Pitts, PA
EDIT:
TL;DR: Williams Super Star, 1972. Shattered backglass because miscommunication. Machine cost $200, spent a lot of time restoring playfield, backglass reproduction costs $250, I don't have $250 at all, backglass is among the ugliest ever made. Options are partial re-theme with 70's Bollywood theme, complete re-theme with transparent sections so you can see the guts, or replace ugly broken backglass with ugly unbroken backglass and continue full restoration (next up would be cabinet repainting, this one's got people's names carved into it). Each option has pluses and minuses that often cancel each other out and I keep changing my mind and can't decide. Help deciding appreciated.
Original wall of text follows:
So I spent a long time restoring my first and so far only pinball machine, and then I said to my wife - "Hey, hon, could you hold this while I move that?" Pointing of course, as I said it, first to *that* and then to *this.* After removing the final bolt I turned away to set the bolt down in a nice safe place where it wouldn't get lost, and the headbox fell with an almighty crash onto the playfield. The bolt that I was so concerned about losing is, of course, fine.
A 42-year-old irreplaceable silkscreened backglass, destroyed in an instant beyond any hope of repair because I pointed to *this* while saying *that.*
So. "Whoops" is about all I can say. Spent the better part of a month restoring that playfield, and now the backglass is toast.
The way I see it, I have three options:
1. Pay bgresto $250 for a digitally-created backglass (and I'll have to work with them somewhat on the colours, too - they have done a Super Star before, but they were working from a very faded original, and the colours on their reproduction are a bit off (the lady in the bottom right is white in their version!)).
Problem with option 1: I don't have $250.
Another problem with option 1: The sodding machine only cost $200 in the first place.
The third problem with option 1: It won't be faithful to the original anyway. It won't be done with the same methods, and things like the different colours of the ball count numbers won't come through.
The fourth problem with option 1: It's not just paying $250 that I don't have for artwork on a machine that cost $200, it's paying $250 that I don't have for *really really dreadful* artwork on a machine that cost $200. Seriously, that is one ugly ugly *ugly* backglass. One friend of mine, when I told him the news, was at first sympathetic - then I showed him pictures of the artwork, and he said "I think you should make it your mission to find another. And then break that one too. And then just keep going."
2. Full retheme: "Machine Heart" or "WhiteWood"
After removing the backglass I looked at what was behind it - the white wood against the black frame, the circular cutouts for the ball count numbers that would look really neat with some blackened metal discs with cutout numbers in front of them, the exposed score and credit wheel mechanisms, and I thought to myself: "Huh. The insides of this thing are actually considerably more beautiful than the outsides."
I began to think that breaking the one truly irreplaceable part of the artwork maybe wasn't such a disaster, given that the artwork was, in all honesty, *awful*. Before, I was doing paint-by-numbers. I've a decent amount of design experience - when that backglass shattered, it was like I was suddenly given permission to not keep to the original theme anymore.
It's not like Super Star is rare, or valuable. It's not like it was decent artwork, or well-loved for its theme. I could make something really unique, and only feel *slightly* guilty about it.
I could completely sand down the crappy artwork on the playfield (I spent nearly a month lovingly restoring that crappy, crappy artwork), create a new backglass that's a good deal of bare glass so that the mechanisms can be seen, cut acrylic windows in the cabinet (and perhaps even one or two on the playfield itself), and design my own playfield art. Go for a colour scheme of white, black and red, along with maybe two different wood stain finishes. Make it shine. Make it a celebration of a machine being a machine - a product of its components, wood, metal, glass, make them all rich and beautiful. I'm good with wood, I can do this.
Alternatively, if I lose inspiration, just whack some cog and leather artwork on there along with the visible reels and call it steampunk.
Problem with option 2: It'd take a long, long time.
Another problem with option 2: I'd have the trauma of undoing, in an hour and a cloud of dust, what took me a month to accomplish. Which, honestly, might not be too bad - it's the *learning* of the thing that's important. Now I know how to restore a pinball playfield, and before, I didn't. Even if my restoration no longer exists, my head and my hands know how to do that thing.
Another problem with option 2: I have way too many projects on my plate right now.
Yet another problem with option 2: Subtlety, natural beauty, minimalism and a name like "WhiteWood" - those things are all well and good.
But they're not pinball.
Pinball is overstimulation. Pinball is loud noises and flashing lights and bright colours and feeling the kick of the solenoids through your fingertips.
