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One day last summer, in the gorgeous city of Montreal, I had one of the greatest experiences of my professional career. It was during the first of a two-day set visit for X-Men: Apocalypse, which I had the pleasure of attending along with a small group of reporters. Now set visits can sometimes be hit or miss, but if there's one thing you can probably count on, it's that your time speaking with the director is either extremely limited or completely non-existent. Which is entirely understandable—he or she is directing a feature film, and time is extremely limited already without having to also squeeze in a conversation with some eager reporters.
However, for X-Men: Apocalypse, director Bryan Singer was extremely generous with his time. The filmmaker wanted to wait until the end of the day to speak with us, after filming was completed, so he could really dig into some serious conversation without having to be pulled back to set once the next shot was ready. The result was a candid conversation with the filmmaker in his trailer that lasted over an hour in length, covering everything from the process of making an X-Men movie to the superhero genre at large.
This interview is positively massive in length, and given that it's such a fascinating conversation, I'm presenting it in its entirety. You'll notice that it's very free-wheeling, covering a wide range of topics, but if you're at all interested in the process of moviemaking or the career of Singer—who his really one of the godfathers of the modern superhero genre given that his 2000 film X-Men helped kick off this trend in the first place—I promise you it's worthwhile.
As you read, you'll see Singer discussing the origins of X-Men: Apocalypse and what drew him to this story, the 1980s influence, the new Quicksilver sequence, the motivations and design of Oscar Isaac's titular character, creating Angel's wings, and where we find the main characters at the beginning of the movie. But the conversation also veers into Singer talking about his impact on the superhero genre as a whole and its evolution since 2000's X-Men, his future with the X-Men franchise and how he's kept rebooting his own characters, and he also talks extensively about the new timeline he created with Days of Future Past and what that means for the franchise going forward.
All this and much, much more is discussed, so again, if you're at all interested in hearing a prolific blockbuster filmmaker talk at length about one of the most successful franchises of our time, please enjoy. X-Men: Apocalypse opens in theaters on May 27th.
What makes now, seven, eight movies into the franchise, the time to tell the Apocalypse story?
BRYAN SINGER: Because it's just so different. We've always treaded this theme of mutants vs humans and Apocalypse has two aspects that make him such a different character than I've traditionally explored in the universe. One is that he makes no distinctions between humans and mutants. He's interested in the Earth as a whole and the purity of civilization and the strongest. And secondly it deals with ancient mutantism, or the origins of the mutant state, or the origin of gods and religion. Which the X-Men universe has never touched upon any of those things and that stuff I loved when I was a kid. I read Chariots of the Gods when I was a kid, and I was fascinated with religion as a kid and cults and things like that. So that stuff made this so appealing to do, plus I love the characters so I love coming back with actors and people I know, and I love X-Men.
Can you describe your Apocalypse, this Apocalypse?
SINGER: The way I describe him the most, the best is he to me is the God of the Old Testament and all that comes with that. If there isn't the order and the worship then I'll open up the Earth and swallow you whole, and that was the God of the Old Testament. I started from there and when Oscar and I met we began discussing, since he isn't really God, he's the first mutant perhaps, but he's not God necessarily, he's imbued with certain unique powers. Some of them may or may not be from this Earth, we don't know. Then we started looking at cults and the nature of cults, because cult leaders, true cult leaders, develop god complexes and he always traditionally had four horsemen so I thought a cult has traditionally four factions to it that interest me. It has a political faction, and I'd always felt Magneto could fill those shoes. It always has a military faction, so Archangel could fill those shoes as the guardian. There's also youth faction, those that you're trying to seduce and grow into your cult, the young whose minds are malleable, and lastly the sexual component because cult leaders tend to sexualize their position and have sex with half the people in their cult. And the Psylocke character, who was a very bright character in the comic but is always looking for guidance and leadership. Always trying to find the right guy, so she starts with one and ends up with Apocalypse in this one. I always thought there was a mixture of ancient religion and cultism combined in the character of Apocalypse.
How did you settle on the look of Apocalypse? Because I think a lot of us were really happy to see in the Comic-Con footage when we were there, I think a lot of people would have gone mo-cap or CG and it was nice to see actual make-up effects.
SINGER: Whenever I can go physical I try to. It gives the actors something to play with. What did Nicholson say when he played The Joker? Let the costume do the acting? There's a lot more that goes into it than that but nonetheless it makes it real. It makes it real for the actor and it makes it real for the people who are playing against the actor than when they're wearing a green suit with dots on it. Once the people at Legacy could prove it to me that they could pull it off, it was very complicated how to do that. It was just complicated. Once I saw a few key designs, surfaces, shieldings, panels, artistry, I was like 'Okay that's the guy, lets build it'. Let's make it real. If the character is a strange size or something then maybe you have to do CG, although we do get into a little of that. Angel, we didn't build the wings because they're twenty feet long. He's two characters, he's Angel then he's Archangel and either are very complex and those we clearly make room for but we always have to be careful. Whenever I'm telling my cinematographer 'Leave negative space for the wings, they're wings!' It's like let's do an over the shoulder shot, 'No you're blocking them with wings!' So you have to use your imagination and have a great guy like John [Dykstra, visual effects designer] who can run in there and remind you.
With Apocalypse having so many powers over the years in the comics I'm really interested to hear how you decided just what he'll be able to do in the movie. Some of the other people have been talking about how he can somehow amplify other people's powers?
SINGER: He does, he has a number of different powers that he's acquired over the years as he's moved from body to body, accumulating these various abilities. One of them is to imbue other mutants and to heighten their powers and abilities beyond anything they ever imagined. Secondly, he can shield from psychic powers, he can form shields so that it makes it harder for a psychic like Xavier to tap in and get to them. He's not a psychic himself though. He can amplify your power, transform you as a mutant but his ability to physically damage, destroy, or build is in the non-biological world. That's in the physical world, he can change the inorganic molecules of things. These are some of the powers that we're exploring and there's some epic things that he does towards the end of the picture. I have to say in the end his greatest power is the power of persuasion. The ability to know what he needs and who he needs it out of and to get it from them as he does with the horsemen, and as he has through civilization after civilization for tens of thousands of years.
When you say persuasion you don't mean like using a power on someone or do you mean charisma?
SINGER: Charisma, pure persuasion. Finding people at a time in a moment when there's emptiness, when there's a need. Finding them just at the right time as he does, and the hardest one is Erik. That's a big one. The journey that Erik takes in this movie, because the last movie was very much the journey of Charles, I think. He was an older man who made a mistake, now he's in this post-apocalyptic universe and he wishes he could go back in time. He can't, his body can't make it, so he sends back Wolverine, who's not the best psychiatrist, to right his wrongs he had with Raven, and that's that story. It's really the story of Charles. This one the journey of Erik Lehnsherr is a very big part of this movie. I think the two biggest journeys are the journey of Erik, perhaps the journey of Raven, and on the younger side the journey of Scott and Jean and their story as young characters. One of the biggest challenges, and it's very emotional and it's somewhat dark, is getting Erik to that place where he would follow. Because Erik is a super villain. He's dropped stadiums on the White House, whatever he does, and to get him to a place where he's ready to go there with this character, with Apocalypse. That was one of the biggest challenges and there's a scene Fassbender does with this movie, you always wonder what's going to make the cut but he did something that we were pulling the Kleenex out in the tent. I've never had that happen on the set.
There's some really funny parts too, I'm not making it sound like it. We rekindle romances, there's three romances we start together. One that I didn't really explore in Days of Future Past but I did when I wrote the story for First Class, between Hank and Raven. We've got Jean and Scott. Suddenly Xavier and Moira start getting reconnected, so that's all starting to happen too. So there's a lot of rebirths and stuff, but in the end ultimately this movie, in the final thing, this movie is about the story of the formation of the X-Men. That's really what this is. In First Class they were sort of a CIA fighting force, you know, jokingly. Not everyone but most of the characters we meet them where they are so different from where they were in the last movie and that's kind of fun too.
Speaking of the Comic-Con panel you had some interaction with Hugh Jackman at that panel that was very entertaining and in the end was a little difficult to decipher.
