June 28, 2005
You Approach The Birthday Zone
By DEANNA DAHLSAD
Birthdays are an ambivalent mix of happiness & sorrow. We delight in the attention, yet hate the focus on time. We love a day that's focused on "me," but hate to think of looking at what we've done and not done - it leads to thoughts of who & what we've lost... and when it will all end...
I know. I just celebrated my 41st birthday. And my 25th year entering The Birthday Zone.
What is The Birthday Zone?
If the Twilight Zone is a fifth dimension, the Birthday Zone is yet another dimension of sight, sound & mind. A land of the nostalgia of the past, shadows of future fears, and the things & ideas of now, which all holds us back from enjoying our lives today.
The Birthday Zone is a series of ecards which capture all the angst and tension of this time & space, yet uses humor to remind us to slow down, and smell the roses - or the coffee, as the case may be.
No boring static cards, but cool mini-movies with all the familiar pop culture goodness of vintage television - flash films you can send to remind folks that even if they aren't celebrating their special day, you are.
Unlike Rod Sterling's creation, you know the Birthday Zone will hit you, your friends & relatives, every year. Why not celebrate it before you find yourself trapped in... The Birthday Zone.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:20 PM
June 23, 2005
These Shoes are made for WOKing
©No Evil Productions 2005
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:13 PM
June 21, 2005
Just how does a discussion with Marcel Marceau
lead to “Kung Foo-ey”?
By DEANNA DAHLSAD
I first met Kat Caverly in 2002, as The Photocartoonist. Meeting her again in 2005, I discovered that she had started No Evil Productions. With this company, she's changed from photographer to animator. It's no small change to go from the one-cell-at-a-time approach of the camera lens focused on the character of a person, to the multiple moving cells of animation with a cast of cartoon characters. But then change isn't anything new for Kat Caverly.
She's studied to be a doctor, a clown, an actress & a mime. She's been a corporate photographer, a Beat poet, a bartender, graphic designer, street photographer, animal handler, and a greeting card designer. And there have been a few other “stops” in between....
While this appears to be the resume of one very confused woman trying to “find her way” it's not. Kat Caverly's work is the sum of its seemingly incongruous parts. But how? And more specifically, just how does a discussion with Marcel Marceau lead to “Kung Foo-ey” starring Quacki Chen the animated duck?
Stay tuned, and find out!
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:32 AM
June 16, 2005
Baby Quacki Chen: Child Star
Quacki Chen was born an adorable little duckling. He was sold into the slavery of doing commercials at a very young age because he was just so cute.
He was saved by Shaolin monk ducks and raised in the arts of flying duck kung fu. This is the start of his story.
Posted by photocartoonist at 12:08 PM
June 15, 2005
Developing a Theme Song for Quacki Chen
Quacki's Song ©Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
Quacki's favorite song is a classical Chinese composition from the Ming Dynasty, Under the General's Orders. As a young Peking duck he spent countless hours hearing Wong Fei Hung stories and decided that this is his theme song. He studied to this song. He practiced to this song. At night this was the soundtrack of his dreams.
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:27 PM
June 13, 2005
Quacki Chen: A Sweet Duckling
with a Dose of Tangy Pop Culture Chop Sockie Sauce
By DEANNA DAHLSAD
He's the quintessential odd duck, in a fairy tale of epic proportions; traveling on an Eastern path to defend all that is good in this world. And that includes producing children's animation that parents can watch with their children. (Yes, you heard me correctly, you parents will look forward to watching Quacki with your children!)
Quacki's not some one-chop-wonder doomed to repeat the same tired moves; in plots so weak you think you've seen this one before. Quacki is sophisticated. He offers kids the adventure, magic & slapstick fun they're enchanted with, and brings adults the action, humor & retro fun of kung fu films.
Quacki's not some shrine to violence like anime or other animations. Sure, any story with fighting has violence, but Quacki is a student of the Eastern philosophy where teachers' lessons include not just “how to fight” but “when to fight.” And there's something less frightening to children, and myself, when it's animals in the story. Children can understand a weasel wanting to eat a chicken, but how scary to think of people harming other people – scarier still to think of this as entertainment!
There's also something less violent & scary about a webbed foot in general and a webbed foot's a whole lot funnier.