That's great. Subtlety is great too. But those two things don't really go together.
A subtle, minimalist theme would be like scattering rose petals over a hotdog, and although I'm sure it'd be very beautiful, I'm not so sure that it'd still be as fun to play. And that's why this machine exists, right?
3. Partial retheme: "Om Shanti Om"
It's disco-themed, right? It's God-awful 70's-themed, right? What else is a celebration of the 70's?
Om Shanti Om. One of my favourite films - it's so bouncy and light and happy and joyful and a huge spectacle and the music is really really awesome.
Quick introduction to Bollywood: take a typical Hollywood film, and then turn every single dial up to eleven. Or, basically, design a movie around a pinball machine, instead of doing it the other way around.
Quick(ish) introduction to Om Shanti Om:
It's an homage to, and a parody of, the 1970's golden age of big-budget Bollywood. It's 169 minutes long, and is about a struggling Bollywood actor (Om, played by Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan) who falls in love with a hugely famous actress (Shanti). In the first half of the film, set in the 1970's, their romance blossoms (to the accompaniment of several song-and-dance numbers, natch) and then the actor finds out that the actress is secretly engaged to be wed to an arsehole of a film director, who betrays her and, ultimately, murders her. Our protagonist, unseen by the murderer, dies trying to save her. Then the film's half over, the intermission plays, and we come back and pick up the story thirty years later when the reincarnation of our protagonist is a huge Bollywood star, played by the same actor (BECAUSE OF COURSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS).
(in Indian cinema, this happens more often than you'd think - a character dies halfway through the film and then the same actor plays his long-lost twin, or his reincarnation, or just some guy who looks exactly like him)
We see him become gradually more aware of his past life and past actions, and then he meets the (now thirty years older) film director/murderer in this scene:
...which is basically every big star in Bollywood getting together to have a big old knees-up and massive amounts of fun. (Every time you hear applause in that scene, it's because another AAA-list celebrity has entered and is about to do their signature dance move. The closest thing the English-speaking world has ever gotten to this is The Expendables, and it's fun and all, but not quite the same...) Our protagonist resolves to goad the murderer into confessing his crime by convincing him that he's being haunted by Shanti's ghost, played by a struggling actor who looks exactly like Shanti (because, again, she's played by the same actor as played Shanti in the first half of the film). Cue lots of wacky shenanigans that ultimately lead to this final hugely-costumed over-the-top Phantom-of-the-Opera-style dance number:
Now, *that* ain't subtle. That's a huge, over-the-top, bright, joyous, colourful and unabashedly FUN thing, and a perfect theme for a pinball machine.
According to a casual thirty-second Google search, there are no Bollywood-themed pinball machines in the whole wide world. This one could be the first, and it really wouldn't take all that much modification. I could basically do a pallette swap - keep the layout and shapes of the artwork as they are now, change the colours, alter the faces so that they're posterized versions of Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, and theme the backglass along these lines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Omshantiomalbum.jpg).
Still very 70's - but a 70's I can dig.
Problem with option 3: This thing is going in a meatball-sandwich-and-pizza restaurant, and its goal is to make money. Here in Pittsburgh, Om Shanti Om ain't exactly a well-known film outside of the Hindi-speaking populace (although that is a pretty big bunch of people, if the turnout at Dhoom 3 at the Waterfront cinema was anything to go by...). Indian cinema is awesome, and these meatball subs are *particularly* awesome, but the two go together like toothpaste and cheese.
Another problem: I don't have the rights. Of course I don't have the rights. But, given the overall personality of Bollywood in general, I honestly don't think that's gonna be a problem - the people involved would likely just think it's awesome.
One more problem: The only people who'll think this is awesome are the people who've seen the film. Everyone else will just go "Huh?"
Now. Every time I watch or listen to Deewangi Deewangi, I want to do an Om Shanti Om retheme.
Every time I look at the exposed score reels, I want to do a machine-heart retheme.
Every time I look at my massive list of things to do, I want to just get a reproduction Super Star backglass.
It's a silly thing, to lose sleep over this - for everything else it is, it's just a *machine.* But I didn't sleep last night, with this question running around my head like a cat chasing its tail, and the sound of the cracking backglass haunting me. It's a silly thing, but it's what happened.
I'm desperate. Please, please help me to make this decision.
Post edited by CavemanJoe : Doing a tl;dr because walls of text.
