Family Work

At the beginning of the Project, I worked alone on everything from making the objects to filming and very basic editing in Final Cut Pro.  As things became more complicated and new layers of activity were added, it became apparent that I would need at least some part time help.  My wife Laura had recently left her teaching job and was willing to begin working with me on costume fabrication and took on helping me deal with ever increasing correspondence.  At about the same time Johnny Coffeen, then a student filmmaker, became a part of our family by marrying our daughter Lily who was by then also helping out with various aspects of fabrication. Johnny rapidly became indispensable to both the animation process and film editing.  In fairly short order he also became an Apple certified Final Cut Editor and we have continued to collaborate on the filming ever since.

As more services were needed, there seemed to be just the right family member or very close friend to help out.  Our daughter Ashley provided early help with the photography and family friend Carey Haskell came on board to help with the editing of all of the photographs for the catalog as well as overseeing the production of the Photography in the exhibition.  Katherine, our oldest daughter assisted with all of the text related aspects of the project, including final editing on my behalf of the catalog and formalizing all of the text elements relating to the William Blake Exhibition I guest curated for the Huntington.  When it came time to pack and deliver the work to the museum, Katherine’s husband Ben was on hand for every step of the process.  Without realizing what was happening, pretty much the entire family had become involved in varying degrees, some as needed and infrequently and some on an almost daily basis.  As we go forward from here, the intention is to retain the cottage-industry approach to making the Tale of the Crippled Boy.  At this point, it is hard to imagine doing it any other way.

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