SINGER: I know, we also ran into each other in the elevator, which was even more bizarre. In my hotel I went down to the basement suddenly the door opens up and Hugh walks in and it's like 'Oh, I'll see you later? Maybe? I don't know?" So we played it all out on the elevator before we even went on stage. No, we just, I pointed out that there's not been an X-Men film that has not featured Hugh Jackman, and he pointed out that he appreciated the opportunity I had given him years ago and it was very emotional. We actually were side by side watching that video. We were next to each other next to the stage, sort of arm in arm kind of looking at each other and listening to it and remembering those days. It was very emotional and we pointed this out to each other. There are a lot of characters, it's a complicated movie, it'll be interesting to see what happens. Was that as a vague as that bullshit we did at the panel? (laughter) It wasn't bullshit, it was very heartfelt. It was fun, it was spontaneous.
You are telling a story that has such big ideas and god-like people in it, but in the writing process how do you go about focusing on specific characters and their inner personal journeys?
SINGER: You just make sure that each person, you understand their character arc and where they're coming from. It starts where they're coming from. I always make sure I always have an answer for every actor. When an actor comes up to me and says "What do I do for a living?" Lucas Till says 'Okay, I left Vietnam, it's the last time you saw me. I'm the brother of Scott Summers. What do I do for a living?" I'm like 'Well you live in Omaha, you're an executive at Berkshire Hathaway. You've cleaned your life up. Your brother doesn't like school, he's the opposite of the Cyclops we're going to get to know. Now he's discovered he's got this problem.' So you start with whether you put it on screen or not, I have to understand where each character is in their life. Who just broke up with them, why they're angry, how many parents they have, where they come from. Then who you focus on, that's just where the story takes you and when you realize you want to recruit. This is a hard question to answer because each one has its own journey.
I knew I wanted to explore two things. I wanted to tell us the story of whatever happened to Raven and Erik when they left that stadium. When they both just left. I knew I wanted to tell that story, and like when I first came up with First Class and I wanted to tell the story of Xavier and Magneto, I knew I wanted to tell the origin of Jean and Scott and Storm. I knew those stories I wanted to tell. What happened to the two people that left the stadium and the origin of those three characters.
Is it right to assume that on the original X-Men there was some resistance to the very concept and to doing that movie at all?
SINGER: There was no concept. There was no template for it. Comic book movies had died, there was no concept of one as anything but camp. I took it on because I saw the thematics of it were interesting to me. I saw Xavier and Magneto as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X characters. I'm gay or bisexual, whatever, so that probably factored into it a bit because mutancy is discovered at that age in puberty when you're different from your whole neighborhood and your family and you feel very isolated. So that probably factored into my decision to do it to some degree at least, and I wanted to get involved in action-adventure and this was an avenue to do it. The studio had always wanted to make an X-Men movie. Andrew Kevin Walker wrote a script, there's a number of scripts that had been written, but after I met with Stan Lee who was wonderful and lovely, I just started to research the characters and I found them so compelling and their relationships with each other were so interesting that I thought 'I can make this universe really cool, and I can see it through Wolverine's eyes because he kind of doesn't buy it.'
And this is where I will probably out myself as a non-comic book person, but I did not come from reading comic books. So for me I was very cynical about it, like 'They call themselves Cyclops, Storm, Sabertooth,' but with Wolverine, Logan, I said I can be Logan and by the end of the movie I can embrace this universe, so I can tell this story. Through him I can make this movie and I can make it like a film that happens to be based on a comic book, that happens to have action sequences in it, but it's still to me a film. It's not just genre. It's a film. Like Usual Suspects or Apt Pupil or whatever films I had made at the time.
The reason I ask is are some aspects of this film things that could not be done at the time? Telling Scott and Jean's story is a thing you're doing now but that you weren't able to do at the time.
SINGER: I wouldn't have thought to do it at the time. I really was focused on the X-Men people knew mostly from the animated series, I kind of used that as my template to be honest. I took the characters that were most popular form that series and I used those as my main primary characters.
Jumping off of that, you are one of the godfathers of the modern superhero movie. We've seen that genre evolve like crazy throughout the years and you're still doing it, but you can't ignore the fact that all these other superhero interpretations exist. Have those effected or informed your approach?
SINGER: It's weird, they affect me all the time! This makes a billion dollars, and this does this, and this tonally is so light and this is fun, and the other side is Nolan, it's dark. But when I go to make an X-Men movie I'm like 'Well the last thing I can do is start to try and make an X-Men movie look like Dark Knight or The Avengers.' If I start doing that then I'm going to fuck it all up. I will fuck it up. You would not have had Days of Future Past you would have Days of Avengers Knight something. So when I go into the making of it, it doesn't really affect me, but when I'm in-between I'm like "What am I supposed to be doing?!" That's how it happens. Yeah, it's weird. I do think about it.
It's kind of amazing because all these other people are saying 'Well this copied what they did, and copied what they did,' but you're still doing the same thing 15 years later more or less. Well not the same thing—
SINGER: Hopefully we're doing different gags.
Your approach to story and tone and character are what remains intact.
SINGER: Feige and I had a conversation about this recently where he felt when he saw Days of Future Past that the tone actually reminded him, because Feige worked as an assistant with us on X-Men 1, he felt… I rewatched X-Men 1 and 2 to remind myself what sort of tone I have to maintain. If I'm going to see a Star Wars movie or a movie from a franchise I love, whatever it is, I'm going to want to see that tone maintained. If that tone shifts, I'm like whoa, whoa, that's a different movie. It might have shifted a little because a different director did First Class but I'm still very proud of First Class and Matthew [Vaughn] is brilliant, and it was minor tonal shifts. And Matthew's obsession was to not shift tone, he was the one that was like "I'm going to open this in Auschwitz," he was the one saying "I want this to be in the canon of your X-Men movies." He would say that to me all the time and because that very thing, that's what you want. You don't want to try and assimilate whatever is more different or popular at the moment. I keep getting drawn back because there's always something different to tell.
I've got to ask you about Jean Grey. In X2 you teased sort of building up to the Phoenix story but we never got to see you execute your version of that story, so now that Jean Grey is back on the board either in this movie or in the future do you have any desire to play out a Phoenix story of your own?
SINGER: The full Phoenix story, I have no idea. I would have to re-explore that. If it's already been explored, to re-explore and retell it. Plus the Phoenix story in the comic book has the Shiar Empire and the moon.
Right and there's the Celestials and space.
SINGER: With that you never know, but as far as the idea of that brewing within her, without giving anything away I would say absolutely that interests me and you may find a piece of that in this film.
I'm curious, because the message of X-Men and X2 is clearly applied to all different parts of society and different people, but now the decision to bring in this maniac or megalomaniac who says 'Forget all that, this is just strength or weakness.' Where does that decision come from to say 'Let's show that none of this matters any more?"
SINGER: Because when he came about, in my mind, men were savages, crushing each other with rocks, for a piece of meat, and he brought order to the world. And he believes with his heart that that order is the only thing that's going to save humanity, and he will provide that order at any cost. The problem is with any civilization there's always going to be discontent, there's always going to be different ways of thinking, revolt, often rebellion and for a person who begins as a unifier and then grows in power. What's the old expression about power? Power does what? And what does absolute power do? Things just never go right, so that civilization goes down and he starts a fresh one. In this movie, something happens, he thinks he's figured it out finally. 'Oops,' didn't really go well, he gets kind of buried and then wakes up, now he's in a different situation than he's ever been before. Suddenly he wakes up in 1983, well now the world's connected with television and radio. We see it as different civilizations, we see it as "Super powers" as he says it, then the non-superpowers, the first world, second world, third, whatever. But to him it's all just one giant interconnected, overly militarized screwed up civilization that worships false idols and is self destructive and needs to be refined and saved from itself. So in a way he's just doing what he does, he's done it before, he's just doing it on a different scale, which means he needs different people with different powers.
You said that we could expect some real destruction in this, could you elaborate on what we can anticipate in terms of some of the bigger set pieces of what direction the story is going in terms of your action and living up to the "Apocalypse" name of the story?
SINGER: Yeah, it's global, it's a global situation. He wants to make a massive global change. I don't want to tell you what he's going to do but it's visually unique. He's going to do something really bad to the Earth that's going to cause a lot of people to not live and those that survive will be the strongest.
