I Have Discovered Blue Turandot Shoma Aka Prince Shoma

C*'👌

Was reading through the Flight Rising encyclopedia entry on Coatl and I just couldn’t resist doing this. 

No regrets.

reblog for a soup blessing in 2022

SFX Magazine Issue 372 - Designing Good Omens ❤ 😊

PRODUCTION DESIGNER MICHAEL RALPH REVEALS HOW THE SHOW’S CENTREPIECE SET, WHICKBER STREET, WAS GIVEN A DEVILISHLY CLEVER UPGRADE FOR THE SECOND SEASON

WORDS: DAVE GOLDER

Invisible Columns And Thin Walls “The new studio is Pyramid Studios in Bathgate – it used to be a furniture warehouse. And unfortunately – or fortunately, because I accept these things as not challenges but gifts – right down the middle of that studio are a series of upright columns. But you’ll never spot them on screen. I had to build them in and integrate them into the walls and still get the streets between them. And it worked.

“There’s all sorts of cheeky design values to those sets. Normally a set like this is double-skin. In other words, you do an interior wall and an exterior wall, with an airspace in between. But really, the only time a viewer notices that there’s that width is at the doors and the windows. So I cheated all that. I ended up with single walls everywhere. So the exterior wall is the interior wall, just painted. All I did was make the sash windows and entrances wider to give it some depth as you walked in.”

GOOD OMENS HAD A CHANGE of location for its second season, but hopefully you didn’t notice. Because Whickber Street in Soho upped sticks from an airfield in Hertfordshire to a furniture warehouse in Bathgate, Edinburgh. It’s the kind of nonsensical geographical shenanigans that could only make sense in the crazy world of film and TV, and production designer Michael Ralph was the man in charge of rebuilding and expanding the show’s vast central set. “I wish we could have built more in season one than we did,” says Ralph, whose previous work has included Primeval and Dickensian. “We built the ground floor of everything and the facades of all the shops. But we didn’t build anything higher than that, because we were out on an airfield in a very, very difficult terrain and weather conditions, so we really couldn’t go much higher. Visual effects created the upper levels.”

But with season two the set has gone to a whole other level… literally. “What happened was that the rest of the street became integrated into the series’s storyline,” explains Ralph. “So we needed a record shop, we needed a coffee shop that actually had an inside, we needed a magic shop, we needed the pub. To introduce those meant we had to change the street with a layout that works from a storylines point of view. In other words, things like someone standing at the counter in the record shop had to be able to eyeball somebody standing at the counter in the coffee shop. They had to be able to eyeball Aziraphale sitting in his office in the window of the bookshop. But the rest of it was a pleasure to do inside, because we could expand it and I could go up two storeys.”

For most of the set, which is around 80 metres long and 60 metres wide, the two storeys only applied to the shop frontages, but in the case of Aziraphale’s bookshop, it allowed Ralph to build the mezzanine level for real this time. According to Ralph it became one of the cast and crews’ favourite places to hang out during down time.

But while AZ Fell & Co has grown in height, it actually has a slightly smaller footprint because of the logistics of adapting it to the new studio.

“Everybody swore to me that no one would notice,” says Ralph wryly. “I walked onto it and instinctively knew there was a difference immediately, and they hated me for that. I have this innate sense about spatial awareness and an eye like a spirit level.

“It’s not a lot, though – I think we’ve lost maybe two and a half feet on the front wall internally. I think that there’s a couple of other smaller areas, but only I’d notice. So I can be really annoying to my guys, but only on those levels. Not on any other. They actually quite like me…”

Populating The Bookshop “The props in the new bookshop set were a flawless reproduction from the set decorator Bronwyn Franklin [who is also Ralph’s wife]. It was really the worst-case scenario after season one. She works off the concept art that I produce, but what she does is she adds so much more to the character of the set. She doesn’t buy anything she doesn’t love, or doesn’t fit the character.

