The Parts Come Marching One by One Hurrah, Hurrah...

Alrighty! So thus far we have our music shield by Seeeduino

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/music-shield-v20-p-1372.html?cPath=132_134

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cdlrvg54ntbe06/2013-07-20%2015.34.49.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lf2a6og2tu4o9o5/2013-07-20%2015.39.31.jpg

Our motion sensor by Zilog

 http://www.zilog.com/index.php?option=com_product&task=parts&familyId=160&productId=ZMOT1AHH&mpn=ZMOT1AHH0F0AG&mpnid=6372

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2y1vji6sdw4b0o/2013-07-25%2012.02.01.jpg

And our housing and IR sensor by Adafruit

http://www.adafruit.com/products/821

http://www.adafruit.com/products/157#Learn

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmcikwkfpv81zo0/2013-07-28%2016.35.44-2.jpg (IR sensor is in the pink bag)

Aaand we still don't have functionality to show for it.

Why oh why? Limitations.

Our motion sensor is tiny. Finger nail tiny. I tried several times to solder a wire to one of the pins, got success a few times very shortly followed by just as many breakages. The pins are intact, but quite difficult and not designed to be hand soldered well.

Never fear! I'm not the first person who's tried working with parts designed to be assembled by machines. Which is why Adafruit has this here board for sale: http://www.adafruit.com/products/1206#Description it's designed for making use of tiny chips that you get from manufacturers. I placed the order on Friday, it should ship out Monday and get here Thursday or Friday.

Our music shield isn't designed for a capacity of more than 2gb. More specifically, it wont acknowledge the presence of anything larger than that. I think this is because of differences between SDSC and SDHC (standard [maybe small?] and high capacity). I partitioned my 4gb card to 1gb to no avail.

But 2gb is too impractical (unpopular) to bother selling anymore, everyone needs and carries 4gb plus up for the latest toys and gadgets. I can't find a 2 gb microSD card anywhere in stores. I've ordered this one here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-208-244&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=100&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo and it'll be arriving next week.

Not to say that I can't get anything done in the meantime though. Our IR sensor came through, and I can tinker with that while the rest comes. We'll be needing it to calibrate our units using a remote control. 

So, until I have more to say, ciao!

Sacred Heart

When I began this piece I shot and printed it quickly, passionately. Only with time did the ideas mature, did the message become clear enough for me to tell others.

OK: A piece about memory recall. Big deal. But what Memory--what kind of Memory, specifically? What do photographs of pieces of steel, ice and stone and sounds of birds and machines have to do with remembering anything?

A recollection I experienced one morning long ago catapulted a sea of emotions to an artwork. Thinking about fleeting events in my life, I longed to find a string to hold them together. Images danced around in my head while ambient sounds enveloped the room. As ideas solidified into something that could be described, I felt a description was insufficient. I had to share this experience; get others to reconnect with themselves the way I did.

I thought that an immersive environment with large images and subtle sounds weaving through them would touch on something distant, remote. I put together what I imagined would lead others to make internal connections to something else until their thoughts would capitulate them to the present day. Maybe, like me, others could move forward while standing still. With time slipping by as if nothing happened, perhaps memory could be referenced and compared to the present day.

With a sense of urgency, I decided to recreate the experience. I made photographic images of a sensation. I collected the sounds similar to what I heard outside my window and inside my head. I came up with an arrangement that would be confrontational yet allow passage through it. And I decided it had to accessible only when someone would be there to experience it.

That's Steel Ice & Stone. The installation is made up of nine oversized photographs, sound compositions of birdcalls and heavy machinery and a playback unit to deliver the sound. All three components contribute equally in the realization of the installation, but each piece is individually considered to stand alone.

Inviting others to view this work is a joyful, humbling exercise. Asking them to abandon themselves in this work is far deeper, visceral. Trust is requested; trust to use the installation's vocabulary to connect, like I did, the past with the present in the moment of its experience; something sacred to the heart. 

Three Major Issues

1) Where the power outlet is,

2) Where long the hanging cable would come out of,

3) How long the power wire and the hanging cables are. 

On the Skype this morning with China. As posted a last Tuesday, http://bit.ly/1dCgy56, I need the option to be able to have power either from top or bottom so I could plug it into a ceiling or floor outlet.

