The Monkey Rodeo Project

Home Sweet Hell DVDs!

2012-01-14T18:00:00.000-04:00

I've been in a slump as far as being self motivated lately, ever since Halloween actually (which was exhaustively busy for 2 months straight), but this last week has been incredibly productive.

I finally got the Home Sweet Hell DVDs all done, there's not much to them, just the episodes and some pictures. I wanted to do outtakes, but as I noticed finishing up the BZK2! DVDs, there weren't any. The folks I work with have gotten really used to the way I work and are very well prepared - so they deserve a huge thanks from me.

These are up for sale too, but since the audio isn't awesome, I'm reducing the price a bit to $8 on these - any more and it's just not worth selling them really.

Otherwise, I've got a small pile of new prosthetics done and a few more on the way. I've got a few new photo shoots lined up and got some work done on a few other projects I have going on. So far so good, I'm hoping the trend keeps up.

Up next are the Man-Eating Hookers from Hell DVDs.

Bimbo Zombie Killers 2! Undead by Dawn - DVDs!

2012-01-13T14:16:00.001-04:00

Finally got these bad boys all done. I got myself a printer for printing directly onto DVDs so I'll be slowly releasing all The Monkey Rodeo movies on DVD for sale on the website. For right now, we just have this one here, Bimbo Zombie Killers 2! Undead by Dawn the Grandma's Douche Edition. It was called that by request of a couple of the actors, not my first choice, but what the hell.

The plan is for all the DVD's to be $10 each. I'm really hoping the future to do a more elaborate edition of some movies, including something besides just a DVD with some extras.

Next up, Home Sweet Hell and even Man Eating Hookers from Hell, with some extras - this one might not be available for sale, we'll have to see how it turns out.

This Year in Search Engine Terms

2011-12-28T13:19:00.000-04:00

It's so amusing to check and see what search engine terms are used by people that find their way to my site, whether the online shop or the blog. Some are a little creepy, I noticed a large amount of the females I've worked with has all been searched for - chances are it's just a similar name, but when "charlottetown" or "pei" are added to it, it's a safe bet who they're looking for. So beware ladies, because as if you didn't already know, there are some creepy folks out there on the internet looking for you. They may not all be creepy, but you really don't want to take that sort of chance.

So, some of the terms, we'll start with the top 10:

1 - how to make a fake axe (and actually dozens of variations on this)

2 - severed finger (a few variations, "how to make" "thumb" or "toe" even)

3 - zombie photoshoot ( a couple variations on this)

4 - fox Henderson (makes sense)

5 - bimbo zombie killers 2 (also the first one and others with minor variations)

6 - demon ears (makes sense - a lot of other variations, even just "ear prosthetics" in general)

7 - demon horns (quite a few variations, type and size of horns)

8 - bimbo zombie killers (the 2nd most popular variation)

9 - monkey rodeo project (makes sense)

10 - vampire nose (and a few variations as well)

These all seem pretty reasonable. A lot of movie title searches, mostly my own movies. A lot of various types of prosthetics - demon, monkey, vampire, goblins, etc. All very reasonable and understandable, yet there's a few that just seem a little off. Some I get why someone might search for them, and why they'd land on a site of mine and some are just fucking weird. Here's some of the odder ones:

fake ad for hatchets - why a "fake ad" for hatchets? Real ads aren't good enough?

hookers casting - I guess someone needs some hookers in their movie and doesn't feel up to asking random women they know?

silicone male ass - I have no idea what the hell is this all about, nor do I want to.

demon wife - Maybe something to do with a movie, or just curious what the benefits might be?

latex hooker - Are they looking for a hooker made of latex or one that specifically wears latex?

who the actor for thork - besides the poor grammar here, I've no idea what this is about. I used the term and it just came up with "Thor" stuff.

troll feet - I was right in assuming at least one other person out there would be interested in Troll Feet. I'll be putting them online for sale this year. I hope he comes back.

most powerful hallucinogen - ???

zombie hookers demon pei - Just looking for all the best stuff at once I guess.

