Vampires and Costco and India Ink

We have established that Simon Molinar enjoys the Christmas season a great deal. The advent of 24 hours shopping has made it really enjoyable for him. Thus, He's been on my mind while I hustled and bustled about getting the last of my gifts. However, he isn't just on my mind as a writer doing an exercise with a character. I was also thinking about what clothes and household items he would buy that would be seen in the web series. Shopping must continue even as the fundraiser rages on. We'll have to hit the ground running to gather everything in time once the campaign is over.

Where Vampires Shop

We've found some really groovy second hand shops for costumes and props and set dressing. I could see Simon being drawn to the eclectic goods in the window displays late at night and then returning in the final hours that they are open. Shops like these are great for a characters whose tastes would reflect many eras of fashion and style. Everything was very reasonably priced, and that sort of store is likely to buy everything back.

However, for consistency of look and feel, a vampire on the move cannot beat places like Target or Costco. Target is great for basics, but Costco is the place to find some surprising luxuries. There were Italian suits, cashmere sweaters with an incredible softness. There were sheet sets with incredible thread counts. There was even a $1500 bottle of cognac. I don't think Simon would buy a bottle of that, but I think it should be clear that he and Joe shop at these sorts of places. It makes their homes seem more real. Of course, until we can get a product placement deal, we'll have to make labeling that mimics those stores – but not too closely.

Strangely, the place where we found a number of special props that will be very personal mementos for Simon was at a comic book convention. I can't imagine Simon attending one of those as most are in buildings where there are windows in the venue where sunlight can stream in. Although, Bent-con's location last year was in a basement ballroom. The location this year had a lot of light in the lobby and corridors. He could have gotten in an hour or two in the Dealer's room, I suppose. And the parties do start well after the sun goes down. But I digress. One of the dealers had an array of well crafted personal items for very fine prices. They could easily pass for items owned by a wealth gentleman from as far back as the 1800s. He even had leather bound, gilt edged journals. Journals and letters with a custom seal loom largely in the flashbacks for the web series. Actually, I'll have to have our Simon and whomever is love interest is from yesteryear do quite a bit of journal and letter writing with a dip pen. That should be interesting. All I can see is India ink everywhere. Practice is in order.

Rehearsals

Speaking of practice, the podcast interviews brought this topic up. We've decided to have a table read long before the script is locked. There were so many interesting ideas that came out of that Q&A that we thought we'd workshop the script with the cast to sharpen the dialog. That'll be a very interesting exercise. If it's cool with the cast, we'll record some or all of it.

That's it for now. If you want to support this web series, share this link: http://igg.me/p/282567/x/126025 ! Of course, donating would be a huge help!