As a parent volunteer I get to wear a lot of hats when it comes to my kids’ school activities. For the past couple of years I’ve done design work for two of my daughter’s middle school musical productions. This year I was privileged to get to work on the high school’s (virtual) production of ELF The Musical. Being that we need to find ways to do everything virtually, I created a website for them so that people viewing the streaming production could view the program, view cast and orchestra bios, and best of all, be able to send “fan mail” to cast and orchestra members, which could then be read privately by only the student to whom they were sent. I moderated the comments to ensure we didn’t have any stray spammers or people sending messages that might be inappropriate/unkind.
In the process of getting the website finalized I realized that the graphic they were using on the program wasn’t within fair use, and the company they rented the scripts and scores from didn’t provide a graphic for use. So to make sure we were totally in the clear, I decided to create a new, from scratch minimalist portrait of Buddy that would be okay to use. Using the original Buddy, Will Ferrell, as a model, I created an original vector graphic in Illustrator using the pen and curve tools. Time being of the essence, and short, I made him a little more symmetrical than the original photo. I used the right collar, hand, leg and shoe on the left side, by flipping and making minor adjustments. Crisis averted, and I have to say, I am pleased the finished product. Best of all we were able to make sure our production was following proper copyright laws and avoiding misattributing another artist’s work.