horned girls - Makes sense, but something tells me it was a spelling error.

auricular prosthesis product catalog - I think I might've either brightened or ruined some poor fellow's day who was actually needing something important.

zombie killers online monkey -Either there's something else out there this fucked up sounding, or someone who's only heard partial words of things I've done, and was just hedging their bet and trying them all.

really odd family pics - I like this one.

shoot boxing online shop - I don't get this at all.

casting fake guy - At first all I could think was, "So casting a real guy isn't good enough?" But then I guess it's something looking to make a fake body? I don't know otherwise, maybe looking to cast a shitty actor?

movies with x ratings - Hell yeah! I ruined some horny bastards day I hope.

the caller malcolm mcdowell ending explanation - This might seem utterly random, but I did mention this movie once and if someone seriously wanted an explanation for the ending, they really didn't get the movie. I highly recommend it for it's total lack of logic in the end.

bert palmerro prosthetics - This just seems funny, I guess somehow someone saw this video and didn't realize it was connected to an online shop. Nice to know they liked the piece enough, never got an order for it though. Asshole.

a movie called zumbie bimbos - Makes sense they found my stuff, but did they really believe there was a movie was called "Zumbie Bimbos"???

vampire photoshoot lighting - Because vampires are SO hard to light with all that pale skin...???

pretty male fingers - Uh...yeah.

fox henderson hookers - I think my favourite one this year.

el. rodeo. de. gregorrio. Chabes - Sure. I don't think they were actually searching for "Gregorio Chavez", but it's pretty odd there's even the term "rodeo" in there. I did a search and nothing immediately popped out that would explain it.

awesome paint job go kart - How the hell did this term land someone on something I did?

ass silicone mold - Again with the silicone asses. What the hell people? The worse part is, this chap wanted a mold - for what? To make an unlimited supply of silicone asses?

fast food character giving the finger - I don't really get it. Did someone want to see this that badly?

ear suck - This actually creeps me out as much as the silicone asses people.

And now for the most elaborate and yet still random seeming search term of all:

bigscreen-tula's father used one particular cleaning solution for everything as acure all, even soaking his elbow - I searched it and nothing immediately came up, why am I not surprised. And relieved.

So there you go. Some of the more entertaining search terms/phrases of this year. I am surprised at the sheer number of people wanting fake faxes and severed fingers/thumbs.toes there are out there. Next year can only get weirder once I start introducing some new items to the shop.

Holy crap...

2011-12-27T12:06:00.001-04:00

Just realized it's been nearly 2 months since I've gone near this, guess I might as well start again. Now...where to start?

Trade Show. I'm doing a trade show in April, hopefully if I can afford the trip to Hamilton, Ont. The show itself isn't very expensive at all, it's getting there that'll be a bugger. In the meantime I'm hoping to crank out a whole pile of new products before then. Some new random foam props, resin one, demon things in jars, weapons, new prosthetics, masks and maybe other stuff. I've been so lazy in developing new products, I'm kind of using the trade show as a deadline to get this all done.

Photo shoots. I got an extension to the "Demons" project, now titled "The Secret Lives of Demons", so I will be attempting about 20 photo shoots between now and mid-March. Might be doable, don't know yet. After that I will be moving on to Volume 2 of the project and stepping up the makeup a bit - that's the plan at least.

2013 Demon Pinup Calendar. It's a while off, but it's something else in the works. Planning on doing a calendar filled with old classic pinup style looking pictures, but with demons - of course that probably goes without saying.

DVDs. Hoping to actually start selling them on the website soon.

T-shirts. Soon might be a possibility.

Bimbo Zombie Killers! the Web Series. Still haven't had time to have a meeting to create the overall plot, even though it's roughed out. A couple months behind schedule, but that's nothing new. Should still happen this year.

Year of the Dead. A new project I start this past week. It'll be a sort of supernatural detective story about detectives on the trailer of a slightly mental necromancer using the souls of the undead to appease an ancient evil Demon God in order to become one himself. Don't think it'll be a feature, but you never know at this point, just working out some background details on the characters at this point.