If you've ever watched animated children's shows & wished you were the one who was hit on the head with one of those frying pans, just so you wouldn't have to be annoyed one minute longer... Or if you've ever wanted to take that skillet to the producer's head for daring to call the program “entertainment,” let alone children's entertainment... You await the arrival of Quacki Chen as much as I do.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:30 AM
June 12, 2005
The Adventures of Quacki Chen
Kung Foo-ey story treatment. Script #001 of the adventures of Quacki Chen.
June 12, 2005
written by Thomas Hudson Reeve © Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
Quacki Chen lives on the edge of a farm near the barn at the edge of the meadow on a little lake by the edge of the woods. He nests in a marshy corner of the pond, and lives alone, but he believes that he must have kin somewhere, and hopes someday to find them. He is on good terms with most of the animals on the farm - for he is a decent duck - but he does not quite fit into the life of the barnyard. He stands on the edge of this “village” of beasts, not fully engaged in the ordered world of the fully domesticated. Yet he does not really belong with the wild animals either. Although he knows creatures of the woods, they are hard to make friends with for they can be impulsive, suspicious, forgetful, rude, silly, selfish, and, in short, quite wild.
The closest thing he has to family is the old Swan who lives alone on the far side of the pond. This is Master Wan, a sage Kung-Fooey master, and a mysterious figure to the barnyard animals that fear his magic. For Quacki he is a revered teacher, a mentor, and also an Uncle whose guidance he trusts when others are pulling him this way and that for their own motives.
His toughest problem on the farm is a young rooster named Crow Red Cluck who struts around the yard and loudly proclaims his superiority, saying that it is he who summons the sun each day, so they better treat him with respect. He doesn’t just boss the hens around, he’s rude to the sheep, mean to mice and frogs, and looks down on the pigs. He acts like a friend to the goats, but then tells unflattering stories about them to impress the horses. He treats the cattle like chattel.
As for the lone quiet Quacki, Crow bullies and chides him every chance he gets. He enjoys ridiculing him in front of others, making fun of his blunt beak and webbed feet, and calling him “Soggy Bottom”. It makes Quacki angry, but Master Wan has taught him not to be drawn into fighting, especially with a fluffed up fool like Crow Red Cluck. (Maybe, but it is still hard to leave Crow’s words unanswered).
None the less, things are pretty good for all the animals at the farm until the day that a roving gang of nasty weasels discovered this pleasant prosperous place. These snarling beady-eyed brigands are greedy and violent thieves, and they immediately plot to raid the henhouse and steal the eggs. They wait for night to fall.
When the attack comes it is swift and shocking. Hens that fight back are hurt, the rest are scattered in panic, the eggs are stolen, or just carelessly smashed as the vandalistic weasels wreck the house and spill mayhem out into the yard. Crow Red Cluck comes running up and starts to fight them, but not very well. He loses heart and tries to flee, but there are too many weasels and he is overwhelmed and taken captive along with a couple of hens. Surrounded by his hench-weasels the especially nasty Master Black Weasel Wizard beats up Crow Cluck with his “weasel style” Kung-Fu, and threatens to enslave or kill the chickens.
While this crisis unfolds, a mouse tells a squirrel, the squirrel tells a frog, and the frog hops down to Quacki’s nest and breathlessly reports the calamity unfolding up the hill at the henhouse.
There is no time to cross the water and ask Master Wan what to do, so Quacki must try to help on his own.
Meanwhile, back at the Henhouse, Crow Red, who has been tied up, tells the weasels they are the ones in trouble, for now he will summon the sun to blind their beady little eyes. He crows, but nothing happens. The gang of weasels stops for a moment to see if his magic works, but it doesn’t. He tries again with all his might, but again nothing, and now the weasels just laugh at him.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard sneers with contempt at the foolish rooster and executes a lightning fast move that takes the cockscomb and dewlap of the rooster’s head and ties them around his beak, knotting his mouth shut. He then speaks his own magic words and casts a spell that covers the moon with clouds. Instead of getting lighter, it gets darker, and the red weasel eyes glow brighter. The Hench-weasels menacingly close in around the terrified Chickens.
But just in time Quacki bursts onto the scene and smashes into the gang with his Fledgling Flying Duck style Kung-Fooey, breaking their grip on the chickens and sending everyone flying and falling.
