“She’s not collateral damage, not for anyone.”
Who By Elevens | Eleven Relationships - Martha Jones and Donna Noble
Father forgive me for I have sinned.
OH. MY. GOD.
Here’s the awesome story of my amazing, if belated, birthday gift, as seen in the accompanying pics. I pressured the hubby into putting it in his own words. Heh.
“I wanted the perfect birthday gift for my girl. Something unique, something to remind her that I both support and love her tv geekness/fandom, and something that would make her smile every day. Yeah, tall order.
I figured I’d go for a hail mary — the one set piece from Bomb Girls that we’d always talked about, the one thing that was ever-present from the beginning, and could never be mistaken for anything else: the “Don’t throw things!” painting on the wall of the cafeteria.
I went right to the top, and contacted Jonas Prupas, GM of Muse Entertainment Ontario, to see if this was even remotely possible. He responded only 25 minutes later, excited to look into it the next day. This was the beggining of the support and helpfulness from those involved with the show, which would continue throughout my quest.
Jonas forwared my mail to the show’s executive producer, Janis Lundman of Back Alley Films, who happily started digging into the rights to the artwork and promised to get back to me soon. Less than an hour later, she got back to me, and said they could do it!
At this point, I figured I’d maybe talk them into sending me the digital artwork so that I could print it locally, but as it turns out, there was no digital artwork. It was a painting, you see, made of pigment, not pixels. The production designer, however, offered to take a high resolution photo of the painting and use that as the basis for the print!
At this point, Janis told me that they could send me a life sized print of the photo reproduction of the original painting, and that they would print and send it to me at no cost to me. My jaw dropped, and my esteem for everyone involved with the show grew three sizes that day. I was over the moon that my moonshot of a gift for my wife was not only possible, not only being done, but free!
To be clear, it wasn’t the cost reduction that wowed and impressed me; it was the fact that a production house cared enough about a single fan of theirs to involve several of their staff and crew to reproduce a beloved set piece, knowing that their only payment would be the reward of knowing how much they made that fan smile.
Then, the bad news came — Bomb Girls was cancelled. My heart sank, both for the cancellation itself and for how bummed my girl would be at the news. I hoped that it wouldn’t affect the making of the piece. It would surely be a more poignant gift now, and somewhat bittersweet. If, however, this was the last original work that my wife would see regarding Bomb Girls, I was simply happy to be involved in it.
A little over a month after this all began, I got word from Jessica Shadlock, Back Alley’s office and social media manager, that the piece was completed and was being shipped to us. While I had just missed my girl’s birthday at this point, thankfully I had some other birthday gifts to tide her over, and was able to promise her that her proper gift would be here soon.
The box was delivered, and I was again pleasantly surprised by the crew at Back Alley — it was printed on canvas! This was no poster to tack on the wall with pins, this was something to be mounted on a frame and hung on the wall with glee.
I waited for an interminable and nervous week for the framing company to complete the work, knowing that this was a one of a kind piece and hoping that nothing bad would happen to the canvas during the mounting. This afternoon, I went to pick it up, and it looked fantastic. A quick cab ride home, some measuring and hammering later, and there it was, mounted on our living room wall where we’d see it every day. It was almost exactly a month late for her birthday, but I knew she’d still love it.
My pipe dream of acquiring a unique, memorable gift for my wife had come true, thanks almost entirely to the amazing people at Muse and Back Alley who not only determined that it would be possible, but went out of their way to do right by a fan of theirs. I have nothing but good to say of everyone I dealt with, and I thank them all profusely. It’s always good to be reminded of how amazing people can be.
And now, my love, I’ll be emailing them all back, attaching the pictures of you with the piece, as I promised them I would, as the only payment they would accept. Your final gift is getting to say anything you want to the production company that made (and hopefully will continue to make) your beloved series. Use your powers for good!
Happy birthday, sweetness.”