However, another thought came that, instead, the hanging cable--not the outlet jack--could be placed either on top or bottom of the panel. This leaves the option to make the cable longer or shorter as needed.

Diagram sent from the supplier with the
options he suggests.

Wrongo!

My supplier told me to forget unscrewing the unit, changing the hanging wire, etc. He said instead to send wire cable length requirements (Trenton's ceiling height is around 30 feet, others may be more) and he'll put outlets on both top and bottom. 

I suggested that, when I have accurate measurements, that we could order two power cords of different lengths for each unit, and that seems to be a workable solution.

Fine. At least I don't have to tear apart the unit. So the issues end up being nothing major after all. 

Dotted Eye

The offset-printed CMYK "rosette".

Continuing about Damián Ortega. Creator of many suspended works, "Champ de Vision" wins the Obsessive Art Award in my book. He hung over 6,000 threads of acrylic dots in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, in the vein of offset printing technology. The strands layer to create, from a distance, the image of an open eye, effectively simulating the rosetta of color printing. It's a magnificent work of art and the fact that the viewer can walk through it makes it all the more powerful.

The acrylic "dots" that
make up the eye.

For someone like me that was first exposed to the Sunday comics by a magnifying glass, I studied the make-up of the colors, never at that time imagining that I would work as a printer for a significant part of my life. In fact, for several years I worked at Quad Graphics where, of all things, I looked at color proofs and equalled them to the color originals from whence they came.

Enough from that dust bin of memories. [I've borrowed the expression from Roger Tatley, a former Editor-in-Chief of Modern Painters Magazine, whose Production Manager I was.]

Mr. Ortega's work is magical. While I've never seen it, just the immersive nature of the piece is alluring. From an email interview he gave in 2004:


"I want him/her to become an integral part of the piece from the inside. At the same time, there is a darkened area at one end of the room for the spectator to establish a different kind of relationship with the piece, to see it from another point of view. From there, the perspective is more synthetic, condensed, immaterial and illusory."

Here you can see the layering of
the strands to form the density
of color.

A little further, he writes about another of his pieces, but I think follows well to what he wrote above:

"It is about a glance that can never grasp the absolute perspective of things...To name is to convert things into a system of words, images and ideas. Reality is outside, and the brain replaces living creature and converts them into the brain's reality. What I'm trying to do in Champ de Vision is to focus the attention--and the moment--incite consciousness to concentrate on the fact of seeing.

"I try to generate a perceptual and sensorial happening. What you find on one side of the exhibition space is a codified, abstract incomprehensible system, yet built with elements and materials whose physical presence is undeniable. In the other part of the room you will face a vision...something fictions and unreal, though identifiable: the representation. Art is not just an 'object', it is a 'work', which implies a system of relations. In this system, the object stops being something already known and becomes new knowledge".

To see the entire interview, please visit bit.ly/1b4yoDj. Ortega, who worked for years as a journalist and political illustrator in Mexico, expresses his ideals and ideas fluently. The interview touches upon other topics often written about in this blog.

What I'm curious about is: when does the viewer get to see the Eye? Before entering or upon leaving?

SIS Update: Parts, and Explanation of Audio Handling

Hello!

This took longer than I had intended.

First, as mentioned in this bog post, I've chosen a couple parts to work with, the essentials to the project. The IR sensor, and the Music Player sheild. Both have been ordered, and the music sheild has just arrived today! I'm going to be tinkering with it once I get home from work. We've also decided that we're going with the LED panel, and are going to use a speaker bar instead of the rock-it speakers.

You may notice that neither of these were on the parts list. Dr. Marantz suggested I use the aforementioned music sheild because it's cheaper (or at least was $10 some time ago) and he already has one so if I'm having trouble with the prototype we'll both be working with the same hardware. I chose that IR sensor because we have the ability to calibrate it ourselves. Its arrival has been delayed until next week because of a credit card issue (resolved!)

Now, a video! Because writing can be unclear, especially when explaining things. A video to show what I mean in this blog post (that third idea for thinking of how to play two sounds at once, if you were to have your browser find it type in "#3", no quotes).

You don't need to actually go back and read it, I cover the important bits in the video. Check the post for further details.

We're not going to be implement this solution unless we absolutely have to. We'd rather go with a more intelligent sounding idea.