That's more or less it I think. I've had some recent production problems with the business and I'm taking some steps to slightly simplify things and make that run more smoothly. A pile of new pieces should be going online soon as well.

That's it for now I think.

Man-Eating Hooker Masks up for sale.

2011-10-31T13:33:00.001-03:00

I'm putting these bad girls online for sale today. Starting manufacturing them this afternoon. They're made of a durable latex, typical of most Halloween type masks, rather flexible as well - although not as much as foam latex. It comes already painted up as you see it here with resin spikes and teeth.

Can be made blank with spikes and teeth not attached if desired, just let me know. The spikes and teeth are easily adhered to the mask with crazy glue, that should keep them on permanently. They come with an elastic strap sewn in to slip them on and off. To sort of blend them in, just some black makeup around your eyes and mouth should do it.

They sell for $26, so iffen you feel the need to devour men's souls, or anyone's really, you might want to snag one of these. Allow for about 3-4 days for manufacturing, these things require time to look this nasty.

If and when we get to do a full feature of "Man-Eating Hooker from Hell" the Demon Hookers most likely won't look like this, this was a simple, cheap design for the trailer only. Should we raise the money, they will look way more hideous and demonic, so these masks are only going to be seen in the fake trailer for now.

"Man-Eating Hookers from Hell" trailer is finally online.

2011-10-31T09:25:00.002-03:00

After all this waiting, it's finally online! The only place the trailer is viewable is on the actual site:

http://www.themonkeyrodeo.com/MEHFH

I've also started up an Online Funding Campaign to turn this crap into a feature. The campaign will run for the next year, or until we reach our goal. Although in order for us to reach that goal, this site needs to get out there as much as possible - so feel free to repost the link EVERYWHERE!

I will be making another version of the video to upload to other sites, including the URL to this site to hopefully draw in more traffic. $10,000 is a pretty reasonable amount, I can do A LOT with $10,000 - it's pretty easy when you come from the Roger Corman mentality of film making.

So enjoy the trailer, it's probably not safe for work, depending where you work.

New site goes online tomorrow

2011-10-30T16:54:00.000-03:00

So I mentioned awhile back I was asked to make a fake trailer and I did so, under the guidelines of making it the most trashy depraved thing I could. Well it's not really the most depraved thing I could think of - I decided to hold back a little since I then had the idea of turning this crap into a feature. So it's not as over the top as I'd pictured, but still pretty good.

The website I'm referring to of course is the site for the fake trailer and the Online Funding Campaign that will take place over the course of the next year. We're hoping to raise enough money to actually turn that trailer into a full blown (no pun intended) feature film, and make it look way worse. And by worse I mean, the FX will be better and more over the top (the whole reason for needing money in the first place really), the Demon Hooker will be redesigned, making these masks a bit of a nostalgic kind of thing. The "deaths" you see in the trailer are PG compared to some of the stuff I'd like to do.

The trailer and the website goes live tomorrow at 5pm. The Online Funding Campaign starts as well and will end either when we reach our goal or 5pm next Halloween.

Donations will be handled pretty simply, no money changes hands until the goal is reached. So for now there will be an email set up for pledges. So if you think you'd like to donate something, send an email to that address (there'll be a link provided obviously) and the amount you'd like to pledge and whatever email address you use for PayPal. Once we reach the goal in pledges, everyone will receive an invoice through PayPal and hopefully you'll remember and honour the pledge.

And you will be getting something for your money, all sorts of cool stuff lined up depending on the amount you donate. There's be more details once things are online tomorrow.

Cold Rath, The Electric Demon

2011-10-24T13:35:00.000-03:00

Did another photoshoot this past weekend, hoping to ramp up the number I'm doing since the "Demons" project is ending this January - however, then I'll be starting the 2nd version of it. So not really the end, just the end of this round.

Here's some pictures of Cold Rath, The Electric Demon - very much inspired by the video game Infamous 2, but first a video

2011-10-21T21:06:00.001-03:00

ShasshMash Demon Ears Prosthetic

ShaashMash Demons were known mainly for their fighting abilities and excellent hearing.

