Rainbow Brite: A New Legend Begins

Once Upon a time there lived an ordinary girl named Megan. Oh, she was unique enough in her own ways, she possessed high levels of strength and was a giant Star Wars nerd among other things, but she would never possess any supernatural abilities.

Or so she thought, until one day an unusual being appeared to her as she was walking to her digital storytelling class:

Orin, the wise one.

 

 

The strange creature was a Sprite named Orin. He came from the magical planet Spectra, a planet of pure diamond that all the light in the universe has to pass through before it can reach Earth.

Unfortunately, as Orin explained to Megan over a cup of coffee at Hyperion Cafe, Spectra had been taken over by “The Dark Princess.”

 

 

 

 

pure evil

 

 

The Dark Princess was determined to keep all the light and color in the universe to herself.  If she was to succeed, all the life in the universe would die!

A girl named Rainbow Brite, a girl in charge of creating all the colors for Earth, attempted to stop The Dark Princess. But The Dark Princess proved to be too strong of a match for Rainbow Brite. She stripped Rainbow Brite of all her powers, turning her back into the human child named Wisp, and locked her away in a high-security Dungeon.

Hearing this news, Rainbow Brite’s friends, the Color Kids, attempted to free Wisp.

 

 

However, the Color Kids’ haste and overall lack of strategy lead to their undoing. They too were captured,  vested of their powers, and imprisoned.

With Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids out of the way, The Dark Princess relished the impending demise of life as we know it.

But what the Dark Princess didn’t know is that Orin had managed to steal the crystal containing the powers of Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids. Unable to free the kids from the dungeon without great risk to himself, Orin instead chose to flee to Earth to select a  new and stronger Rainbow Brite, along with her friends, the Color Kids.

The reason he had chosen Megan, Orin said, was not because she was the first blonde girl he had stumbled across, but rather he had heard of her superb athleticism  as a rugby player. With these skills, she would be able to kick the ass of the wannabe Princess and restore everything back to way it used to be; A color filled world, although Earth would still be plagued by little things like wars, pestilence, and poverty.

“So,” Orin asked once he finished his tragic tale, his little paws clutching Megan’s hands in supplication, “will you become the next Rainbow Brite and save the world from imminent doom?”

Before Megan could respond, the crowd of people at Hyperion who had been observing this whole scene with blatant interest (seriously, how often do people get the chance to observe a Sprite in real life?), shouted “DO IT, MEGAN!” “Save the Universe!” “RAINBOW BRITE, RAINBOW BRITE!”

Surrounded by this cacophony, Megan blushingly agreed. It was then that she was transformed from an ordinary College student into *** SHAZAMMM! ***

Rainbow Brite!

Now that this matter was settled, the next thing to be done was to select the Color Kids who would accompany Rainbow on her ass kicking mission.

Hundreds of people threw themselves at Rainbow, exclaiming that they would be the best for the job, but Orin and Rainbow already had the perfect crack team in mind.

Thus, the new Color Kids were chosen:

Steph transformed into Lemon Drop, with power over the color Yellow. Lemon Drop possesses a cheery disposition, able to brighten people's days even in the darkest gloom. When she smiles, you get this warm feeling inside you that makes you want to be friends and do what you can to keep her smiling.

Gigi became in charge of the color Pink and was renamed Cereja Blossom. Cereja is the wild child of the team. She is headstrong, but immensely playful. She distracts the competition with her fast talking and sweet exterior, and then packs them a punch of rainbow awesome. All the while they wonder why she wears a onesie with a belly dancing skirt.

Elena was dubbed Naranja Mango. She was to protect the color orange. Naranja is fiery and passionate. She is the instigator, the one with all the plans. Cereja may be a big partier, but Naranja makes the party. She is Rainbow's lead strategist for the mission.

Colleen became Aquamarine de la Greene, controlling the fate of the color green. She is the most considerate of the team, the one who holds all the Bright Colors in check. Aquamarine is laid-back and down to earth, all of which is reflected in her eco-concious style.

Jess, chosen as protector of the color Blue, was called Cobalt Pacific. Cobalt is the most sophisticated Color Kid, but at times she is just as silly as Cereja. She is the best actress on the crew and the best gymnast, able to perform stealthy maneuvers without drawing attention to herself.

Lastly, Karen transformed into the ferocious Red Dawn. She bites, but underneath this bite is a fierce loyalty and rapier wit. Red Dawn is Rainbow Brite's chief wingwoman, protector, and organizer of supplies.

Rainbow Brite and her friends were about to start planning their mission to stop the Dark Princess when they were interrupted by the legendary Jim Groom.

Now Jim Groom was not only the teacher of Digital Storytelling DS106,  the class Megan skipped in order to talk with Orin, but he was also the number #1 fan of the original Rainbow Brite. With her out of commission, Jim Groom wanted to do everything in his power to enact revenge on The Dark Princess.

While the group debated whether or not Jim Groom should join forces with the current Rainbow Brite as a Color Kid, Groom won everyone over for three reasons:

Reason #1- They needed a headquarters on Earth. Groom offered Dupont Hall to become the temporary Color Castle.