Things to do:

1. Tinker with the music playing shield and decide on a means of handling sound.
2. Tinker with the PIR sensor when it gets here and figure out if we want a different one or if this will satisfy our needs.
3. Look into other parts that we'll need for this setup (particularly,  speaker bar)
4.  Meet with Prof. Giraldo and Dr. Marantz on Monday
5. Find other things to do if I run out.

To Leaf? Or not to Interleaf?

That is the question discussed by the engineers, among other things.

Remy's fall-back plan, if nothing else works, is to create a series of interleaved files that would play upon the triggering of the second sensor, since the sound from the first file would already be playing upon trigger of the first sensor. Dr. Marantz pointed out that humans perceive sound gaps at 15 milliseconds. So: using a typical sound duration of say, 30 seconds, that would make it 66.6 samples a second or 2000 samples (actually 4000 samples--forward and backward). Since sound files aren't big, we could fit it onto a chip and (this is Remy talking) a script could be written to create the files and the microcontroller could access the proper file according to when the second sensor is tripped.

Dr. Marantz stresses that this be a last resort as other solutions might prove to be less complicated. We're set to meet next week again, either on the phone or all my office. Remy sent a parts list so he can get to work:

1) http://www.robotshop.com/midi-music-shield-v2-arduino.html  $27.50 It's listed for $10 at Radioshack; but it's out of stock. [Maybe it's in-store; I'll check when I go get some coffee in a little while]
2) http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ZMOT1AHH0F0AG/269-4826-ND/2665316 $24.02

Further talk about the sensor:

1. Of course it needs to be calibrated, since the light conditions will vary on each location and the work is site-specific, reconfigured according to the space. But the field of sensitivity is another factor, because the panel is free-hanging. A wider angle would pick up viewers farther from the piece. This is easily taken care of since a collar (straw) can be placed around one (or both) sensors so the units are triggered only when the viewer passes directly in front of the panel. That's easy enough to fix and will be determined as the installation is laid out.

I have given serious thought over the development of this work to the order of the pieces, although the distance between them will vary.

There will be a lead-off front and center, pushing the more abstract ones in between those whose imagery is more easily identified. The traffic will very somewhat, depending on the number of viewers, but, if the show at the Grace Gallery was any indication, viewers will walk around the first piece to what's directly behind it, to circle around and see the pieces they missed in the front on the periphery. from there they leave the exhibition space.

Concluding that they make two circles around the work and walk out. This is because the door is in one place, as it would be in Trenton. However the Grace is a deep space whereas the ArtLab is wide and shallow, so while the order of the pieces would be the same, their spacing would be farther apart left to right rather than front to back. 

The original schematic was done assuming a walk-through traffic flow, here it is from previous posts.




More on the LED panel: 

With the unit in-house and a little more time, I got a chance to think about the entire process of what needs to be done. 

Gotta take the thing apart.

After seeing how it functions, I can determine how and where to drill the sound unit into it. The sides are made of metal; I haven't taken a good look at the back as yet. But on first sight, I can drill the unit onto the back, have the speaker wires travel through the back to the sides or the top (wherever the speaker(s) will end up being) and plug into the speakers from there. I had the idea of asking the technicians to do it in China, but a little voice in my head is telling me (actually shouting) No.

The moiré pattern is formed by an air bubble that moves across the perforated screen. If that is taut, perhaps with framing springs the problem might be resolved. Or, alternately, vacuum the air out.

Some issues in the manufacture: When drilling the screws to affix the frame, the builders shattered the back transparent panel, which may not be a problem, but I wouldn't want to find out. That will be on my list to the LED guy in China. 

However, I will ask them to drill the holes on the side of the frame further apart and on the bottom as well. The unit they sent is a commercial item with no traffic meant to flow around it: e.i.: it would either hang on a wall or in a window. Since the panel will be free hanging, the cable has to hang outward, so the holes drilled for it have to be closer to the corners. Also, it's possible that I might not need a second electrical source; just another set of holes which would allow the power cord to travel from the top or the bottom. I'd only have to re-orient the image in the panel.

Here's the comparison from the Duratrans (left) to the Duraclear. The choice is obvious, tests will have to be made on all images; since the darker ones may need to be boosted while decreasing the contrast.

It's here!