Price $22

Volrath Demon Prosthetic

Large and brutish creatures, the Volrath always enjoy a good fight.

Price $55

"The Barbarians" photo shoot

2011-10-16T23:51:00.001-03:00

Got another photo shoot done today, as well as using some new pieces for the time. This one had probably the most elaborate costumes so far, although I'd have at least one future one planned that will be pretty cool.

The new pieces will be online this week, just in time for last minute Halloween costumes. The full face worn by John here is a Volrath Demon.

The ears here, worn by Emily-Rose, Shassmash Demon Ears ,are brand new. In fact these ones just came out of the oven about 20 minutes before she arrived for makeup. The resin spikes with foam latex sockets are new as well, not sure if I'll be selling these or not.

And now onto some pictures:

And finally, a behind the scenes video:

Still busy...

2011-10-15T11:26:00.000-03:00

I've made about 400+ prosthetics in the last 3 1/2 weeks for wholesale orders. Seemed like it was way more then that though. Got a few new pieces on the way, as well as about 5 or so more photoshoots I've been trying to get to amidst the wholesale orders.

As far as the fake trailer is concerned, only got a few shots left on that. Did a quick shoot last week that involved heading down to the park to splash some blood around. Seems like an average Saturday morning for me these days.

Hoping to get some new props on the go in the next few weeks. This time of year has been pretty busy, busier then I expected. Still got more to do as well, some consignment stuff and some retail stuff as well.

And here's a short doc a friend of mine did on me:

Holy crap I'm busy

2011-09-14T09:28:00.000-03:00

Yes, I am busy these days. That's not a complaint, far from it. With the fake movie trailer project I'm working on and the pile of photo shoots I've planned to finally the massive orders coming in for prosthetics, I'm a little swamped these days.

The trailer is coming along, we have 2 more days scheduled, the next is pretty shot and the 2nd is going to be another huge day of blood and gore and demons in lingerie - and yes, I am aware how awesome it is that this is now pretty much my job.

The photo shoots are coming along well, I have 3 (?) lined up, maybe more, I can't even remember specifics anymore sometimes. A couple are going to be pretty awesome, some a little more understated but definitely cool.

And in shop news, I am busy, the business is doing really well. I'm almost surprised in a way - but I guess I shouldn't be since I was hoping I'd be this busy. It's been a great learning experience and I've definitely sussed out some weaknesses in my production methods and whatnot. Ones that are easily corrected for next year so I'm not rushing to fill orders as soon as they come in.

My next big plans are for an industry trade show in May in Toronto, not my favourite city but it should be a decent experience. And the Bimbo Zombie Killers! web series which starts shooting in July with a hopefully release date of Halloween Day 2012.

That's it for now, I have to go make more little resin spikes and start working on a master mould, then make more prosthetics and probably other stuff I've already forgotten about.

Father Ammon, the Villius Demon Priest.

2011-09-09T16:21:00.000-03:00

Did another photo shoot today, got a whole pile more lined up too. This one was worked on awhile ago, had to be postponed because the prosthetic just didn't work. I had to kind of rethink it - why? The piece involved two 8" resin horns. Luckily very lightweight, 39 grams each, but still too heavy for the original prosthetic that was to hold them in place.

So in the end I opted out for a couple very small almost cuplike pieces that had a larger surface to grip both the skin and the resin horn. Worked out pretty damned well, the horns were a little floppy almost, but for stills it was more then fine. And they were on there good, we tested them after the shoot to see just how well they were attached - the prosthetic tore off the model's forehead (Will Beckett) before the horns pulled out of their foam latex sockets.

It was a success I guess. Anyway, here's some images. We'd hope it might generate a little interest from some churchgoing types, but everyone seemed to really enjoy it. Aside from the stinkeye we got from one girl leaving church as we were arriving. I think she just looked that way naturally though.

Pretty damned happy with the results. This was one of those shoots where the piece - as subtle and easy to apply as it was, really stands out dramatically. Almost every picture was perfect, that doesn't happen to often.

