Sidewalk Superheroes

From what, April? I realized that this footage kind of got neglected, so here it is! Just a few minutes of behind-the-scenes action at one of our last joint photoshoots. Now we’re supermodels, modeling independently, and you’ll have to pay us a lot if you want to shoot with us. 😀

Or Europe, anyway. Whichever.

So, as you have no doubt learned from Catwoman, we ran off to Europe for a bit. Mainly Paris — technically it’s research for a screenplay — with a quick jaunt to Berlin for Audrey Hepburn business. While it sounded like work it was all fun, I’ll be honest with you. My time in Paris was nothing but amazing memories — until I tried to leave, but that’s a different story. Anyway, I hobbled together a video diary of sorts, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. If you didn’t already know, I’ve started a vlog (hate that word) about fumbling through life when you lose your job in a recession and not being able to find another called Simple Twist of Fate. Actually, it’s just about my life after I lost my job, etc, because I feel a bit Holly Golightly as described by Paul Varjak right now: “She’s a girl who can’t help anyone, not even herself.” But maybe by sharing my experiences I can help other people in similar situations. If not, then it’s always good for a laugh, right? 🙂

So there’s that. You may start at the very beginning, which is just a dull sort of walkthrough on where my life was when I started this at the beginning of April, or just skip around my videos, or watch part One (of many) on the trip and see if you like it:

Still on the fence? I’ll give you some teasers: I climbed the Eiffel Tower, met JARVIS COCKER (and more), was a tourist attraction on the Seine, and was a total guy magnet. There’s more, but you’ll just have to see for yourself what else I could cram into two short weeks.

jeune fille

So . . . this trip changed my life. Of course! Isn’t that why we travel and wander foreign lands, to expand our minds and change our world view? Or, as Mark Twain put it: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” But after living there for two weeks, mastering the Metro on my own with très peu French and a pocket map of the city and having Jarvis, who’s lived in France for six years, ask me how to say things in French when I’d lived there a week, I think I know what I’m going to do next. Batgirl is going back to school! I’m going for a degree in French this time (at this point, struggling the rest of my life to school in psychology just seems a waste, as much as I loved it back in the day), so I can live in Paris with a job and a legal reason to stay, and so I can maybe teach Jarvis some decent French. Seriously, it’s bad. Watch Episode 4 Part 4 if you don’t believe me. Oh, and if you’re a fan of the man or Pulp please check out all my videos, I put up quite a lot of him. I had a good two days with him.

Jarvis & me

There’s some pictures up on my Flickr account as well, though they’re pretty much just the Jarvis ones since people were clamoring for them. I’m still going through all of my other pictures and fixing them up (it was almost constantly overcast, which means adjusting the light for nearly all the outdoor pictures), and there’s also probably 4 GB worth of pictures to sort through. I am a documenting machine! But I’ll drop a note when I am done posting all of the other pictures so you can see what I saw, and also when I post the last video of my trip. I’ve put off doing it because it’s just one more reminder that I’m not in Paris anymore. 🙁 I know it’s only temporary, but I still hate seeing good times end. It’s why I didn’t want to unpack for a week and why I was dragging my feet sorting through the pictures.

Okay, that’s all for now. Are we caught up now? 🙂

Oh, forgot something! When I got back we wrapped filming a bizarre short film (preview here), so I finally got a haircut. Yay! Nothing drastic, I just wanted a bit more style — and to look like Anna Karina.

new hair!

This afternoon Catwoman and I had a photoshoot in Santa Monica — actually, on, around and under the Santa Monica Pier. It was a really fun day today, and it didn’t feel like working at all. Except we didn’t make any money*, and we were sweating in a most unladylike way under all our latex, vinyl and PVC.

Between poses, or when only one of us was being snapped, the other was videotaping, so I was able to make two — count ’em, two! — videos out of our footage. The first is a straightforward “this is what we did” short:

While the second is a music video. Yay, music video! I’m sort of obsessed with making these right now, and Catwoman asked for one, so this is a sort of Best Of Sidewalk Superheroes (so far) compilation, with some new footage cut in, along with plenty of pictures from today. I don’t want to give away a whole lot, because these pictures are being taken for a reason, but consider this a tasty sample of what’s to come:

*Actually, we did get a tip. It just went to ice cream. We were asked for a lot of pictures and just posed, not expecting anything, and I’m glad we didn’t because there were cops patrolling that seemed a little wary of us until I made sure to mention we were just doing a photoshoot (covering our arses). Then the cop was okay and talked about Watchmen, heh. But we did get some good information while out there, and some great ideas, so expect even more cool new things from us in the near future . . .

Since Zannel was nice enough to gift me a Flip camera to capture superhero life firsthand, I thought I should put it to good use. Otherwise, they might want it back! Unfortunately, I got it just in time for the Oscars to throw all of us off Hollywood Boulevard, but thankfully something else has come up: photoshoots.

While I can’t really film or snap while I’m being snapped, I’ve tried to videotape the in betweens, befores and afters as much as possible to show everyone what it’s really like. Being a superhero isn’t glamorous, as you’ve seen, and now you can see firsthand that being a model isn’t so glamorous either. It does have its moments, though, as you can see from these clips from Wednesday’s Long Beach shoot and Friday’s Los Angeles shoot:

P.S. I posted this video on Zannel before I uploaded it to YouTube, and Zannel does have some added goodies that aren’t on this site. I don’t like to just copy and paste from place to place, and they allow mobile updates, so I send pix messages and texts from the scene that you can’t see here. Just an idea, if you’re really addicted to the superhero life.

Today, early in the morning, Catwoman and I had a photoshoot in downtown Long Beach. I’ll probably be a hot mess in all the pictures, but I have a good excuse: I have a new nephew! Not that there was anything wrong with the old one, but now I have one for each arm. I watched my older nephew overnight Monday, after getting the call at 2 am, and then did double duty by being a coach in the delivery room for the other kid Tuesday. So yes, I’m really wiped out and look like shit on a stick. I’m counting on the awesome skills of Photoshop to salvage this. 😉

Seriously, though, the shoot went great and the photographer and his ceramic coffee mug-toting assistant were great. We all had fun wandering around on foot (I recognized one of our locations as a place I’d passed when lost, because I always tend to get lost in the same area of LB), crawling around freeway underpasses and dreaming up surprises you will thoroughly enjoy. It was great, and we actually ran out of time before ideas. We may work with this guy again — and maybe sneak on the Queen Mary? I love that old boat. What’s even cooler is that while we were shooting at our last location, some guy who lived across the street ran out and offered to buy the pictures for $50. Cool! We also slowed traffic when we weren’t covered in coats, and a lot of guys slowed down to whistle and yell at us. *sigh* Welcome to Long Beach.

There’s something to look forward to for ya, since the Oscars wrecked this weekend for us. 🙂

P.S. If you’re a photographer and would like to snap us around your fair city, contact us. We’d love to cover as many as possible.