He squares up against a ring of weasels and battles them one against five. Crow Red, tied up, hops around trying to get out of the way.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard directs his top lieutenants, Snivel and Yellow Tooth to grab the eggs, and take a hen and Crow Red hostage. Preparing to leave he calls out, “Finish him off, send him where I sent his father.’ Then he turns and is gone through the tall grass towards the woods. (There are eight weasels including Master Ming).
The fighting resumes, and it looks bad for Quacki, though he fights well. But just when it appears he is in mortal jeopardy there is a new surprise - A big light shining all over the yard comes on, It could almost be mistaken for the sun itself, but it is followed by the blast of the farmers gun and a commotion of dogs. It is electric light, and together with the shotgun, it sends the weasels scrambling away in fear.
The black Weasel Wizard, hearing the commotion, decides it’s better to change course and head to the edge of the lake.
At the barnyard the dogs are running in circles confused by the frightened animals and the weasel scents crisscrossing in all directions. Quacki pulls himself together and climbs up on the fencepost. With great determination he flies off in pursuit of the weasel wizard.
Down at the lake, Master Wan silently glides into a gentle water landing with hardly a ripple and slides toward the shore. Looking up, he waves his wings in a gesture that pulls the clouds off the moon.
Master Ming and company arrives at the lakeshore. He looks up at the moon and wonders for moment, but shrugs it off and casts a spell that transforms a fallen tree trunk into a boat resting on the shore next to the water. Sniver and Scrafe load the plunder into the boat and push it into the water.
Suddenly Quacki arrives with an ungraceful splash crash nearby in shallows with tall reeds sticking out of the water. He demands that they leave the captives, and be gone.
Yellow Tooth is already in the boat with Crow Red (bound and gagged) and a hysterical hen, drifting out into the water. Snivel, still on the bank, turns and lunges at Quacki, but Master Wan suddenly intercepts him mid-air, spins round and round and releases him like the Olympic hammer throw far out into the lake.
Master Ming the black Weasel Wizard steps forward, “Why it’s old broken master swan, I thought you must be dead, or a coward, how nice to see you, even if you are very rude to my friend. But I shall return the favor”
He casts a spell that transforms the dozen or so reeds around Quacki into snakes that attack him. They wind around him and bite him, and drag him down into the water.
Master Wan begins to go at the Wizard Weasel with his magic power. The two masters, one good, one evil, have powers too equal for one to prevail easily. But Quacki’s distress in the water causes Master Wan to break off the engagement before it can be resolved. He knocks the weasel for a loop, but then goes to help the duck.
Master Ming feels no need to stay and fight, since he sees he has won. Snivel has the plunder, and will rendezvous with him on the other side of the lake.
Master Wan saves Quacki by reversing the spell on the reeds.
They are sitting in the water and Quacki says, “ Master, quick, we must rush out and stop the last weasel in the boat”.
Master Wan explains calmly that they will swim out now, but they needn’t hurry. As they swim, in the moonlight, they can see the silhouette of the boat with the outlines of the chickens and the weasel. Suddenly from above, the streaking shape of Master Hu the Owl swoops down and plucks the weasel right out of the boat with its talons.
As he flies overhead, Master Wan calls up, “Many Thanks Master Hu, I am in your debt!”
“That’s a hoot, Master Wan, Thanks for supper.”
They get to the boat, and it turns back into a log, but they float it back to the shore, and everyone is safe.
The dawn is coming and Master Wan unties Crow Red Cluck and unties his beak, so he can crow in the new day.
written by Thomas Hudson Reeve © Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
Posted by photocartoonist at 7:34 PM
June 9, 2005
International Duck of Mystery
Quacki made his debut in 2004 as Smuggly the duckling and due to his popularity Birthdayalarm.com chose him to be their spokesduck!
Take a gander! Coming soon to a monitor near you!
Posted by photocartoonist at 6:42 PM
June 8, 2005
Smile with Affection
By DEANNA DAHLSAD
The Photocartoonist combines her way with people & her way with the camera to capture the honest humor that lies inside us all. Each photograph has the feel of a snapshot. You know, those quickly snapped pics you take at birthday parties, summer picnics, & family reunions, capturing folks as they are, not necessarily as they wish they'd be...
These are the photos everyone saves, puts in the family album & takes great delight in looking at over & over again. “Oh, remember when Uncle Earl did this?” Someone else asks “Where's the one of Sue being so silly?” and more than one voice retorts “Which one? She's silly in all of them!”
