for Hannibal when I did this.
With the the planned randomness of these challenges I was a little surprised that I got one of the fun ones, Snow White, this early. Not that I’m complaining at all.
I had second choices about the composition choice minutes into doing it. Liking to think myself as a modern guy I have a bit of discomfort that most of the story Snow White is the dwarfs’ domestic. (as far as the “Dwarves” vs “Dwarfs” argument is concerned, I’m using “dwarfs” to make a distinction between the little guys in northern European fairy tales from Tolkien’s badass (albeit short) warriors) But since for me the story is all about the dwarfs it was either that or her dead in the glass casket.
All in all I believe it came out better than I thought it would fifteen minutes in.
Okay for day two of this challenge we have The Goblin and the Huckster. This one threw me off for a bit. The first was because it was one I wasn’t familiar with so I had to look it up. The second reason was because this turned out to be a Hans Christian Andersen story I couldn’t find it in the Grimm Fairytale Index I was using. (you can tell I didn’t have my coffee yet.) Finally I was thrown off by not knowing what a huckster was in the context of the story. (Turns out Andersen meant Grocer but it was mistranslated in the English)
After that the trick was how to include the Goblin (you got to have the goblin he’s in the title) in what is the most important image of the story when he was looking at it through a keyhole. My solution was to make the goblin really small so the keyhole was a window to him… I’m not sure how well it worked but I’m happy with the lighting.
Well I decided to be stupid again and inflict another sketch challenge on myself. This time the theme is Grimm Fairy tales (with a little bit of Hans Christian Anderson to fill out the Gaps.) The rules one sketch a day using a ten point marker (I am indeed a masochist) I am going to try to maintain a film noir vibe (though since half the time it feels like that means sticking a fedora on everyone that one’s not written in stone, but I’ll try to stay in period)
We start with the Story of Snow White and Rose Red.
I think this was okay start (the first few are always the weakest) I kind of flubbed the bear’s head but otherwise I’m mostly pleased with it.
In honor of the final week of March Madness I decided the perfect choice for this week would be some basketball films I’d been curious about for who knows how long. I figured this was as good an excuse to finally force myself to watch them.
The first film on my list, Hoosiers, was a film that was completely different than what I thought it was about. Based on the name I just assumed it was a film about college basketball… presumably the University of Indiana… it was not.
Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale a former basketball coach who has been hired to be the basketball coach for a tiny high school in small farming community in rural Indiana.
It’s a challenging hob. Not only does he initially have only five player to work with but he also has most of the town playing backseat driver to his coaching technique.
This was a good solid film even if it was pretty much by the numbers as inspirational stories about underdogs persevering go. It even had the final big game in slow motion.
My next film, Love and Basketball tells the story of Quincy(Omar Epps) and Monica (Sanaa Lathan), two kids who fist meet when Monica moves into the neighborhood when they are 11. They form a fast friendship that gradually becomes more than that with their shared love of basketball. Throughout the movie we watch them progress from high school, college and professional careers all the while showing the constant balancing act between their passion for the game and each other.
This is a sweet film. probably a little sappy for my tastes, (but then I’m an annoying cynic) Epps and Lethan have fantastic chemistry together and watching them grow from best friends to lovers is a pleasure. I also liked the feeling of dedications where in the process of showing of the love of the sport, Basketball becomes far more than a sport. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKXP-KrY2UYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKXP-KrY2UY