So for the growing up X-Men you have Jean Grey, Scott, who you're focusing on as two of the core characters for this, are we going to see them as still discovering their powers?
SINGER: Oh yeah, they're a mess. We came up with a scene the other day that was really funny. They're in a battle scene and Scott keeps taking off his glasses but he can't see what he's trying to hit because he doesn't have a visor, he doesn't have any technology. So finally we were like 'Okay, okay, wait, wait. So Jean just grabs the back of his head and starts moving him around. She's trying to hit the enemy, I don't want to say who the enemy is, she's just trying to use them as target practice. So suddenly we did that and we started playing with that and having fun with it and then we were like 'Oh shit, we have to service that and film the other side of it. It's a scene now! We're running out of time!' They're kids! They don't know what to do! She's trying to figure out her psychic powers, which are much more powerful than she realizes. There's some heartbreak, beautiful climactic, again I don't want to give anything away. But that was one beat that on the day I'm watching him do this and I'm like 'You can't see shit, you don't even know what you're hitting,' so I said 'Grab his head, use them for target practice.' It's so cute and it brings them together. There's many scenes that bring them together but that's one that was like the video game version. You get Sophie Turner grabbing Tye Sheridan and using him as a point and shoot.
Something that came up when we were talking to both Simon and Hutch is that something like both the success financially and the critical acclaim of something like Guardians of the Galaxy, something that wouldn't have worked ten years ago, and how that's changing the landscape of what people can expect to see. So that allows weirdness so with that now, not necessarily a standard but what kind of weirdness can you now pull off thanks to something like that?
SINGER: Not a lot, because that tonally automatically sets you up for a farce. You've got a raccoon with a machine gun. You've got a guy that's like 'Nothing gets over my head!' That's my favorite line. I love James Gunn, he's fucking amazing, hilarious. You have a tone of that movie that is a tone, once you've got that tone you can do all kinds of stuff like that. Or Deadpool, you can do that if you're rated R, whatever it is you can do certain things. Here, this universe is taken quite seriously so yeah we have our fun, we have side jokes, and we take the edge of certain scenes to lighten them up a bit but we certainly, I can't alter the tone of the movie because a movie like that is successful. I can just embrace and go see it and laugh my ass off. That's almost a different genre, I know it's a Marvel movie but it's a very different genre. Very different genre than other Marvel movies. It's almost it's own weird kind of standalone.
So we have to ask obviously what was it like to get to recreate 1983?
SINGER: Well it was fun for me because that was my year. I graduated high school in '84 so for me it was awesome. For instance they had some name for the arcade, we have a scene where some of the mutants decide to play hooky while Xavier is off at the CIA they decide to go and steal one of his really, really nice cars and an important thing about '83 is it's 10 years after the day that the world discovered mutants. So the world now embraces mutants and accepts them as part of society, so they can go to the mall. Obviously the instigator, Cyclops, who has only been there for like a day, convinces Nightcrawler, Jean, and Jubilee to play hooky, grab a car and go to the mall. So what I got to do was there was an arcade scene and they were calling it something else and I said 'No, no, we're calling it the Space Port where I played. And guess what? They're all coming out of Return of the Jedi.' This is going to be my 1984. The clothing, the everything, the whole vibe. A lot of it once we get into the action we're all over the world with a lot of the movie from Westchester, New York to Cairo to everywhere. It's different parts of the world but there is a little taste of what I remember from that period because this was my period when I was a teenager. I won't ruin who won the debate, they do have a debate over which is better: Empire or Star Wars.
So what was your visual approach to this one in order to make it distinct from the other ones? In Days of Future Past you had fun with the news reels.
SINGER: Yeah we did and it was a big decision in the last one to make them 3D too because I always loved those ViewMasters and I decided, 'Fuck it let's just go full 3D'. I shot a lot of that stuff myself with an 8MM camera, in fact I went into 70s clothes myself. There was a cameo yes, my fatter self, but also I actually went into the crowd and shot a lot of the material myself which I really enjoyed doing, it was a real throwback to my film school days and my teenage days. Here, this is a darker story so as you might have noticed from some of the cinematography that was going on in this dank, creepy location. There's some brightness to it, there's some fun, and as I said they go to the mall, there's some fun and romance but there's also, this is going to be one of the most elegantly lit films that Tom [Newton Thomas Sigel, cinematographer] has shot for me, period. I won't say X-Men films, I would say films. This will be the most elegantly lit film he's shot for me, and I would include the dramas we've done together.
You mentioned something earlier about Apocalypse now waking up in a new body or something to that effect?
SINGER: Yeah he moves from body to body. Apocalypse himself is not a physical form, he's an energy. I don't know what he is. What he does is he accumulates powers over the millenia by moving from body to body, and what's wonderful is he thinks in the beginning of the film he's found this great body. I don't want to give away what the power of the body this mutant has but it's a familiar one that you've seen a number of very famous mutants have. It kind of ends up being the wrong one because he gets stuck in it for a long time, but then suddenly he has this opportunity and that becomes his agenda. So it's another interesting thing in the movie, the villain always has their agenda.
What can you tell us about the Quicksilver sequence?
SINGER: Let's just say the Quicksilver sequence I did took a lot of technological steps, a lot of risks and things we did. This is a whole other level of actual live action elements, super-super high speed 3000+ frames per second Phantom camera work, visual effects work, and also some extraordinary choreography, stunt work, and destructive algorithms. Some things you destroy physically, some things you destroy digitally, so you have to create computer algorithms for what is it like when you blow up a piece of wood versus a piece of glass versus a piece of metal. So you're dealing with so much complexity in one sequence and by the way that's just one sequence that sets in motion a whole bunch of other sequences that start to happen. So what starts as sort of a drama evolves into this wild kind of thing.
Talk about developing this script because you guys started kind of talking when you were working on Days of Future Past and then you bring in Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris to flesh it out a little more so talk about bringing them back.
SINGER: In the beginning we brought them back just to sort of chew it out. Dan and Mike were really on other things, they were there very much in the early, early step of the process. Just to get the juices going. Dan and Mike are old friends of mine, Simon likes them a lot and so it was like four guys who just love X-Men, know the universe, had been doing it for years in different ways and we could all just kind of get each other's juices going. So that's kind of why I brought them back. Then they went off, Mike went and directed a film in Australia, Dan went off and did something else. It was really me and Simon as partners developing a script but in the beginning stages it was just to launch the juices, the creative juices. Like okay what is this going to be?
What is it that keeps bringing you back to the X-Men universe? I mean you could probably go out and do just about anything for the most part, what keeps bringing you back to the X-Men stories and to keep continuing them, pushing them forward?
SINGER: I think it's the history. It's the history and the cast. I have a history with these characters and when I think of them in the hands of other people, their origins perhaps, I don't want someone else to be…. I hired Matthew [Vaughn] and I trusted him to tell the origin that I had told to Patrick and Ian when they asked me what their origins were. But I had to be part of it, I had to produce it. Just like this movie, to tell the origin of Jean and Scott and Storm, I didn't want to not be part of that, and I didn't want to not be part of where certain characters ended up. So I get drawn back in, it's that line like Godfather III. I try to get out because I have other ideas for other movies and things but I really love this universe and I love these characters, and I love these actors, we really had a great time. We really had fun on the last movie, they really got along great, and on this movie they're getting along better and we're having more fun, and I think they really liked Days of Future Past so they have more trust in me. So that's good, so you're not just jumping into a situation with a bunch of assholes.
Nicholas Hoult and I did a bunch of movies together, Jennifer and I are friends. Michael and I, we all just kind of know each other's strengths and weakness and challenge each others in fun ways and then party, lately I haven't been, I don't go out much anymore. Believe it or not I'm going to go watch Elementary and then go home and that's what I'm going to do tonight. I am obsessed with Elementary, don't ask me why, it's the only thing that…he speaks so fast it gets my head out of X-Men. I think it's that, it's the fact that I'm very precious about it. I mean I started it so long ago and it was nothing, there were no comic book movies, there was nothing. So to have anyone else take it, I mean, even if they screwed me in a deal or something I'd probably say fuck it. These aren't cash-ins let me tell you. These are passion things for me. I do okay but it's not like 'If I do another one I can buy a jet.' I really, really am drawn back to the cast and the characters and it's just as simple as that. Now there's new ones, those fuckers. So even if Fassbender and McAvoy and Lawrence go off I've got these three new ones and I'm like 'Now I like them and we're friends and I love Sophie Turner, she's like my sister. Shit. What if they want to do a movie?' There is something I'm developing secretly hopefully I can squish that one in or just do it and we'll roll into it, that's very different and special to me.