This is what Kat Caverly, The Photocartoonist, does: she makes folks laugh out loud & smile with affection at total strangers. So even though you do not know these people in these photographs, you look at the them and feel as if the they were taken at your family gathering – one silly moment after another caught on film that the subjects will never be able to live down. Each person seems as real to you as your own crazy Uncle Earl, and your silly sister Sue – even if they like to pretend otherwise.
Posted by photocartoonist at 7:58 PM
June 5, 2005
Biography: Director/Auteur Thomas Hudson Reeve
About the Artist
Disenchanted with the usual biographical summary, but allowing that your kind attention must not be treated inhospitably in the face of it’s fair and natural curiosity; We offer you not a padded resume dryly measured out against the conventional benchmarks of schools and jobs, but a Fibonacci sequence of anecdotes spiraling geometrically through the years of a life, in the hopes that this may better answer the question: Who is this?
At 0 Reeve was born in New Jersey, U.S.A., 13 miles from New York City.
At 1 the longest solar eclipse of the twentieth century passed through the area exactly on the opposite side of the earth from where he lived. He had no idea.
At 1 he escaped from a playpen his mother had placed in the garden. He crawled up the steps and out into the road. He very nearly became a speed bump that day, but an alert motorist stomped the brake just in time.
At 2 he discovered his shadow. He could not out-smart it.
At 3 he and his friend decided to go to New York. They didn’t know how to get there, but they started walking in pretty much the right direction and reasoned that they would recognize it when they saw it, since it had tall buildings. They walked about a mile, met some other kids, and played with them until the sun went down. As it got dark it dawned on them that they were lost, but just then they were found. The Police in three towns had been searching for the unfortunate children, who felt fine and didn’t get what the fuss was about.
At 5 his parents placed on the windowsill a glass bulb containing a solar pinwheel of black and white squares. It spun furiously in the midday sun, but only gently at the end of the day.
At 8 he was given a telescope. He looked at the moon and the stars, and studied the distant buildings. He took it apart and was surprised and a bit disappointed that there wasn’t really anything inside. He played with the component lenses, burning little holes in paper and throwing upside down images on the wall. He felt first hand the power of a god when he focused his merciless death ray on a bug. He felt remorse, and did not become a serial killer.
At 13 a friend’s father lent him a twin-lens reflex camera in which he had shown interest. It was not an expensive model, but compared to the instamatics with which he was familiar, it was a very grown-up machine. It had gears linking the two lenses so that when you turned one, they both moved. Popping up the shade hood and peering into the soft frosted glass he could take balls of luminous fuzz and dial them into revelations of solid fact.
The next Saturday, up in the woods, he was photographing the rocks and rills of a hillside brook when he fumbled and dropped the camera into a small pool. He plucked it out and ran home.
He took the camera completely apart as if he were a bomb disposal engineer. He dried ever bit with tissues and Q-tips, and successfully reassembled the whole thing. The only problem was that when he screwed the lens back together he couldn’t tell where, in the long fine threading, to stop and set the lock screw. For one lens one could see the focus on the ground glass, but for the bottom lens, the one that takes the picture, one would have had to have carefully marked the proximate pieces, but he had not know that, and now it was too late.
It was still early, so he took a train into New York to a camera repair shop. The guy explained about calibrating lenses and optical benches in brief, then took the camera and tuned it up for a very kid friendly fee. The guy was impressed by how well the kid had done on his own.
But looming behind all this was the question: did he really intend to pretend it hadn’t happened, in essence to lie about it? The camera was fine, so why say anything? But not so fast, for actually the camera was better than before, and the camera guy had added dots of black enamel to seal the tiny steel screw heads. The cameras owner might notice this, and then he would be found out to be deceitful, which was far worse than just being clumsy. If he were honest he could at least show how responsibly he had handled the problem and throw himself on the mercy of the court of Avuncular Trust.
He was already leaning towards coming clean in the matter when the condition of the leather and velveteen camera case tipped the balance solidly towards forthright honesty. It looked like a pair of gloves left on the radiator after a snowball fight.
At 21 he was in film school in New York with a job as a teaching assistant at the darkrooms. It was here that he first made a pinhole camera. He lived in the Village snapping pictures with a beat-up Nikon and scribbling in a journal stained with coffee and beer. Mamoun’s falafels kept him alive.
