More Puppetland dish-

Thursday we get a "color pallette" from the Art Director. It is a bunch of outer space photos cut out of OMNI and National Geographic Magazine, mounted on foam core. It would get you a B+ as the first week assignment of Scenic Design 101. So I drag out the Pantone chip book and do the second week assignment. I pick the 40 colors that jump at me, arrange them in color families, and mount them on a presentation board, with a nice show logo in the corner. It doesn't really tell us what color each puppet should be, but at least puts us on the road of what they might be thinking. Thinking for the set, lights, costumes and/or puppets we have no idea, but it is apparent that mint greens and rich blues will be somewhere. Somewhere.

Late Friday afternoon the client shows up. The presentation hasn't started yet and I'm the only one from our team in the back of the room. Up in the front Art Director says to Grand Poobah that he did the Pantone board for us. She loves it. I can't say anything, but if the lasers that usually shoot out of my eyes had been working that day, his head would have been vaporized.

Meeting lasted three hours, but by the end we actually know what color everything should be. We should not have had to beg them, or sit in on the "Creation of the Vision." If they knew what they were doing this crap would have been sorted out months ago. But it is their money, and I get paid by the hour. Nice touch-at the end, Asst. Grand Poobah came over and acknowledged that they all knew Art Director lied about the boards, and it didn't go unnoticed.