So you're already kicking up ideas for the next one?
SINGER: For the next X-Men? No, just for the next movie.
Are you preparing yourself for the idea that a shared universe may mean films bear the X-Men name that you weren't involved in?
SINGER: Well that's already happened, what do you mean prepared for? When they made X-Men 3, which I had nothing to do with even though Brett [Ratner] is actually a really good friend of mine. Someone snuck me into it, because they knew I would be psychologically traumatized if I had to go to the theater and see X-Men 3 just when it was done and out. Someone, who shall never be named, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a part of Los Angeles, brought me into a building and sat me in front of a computer and showed me a very early unfinished version of X-Men 3. Brett doesn't even know this. Maybe he knows it by now, he probably loves it actually. And I watched it. Reel by reel because it was on a computer so I had to watch it reel by reel, and I was like 'Okay, I'm prepared for it, I know what it is. I'm prepared for it, okay, okay, okay.' Then I go to the Chinese Theater to go see it, with a baseball cap with a private seat like no one will know I'm there, theoretically. Then Brett walks in with Salma Hayek and an entourage and turns and goes "Bryan!" and I'm like: Anonymity gone! Meanwhile I'm holding a Superman Returns cup and I'm drinking my soda like "Fuck, this is a disaster," and everyone suddenly comes over "Can we get pictures of you guys?" But I had seen the movie so I knew what it was.
But yeah, if there's a mash up and I don't do it that'll be weird, but I've had weird. Man of Steel was weird, but it was a year enough away where it wasn't as weird as it would have been a year earlier for a person like me who devotes a period of time to a certain universe and then sees that universe carried on in a very different way. So yeah, it's a bunch of mixed emotions that occur when you live with a universe. At some point they're going to put me out to pasture and somebody else will take over the X-Men and "We've got to reboot the rebooting of the rebooting." But so far we've managed to not reboot, we've done these In-betweenqueels. Have you noticed? I've been rebooting my own movies. I'm like "Let's go back and do First Class, let's do this, oh no we're going to do Days of Future Past, time travel! Robots! Wait! Now we've got a god!" It's a lot of trickery that keeps me in the loop (laughs).
In reality that's perfectly fitting because it's exactly how the comics are. They jump all over the map. If anything you've remained perfectly consistent about how weird those books are.
SINGER: Days of Future Past began with sushi. Me and Jason Taylor, who runs my company, and Kinberg have sushi at this great place in LA. We sat there and he said "How do we get all these casts combined?" and I said to Simon "Time Travel," and he's like "What?" and I said "Yeah, it's in the comic book, you can do it! Time Travel! You guys go do it, but it's time travel! I'll produce" because I was already tied as a producer anyway so it didn't matter. So they went and started doing a draft, once it came back to me because Matthew couldn't do it, it evolved quite a bit. But yeah, it began with that conversation where I just threw out it's a tenant, and you're right, Aliens are a tenant. I could take X-Men to space, which brings me right back to Guardians of the fucking Galaxy. I could find myself on a giant space station. With the M'Kraan Crystal and the whole fucking thing with mutants. By the way that sounds like something I'm going to circle back to in about six years.
And after that? Mojo
SINGER: Mojo…How about Sugar Man? I mean, even the mutants like when they were really late at night and they were on so much caffeine they had no idea what they were doing and somehow found the way. Yeah, you could actually go back there, but that might take a little separation. And by the way the Matthew Vaughn separation was helpful because I got to step back and see him take on this universe with this new cast and that kind of helped me, because he was doing it and I was on set some of the time. I was there mostly for casting and in post I gave a bunch of notes. I'm not a producer who's going to hover and tell the director how to make the fucking movie. But it was good to step away. So to answer what you were saying, about letting someone else take over X-Men. If they took it over in a certain way and didn't bury it into the fucking ground like can happen, but actually take it to different levels and different places, and if I were wanting to work and liking the cast they found or we found, if I happened to be an attached producer because I'm involved with a lot of these movies anyway, I could see myself coming back around and finding myself in space with a bunch of mutants on a mission, in that environment. Perhaps not the same tonal quality of James Gunn, but doing something outside of what I've done before that somebody else helped me lay the groundwork for.
So I might be returning to X-Men but it might be a whole different thing, and that could be appealing. If I'm so blessed to still have my career. I direct every film as if it's my fucking last, and first. I'm very self-conscious about how easily directors come and go, and people in the industry in general.
It's funny you saying you direct not only like your last but like your first, being up in this location today we get up there, we get up on the third floor and it kind of looks like an indie. Every department's in the same room.
SINGER: There are moments that are like that and then there are moments where you feel like you're on a giant movie. But when I get in there, and maybe this is why I shoot out of the country a lot, because I feel like I'm not in the studio system, I feel like I'm away from the studio system to a degree. I do approach it a little indie, and that's why we did a lot of stuff on the fly today. That's why Simon and I, we high five a lot because we were just like 'Whoa, today was a few lines, whatever. Very mechanical, and it became this fucking scene.' I actually wrote the thing which may not make it into the movie but I just love watching fucking Oscar say "Shoot all your arrows from the Tower of Babel and you can't hit a god." I wrote "A god," and he goes "A god?" and I said "Nope, sorry. God." That was the line he crossed out, was the word "A."
When I was on the set of Days of Future Past, we actually found the shotlist for the ending of that movie.
SINGER: I sent a cut of the movie, of Days of Future Past to James Cameron. Almost finished but rough, but almost done. Because I value his advice and I pitched my time travel concept to him when I was at a party at Peter Jackson's, now I'm dropping all kinds of names, because I happened to be at the premiere of The Hobbit in New Zealand. But I found Jim and we started talking about time travel, and Jim hadn't talked about time travel since he made Terminator so he couldn't wait to talk about it. So for an hour and a half we're talking about time travel. We're talking about collapsing the super position and how it would work in quantum physics. So we have this big conversation and I thought 'I'm going to send the film to Jim.' So I sent the film to film and at the end of that movie, this is very interesting, when Wolverine woke up originally my editor was obsessed with this visual blurriness so when Wolverine is walking around he's seeing things in kind of a blurriness. So I sent that to Jim and Jim called me up and goes "Bryan that blurry thing made me think that the wool was going to be pulled out from under me and I was not satisfied. I thought it was going to be a lie and it had failed and it would all be dark and then suddenly it was okay." So I pulled the effect, it was the only note Jim gave me. He said "Oh I love the movie, it's going to be great." but he said "Let the audience enjoy the fact that it all turned out okay…in that future." So I pulled the effect off and my editor was like "Oh I like it, it's so cool and weird!" and I'm like "Shut up it's coming off!"
Plus the copy I sent James Cameron did not have the Famke Janssen or James Marsden or Beast cameo, so I explained that to Jim and I said "By the way it didn't have these three cameos" and he goes "OH Why didn't you tell me that?" That makes a big difference dude in letting me enjoy the ending of the god damn fucking movie!" and I'm like "Sorry, I'm keeping that so secret I didn't even want to let that go to New Zealand." Even though it was hand delivered. The effect was in congruence too because when he wakes up in 1973 butt-ass naked that effect isn't used either so why have it there. So I eliminated it. That was Jim's note, Jim's always been such a guide. Cameron's such a wonderful generous filmmaker in terms of sharing with other filmmakers and invites filmmakers to share and back and forth. I wouldn't know about mo-cap, he and Andy Serkis taught me how to do mo-cap and taught me how to do it fast. If I ever do another—Jack the Giant Slayer did mo-cap and I learned about it. I look forward to the next time I get to do that because I know how to do it and to do it efficiently.
