Whew!  Just got back from a jog and I'm all refreshed and ready for a day of dolls!  I'm really lucky as far as blog days go, because I always get to write a blog on doll day.  I have no idea what we're going to do today (with the dolls), but I think it is going to be at the Merriman's or Montoya's houses and it may just be a day full of getting things back to normal and re-organizing things like each of their chores and all of their jobs and duties like the laundry and making Nafy's jammies and fun stuff like that!

Blogging from the set :)
Now Playing: the Waltz of the Flowers
Well-

I have a theater in my house.
Now Playing: Taking Chances
Hey guys!

Well today is another big filming day since we're on the final stretch of the movie here.  I can't WAIT to show you the movie though, some of the shots were getting now at the end are so adorable... but I cannot say too much.  We've been filming things in the living room for a Nutcracker section of the movie, but I'll say no more.

I love it when we get to do a big project like a movie.  I don't know how many of you know this, but we actually made about four feature-length stop-frame movies before Kitty Kapers over the course of about 2 years... the first one was about the dolls going to school, doing chores, doing soccer, swim team, drama class, all that good stuff.  It was called "A Day in Pleasantville."  The second one was about the Larsons, and it was called "Anna and the Barn Dance."  The third one was "Our Dolls and the Great Outdoors," which I've got the first ten minutes of up on youtube right now (the full movie is actually about two hours long..I'm hoping to get the rest of it up on youtube eventually, don't worry.) And the fourth one was the last Christmas-themed movie we made, "Pumpkins and Candy Canes." (that's where the ballet class and skater's waltz clips are from.)

Every time we did one of those projects we would be forced to make things a little better and a little more realistic, so our whole town would start looking better.  We'd notice what was in the background of a shot and replace it with something doll-sized that made sense in the room.

It wasn't until we moved to this house (around 2002) that we really started changing the dolls' houses around to look more and more realistic.  Then Kitty Kapers stepped it up in 2005, followed by all of the photo stories we made whenever we hosted a traveling doll.  So now it has been four years since we made a movie, two years since we stopped doing the Nutcracker, even.   And this new movie is bumping each house and the detail level up another notch.  That's all I'm sayin'!  heehee!

I'm hoping to share those first four movies with you all eventually, I just want to fix them up a little bit.  Great Outdoors is lots of fun with huge mountain and river sets and stuff, and Anna and the Barn Dance has some fun dancing sequences.  We shall see!

And then you will get to see this latest movie, which I love watching, even all cut up and boring the way it is when you have to watch 15 takes of the same shot in a row.  lol!

OK, have a great Friday, everybuggy!  (As Nan would say.)
:-)
Greta

Back in Pleasantville!
Now Playing: Soldier's Dream - Mark O'Connor, Edgar Myer, Yo-Yo Ma

Howdy, everybody!

Well, today is the long-awaited "doll day" in our schedule that we've been waiting for for quite a while.  I don't know what's on the list, but it is sure to be fun. Solana has been working intensely on all the schoolwork she normally misses when we're gone for all our shows, and now she is taking a day off and we're going to play dolls all day.  ;)

I'm also busy printing, but this time it isn't a new CD or a new piece of promo material for the trio- it's a special item or two for the website!  So expect some cool new things to be added to the store in the next few days.

I've also discovered youtube recently.  lol.  Not that I didn't use it before, and we have lots of videos up on there already, but I just didn't know how to use it very well before.  Now I'm finding all these great people and their videos and adding them as friends and all that good stuff.  I guess I just didn't realize that people treat youtube as a fourth wing of the myspace-facebook-twitter trio.  :P

I hope everyone is going to join us for the group chat this afternoon?  There are going to be some fun contests and prizes as well.... like, good prizes from the doll store and other goodies!  So make sure you're doing some research and remembering all your ourdolls.net trivia before you come, because it'll help!  That's all I'm sayin'.

