Making "Clipped" 2006

Jessica Lee Wright is a good friend of mine who now works as a producer with her own company The Wooden Lens. In 2006 Wwe were both taking film classes in San Francisco when she wrote and directed this short film. We wrangled a cast of our good friends and family members and drove up to a friend's family property in Occidental, CA, where we had a weekend sleepover shoot. The place is gorgeous, with multiple shingled wood structures, perfectly suited for the piece. It was like summer camp. These pictures make me very happy. We always joked that what we did was a lot like LARPing, and looking at these there is no difference, ha ha.

Ruby Pratt starred as the beautiful girl who was born with half formed wings. Jesse Rose Roberts played her oppressive older sister. The rest of the cast plays a circus that Ruby stumbles across in the woods, changing her forever.

Since we had no budget all of these costumes were reconstructed out of pieces that I already had or picked up for next to nothing at thrift stores. The movie was shot on 16mm, which is more forgiving than these digital images. 

The bearded lady

Ruby, our star

Tattooed Lady and the Rubber Band Man. Painting on those tattoos was fun!

The circus picnic. The Demon and the Clown were actors who brought their own costumes.

A glimpse of the wings that Jessica and I made out of wire, latex strips and feathers. They looked pretty good on film, too bad her strap is showing here, ha ha.

The Ringmaster, dressed down.

Dancing girls.

Becca is an incredibly powerful acrobat - look at those legs! This was probably the girliest we ever got her. This outfit started out as one of those boxy sequined 80's dresses with long sleeves and no neckline. 

I made this entire dress for about $5 by piecing together as discarded dress skirt, a shirt, some scrap fabric and lace. I love the disdainful look JR is giving me as I iron her train.