Movie Monday: The Musee Mechanique’s Laughing Sal

It’s my pleasure to present you with “Laughing Sal,” a Haunt Jaunts original Movie Monday production.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a movie. I have lots of footage from past jaunts in my Movies to Be Made queue. However, I’ve been lazy about making any because I know it’s going to be a time investment.

You see, several months back, as part of my New Year’s Resolutions, I ordered a new movie making program. I wanted to learn how to jazz up the little “movies” I make.

Well, the software is great, but the learning curve wasn’t so hot. The program was more sophisticated than the user friendly (a.k.a. simple) generic Movie Maker that came with my computer.

Due to my busy summer, I didn’t have the time I thought I’d have to sit down and devote some hours to learning the new program. Today I finally had some time…or so I thought. As usual, interruptions abounded.

However, I had a short enough clip that I didn’t want to jazz up all that much. It turned out to be a good project to practice on.

The subject of my short film is a “lady” I met while jaunting around San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. She resided within a groovy (and free!) museum we came upon called the Musée Méchanique.

Oh man, it was great. Tons of vintage boardwalk games. I’ll be writing a post devoted to it later.

But for now I want to share with you the one “méchanique” that caught my eye immediately upon entering: Laughing Sal.

She was hard to miss. She was tucked against a wall, but she was no wallflower. She towered above everything else with her curly shock of red hair and perpetual toothy grin.

An irrational part of me hoped the glass that encapsulated her would hold. My imagination ran wild with images of her breaking free and causing mayhem as she terrorized museum go-ers, swatting them into the other machines while she laughed and laughed.

She was one creepy lady.

At least to me.

In reality, she was harmless. As the video shows, there were tiny tots who weren’t afraid of her at all. They waved and said hi to her. (If she had waved back or acknowledged them in any way, that would’ve been it for our delightful vacation. If a heart attack didn’t claim my life right then, it certainly would’ve landed me in the hospital!)

Thankfully, she simply laughed and laughed as one patron put in 50 cents, sparring me from having to do anything other than whip out my camera and start filming.