More new prosthetics online

2011-08-30T07:50:00.000-03:00

Just added a few new pieces to the website, and as usual orders have to be emailed in since it's the best method I've been able to work out. Payments made in Canada through PayPal or Email Interact (that's a lot better then PayPal) and everywhere else, PayPal.

Kandros Demon Prosthetic
(includes 6 resin spikes,
ears not included)

And ancient race of Greek demons. Rarely seen nowadays, but occasionally they descend to this plane for fast food.

Price $55

Child of Minos
(ears not included)

Believed to be descended from the original Minotaur, The Children of Minos enjoy a leisurely existence these days, mainly because most people are scared of them.

Price $40

Horned Forehead Prosthetic
(Ears and small horns not included)

You can't disguise yourself as a demon without horns.

Price $30

Sylf Demon Prosthetic
(ears not included)

One of many ancient races of demons. Sylf's are extremely peaceful, but very passionate demons, and are often muses to great artists.

Price $30

Magnus Demon Prosthetic
(Includes 6 resin spikes,
Magnus Ears sold separately)

Brilliant tacticians and problem solvers, Magnus Demons usually take up professions where they can use their deductive skills.

Price $55

Behind the scenes, Secret Agent Demon

2011-08-26T21:05:00.001-03:00

Had another awesome photo shoot this last week. My friend Dave was over from Halifax and I whipped up this shoot. You might recall Gregorio Chavez? That was Dave.

Again, I ended up with a pile of images totally unrelated to the final picture for the book, so again I will post more. And for those of you Islanders who might be wondering "Hey, that kinda looks like fun." You're damned right it is. If you're interested in doing a shoot, you can contact me here - just be aware there are some restrictions and limitations. The biggest one, no kids.

And now some pictures!

Man-Eating Hookers from Hell fake trailer casting call

2011-08-26T09:22:00.000-03:00

I am producing a 60-90 second fake movie trailer, for a fake movie called "Man-Eating Hookers from Hell". The idea is a mash up of several bad 70s horror/splatter/exploitation type movies. If the movie were indeed real, I have to admit, it'd probably get an "X" rating. The trailer, most definitely an "R".

It's being created for a Scottish production company, Scottish Badlands, to attach to their upcoming zombie web series, The Dying Seconds - kind of like all those fake trailers in "Grindhouse". It's an opportunity for some great exposure and should be a lot of fun. There's no script, no lines to memorize in advance, nothing like that. We're creating ideas for shots that could be in this movie and hoping it all fits together. No major commitment is needed. We're shooting throughout September and October this year for a November 11th deadline.

So what I'm looking for are actors, actors who don't mind looking utterly foolish and getting extremely bloody and gory. This is strictly volunteer and open only to residents of Prince Edward Island, as well.

PLOT: A young woman is victim of a violent attack by 5 things who leave her for dead in the middle of nowhere.She is found and taken in by a strange group of prostitutes who convince her to take revenge on her assailants by inviting them to their brothel - where the prostitutes then turn into demons intent on eating them and stealing their souls for their demon overlord. All the while they plan on recruiting our lead into their demonic, man-eating, soul sucking lifestyle - which she doesn't take to very readily and fights back against the Man-Eating Hooker from Hell!

ROLES TO BE CAST: (there are no specific character names)

Female Hero Lead: Our lead should be the average "girl next door" looking kind of girl. Mid-twenties, give or take. Athletic, there might be lots of running and fighting. Might involve a few costume changes, nothing as drastic as the prostitute characters.

Man-Eating Hookers: There will be 5-6, possibly more. They start out looking normal, and turn into demons. This role will involve one or two costume changes, from looking like an average movie prostitute to being put into prosthetic makeup (you'd be unrecognizable) and dressed somewhat more provocatively, in lingerie or something suitably more sexy - in order to make it a little more disturbing, since they will not look pretty as demons.

Thugs: 5 men, ranging in age, mid-20s to 30s. They'll be scuzzy, unlikable, violent types.