Piggybacking off the time travel thing, how did the fact that you reset this timeline affect the development of this movie because now the possibilities are seemingly endless so we don't know…
SINGER: Again, fucking with the reboot idea. I get to take control and reboot my own movie. I rebooted the universe so now anything can happen. So here's the plan. What happens when you use Days of Future Past to erase movies like X1, 2 and 3, yes you can erase those events that occurred, but I also was very adamant about having what we call "The Tivo Scene." The scene in that room with all the video cameras in Days of Future Past, I call it the Tivo scene. "I developed this piece of technology that records television." The point is time's immutability. The idea that time is like a river. You can splash it and mess it up and throw rocks in it and shatter it but it eventually kind of coalesces and this is, again, theories of quantum physics. It's all based in quantum physics. So what I'm doing with these in-betweenqueels is playing with time's immutability and the prequel concept, meaning that yes we erased those storylines and anything can happen. That means the audience goes into the movie thinking that anything can happen. I mean anything, anyone could die. Any possibility could occur, but characters are still moving towards their immutable place. Jean and Scott, are they meant to be together? Is Scott this guy who hates schools, who hates authority, destined to become a leader? You don't know. Is Jean ever going to discover the full potential of her power? You don't know, but we move in those directions character-wise but then we have the freedom story-wise to do whatever the fuck we want because we erased those three movies.
So it's an amazing opportunity. It's an amazing filmmaking opportunity that nobody has done, well I did with Days of Future Past, and it enables me to do that. I can do anything I want. The prequel, you don't know where it's going and yet you do kind of know where you want it to go, where you want to see those characters end up, and that's the beauty of it, of Days of Future Past, of what it did for me. That's why I fought so hard to make sure we have that Beast, Hank McCoy talk about the theory of time's immutability, because that defines what I'm doing with this universe and with these prequels to X1, 2 and 3 which are erased or are they not? Does that make any sense?
Just to clarify, that happy ending we got where Wolverine is walking around the mansion and saw everybody. Is that the future and those characters alive there will not die between now and then or is that a separate timestream?
SINGER: Time can always be fucked with, we've now learned that. We've now learned that once you alter time that could be the future, but I don't believe if you look at all the X-Men movies and Days of Future Past, I don't believe that's definitive.
We were talking to Simon earlier and he was saying something a little different so I just want to clarify that because he said the characters you see there will survive but everyone else you don't know about…
SINGER: I'll kill any of those characters any day I want (laughs). They're all fair game. Anything can happen. When two things are happening simultaneously in quantum physics it's what's called the Super Position and when the Observer finally observes the outcome that's called the "Collapsing of the Super Position" which is what happened when Wolverine woke up and saw all the happiness. So yes that is the outcome we hope for, that is the outcome we aspire to, and that's the outcome we are moving towards, but we saw in Days of Future Past another dark world. What says that can't happen again? What says the awakening of a being that has such power and can acquire the power to destabilize that? So anything is possible. That's what we'd like to think happen, that's what Simon would like to think is a good outcome, but to me it's fair game.
So this is the same Terminator 2 debate?
SINGER: I asked Jim "Why'd you do Terminator? Was it based on Days of Future Past the comic book?" and he said "No, we just needed to do something that was non-union in LA that was science fiction so we either did aliens or time travel, I just picked time travel." That's how movies get made!
The destabilization really works, because we know how big movies work. We know who's going to live and who's going to die for the most part, it's very rare that something comes up that's a surprise as in the point in Days of Future Past when I was like "Holy fuck, he just killed Wolverine." When he gets thrown in the river…
SINGER: It's not just death, that's worse than death. This is a man who eternally regenerates so this is a man that's going to drown forever.
So I'm sitting there thinking you got us to a point where I believe that that was a thing that could happen and that might be where this movie is going to go, but I'm still left curious about the whole Stryker and Raven/Mystique situation at the end of Days of Future Past before the happy ending.
SINGER: Because I wanted to at least show that she made a choice, and what she's done…Xavier in the beginning of our movie, because he's wealthy and lives in Westchester and mutants are accepted by the world…on the surface…believes that it's all going to be great between humans and mutants and he sees this one day as not just a school but a sprawling universe where mutants and humans can study together. This is a line from the movie. You can see the basketball court out the window that I had especially built out of the tennis court from the estate we were filming it because that's the thing with the hole comes up with the jet…I'm trying to do homages and shit. But Raven has a very different opinion. Raven, she's seen Vietnam, she's seen the abuse, she's seen the murder. Now she's over in Europe, we find her in East Germany at the beginning of the movie and she sees the other side of racism, of bigotry. Yes, Martin Luther King won the Civil Rights movement…it's a process, it's a long ass process. Gay Marriage, whatever these things are, so she sees the antithesis of that.
So she still knows the Strykers of the world exist, they may exist off the grid. She knows there's other things going on with mutants. She knows just because they're polite about it doesn't mean there isn't prejudice and she is not willing to become, even though she stood in the middle of the stadium on the lawn of the White House and prevented a war between mutants and humans. In other words prevented a mutant from executing the president and his cabinet. Whether you like Nixon or not that would have created a war between humans and mutants. She is the great mutant who stopped it. She's a legend. The blue transforming woman in our movie is a legend among mutants. She is a legend among all mutants. She is taught in the history books, but yet she remains anonymous. She remained Jennifer Lawrence and other characters. So she instead independently functions and helps out that part of the world that Xavier doesn't see.
For more on X-Men: Apocalypse, peruse the rest of my set visit coverage below:
- 'X-Men: Apocalypse': Over 75 Things to Know about the Epic Superhero Sequel
- Tye Sheridan and Kodi Smit-McPhee on Playing Young Cyclops and Nightcrawler
- Alexandra Shipp on Storm's Mohawk, Black Panther Connection, and More
- Evan Peters on Topping the Quicksilver Sequence, Magneto and More
- Simon Kinberg on Shared Universes, Telling Scott and Jean's Origins, and More
- Olivia Munn on Psylocke's Powers, Provocative Costume, and a Potential Spinoff
- New Timeline Explained by Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg
- 'X-Men: Apocalypse': How Did They Decide Which Mutants to Include?
- Michael Fassbender on Working with Oscar Isaac, Becoming a Horseman


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Bhubaneswar: In line with the theme of Make in Odisha Conclave 2018, a campaign named "I am Odisha" was launched by the Hon'ble CM during the roadshow in Mumbai on 08th August 2018. #IamOdisha is a tribute to the forces contributing to create a conducive business ecosystem. It tells the stories of entrepreneurship, innovation, and drive while inspiring people to showcase their own. A campaign that celebrates people from the state by highlighting stories that have contributed to the state's success. #IamOdisha will conclude in a grand finale at the Make in Odisha Conclave, a global summit to showcase Odisha's strengths as an investment destination and the myriad business opportunities for investors.
To maintain a distinct visual identity for the logo, the existing elements from the Invest Odisha logo were used. In order to do this, 'O', the first letter of Odisha which represents the rising sun and also the distinctive red soil of the region was used in the logo to make it synonymous with all things Odisha. The 'O' is at the centre of the visual identity and elements of a deconstructed 'O' were used as a recurring motif throughout all communication across all social platforms. The call to action "Join the Juggernaut" was inspired from the annual RathYatra of Lord Jagannath which symbolizes an unstoppable force. Through this call to action, investors and the public at large have been encouraged to join Odisha's march to progress.
The campaign aims to feature prominent young entrepreneurs and innovators from the State, non-resident Odias who have made their mark in the world of business, interesting success stories of MSMEs and skill development, industrial infrastructure, large industries besides remarkable trivia about the State.
Odias across the world are urged to submit their stories or of those around them and select five entries will be felicitated in the Make in Odisha Conclave in November, 2018. The stories need to be in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation outlining the impact the idea or venture has had on the lives of people. All one needs to do is to log on to www.iamodisha.info and fill up a simple form on the website to share the story. Alternatively, one can just share the story via WhatsApp at +91-7978927908.
Commenting on the response, Sanjeev Chopra, Principal Secretary, Department of Industries, Government of Odisha said, "In the past, the State's strength's and achievements were not known widely outside its boundaries. This campaign aims to celebrate the achievements and successes of Odisha. We thank all the people who have submitted their stories so far and urge others to share their story of entrepreneurship and innovation with us."
The campaign video can be seen here.