“But the things she put a lot of work into finding for season one, they were pretty much one-offs. When we burnt the set down in the sixth episode, we lost a lot of props, many of which had been spotted and appreciated by the fans. So Bronwyn had to discover a new set decorating technique: forensic buying.

“She found it all – duplicates and replicas. It took ages. In that respect, the Covid delay was very helpful for Bron. There’s 7,000 books in there and there’s not one fake book. That’s mainly because… it’s a weird thing to say, but we wanted it to smell and feel like a bookshop to everybody that was in it, all the time.

“It affects everybody subliminally; it affects everybody’s performance – actors and crew – it raises the bar 15 to 20%. And the detail, you know… We love a lot of detail.”

(look at the description under this, they called him 'Azi' hehehehe :D <3)

Aziraphale’s Inspirational Correspondence “There’s not one single scrap of paper on Aziraphale’s desk that isn’t written specifically for Aziraphale. Every single piece is not just fodder that’s been shoved there, it has a purpose; it’s a letter of thanks, or an enquiry about a book or something.

“Michael Sheen is so submerged in his character he would get lost sitting at his own desk, reading his own correspondence between takes. I believe wholeheartedly that if you put that much care into every single piece of detail, on that desk and in that room, that everybody feels it, including the crew, and then they give that set the same respect it deserves.

“They also lift their game because they believe that they’re doing something of so much care and value. Really, it’s a domino effect of passion and care for what you’re producing.”

Alternative Music “My daughter Mickey is lead graphic designer [two of Ralph’s sons worked on the series too, one as a concept artist, the other in props]. They’re the ones that produced all of that handwritten work on the desk. She’s the one that took on the record shop and made up 80 band names so that we didn’t have to get copyright clearance from real bands. Then she produced records and sleeves that spanned 50, 60 years of their recordings, and all of the graphics on the walls.

“I remember Michael and Neil [Gaiman] getting lost following one band’s history on the wall, looking at their posters and albums desperately trying to find out whether they survived that emo period.”

It’s A Kind Of Magic One of the new shops in Whickber Street for season two was Will Goldstone’s Magic Shop, which is full of as many Easter eggs as off-the-shelf conjuring tricks, including a Matt Smith Doctor Who-style fez and a toy orang-utan that’s a nod to Discworld’s The Librarian. Ralph says that while the series is full of references to Gaiman, Pratchett and Doctor Who, Michael Sheen never complained about a lack of Masters Of Sex in-jokes. “He’d be the last person to make that sort of comment!”

Ralph also reveals that the magic shop counter was another one of his wife’s purchases, bought at a Glasgow reclamation yard.

The Anansi Boys Connection Ralph reveals that Good Omens season two used the state-of-the-art special effects tech Volume (famous for its use in The Mandalorian to create virtual backdrops) for just one sequence, but he will be using it extensively elsewhere on another Gaiman TV series being made for Prime Video.

“We used Volume on the opening sequence to create the creation of the universe. I was designing Anansi Boys in duality with this project, which seems an outrageously suicidal thing to do. But it was fantastic and Anansi Boys was all on Volume. So I designed for Volume on one show and not Volume on the other. The complexities and the psychology of both is different.”

the transition im crying

Let’s acknowledge how good they both look in this scene. They served major looks at the dance👏🏼

Non-English musical recommendations based of your favorite Broadway/West End musicals

For anyone who start listening to non-English musicals, here are the musicals you should watch on slime tutorials, pro-shots and/or listening soundtracks to based on your favorite Broadway/West End musicals

If your favorite musical that is based on a historical figure like Hamilton, Six, or Evita:

Elisabeth Das Musical

Mozart, l'opéra rock

If you love Romeo and Juliet retellings like & Juliet or West Side Story or love the play in general:

Romeo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour

If you love horror comedy like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors

Tanz der Vampire (we're not talking about the Broadway version that they butchered the musical so hard)

If you love the musical adaptation version of the Disney's Hunchback of the Notre Dame:

Notre-Dame de Paris

If you love gothic musicals such as Jekyll & Hyde or Phantom of the Opera:

