So now I'm moving on to scouting some possible locations for my film. Since our magicians need somewhere to perform, I've been looking for theaters where we can film. Thankfully, San Diego is a great place for theater, and there are a number of companies ranging from quite large and established to small and experimental. This is a great thing. The downside is that because San Diego is such a diverse theater town, many of the theaters are black box theaters, rather than proscenium theaters, which is what I need. 

Most of the proscenium theaters here are actually very beautiful historic theaters, with all the architectural details we love, down to the red velvet curtain. This gives me some options as to where I can shoot, but the end result is most likely going to boil down to what we can afford. Historic places generally have tight restrictions (as well they should), and since they are all still working theaters, we also have to work around their production schedules, which is a little tricky. Still, I have a couple of candidates, and even toured one the other day with my producer, who I'll introduce to you another day.

We visited a place in Encinitas (very cute surfer town) called La Paloma Theater. I love that Paloma is Spanish for ''dove", which is very much a part of the magic world. Here are a few pictures.

There is another theater I plan to visit call the Birch North Park Theater, which is also beautiful. I'll post pictures when I visit.

The last location I'm looking for is a house. Nothing special, just a house. Ideally, I'm looking for something small. A simple house that looks a bit unkempt. And then my locations will be set. How exciting is that?

As you can imagine, I have been doing a lot of image research lately for my film. Most recently, I started researching what a magician's promotional poster would look like, and oddly enough, the majority of posters I found were from back in the day. Do today's magicians not make posters to promote their acts? Is magic marketing a thing of the past? From the examples I found, it seems that the posters are an animal all their own, with all sorts of crazy elements. More than one magician makes a visual connection to 'the dark side', hanging out with demons and such. Seems pretty audacious to me, considering that during the turn of the 20th century, propriety and being a good Christian was still pretty important to most people. Perhaps it was the 1902 version of the sex tape: come and gape at the underbelly of society.

Sensationalism is always sensational.

Anyway, here are a few of the posters I liked for your viewing enjoyment.

Speaking of research and reading, this is the book I finished reading about a week ago. I find that the world of magic is a place where the line between illusion (or delusion) and reality is hopelessly blurred, and doesn't necessarily end once someone steps off the stage. Similarly, the illusion isn't necessarily complete when one steps onto the stage, or at least has varying degrees of completion while in view of the audience.

On the other hand, these guys (and yes, they were primarily men) really knew their way around a trick.

This is the book I'm reading to research my film. So far, interesting.