Overnight, I thought about the opener and reread my previous post. I
thought about how to make the content a little more front and center,
how to make the opening spread a little more interesting and a littlemore visually dynamic. Typically, it's pretty easy to recognize aprofile's subject--there's usually a photo or an illustration of theprotagonist. In this case, there isn't a usable main image (by choice,
obviously. I could have just commissioned an illustration of Kaufman,
but chose not to. That's the easy way out, plus we were hoping to get a self-portrait of the man.)
So today, I played around with a couple variations onyesterday's theme, but this time looking at playing up Kaufman's name,
shortening the dek (and splitting it from the headline, looking for apithier, New Yorker-style treatment). I also had the idea ofinserting production stills from each of Kaufman's movies, and placingthem adjacent to their references in the lede.
It looks prettycool, I think, so I'm going to keep going along this path. I need tostart laying out the rest of the story--it's running 7 pages--but firstI need to show this layout to Bob Cohn, our executive editor, and seewhat he thinks. I don't necessarily have to accept his feedback, but itwill make it easier in convincing Chris Anderson if he agrees withwhere I'm going. He'll probably have some good suggestions for me andstart thinking about how to position the display copy, so once I gethis buy-in and feedback, I'll investigate the turn pages.
ButI'm running dangerously behind. This story is supposed to go into whatwe call "copyfit" Monday, which means that the layout should be blockedout and ready for Nancy to trim the galley to fit, write pullquotes andcaptions. First, I'll need to get with Anna to pull stills from Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, and Being John Malkovich in order to make some progress.