subset: commoncrawl


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Thursday, 24 November 2011
Do Stand on Ceremony
14 comments:
Great outfit!!! xoxoReplyDelete
I love the combination of bare legs and a winter coat, it's all I'm living in at the moment!ReplyDelete
Loved the pics!! You look stunning!ReplyDelete
Amazing look :) xxxReplyDelete
you're such a great shopper! we would make a great team for sure! hahaReplyDelete
nice outfit by the way :)
I like this outfit xxReplyDelete
- Anonymous25 November 2011 at 08:27
You look super great, absolutely adore that coat! There's a new outfit post up on my blog and I'd really love to hear what you think of it. Feel free to stop by!ReplyDelete
xoxo, Veena
I love your coat, such a bargain and the boots are an incredible find too! Love the drape back on the dress but seriously how could you go bare legged hahah my mum has drummed in the importance of warmth if nothing elseReplyDelete
shoes <3 I follow You :)ReplyDelete
those boots!!!ReplyDelete
a big fan of the duffle coat as well, what a steal x
beautiful outfit!!!amazing blog!!i'm following you!!!if you like mine, do the same!!!ReplyDelete
this dress looks perfect and lightReplyDelete
so awesome
Pretty outfit. I mean that you mix original and nice shoes with a cute look. I adore. (:ReplyDelete
- Anonymous6 January 2012 at 05:21
love the bag & the shoes!ReplyDelete
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Lately, I have been obsessing over nail art, and in the process of looking up various swatches and tutorials online I've stumbled upon a few nail blogs that I am absolutely in love with…and because I love you guys (gals) so much, I thought I'd share them with you today. Check them out below:
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Engel Völkers Dallas Gifts Alzheimer's Association $83,000 From Sale of Dallas Showhouse
North Central Texas Chapter benefits from charitable donation
DALLAS – Dec. 13, 2017 – Engel & Völkers and the Alzheimer's Association have announced the sale of the 2017 Dallas Decorators Showhouse and confirmed that $83,000 was raised to benefit the Alzheimer's Association in its fight against the disease. Sponsors and participants included Traditional Home magazine, Marina Bay Development Corp., Donna Moss, Engel & Völkers Real Estate, Tasker Agency, 24 interior designers, and more than 30 notable brand sponsors.
The nearly 8,000 square foot home in Southlake, Texas was completed earlier this year by local Texas real estate developer, Paul Moss, president of Marina Bay Development Corp. The Showhouse, presented by Traditional Home magazine and HGTV show host, Donna Moss, was decorated by a group of local and national interior designers secured by the editors of the magazine. The home was opened to the public for tours this past fall, with proceeds from ticket sales directly benefitting the Alzheimer's Association. When the viewing was concluded, the house was sold by Engel & Völkers. Roxann Taylor owner and broker of Engel Völkers Dallas along with her entire team, marketed the home from May 2017 and hosted buyers in the home for showings until September 2017. Upon the sale of the Showhouse, Taylor and her entire Engel Völkers team generously donated $83,000 of their commission from the sale of the property.
"This gift from Roxann Taylor is an exceedingly generous level of financial support for the mission of the Alzheimer's Association," said Theresa Hocker, executive director for the Alzheimer's Association – North Central Texas Chapter. "We are grateful that Roxann understands the importance of the work we do in fighting this disease, both on the research front, and in terms of the local services we provide those who are dealing with Alzheimer's disease every day."
"Having passion in life to make a difference in the lives of others was the foremost thought when my Southlake shop embraced the Showhouse Project in support of financial aid to the Alzheimer's Association," said Roxann Taylor. "Each one of my real estate advisors, along with our entire firm with shops in 35 countries around the world, have one common goal and that is to passionately deliver excellence in everything we do and the involvement in the Showhouse over this last year allowed us the opportunity to do just that. We are exceedingly proud to have contributed our time and expertise and financial support to make that difference in the lives of others."
Traditional Home Publisher Beth McDonough agrees with Taylor's sentiment. "Our National Showhouse Tour has been raising money for national and local charities for over 20 years. We are honored to have been part of such an incredible project and to have helped the North Central Texas and Houston Southeast Texas chapters of the Alzheimer's Association during such a critical time of need."
"Alzheimer's disease has touched so many people around the country. My passion for change started as my grandfather, a retired Army Attaché, suffered with the disease for more than a decade. Watching how it affects the entire family prompted my initiative for change. I knew I needed to lend my company's talents to further awareness and important initiatives," said Christi Tasker, president of the Tasker Agency, the production company responsible for assembling the various teams involved in the project along with coordinating marketing and promotion. "Roxann and I immediately connected with a shared passion for finding a cause for the debilitating disease of Alzheimer's. I knew she was the one to sell the house and she was more than generous with her offer to give up her complete commission to the cause. She has been a long time advocate of the Alzheimer's Association supporting their annual fundraising events. We are grateful to have Paul and Donna Moss as key partners in this project, along with Traditional Home's editors, designers, and all of the sponsors who gave their time, energy, talents and resources. We're grateful to everyone who attended the Showhouse experience. Without them, the project would not have been a success."
Both Engel Völkers and Tasker Agency, a division of digital creative agency PuTTin' OuT, teams globally, are continuing to raise awareness for the Alzheimer's Association's research efforts through the #CrissCrossChallenge hosted on Facebook via the new Facebook donation button which distributes monies directly to Alz.org To participate or learn more view: https://www.facebook.com/donate/10208843310910481/
ABOUT ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION – alz.org
Headquartered in Chicago, the Alzheimer's Association has chapters nationwide. The Alzheimer's Association – North Central Texas Chapter is one of 81 local chapters of the Alzheimer's Association. The chapter covers a 40-county service area and Fort Worth serves as headquarters for the chapter, which has regional offices in Abilene, Waco and Wichita Falls. The chapter is a nonprofit, donor-supported organization. The programs and services are made possible through contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations. To learn more about the association — including how to get involved — visit alz.org.
ENGEL & VÖLKERS – dallas.evusa.com
Since its beginning in 1977 as a specialty boutique providing exclusive, high-end real estate services in Hamburg, Germany, Engel & Völkers has become one of the world's leading companies specializing in the sale and lease of premium residential and commercial property, yachts and private aviation. Engel & Völkers currently operates a global network of over 8,900 real estate advisors in more than 750 brokerages spanning 33 countries across five continents, offering both private and institutional clients a professionally tailored range of luxury services. It established its North America corporate headquarters in 2007 and opened its first brokerage in the same year. Committed to exceptional service, Engel & Völkers supports its advisors with an array of premium quality business services; marketing programs and tools; multiple platforms for mobile, social and web; as well as access to its global network of real estate professionals, property listings, and market data. Engel & Völkers is an active supporter of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each brokerage is independently owned and operated. The Dallas/Fort Worth Engel Volkers agency is owned and brokered by Roxann Taylor.
About Traditional Home Magazine
As the largest upscale shelter magazine in America, Traditional Home celebrates the union of timeless design with modern living, inspiring almost 5 million design lovers to reinterpret classic elegance in a thoroughly personal way. From home and garden to food, entertaining, and travel, the magazine is a tribute to quality, craftsmanship, authenticity, and family—a trusted resource that respects the past, lives in the present, and embraces products designed for the future. For more information, please visit www.traditionalhome.com.
TASKER AGENCY – www.TaskerAgency.com
Tasker Agency is a multi-faceted branding, marketing, public relations, film, and experiential event production firm focusing on client brand awareness. Working in concert with our sister company, PuTTin' OuT, a highly successful digital creative agency and social media marketing firm started in the MySpace era, Tasker Agency utilizes the whole spectrum of traditional and digital marketing activities to build or revitalize some of the most notable brands worldwide by producing engaging strategies and alignments to reach consumers in the luxury market.
Venezuelan Entrepreneur + Bathing Suit Designer Opens Wynwood Miami Store
Silvana Isaac, founder of Antigua Collection, formerly an e-commerce only store listens to consumer demand and opens first U.S. store in Miami's Art District
In July, bathing suit designer Silvana Isaacs opened a pop-up store in the heart of the Wynwood Arts District in Miami to explore opening a permanent Antigua Collection brand store for her thriving e-commerce business. The pop-up store is so successful that Isaacs has acquired a permanent location on the corner of Northwest 2nd Avenue & 25th Street across from Joey's and next door to Plant the Future.