We are just about finished watching all the dailies from the movie, so the first leg of post-production is just about finished.  There are a few scenes that we want to do over again, plus a few that we haven't even shot yet, so we'll do those and then it's time to start the editing process!  You are going to love this movie, it is the cutest thing.... I love it.
I can't wait until we can share it with you, but there's a long road to go down before we can get there. 

Alrighty, take it easy everybody and I'll see you next week!
:-)
Greta

Looking ahead
Now Playing: general talking
Hello everybody-

This is a really fun time of year.  You can finally wrap up everything you've been working on through the Christmas and Holiday season and look ahead to what you're going to do in the New Year.

We've been writing lists.  Lots of lists.  Lists about everything I can think of.  We've got so many far-reaching plans, I don't know how we'll ever do all of it, but hopefully we'll get some of it done pretty soon here.  ;-)

I've got lists and lists and lists of things for the website... so there should be a lot of new updates coming soon, I just have to have a little bit more time to get it all put together.
I've also been really enjoying all the emails you've sent with the kind of thing you would like to see more of on the site.  Everything from LOTS more Nafy stuff to more crafts, remedies and recipes.  There are some new section ideas I have brewing in my head as well.    Completely new stuff.  Hmmmm..... tease!

Well, anyway I'm just rambling now but I just thought I'd give you a heads up about the updates we've got planned.  It's going to be the best year YET on ourdolls.net. 

:-)
Greta

Putting together a Photo Story
Now Playing: Marie's Wedding

Hey guys!

Today's I thought I would share a little behind-the-scenes thing with you about how we put together the Gala Ball photo story.  Since Pleasantville is set up year-round, it is usually very easy to snap a few pictures and put together a photo story of something that is already going on in our day-to-day dollplay, but the Gala Ball was difficult because we had to put the whole thing together in one day outside on our back porch.

This is a picture of our permanent doll setup in the rec room - known to everyone as town square and the Larsons' farm:

So this is what it is usually like during the year. Now here are some photos of us setting up the Gala Ball photo story on our back porch:

It took an entire day to set up and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening taking pictures as it slowly got dark enough outside for the porch to transform itself into a ballroom.

heeheehee....

Anyway, that's a little human-sized peek at the Gala Ball. I hope you enjoyed the photo story!

:-)
Greta

Day after Thanksgiving!  Does this mean I'm finally allowed to think about Christmas officially?  Methinks yes... although yesterday we put the finishing touches on the last of the Christmas decorations in Pleasantville.  We spent the morning and afternoon decorating the Montoyas' house and filming a lot of scenes for the movie.  Then we had a nice, quiet little Thanksgiving dinner and continued on with decorating the Parkingtons' mansion.

We have ten hours of footage for the movie already.  It is going to be so fun to put it all together, I can't tell you how excited I am to see it!  I keep wondering how to describe it.  I guess you could say it will look like one of our Christmas photo stories coming to life.  It is very visual and colorful.  I'm enjoying the process of planning and filming it as well, and we're plotting about ways to write the soundtrack and possibly perform it ourself beneath the video.  We shall see!

Anyway, I have to go see an orchestra concert of Solana's, but I will be back again soon, never fear.
Enjoy your black friday and don't get too trampled trying to get to the holiday sales!  (As soon as the concert is over I will be hunkering down and staying safe at home, personally, but if you are going shopping today - best of luck to you!)

:-)
Greta

Snow!
Now Playing: The fountain in the corner.
It snowed in downtown Pleasantville last week!  Solana worked really hard and got all the snow set up at the Larsons' house and around town square, so now there is snow on every ledge and in every nook and cranny down there and looks really pretty!

It also snowed at the Merriman's and it won't at the Parkington's until Solana is done with her secret project inside there.  It won't snow at the Montoyas' rancho for a while though because it is so hot up there.  They hardly ever get much snow during the winter.  ;)

And now the weather report for OUR area is saying that it is going to snow here tonight!   Wow, what perfect timing.  I must say that I prefer pretend snow though because if it snows here then we will have a hard time getting around.  (Not very good at driving in snow, lol!)