Reason #2- So far, the Color Kids were females only.  That was hardly gender equality right there!

Reason #3- Megan skipped THE-MOST-IMPORTANT-DS106-CLASS-EVERRRRR. She needed to do something big to make up for this absence or else she would #faiiil

Thus, Jim Groom became the final Color Kid, his gender proportionally represented in the group much like the proportion of males to females on the UMW campus:

Jim Groom transformed into The Peculiar Purple Pie Man. As the oldest member of the crew, P-man's experiences and friendship with people all over the universe is a tactical advantage. He is made of win and awesome and represents the most bamf color in the rainbow. P-Man has great faith in the talents of his teammates and is always encouraging them to give 300% to the mission.

Finally, with Rainbow Brite and her team assembled in their entirety, it was time for them to save the universe from destruction by The Dark Princess!

 

Coming to theatres in your area soon!

This post would not have been possible without the help of Ms. Colleen Trachy (former DS106ser) who aided me in character description for the color kids! Also, holla at Wikipedia for all the useful info about  the original Rainbow Brite TV show and the various internet sources I used  for the photos of the original Rainbow Brite characters.

 

The Making of Rainbow Brite: Final Color Shoot

This last semester at UMW, I happened to luck out in the friends department. By this, I mean I happened to coerce, er, I mean convince, many of my close friends to help me out with my Daily Shoots.

The most helpful friend of them all was Megan Mc, a fellow DS106er and also a wannabe-roomie that lived across the hall from me.

The Rainbow Brite Photo Shoots all started back in February when I needed to take a photo of something yellow for my dailyshoot.

From there, the color idea snowballed, until I decided dub Megan as “Rainbow Brite: Protector of all Colors.”

Every time there was a color dailyshoot, I would round up Megan and some other willing victim participant, often another DS106er or roomie,  make them wear outlandish outfits and snap a ton of photos.

 

 

 

Eventually, as the semester drew to a close, I managed to photograph Megan wearing almost every color of the rainbow, with the except of indigo and violet.

Before the end of the semester, I wanted to do a final Rainbow Brite Shoot which would include Megas as RB and also other people as “The Color Kids.” I also wanted to get  Jim Groom involved with this project because I thought it would be pretty funny if this legendary persona, who is involved with everything!, was participating in this.

But, then the problem arose of when this shoot would actually take place. The last few weeks of a college semester, as most people know, is CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY BUSY!

For this project I would need to coordinate the schedules of 7 people along with my own. It soon came to pass that there was no way this photo session was going to happen before or during finals. The only hope for it would have to be during dead week, the period of time in which seniors get to chill before they graduate.

Even with a tentative date during dead week picked, Thurs May 5th, I was worried that there was no way this would come together. There were so many people who had to be free for at least an hour or two on this day, and this would also be in the midst of people packing up to move out of their apt/ getting ready for graduation/doing whatever teachers do.

Luckily, as I said before, I am blessed with amazing friends who think it’s great fun to wear funny costumes! It also helped that many of these people were roomies/ wannabe roomies who knew how sad I would be if this photoshoot didn’t happen!

So in preparation for this auspicious Thursday, I went shopping at Walmart to buy various props, like a purple and pink badminton set; red, yellow, blue bouncy balls and the rainbow colored balloons. I had also raided my closet at home and had brought along clothing and props in various colors that could possibly be used for the shoot, in case people weren’t able to provide their own. Megan Mc also provided many props/ clothing items used in the shoot.

For the shoot, I even was  lent a really nice camera by the Technology Department. This camera shoots much higher quality photos than my little point-and-shoot camera and was a lot of fun to use!

Once everyone was assembled at the shoot, I suggested a few positions for people to take along the steps of Dupont Hall. Then I  told them to do whatever they felt like and I started snapping away.

I ended up with over 500 photos in about an hour. It was the most interesting shoot I’ve done, simply because of the amount of people in the shoot, the craziness of the costumes, and the continuos action of the participants.

We definitely got some double takes by all the passerby’s, as they saw a sight they will never see again. (Unless someone wants to recreate my photos one day?)

Overall, I’m glad I got to complete the Rainbow Brite Set and also I enjoyed the chance to do something a little out of the ordinary. If I could go back to the day of the shoot and change anything, I would have like to play around with the camera a bit more so I wasn’t having to experiment with it during the shoot. I would also taken more care to frame the shot instead of just taking a bunch of photos quickly and hoping for the best. (Action shots are hard!)

Again, I can’t stress enough how much it meant to me that everyone came out to participate in this photoshoot! Thanks: Gigi, Elena, Karen (also a frequent subject in my dailyshoot photos!), Jess, Colleen and Jim Groom. Props especially to Megan who continually posed for me in my shoots although she often tends to be a little camera shy!

I leave you with my two favorite group shots and the link to all the other Rainbow Brite photos I’ve posted on Flickr. Don’t Forget to check out the story Rainbow Brite: A New Legend Begins.