living room color
The first thing we did when we moved into our apartment was paint the living room and dining room. It took forever, even with no furniture and lots of help. I have never been 100% happy with the color we chose though, which is generally what happens when you choose from swatches and never see what the paint looks like on the wall. It’s a little too dark and a little too green. While it works better in our dining room with all the dark mahogany furniture, I wish it was just a little lighter and more subdued.
I’ve been talking about repainting for awhile now, (probably since soon after I finished painting the kitchen) but whenever I bring it up Shawn points out I haven’t bothered to repaint our mantel this whole time and that both rooms is quite a bit larger project. Well guess what, I finally painted the mantel this weekend which I think means I get to paint the rest, right?
I really want a pale blue / green / grey. The trick is to pick a color that is neither too dull nor too poppy which can be tricky with blues. I like the blue above from Martha Stewart and also the first blue room in Tamera’s Greek Revival post. Maybe a more subdued grey would be nice. My biggest worry is that I’ll never be totally satisfied because our walls are textured and weird. I think it’s worth a try though. Right now nearly everything in the living room is the same tone and it needs some contrast. We probably also need a wooden coffee table rather than the white one we have and some new accent pillows for the couch, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Photos from Martha Stewart
Redesign
It’s here! The new and improved Cute and Delicious.
And behind this completely new look is the amazing Anna Dorfman of Door Sixteen. Anna made a beautiful design that I adore every piece of. With a minimal amount of direction from me, she came up with something unique and wonderful. For this, I may forever be indebted to her.
I hope you’ll take a look around (make sure to hop out if your reading this in a feed) and let me know what you think. Besides being much more lovely than before, it should be a little bit easier to navigate. I hope you all love it as much as I do.
intellectual property
Generally speaking, I try to keep this blog on a positive note (there are of course exceptions on occasion). This week I have reached my peak in frustration though. It’s a culmination of things that was pushed over the edge when our good friend, Liz Hayward, showed us the logo design in the trailer for the movie Crazy Stupid Love. You can see it above. You might notice a distinct similarity between it and the logo that Liz designed for Brainwashed Love
I know this sort of comparability happens quite often in design, and who knows, it could be a complete coincidence. On the other hand, perhaps it’s not. There is a definite trend right now where larger companies are directly taking ideas, whether they be films or handmade items or photos, from individuals and using them as their own without any kind of credit.
Larger organizations are preying on the ideas of the creative community. I read recently about a photographer who’s image was lifted from flickr and used on the Delta website front page without any compensation or permission. The photographer only found the image by chance when he was looking to purchase a ticket from the airline.* Or what about this blogger’s face being plastered on t-shirts and sold without any kind of permission/credit/compensation for either her or the photographer who took the photo? There is essentially no repercussions for this blatant plagiarism as quite often individuals don’t have the means to go after the perpetrators.
Months ago when the 30 Seconds to Mars video for Kings and Queens came out, I expected it to look a lot like the photos Shawn had posted to Midnight Ridazz over the years, as there were thousands. What neither Shawn nor I expected was to see a stop motion wildfire in the middle of the video. For no reason. Just a few clicks away from Shawn’s many photos on Midnight Ridazz, one would find his short film Ignite, which is, as you might have guessed, a stop motion film of the Griffith Park fire. The music video also reuses Banksy imagery amongst other things so it’s clearly not trying to be original, but I’m sure Jared Leto just felt this was all derivative. I mean he did pay a bunch of cyclists to ride to the MTV music video awards with him and pose as his bike friends. Because that’s the sort of thing you can do when you have money I suppose.
That’s what it comes down to…money. Which is what makes this so frustrating. It’s frustrating because Shawn and I spent everything we had and more on making Brainwashed Love. We made a super low budget film on our own terms and I’m so proud of what we did. Since we made a truly independent film we’re left to rely on film festivals as one of the only options to get the publicity needed to distribute our film. Unfortunately, this often puts us up against “independent” features which cost 100 times the budget of our film. It puts us against films with Hollywood stars trying to earn some industry cred that are enticing to festivals who can in turn use those names to promote the festival itself.
So when a Hollywood film comes out, before we’ve even had a chance to get our movie released, and it has nearly the same logo as the film that we poured our heart and souls into it makes me want to scream. It makes me crazy that money gives you power and that this movie which could be a complete piece of junk will be seen by so many people with a logo just like ours and there is nothing we can do.
Brainwashed Love Title Sequence from Shawn Bannon on Vimeo.
Here is where in another place this post might turn into a Kickstarter campaign to help us distribute the film ourselves. That’s not what I’m looking for. I have faith that we will find a way to get this film out there. Instead, I ask that you watch our opening sequence with its awesome titles by Liz Hayward. Or instead, check out our teaser trailer. Become a fan of Brainwashed Love on Facebook so that when we are able somehow get this film in theaters we can let you know. If anything though, this lit a fire in my heart again to ensure the success of our film baby.
Most importantly, support your creative contemporaries. And if you’re out there making stuff, keep making. Don’t give up.
Oh and if by chance you happen to know anyone looking to distribute a great feature film, in any capacity, feel free to send them my way.
*I of course, now can’t find where I read this article, so if anyone has a link I’ll gladly take it.