So... rumors of a new movie have been circulating.  And it's true... we're working on a new movie project right now.  But I can't say any more about it.  I'm so excited because we haven't made a movie since the Kitty Kapers in 2005 and that was nearly four years ago so Pleasantville has changed and improved dramatically since then.  The Nutcracker is still really good though, we just watched it again (and all the features) and it makes me feel like I'm there again.  So if you haven't gotten the Nutcracker DVD yet, you should.  That's all I'm sayin'.  hehehe ;)
Anyway....stay tuned for more information on this new project.  There will be pictures and trailers and other spoilers coming soon.  

Time to get started on the projects of the day!
:-)
Greta

Now Playing: More Scottish Christmas music
Things have finally gotten active in Pleasantville again after a long period of playing here and there, we are actually able to play more now.

Yesterday John enforced all of his laws and inspections of houses, and five people got sent to the jail for various things like not walking or feeding their pets, not eating, or not having laundry boxes.

Kaya, Suzanna, Mei Mei, Antonio and Heather Heaven all had to stay in jail for  a night and then pick a chore from the chore box that they had to do.  Suzi got "walking the Parkington's pets" which is the most dreaded of the chores to do, so she had to drag all the cats around the town and then put up with Snowball, who is like the Houdini of dogs and always manages to wiggle out of his leash somehow and make a beeline to Kaya's cave, which his favorite place to hang out!

The Parkingtons have torn apart their upper floor in order to do some wallpaper work in Rebecca's bedroom and Samantha's room before they take everything down to start putting up their Christmas decorations.  I just had Rebecca's wallpaper push-pinned to the walls until now, and I want to glue it and put in some wood and new curtains like we did to the green parlour and the music room.

Our house is starting to be secretive.  lol  because all the dolls are starting their Christmas presents for each other, there is a lot of "don't come in here!" and "you can't look over here!" going on, as well as a lot of whispering between present conspirators.

We're watching the Nutcracker DVD again and I wish we could do the Nutcracker again.  I'm so glad we taped it and got it on DVD though, since we don't have enough time to do the full production anymore.  And I forgot about all the behind-the-scenes features that are so funny!  Especially the blooper reel.  It helps me remember what it was like to put that on every year, which was really fun.  

There is frost at the Larsons' cabin right now.  Pretty soon they are going to get their first snowfall.  And from there -  here we go!!

:-)
Have a great day!
Greta

Now Playing: Irish tunes in my head ;)
HI!

I know Willow already talked about this in HER blog on Wednesday, but I am already looking forward to Christmastime right now.  We finished the Masked Ball, got everyone home and made them go to sleep.  It's very unusual that we make the dolls go to sleep, because they are always so busy doing things.  I love slowly making everyone change into their nightgowns and do "before bed" things like drinking tea or sitting by the fireplaces, (the Montoyas always have to roll out their bedrolls, which are stored in the wall during the day so they have more floor space) and brushing out whatever hairstyle they have in their hair.

It provides a fresh start for us the next time we start playing, because we can make them start in the morning...do their chores and go to their jobs.

There was a time (during middle school, I think) that we got so into playing with the dolls that we actually slept in their houses so we could make them get up and make them do things in real time.  It worked for about.... a day... until we had to go and do some other things, but it was a fun concept!  There's something very cool about making the dolls wake up when it is still dark outside and get themselves breakfast.  Like Christmas morning when you wake up early and see the tree with the lights on in the dark morning with presents under it for the first time.
There I go about Christmas again!  It must be on the brain!
I've started  carrying a little black notebook around with me while we're playing in the dollhouses so I can write down all the present ideas I get.  It's about time to start making everyone's presents and wrapping them up.

We're sitting in a hotel right now before some shows at an Irish festival here, and it's a lot of fun so far.
Anyway, see you all later... and Happy Halloween!
:-)
Greta