The crate with the LED box came in from China. It took less time than I thought it would, but a quick call to DHL said that the truck from Cincinnati where it landed had made it to NYC really fast and it had been signed for at the loading dock of where I work. Dropped everything and sped into Brooklyn before the fellas took off for the day.

Got it, but couldn't open it. Nailed together rather than screwed so my drill accomplished nothing. Grumbling, I figured I'd come back the next day with something to pry it open, and checked the mailbox instead. Found the samples from Lambdas for Less. Cool. I was set.

With my claw hammer and a $3.99 screwdriver, I got two guys to pull it open in minutes and I fired it up.

It's awesome!

Big, beautiful light, flowing through the sample Duratrans sent from Michigan. I love it. I'll include a photo in the coming days. For now, the lights cause a nasty moiré pattern that doesn't do it justice.

After a few deep breaths, here's the saner view:

Definates:

Left to right: 10ml, 5ml and 3 ml. Note
that the 3 ml bows a bit.

1) The film will have to be mounted. L.F.L sent samples of Duratrans and Duraclear with the Duratrans mounted (laminated) on 3 ml, 5ml and 10 ml acrylic (also known as Plexiglass or Lucite, their trade names). Otherwise, the film is not stiff enough to be held in place by just the suction of the front panel. Also, the laminated film forms a tighter edge to the edges, which prevents the hot spots around the rim.

2) Will not use the Duraclear. The LED points can be seen right through it. Besides—and this is for those who contacted me about using back-lit materials—the technician at L.F.L. told me it can't mount anyway. They "can't guarantee against some of the processor roller marks on the surfaces of the Duraclear, and then to add to that an encapsulating thermal lamination which may have some inherent inconsistencies (especially with the thinner 3 ml laminate) inconsistencies such as small bubbles give numerous opportunities for flaws".

Still in the works:

1. Size. I'm almost convinced that the A0 is big enough. I'll rest on it some more.

This is one corner of the space
at The ArtLab. I'll be going over
there this or next week to talk
with the exhibition staff. 

2. The thickness of the acrylic. I'll probably test 5ml. The 10ml seems too thick, though I don't see any difference in color with the 5ml. It fits just fine in the LED panel.

3. Should I have the electrical cord from the top or bottom? The supplier sent the panel with the chord from the top, so it would plug into a ceiling fixture. What if not all places have this capacity? I wonder if the option exists to make two outlets on each box and I'd plug in to whichever best suited the exhibition space.

4. I also have to take it apart to see how the cable fits into it. The ceiling of the ArtLab is quite high and I might need to add more cable.

5. How is the sound unit going to fit it? And the speakers? How will sound emanate from it?
Emails are out to the engineers.

Decision time:

1. Send a file out to Michigan and have it printed to the exact size and mounted on the 5 ml.

2. Tear the panel open and have a look inside.

3. Buy a ton of lint-free cotton gloves. The panel really picks up fingerprints.

Balancing the Heart with the Mind

Following the post Sincerity in All You Do (http://ow.ly/i/2tocC), a writer acquaintance, Jack Chen replied:

"I'm struggling with finding a similar balance with my core writing—novels, stories and the work that subsidizes it—magazine writing, startup consulting, advertising work. My rule thus far has been that whatever it is, it shouldn't detract from my morning writing routine, that the time I devote to my art is sacred and must be protected at all costs. 

"I think that as long as you have the will to prevent the subsidizing work from taking over the real work (and this can be very hard for someone who is naturally interested in a lot of different things) then work in related fields is one of the best things you can do as you can apply the learning to your craft. It reminds me of what a friend told me about the restaurant business: the main reason that a lot of restaurants have a bar attached is because they don't make much money on the food. But they do make  it on alcohol. The bar subsidizes the restaurant so that the chefs can make the food they want to make. It feeds into the art without dominating it."

My question is: Are creative endeavors ever appropriately compensated? Everyone knows the answer to that one. So, here's another question: Why not?

The continuous conflict of what is and what is not a creative endeavor is the battle that even artists dish up among themselves. Often, artists have a hard time understanding that great works of art don't make it without a driving, calculated force that culls an audience. Yes, the artist's energy is essential, but often, as stated on this blog before, the artist is too busy working to subsidize their art and living expenses and, oh yeah, making the art itself.  A person dedicated to its successful completion and dissemination is necessary and must somehow be compensated. 