One evening, on a subway platform, he was menaced by a teenage gang. Quite suddenly their nonchalant ambling about the pavement coalesced into a precise ring-a-round of 7 thugs, the leader 3 feet from his face, “Whatdaya got man?”
“Really nothing really. I got a cigarette.” and he gave one to the alpha thug and lit it. He took one for himself and offered them around. The Alpha made a gesture that seemed to mean “peace” and “this time you’re lucky”. At that signal they drifted out of attack formation, sniffing the air as they went.
At 34 he was in the film business, in the union as a prop and working on shoots for commercials and movies. He was well acquainted with all of the most sophisticated camera equipment in the world, and he was adept at building rigs for in-camera magic effects. As a prop, he styled settings for scenes, made rain, smoke and snow and carried furniture around, and around, and around.
Once, while in Philadelphia working on a movie, he was sleeping in a hotel room when he had a vivid work dream. Common among film crews, these dreams feature an insane movie shoot for which the dreamer is required to execute surreal tasks, like carpeting the beach or attaching Jell-o to the ceiling. Nearly overwhelmed by time pressure and the bizarre, unraveling complexities, the dreamer slogs through the deepening chaos, never really questioning the sense of it all. These dreams are actually quite realistic.
This first night in a strange hotel, the dream featured being late for the Big Scene, and so, still fast asleep, he jumped out of bed and rushed out the door to try to catch the van to the set. He awoke in the hall, on his way to the elevator. He wasn’t late. He was 3 hours early. It was the middle of the night and he was just standing there naked and locked out of his room. He didn’t know the layout of the hotel, or the room number for anyone else on the crew. He couldn’t find a house phone in the hall, or any sort of linen closet or housekeeping station where there might be a towel, a sheet, or a phone. There were no newspapers or floor mats, no room service trays, no shoes left for the valet, and the vase on the console table was bolted and glued down. There wasn’t even a “Do not disturb” sign, though he wasn’t sure if wearing that would have helped the situation much, especially if the “make me up now” side was showing.
He returned to the door, studied the latch mechanism, and realized that there was absolutely nothing he could do without some sort of tool. He was just a trapped monkey. A naked, freaked-out, trapped monkey.
He heard the muffled sound of television coming through a door on the hall. He knocked softly. He knocked hardly. He knocked harder still and called through the door. Finally, the voice of a man who had dozed off with the T.V. on answered. He was apprehensive about opening the door, but he consented to calling the front desk, which he undoubtedly would have done anyway, what with a naked monkey in the hall. Someone should be called.
Reeve tried to act casual, matter-of -fact, and without guile as he waited in horror for the elevator door to open.
The guy in the room never came out and probably went right back to sleep to have his own nutty dream.
The clerk with the key said nothing. He just chuckled softly and opened the door.
“Thank You. I’d give you a tip, but I don’t have a thing on me.”
55, the next entry, will not be ready for 7 more years.
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:41 PM
A NEW Birthday Song
Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Birthday
song ©Kat Caverly Enterprises, all rights reserved
It is time for a NEW birthday song. We can always use a new birthday song! The Beatles offered theirs, which was really groovy for the Sixties. But when was the last time there was a new birthday song?
Over here at No Evil productions, we have been busy (maybe TOO busy) thinking about the Happy Birthday song but besides the legal copyright issues and the history of the tune that the world knows as THE Happy Birthday song, it got us all thinking about, well, Happy Birthday, and the fun we could have with this kind of music.
There's our very own 'appy 'appy Birthday and the Arrogant-Worm's Once a Year we celebrate...Happy Birthday. We are playing with all kinds of tunes and lyrics, like Stuff Your Face with Cake and Happy Birthday, you're Old.
I was quite inspired by reading Patty Hill's account about her and her sister creating the songs for their "Song Stories for the Kindergarten" and how simplifying the melodies was the essence to even the youngest child being able to learn these songs. Music is the language of the heart and there is a magic to how they capture our minds and spirits. It can be argued that music speaks the basic language of our brains and transcends all language; communicating much more than any words. I think this is why Patty Hill chose to simply repeat a simple line, "Good morning to You"; and how it was natural for the young children to sing the words "happy birthday to you" and any other variation to match the occasion.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:12 AM