Consumers can explore the entire 250-piece bathing suit collection plus a myriad of other fashion accessories and design talents from around the world. In addition to its designer swimsuits, Antigua Collection offers two main services: 1. Silvana designs custom swimsuits or can adjust current patterns for a customer's body type. 2. Customers can pop in for a spray tan. Silvana has even made matching bathing suits for her and her daughter.
"My first collection was made without a name or even labels," said Isaacs. "During the first two years, I learned about shapes, forms, fabrics, and most importantly I learned that I was a fashion designer!!! It is hard to imagine that in less than five years I am now opening my first retail store in the USA! It is the one achievement that is almost as exciting as my first Loew's hotel wholesale order and being included in the Loew's Miami Hotel!"
Isaacs works at the pop-up store almost every day and brings her three-month-old daughter Emma to work with. Her husband, Billy, manages all of the financial parts of the business. Her mother-in-law Rosita, a true talent herself, consults and guides Silvana to help her with major differentiating changes for the Antigua Collection such as buying better quality fabrics and in larger quantities to make the production process more efficient yet maintain the handmade integrity of the bathing suits. As evidenced by growing sales figures, her loyal customers appreciate the quality and are willing to pay slightly more for it.
When not working at the store, Silvana is constantly thinking about new designs and watching trends. Her iPad and sketchbook are always within reach.
Experience the Antigua Collection in person at Isaac's Wynwood pop-up shop located at 126 NW 25th Street, Miami, FL 33127. Visit and shop the Antigua Collection online: www.AntiguaCollection.com
ABOUT ANTIGUA COLLECTION – www.AntiguaCollection.com
Today the Antigua Collection exceeds 250 pieces with prices ranging from $75 to $150 for handmade bathing suits sold both online and in fine retail stores. In December 2016, Loews Hotel on Miami Beach was the first American retail store to carry the Antigua Collection.
After studying to be an interior designer in London and Milan, Isaacs moved back to her home country of Venezuela. Three years later, she began designing and sewing her own bathings suits. By 2013, she had launched her first 20-piece collection. In the midst of establishing her reputation as a skilled and creative designer, Silvana married and became pregnant with her first daughter. She also leased space and prepared to open her first store in the heart of Valencia, Venezuela. With political tensions escalating and economic conditions declining, Silvana and her family decided it was best not to pursue the retail venture in Venezuela at that time Ultimately, she and her family moved to the United States where she has established herself as a talented designer and successful businesswoman.
Traditional Home Presents The First-Ever Dallas Decorators Showhouse
NEW YORK, N.Y. (June 7, 2017) – Meredith Corporation's (NYSE: MDP; meredith.com) Traditional Home, the leading upscale shelter magazine reaching 4.8 million readers, is partnering with HGTV star Donna Moss this fall to open the doors of its first-ever Dallas Decorators Showhouse to benefit the Alzheimer's Association. Open to the public from September 23 through October 22, 2017, the Showhouse was constructed from the ground up by Paul Moss of Marina Bay Development. The Dallas Decorators Showhouse will bring together some of the biggest names in the interior design industry to realize their interpretations of classic Texas style.
The 7,938 sq. ft. home, located just outside of Dallas in the premier Southlake community at 1235 Westwyck Ct., fuses the best of intriguing architecture and big, beautiful design expected in Texas estates. Ticketed tours will be open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 11:00 am. – 5:00 p.m. from September 24, through October 22, 2017. A generous portion of the proceeds will go to the Alzheimer's Association of North Central Texas to help find a cure and offer support for suffering patients and their families who are coping with the debilitations of Alzheimer's Disease.
"Dallas is really emerging as an incredibly interesting and diverse design destination," says Traditional Home Editor in Chief Jill Waage. "We are thrilled to work alongside Donna Moss and the talented designers on this highly-anticipated event. The Dallas Decorators Showhouse explores the unique beauty and charm of luxury living in Southlake, Texas."
The 2017 Dallas Decorators Showhouse designers and architects include:
- Pulp Design Studios
- Tompkins Lloyd Interiors
- Troy Rhone
- Sherry Hayslip
- Donna Moss
- Dann Foley
- Julie Dodson
- Lonni Paul
- Elle Cole
- George Cameron Nash
- Dale Granmason
- Tiffany McKinzie
- Shay Geyer
- Brighton Keller
- Krissa Rossbund
- Scott Meacham Wood
- Blue Print
- Nancy Price
- Michelle Workman
- Sara Pickard
- Traci Zeller
- Denise McGaha
- Ruthie Staalsen
- Meg Caswell
The Dallas Decorators Showhouse officially opens with a Press Preview Party at the Showhouse on Friday, September 22, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and an Opening Night Gala on Saturday, September 23, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm. The Showhouse will be open for public viewing Sunday, September 24th through Sunday, October 22nd, 2017. The hours of operation are TuesdaySaturday from 11am-5pm and on Sundays from 11am-5pm. On Mondays, the Showhouse will be closed to visitors. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at www.dallasshowhouse.com. Tickets to the VIP Designer Gala, showhouse tickets as well as private events that benefit Alzheimer's Association are also available at www.dallasshowhouse.com.
Sponsors of the 2017 Dallas Decorators Showhouse include:
- Advanced Window Systems
- Behr Paint & Stain
- Belgard Pavers
- Bevolo Gas & Electric Lights
- Boral Roofing
- California Closets
- Cambria
- Circa Lighting
- Cosentino
- Crossville Tile
- Crystorama
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- Grand Home Designs, Inc.
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About Traditional Home Magazine
As the largest upscale shelter magazine in America, Traditional Home celebrates the union of timeless design with modern living, inspiring almost 5 million design lovers to reinterpret classic elegance in a thoroughly personal way. From home and garden to food, entertaining, and travel, the magazine is a tribute to quality, craftsmanship, authenticity, and family—a trusted resource that respects the past, lives in the present, and embraces products designed for the future. For more information, please visit www.traditionalhome.com.
Donna Moss, known as the "Queen of Bling brings her glamorous and lush style into every space she decorates. A former finalist on HGTV's Design Star, she hosts the HGTV series Donna Decorates Dallas, where she shows the big (and small) details that make up a fabulous Texas home. Donna designs homes as well as sponsors a number of local and national charity events with her daughters Tiffany Moss Jenkins and Ashley Moss Black at their store, That's Haute, a fashion, design, and home décor boutique. Donna is also a retired American Airlines flight attendant and U.S. Army attendee. She enjoys serving on the board of The Arts Council as well as the home industry organization called Accessories Resource Team (ARTs). With numerous awards to her credit and her work featured in People and Instyle magazines, Donna Moss proves that you can "bling it all" — making decor bold, gold and glam!
Headquartered in Chicago, the Alzheimer's Association has chapters nationwide. The Alzheimer's Association – North Central Texas Chapter is one of over 70 chapters of the Alzheimer's Association. The chapter covers a 40-county service area and Fort Worth serves as headquarters for the chapter, which has regional offices in Abilene, Waco and Wichita Falls. The chapter is a nonprofit, donor-supported organization. The programs and services are made possible through contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations. To learn more about the association — including how to get involved — visit Alzheimer's Association.
Liz Malone, 212-551-7172, email@example.com
Christi Tasker, 702-703-9047, firstname.lastname@example.com
Wynwood Lab In Miami To Host Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series 2016 Event In October
BOMBAY SAPPHIRE and Rush Philanthropic-sponsored event showcasing work of emerging artists is perfect fit for trendy art gallery and event venue in Wynwood Arts District Miami,
Wynwood Lab Takes Immediate Action To Protect Visitors From Zika-Carrying Mosquitoes
Miami art and event venue in Wynwood Arts District implements aggressive measures in response to CDC travel warning
Former Homeless Award-Winning Cuban Artist Manuel García Exhibits First Solo Show In The Americas
The Positively Negative collection uses smartphone technology creating two pieces of art in one
Su colección "Positivamente Negativo" utiliza la tecnología de un teléfono inteligente para crear dos piezas en una.