However, on the other side of the coin are the carnivorous recording and motion picture studios; publishers and producers of all kinds; the galleries, art dealers and auctioneers; and sometimes even the museums. Yes, these organized entities are the vehicles for getting the art out there, but sharing the wealth with those who created it becomes a joke. And this mentality trickles all the way down to goobers who are just getting their feet wet.

Amanda Palmer, the rocker who started
 out as a living statue and went
on to raise $1M on Kickstarter with
little more than a wireless connection
and a kind-hearted attitude.

I've read enough musician biographies and heard enough gallery stories to back this up. Has crowd funding—another consuming endeavor, let me tell you—become the only way to realize art work?

I believe the reason artists are truly humbled when their projects are funded by strangers is that they often receive so much strife from those they trusted. That $5 or $10 from someone on the other side of the Tweet piles up to bring an idea into reality without much lost on either side.  That true leap of faith, that nod of approval, that electronic shot in the arm that, drop by drop, stone by stone, helps an artist realize a project is what sweeps up all the words written above and exhilarates the creator and patron alike.

Engineering Ping Pong

Time didn't let me post emails between the two engineers last week:

Writes Remy Cucui, July 2:

What I've found is that the MP3 shield doesn't play files directly or even read them straight from the SD card. There's no "Play MP3" function, you just feed it a buffer and it works with it. We can work with several file types: MP3, OOG, AIFF, WAV, leaving us the opportunity for dealing with uncompressed audio. I tend to think that this makes real-time interleaving a more practical possibility with the Arduino. I want to try that and see how well it works.

The new idea I've had about handling audio isn't quite so spectacular, though. It's actually more of a fall-back method. We could have both of the sound files already interleaved at multiple points in time on the SD card. Several instances where Sound #1 has been playing and then Sound #2 starts, and vice versa. Then, when the second sensor is triggered, it's read from the corresponding mixed file at the same point as the original one. People viewing the exhibition won't know to pay attention to how soon Sound #2 plays after Sensor #2 is triggered, so we wouldn't have to create that small of a gap between the progression of each sound file along the other's timeline. Making all of the sound files won't be hard, we could just write some code that does it repeatedly. The only concern is space; I'm not sure how big the files we're working with will be.

Dr. Marantz replies:

My worry is how you'll mix the current single sound [Sound #1] file to the next sound file [Sound #2] that should be starting from where the first gets interrupted by the trigger of the second sensor [Sensor #2], since you would be accessing a combined sound file. You could momentarily turn down the volume of the first soundtrack before starting the second, but if the sound track is pure speech and the time is off, there may be a momentary echo effect (which might be a good thing?) [AG: Note: there is no spoken word; only ambient machine sound and bird songs]. Though that's something that you can experiment with to get the best effect.

To that, Remy:

Oops! I thought I caught both instances. Fixed! The idea is to start playing the mixed file from the same point at which the original file had been playing, instead of playing exactly where the mix begins. Like going to the subway and catching the next train. We read from the same point in the mixed file as we were in the original, and after some odd hundredths of a second, the other sound will play as well.

AG: My concern is pre-mixing the sound and not allowing the viewers to determine the playback variable.

Making Duratrans and Duraclear

Went to a friend's performance at Printed Matter, one of the best things about New York (no exaggeration). For those unfamiliar, Printed Matter, a small shop on 10th Avenue and 20th Street, has a collection of some 15,000 books published by artists of all kinds. Some come from publishers abroad, others are self-published. A visit is definitely worth everyone's time; their inventory is fascinating. If nothing else, you can have a look at three of Joseph Beuys's 7,000 Eichen (Oaks) installed in front of the building. http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/7000oaks

Yes, these are sculptures. 

While there, I met someone I had only shared emails with: a photographer named Adam Ryker. He is the friend of a friend, and, in our brief conversation, said he saw from my FB posts that the images in SIS may evolve to a back-lit LED panels and asked me what a Duratrans is.

Duratrans is a Kodak product of laser-exposed light-sensitive transparency film. The color, density and resolution are beautiful and that's how I'm planning to print the images. Other options exist, such as ink-jet on paper or film, but I despise those. The toner looks gritty and the color lacks bite. And, the surface is porous--not as hard as film, so the final print would look gooey, not at all suitable for images of steel, ice and stone.

