Finally back from Chicago

April 13th, 2009 • chatter
Tags: chicago, repo, trip

Jess and myself went to Chicago this weekend for the 90 Day Delinquents shadowcast for Repo: The Genetic Opera. The shadowcast was a blast and was surprisingly better than I expected. There were some pretty good gags, you can see that in the videos posted @ Myspace.

Chicago was fun…and cold. Having never stepped foot outside O’Hare before this weekend, I did not know how windy that city really was. With all the downtown roads acting as giant wind tunnels, it certainly was gusty. We did as much tourist-y stuff as we could fit in on Saturday. Walked the Magnificent Mile, photographed Sears Tower, all that stuff. Since we were staying on Delaware Place, I was shocked at the lack of grocery stores and mini-marts within a few blocks of our hotel. I think I saw two markets within 4 blocks of our hotel. Hopefully next time, we can go and be real tourists and spend more time walking around — and not getting raped for taxi fares.

We did manage to go to The Alley, which has to be the store that inspired Hot Topic. It was all kitschy punk and goth stuff, but it seemed to lack emotion or conviction. To me, it felt like nothing more than a big Hot Topic. If that’s what a “real” punk store is like, I’ll just continue to not go to them. $90 for a Fender rockabilly shirt? Talk about robbery. Ah well, it was still an experience to see and at least the people working there were nice, albeit seemingly disconnected and bored.

Our photo shoot for 90 Day Delinquents did get quashed by our original effects artist not being able to make it and then the lack of a fixed location didn’t help any. The shots we did manage to get turned out well for what we had to work with. There’s minor editing that needs to happen to remove a glaring dust spot from our mirror but other than that, it’s minor levels and tonal adjustments that need to be made. I was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing since we ended up scrapping most of the original ideas in order to just get it done and over with.