Eco-Friendly Fine Furniture Maker The Bramble Company Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Producer of sustainably sourced Indonesian mahogany home décor and UL approved lighting reaches quarter-century mark during High Point Market in North Carolina
Sexiest Artist Alive Javier Gomez Signs Second Licensed Photography Deal With Luxury Brand BVLGARI
Company's new property exclusive lookbook features acclaimed work from Rome
Javier Gomez, El Artista Mas Sexy del Mundo, Renueva Segundo Contrato Fotográfico con BVLGARI
El nuevo look book de la compañía presenta fotografía del aclamado fotógrafo


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This weekend selection elicits futuristic ideas of alternative realities, promotes shy and thoughtful evenings, and ultimately inspires controversial acts through challenging conversations.
Read and listen on below.
Low Blows is Carlos Vergara (Federación de Boxeo, This Co.), who just released the single "Sick About Love" full of bold lines and aggressive instrumentals that accurately portray the end of certain emotional eras.
For fans of: the Soft Moon, a Place to Bury Strangers, Cold Cave
nej!las shares the instrumental head-turner "Risen". This shockingly dark single from the international producer is best played over and over again.
For fans of: Flying Lotus, Boards of Canada, Thomas Bangalter
Montreal-based quartet Penny Diving release "Stella", an addictive west coast garage meets moody shoegaze single full of droning keys and misty vocals.
For fans of: Widowspeak, Veronica Girls, Still Corners
San Francisco, CA-based producer, At Dawn, drops "Do U Feel?", a hypnotic and playful revolution of glistening melodies.
For fans of: Pantha Du Prince, the Field, Andy Stott
London based Ayelle shares "Silverplates", a confrontational track revealing an important narrative over a seductive electro-R&B soundscape. The singer states, "too often in this narrative, women are made to feel as if they're disposable, and it's an exhausting landscape to navigate."
For fans of: Alo Lee, SAINTS, KAYTRANADA
Singer MÁDAM shares the catchy electro-pop wonder "DOERS", a song inspired by the idea of counteracting the tendency to call ourselves dreamers.
For fans of: Pines, Ellie Goulding, Tove Lo
Austin psych-rockers Mopac slide "I Wanna" right into our collection of melody-focused psych pop go-tos.
For fans of: Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall, White Fence
GOOD BOY Aussies announce the first single "Fishing With A Shotgun" from their EP Shirk Life. The single is a one stop shop for high energy instrumentals and an anthem to sing along in opposition to "certain government figures in Australia".
For fans of: Parquet Courts, Pavement, No Age


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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. – the Apostle Paul: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8 [ESV]
This is my 100th post. I'm not really sure how many people subscribe to these blogs or will be looking at this note. I enjoy writing although I do not consider myself to be the most supreme writer. But I will continue to write…why? Because as I said before, I love doing it. I love to teach, to preach, to sing, and to declare what I know to be true. I also love to share the humorous or the moving that elate our emotions.
I love to give when I can. I love to help others. But the real question is this? Do I love how I feel when I do certain things, or do I really love the people that I say I do these things for? Do I love them? Do I love others? I want to say yes because I genuinely choose to love those that God has given me. I want to say yes because I truly try to love the familiar community around me. I want to say yes, because I really want to love those like me, those unlike me, and those that do not like me.
But when it comes to love. The kind of love that is earth shattering. The kind of epic love that changes life as we know it. The kind of love that is not meaningless but the most meaningful choice of any on this earth. This kind of love can only come from God. He is the author of love and the very attribute of love expounds from Him.
His kind of love causes actions that make a difference because it is chosen to benefit the person who is loved by God. His choice to love me and make His love known to me is active, and powerful, and I know has altered the course of my life.
The love that He gives to His people…Disciples of Jesus Christ… is also limitless. It was not limited to us and it was not limited towards us. It is to be shared among His people. It is to be shared from His people. It is to shared in our words and our deeds. It is to embody the "why" we do what we do.
By making His love that is limitless known to the world that needs Jesus Christ…others who have not yet known this love, can know Him and His love. They can discover the provided saving grace of Christ. And they being loved can make His love known. What a Big and Mighty Loving God we serve…
And Being loved by God is no small thing.
By His Grace. Through His Gospel. For His Glory.


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Be alternative in the life means be different to the normal attitude, can be because the normal attitude is being lead for the people who have the money or the power, and if you are not inside of this little crew, it is difficult to give your opinion to the world, because of this it is important the creativity at the time to find a new media, a alternative media.
This people that are trying to find this kind of media, are people against the normal situation, and how is the world nowadays, and the easy way to connect thru the new technologies, we can see appear a lot of new alternative media.
Now people from around the world are in touch, and they share a lot of complaints, and it means that no only a few persons from a city are thinking something different, it means that the minorities are bigger than they imagined.
But we will see if it worth, if this new technologies, and alternative medias at the end can change the world, and make it more fair, or the people with the money it is going to be always managing the governments.


text: The Florida Department of Transportation encourages all agencies that outsource their preventative maintenance inspections to create a service agreement with the garage performing the work. A service agreement will outline the responsibilities of each party – both the agency and the garage – in terms of how the inspections will be scheduled, performed and paid for. The garage is contractually held to carrying out the preventative maintenance inspections according to the Preventative Maintenance Guidelines Handbook. A service agreement will also lock in a price for maintenance inspections for a year, or longer depending on the agreement period. It is always a benefit to protect your agency and your vehicles by holding an outsource garage liable for the work they perform. When trusting your vehicle's safety to another company, it is best to put the arrangement in writing. Below is a Word file so you may make edits, please contact us and we will send you a copy.


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Today we set off on our safari and I'm relieved to have found a friend in Jill, the smiling riding instructor who is full of good advice about how to handle the horses and is a really cheery companion to ride with.
We're starting to grasp an understanding of Rajasthan time, ie. Take what time they tell us we'll leave and add two hours for something more accurate.
We've also got to grips with the fact that when Bonnie and Manu, the safari leaders, turn around and call "trot-ting", they actually mean that the horses about to break into an energetic canter.
Bonnie and Francesca don't keep geldings on their stud farm so all of the horses that we ride on safari are mares. As with any large group of women the horses tolerate, despise and adore each other's company by turns. Unfortunately, Gul Budan's favourite friend bolted today. Luckily her lovely rider, Jane, fell of before she was carried through a field of thorny briars. She was understandably shaken but Bonnie and Francesca found a calmer horse for her to ride that afternoon and Jane wasn't prepared to let the fall ruin her trip.
We rode through beautiful farmland in Neemjor, occasionally passing solitary women who despite working in the fields always look immaculate in their vivid saris of red, blue and green.
After three hours of riding, we stopped for lunch under the shade of a large tree and enjoyed vegetable curry and chick pea dumplings. We take yoga mats into the shade and have cat naps to restore ourselves after the long, hot ride.
We set off on our horses again and within a couple of hours have arrived at our impressive camp. From a distance camp looked like a travelling circus. In two hours the Dundlod http://www.dundlod.com/ team had already set up twenty beautiful canvas tents that will be our bedrooms for the next five nights. Each tent boasts a mirror, a little table, a wastepaper bin, two camp beds and a woven carpet. Bonnie's team are busy boiling water on open fires when we arrive. We're given delicious Masala Chai or English Tea and biscuits when we arrive and by the time we've showered (a bucket of hot water in a caravan) and changed, dinner is ready.
We eat chicken, aubergine and potato curry and help ourselves to drinks from the bar, writing what we've had in the log book. We watch the sun set as we eat and after dark, Bonnie sits around the camp fire with us and tells us stories about the filming of The Far Pavillions. He explains the skilful sport of tent pegging http://britishtentpegging.com/ that the Marwari horses specialise in and tells us that the Mawari horses will be performing a tent pegging demonstration in Windsor for the Queen's jubilee this year.
Our organisers and all round mother hens from The Brooke, http://www.thebrooke.org Charlie and Tamsin, are incredibly patient with the numerous questions that we have about the days to come, and thanks to them and the Dundlod team, I collapse on my camp bed feeling very well looked after.


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3D Boobies
We think you'll like
Brooklyn-based photographer Henry Hargreaves brings us exactly what the world has been waiting for: a 3D book of breasts. The book, 3DD, as well as its companion, 3DD Deluxe, comes with the necessary viewing glasses and features all natural breasts of every shape and size in glorious three dimensional space. 2D boobies will simply never look the same.