A similar product exists called a Duraclear, which is also a film, but has is transparent rather than having a translucent backing like a Duratrans. For this installation I will probably prototype both since the images are on the dark side and might suffer from the frosted backing. Fuji makes a similar product, but I'm not sure if I'll test it.

The minute I had sent the payment for the LED panel prototype to China, I requested samples and prices from Lambda for Less, also known as Corporate Color. They printed for me before, when I did the Looking for Work show in Kinderhook a few years ago. They also did a job for me when I worked at LTB. What I like is that they have a nice proofing/prototyping set-up, and the moment I get samples, I will send a file to be proofed, with another to be made to-size immediately upon receipt of the LED panel.

When I emailed requirements, the sales associate suggested mounting/laminating the images onto acrylic (in 1/8- or 1/4- inch thicknesses) which would give it a hard smooth finish. I'm interested, but need to see what the LED panel looks like, how it would fit in it, and whether the front of the panel would provide a second reflection of the image (sooo not good). One step further, I'm wondering if the mounted image alone would be sufficient; but let me wait for the panel to come in before the hamster spins in my head.

Some prices below:

The prototype:
$ 139.00
Packing and shipping:   $ 20.00 (UPS ground)


For the Nine images:
$ 125.00 or $ 1125.00 plus $ 25.00 for shipping.

If I go with the lamination, the shipping costs rise substantially. I'll be getting that price this week, along with samples.

Push over another couple of beads.

Don't Believe the Critics

Went to see The Lone Ranger and loved it. The critics panned it, what could be wrong with Trains, the West, and Johnny Depp? And, while I don't do well with 2-1/2 hour movies, this one kept me rapt.

Bass Reeves, the original
lone ranger.

Couldn't resist looking up where the story of where the Lone Ranger came from: it was a radio show out of Detroit in the 1930's. Based on an African-American law man, Bass Reeves, the first black man appointed to the post of Deputy US Marshall in Oklahoma, his territory spanned 75,000 square miles. Now that's a beat. What got him the job was said to be his ability to speak several Native American languages, a skill he picked up when he ran away from his slave owner while in Texas. He was said to be so righteous that, in addition to apprehending over 3,000 felons, he arrested the minister who baptized him and brought his own son to justice for murder. 

bit.ly/16QOqJC.

Reading further, my eyes fell on the name of unrelated Western character called "Liver-Eating Johnson", whose legend may have contributed to flesh-foraging tendencies of Butch Cavendish in The L.R. Couldn't resist this one, either. Johns(t)on earned his name according to the rumor that he cut out and ate the liver of every Crow Indian he killed to avenge for the murder of his pregnant wife. His cannibalistic tendencies didn't end there, however, since, when captured by a different tribe and faced with being returned to the Crow for reward, he wrestled himself free, scalped his guard, cut off his leg and snacked on it in the trek to meet up with his trapping partner 200 miles away. His life is documented in many sources and throughout the media (the film character Jeremiah Johnson is said to be based on his life), and even scholarly documents exist to correct the legend with facts. [See bit.ly/18ylcTP ]

The questionable homage is the statue to his memory that scars the American landscape. 

Onward to the reason behind bringing the Lone Ranger to this blog: The original budget for the film was $260 million dollars. Disney's producers put the breaks on until $45 million was shaved off.  According to the June 25, 2013 issue of Variety, senior writer Marc Graser: "Bruckheimer and his longtime collaborators, director Gore Verbinski and Depp...made a number of clever financial and creative concessions to get the movie made. They re-engineered the entire production plan: switching to shoot in locations with more favorable tax incentives; shrinking the crew; laying off makeup artists, visual-effects workers and extras. To further save money, Bruckheimer, Verbinski, Depp, Hammer, post-production vendors and other crew members agreed to defer their payments and take 20% cuts in their fees. Disney also held back producer fees from Bruckheimer, who contributed his own development funds to finish the picture."

Says Bruckheimer, “When you’re spending other people’s money, you want to give them back a return on their investment. Every time you go out there, you have to swing for the fences.”

bit.ly/17NxSmS

A lesson or two to be learned here about the drive and the desire to realize your vision, though I wonder if any of the Disney execs took a 20% deference on their fees or ever contributed any of their funds to finish a project.