Rebecca

mike faist in the west side story trailer

he’s going to be the best riff ever

He left no time to regret

Kept his dick wet

With his same old safe bet

Me and my head high

And my tears dry

Get on without my guy

You went back to what you knew

So far removed

From all that we went through

And I tread a troubled track

My odds are stacked

I'll go back to black

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to

I go back to us

I love you much

It's not enough

You love blow and I love puff

And life is like a pipe

And I'm a tiny penny

Rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to

Black, black

Black, black

Black, black

Black

I go back to

I go back to

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to

We only said goodbye with words

I died a hundred times

You go back to her

And I go back to black

[2022.11.01] Prologue Official Guidebook - Warm up Routine

Yuzuru Hanyu has showcased countless amazing performances over the years. What makes these performances possible is his daily practice. This time, we focus on his warm-up routine off the ice before he steps onto the rink. Among the various movements and exercises in his warm-up, each with its own meaning and purpose, we highlight four routines.  

ROUTINE 01 - He designs his own menu and changes it gradually.

Hanyu says, "I come up with all the different movements and routines myself." "Of course, I reference concepts and theories I’ve studied or been taught. From there, I combine and remove things to make them more suited to skating and to my own needs. The routine changes depending on my condition and the points to watch out for in my jumps, so the menu itself gradually changes over the course of about two weeks. I’ve been building my own warm-up routine since I was about 14. Looking back, there were probably many things that were unnecessary, but I did it in my own way." He also decides his on-ice practice routine. "I originally wanted to do that kind of practice (like SharePractice), but I couldn't play music frequently unless I was alone, so after I came back from Toronto, I started to do this kind of practice."

ROUTINE 02 - Assessing the day's condition and focusing on rhythm and imagery.

Before and during warm-up, Hanyu checks his own videos several times. "Basically, I focus on entering the right imagery and confirming my rhythm. The feeling of timing changes depending on the day, so I try to match it to the rhythm of my body when it's at its best." During his isolation exercises where he moves his shoulders intensely while looking at himself in the mirror, he says, "I try to move to the limit of my range of motion. Also, I use this to check my body condition for the day." He also does quick, repetitive movements such as tightening his right arm in a way similar to the take-off motion for jumps, about 10 times in a row. "When I move quickly, my body tends to wobble, so I try to counter that by tightening my body, with the image of activating a switch to ensure I can jump from any position."

ROUTINE 03 - Checking the ankle position before putting on the skates.

After finishing his off-ice warm-up, he prepares for on-ice practice by putting on his skates. Just before inserting his feet into the boots, Hanyu rotates and twists his ankles. "My ankles are quite unstable, so I reposition them to make sure they're in the right place before putting the skates on." This practice began around the time of the Beijing Olympics. "I used to do this as part of my care routine, but I decided to start doing it right before I put my skates on too."

After inserting his feet into the boots, he carefully touches his foot on the top of the skates before tying the laces. "I do this to make sure they fit properly. The fit of the boots and the feet is crucial to prevent injuries."

ROUTINE 04 - Touching the ice when entering and leaving the rink.

Once everything is ready, he steps onto the ice. The first thing he does is touch the ice. "It's my greeting to the rink. I express the feeling of 'Thank you for allowing me to skate.' And it’s also a way of saying, 'Please be gentle with me, ' so I don’t get hurt. " This is how he begins his ice practice. When he finishes, he always touches the ice again before leaving the rink. This time, it's to say, "Thank you for letting me skate today without injury." Incidentally, after the free skate at the Beijing Olympics, Hanyu placed both hands firmly on the ice as he was leaving the rink. "I had the feeling that the Olympics had come to an end for me and that I wouldn't be skating on that rink again, so I wanted to say, 'Thank you for everything during the Olympics.' It was sad (a way of saying goodbye to the Olympics), but it happened."

Source: Prologue Official Guidebook, pg 32-33

Words cannot express this picture’s perfection