Possibly extras: this won't be confirmed until the shots are laid out.

Demon Overlord: Will be female, unrecognizable in makeup. Should be disturbing looking in many way, more so then the demon prostitutes. May or may not have much screen time in the trailer - still to be determined at this point. More information will be available soon.

If you're at all interested (note, there are no off camera roles or crew needed) please contact us at casting@themonkeyrodeo.com and send a picture, and even a resume if you've any previous acting experience - although none is necessary. Please also make sure to properly identify your email as Fake Movie Trailer project and indicate what role you're interested in.

Because of my own personal schedule and time constraints, I'm looking to do this as effeciently as possible and that means if you're interested, please use the email above - expressing interest in any other fashion will simply get overlooked. And trust me, you don't want to get left out of this.

The Demon Gods

2011-08-23T15:43:00.000-03:00

This was a bit of a silly, campy kind of photo shoot. I decided we needed some Demon Gods, and not just any kind of Demon Gods, but Greek(ish) Demon Gods. I normally don't post photos anymore, simply because I want the final product to have some newness to it when it's finally done. However in this case, the final image is miles away from the other photos I took so I felt it was worth it just this once.

So here's a video of the shoot, with an explanation of why it's a little more about the makeup then it is about the actual shoot.

And now for some pictures:

John MacDonald as Demon Hercules

Becca Pike as Demon Aphrodite

Heather Panton as Demon Athena

Even Demon Gods like ice cream.

I can't explain this.

And then we went through the drive-thru. That was amusing, the girl at the window was a little overexcited about it all, which was kinda cool in it's own way.

So that's it. It was a fun shoot, the video and the pictures don't even come close to giving you a clue about the final image, so be warned and don't anger the Demon Gods. Tomorrow got another shoot lined up, should be just as awesome.

Some new stuff in the online shop.

2011-08-21T09:57:00.000-03:00

Melicor Demon Prosthetic

Melicor Demons are musically inclined creatures with particularly lovely singing voices.

Price $50

Pointed Demon Ears Prosthetic

Demon ears come in all shapes and sizes, these particular ones are of the pointed variety.

Price $20

Ragged Demon Ears Prosthetic

Some broken down, raggedy looking demon ears.

Price $20

Magnus Demon Ears Prosthetic

Spikey demon ears! Comes with 6 resin spikes. Available in dark and light spikes.

Price $26

Double Pointed Demon Ears Prosthetic

Two points are better then one.

Price $26

Medium Demon Horns
(TypeA)

Some of your typical pointed demon horns.

Price $10

Medium Demon Horns (TypeB)

Somewhat dramatic horns.

Price $10

Small Demon Horns
(TypeA)

Some funky small horns.

Price $6

Small Demon Horns
(TypeB)

Sharp and pointy little horns.

Price $6

Foam Head Hammers!

Need to crack some skulls? But don't want all that messy brain and bone matter everwhere? Try a Foam Head Hammer. The Hammer Head is made of soft foam, the handle is real wood. Soon total foam hammers will be available.

Price $40 per hammer

Bimbo Zombie Killers 2! Undead by Dawn finally online

2011-08-21T09:44:00.001-03:00

Not much else to say. Other then, enjoy...or not.

Or you can check it out on The Monkey Rodeo site.

In the aftermath of BZK2!

2011-08-11T10:37:00.000-03:00

Calling it BZK2! sounds like a virus of some sort and while normally I hate it when movies shorten their titles, this one is just too long to always type out. At least it's not shortened to B2K! which would be short for Bimbo 2ombie Killers! That would result in douchbaggery of the highest order and my demise would surely follow at the hands of people with good taste.

Anyway, that wasn't the point of all this, the point is the movie is very nearly done. I think I broke a personal record for completion time on a project like this. About 2 months from beginning to end, from coming up with the vague idea to finally posting it online.

