Black & White keys

[Richard Moody]

Jim, 
	Thanks for the memories. When I was in San Francisco, I was hired to rent
a grand piano for a "video"  They wanted to fill the insides with broken
mirror shards.  I just happened to have one an insurance company PAID me
to haul away from a burnt building. I spray painted the charred side and
delivered.  They were more than pleased.  (but I didn't get a tip) When I
went to pick it up, I pulled the action (crunch crunch) and dumped it over
to shake out the glass. For a long time I thought I could "rent" it to the
movie makers for the 6 story hoist accident, but no such luck. 
	I had this fantasy of dropping it off the Golden Gate Bridge, (and
filming it of course) but couldn't get up the nerve. For some  reason I
feel the image of that might have curtailed some of the jumpers,
(especially if it floated) but it's too late  now. 

Ric GoingDown

----------
> From: harvey <harvey@greenwood.net>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Re: Black & White keys
> Date: Friday, August 21, 1998 11:16 AM
> 
> Dick, I'm gonna try real hard to be serious about this, but am already
> getting the feeling it's not going to work!
> 
> This reminds me of some of the requests I used to get while working the
> Hollywierd circuit; ahem, the movie and TV sets in particular. They
would
> want a gutted, breakaway grand piano, so that an actor (actress in this
> case) could fall into it. Next they'd want a 'dummy' piano -- one that
> would be used on a live sound stage and have the keys go up and down,
but
> not make any noise, because the actor (player)... couldn't. Then there
was
> a famous TV western series that wanted the piano in tune, but
deliberately
> and consistently out of tune, ie, a saloon sound. One more -- the time I
> had to cover an entire piano with mirrored Plexiglas -- and I mean all
of
> it except for the keys and pedals. I haven't mentioned Liberace yet, and
> the custom 'Midnight Blue' color he wanted on a particular piano. We
mixed
> and made samples until we were "blue in the face" before he was finally
happy.
> 
> In every instance, the prop departments paid well to have these
instruments
> custom-tweaked, or in some instances custom-mutilated. If the "gag" was
a
> success, it was worth the effort and expense. Enter your situation. I'm
not
> aware of how this was done for Janet's video, but remember that the
"gag"
> only has to last for the duration of the shoot. Therefore... Krylon
> immediately comes to mind.
> 
> At least I warned you in advance! 8-}
> 
> 
> 
> At 09:37 AM 8/21/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >I have a customer who saw a Janet Jackson video and in this video it 
> >shown a piano that had white keys that were black and black keys that 
> >were white.  My customer would like this on his Young Chang PG 150.  
> >Does anyone have any information concerning this unusual request.
> 
> 
> 
> Jim Harvey, RPT
> harvey@greenwood.net
> ________________________
> Yes, I'm familiar with Brambach... why do you ask?
> 	-Jim Harvey, 1974