All that's left is a run through of the audio to clean it up and make sure the levels are alright and then convert the video into HD. Probably a good day's work, but I won't be doing it today probably. I'm finishing a rough SD version to show the author of the Zombie Encyclopedia and that's it for now. No one will be able to see it until I've arranged a private screening for the cast and crew, and then it'll be posted online.

So now I'm left with this slightly less then rushed feeling I've had for the last 10 days or so since we shot the movie. It's done...ish. Now what? I've got a short project I'd like to do end of August, nothing too strenuous, should be a decent shoot - fairly elaborate since it's all one single take and about 3 1/2 minutes long. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime I'm hoping to get back to the photoshoots, I've got quite a few lined up and hoping for the outdoor ones that the weather cooperates. It's been a bit of a bugger lately.

And then I'd like to start sculpting some new stuff. Not prosthetics, but props. I've been wanting to just attempt a small statue or something. I don't know. I feel like I've been neglecting the business in favour of other things lately and I want to add some new stuff to the store over the next few months and get things ready for Halloween.

I missed the boat again on getting more wholesale clients this year, but that's alright. I've still got a lot of bugs to work out in my whole production process.

So until I post BZK2! I'll be working away on updating the websites, making a few new pieces and doing a few more photoshoots.

Bimbo Zombie Killers! Dead in the Water

2011-08-07T16:46:00.001-03:00

Alright, here's the first official word on this. Next summer on Sunday, July 8th (that's 2012) we will be shooting first the first 2 episodes in the 10 (maybe 12) part web series Bimbo Zombie Killers! Dead in the Water. I'm hoping that's enough notice for everyone. Note that it's not called part 3, simply for the purposes that it's a different format then the first two and watching the other two is not necessary to understand this.

Sure it's a ways off and most will forget, but those of you who have repeatedly asked me to be in a project or showed any interest but backed out last minute for whatever reason - you got no excuse now. So suck it up and get ready to to get bloody.

I'll be working on the script from now and into the fall. Working on locations, special effects and casting over the winter. Come spring I'm hoping everything is ready to go. Should we have an early summer, I might advance the shooting date - but it will mostly be on Sundays throughout the summer for a fall release, with an occasional unscheduled shoot depending on who is available and what's needed.

In order to pull this off I need to make sure that anyone who makes a commitment, (outside of my regular crew, who I know I can count on) is willing to commitment 42,000%. These things are a lot of work and when folks half-ass commit and drop out like it's no big deal, it's really disappointing and throws things out of whack big time.

I appreciate things get in the way, like work or personal emergencies - but if you're not willing to make the time, then don't pretend you are, please, it's not too much to ask. And trust me, if you show up, it'll be awesome. We had a great time making part 2, as rushed as the whole project was. Part 3 is going to be 10 times better.

Throughout the winter I will be posting notices on the Facebook page for casting. Again, yes it's early, but since I need a huge commitment, you've been given more then adequate notice - and I would appreciate the same courtesy should you have to drop out.

In the spring I'll begin to hunt for extras. We'll need zombies for this, lots of zombies. Not all will be needed for every shoot, some may only require a weekend here or there. There will be makeup again this time so I'll be doing a couple makeup crash courses so we're not wasting time when it comes to shooting.

Other then that, if you have any interest in helping out, behind the camera as well - locations, writing, props, whatever, start letting me know now.

Normally when folks work on a project with me, they get a DVD copy when it's all over. I'm hoping to plan something a little better this time around then just a DVD, so there's some extra incentive - but it's not money, so don't even ask.

Story Details: Nothing too concrete just yet, but the story will involve 4, possibly 5, bimbos on a canoeing trip - sort of like Deliverance. They'll encounter some evil rednecks, zombies and god knows what else. And finally, they will actually discover why moonshine turns people into zombies!

BZK2! Behind the Scenes Stuff, Part 4

2011-08-04T15:28:00.000-03:00

Got the first round of redubbing or relooping, whatever you choose to call it done today. Went pretty quickly despite the fact my setup here was working against me for awhile - got that mostly sorted out though.

I thought I'd do a quick post about one of the more experimental parts of the movie, so if you're not into spoilers - you might want to skip reading the rest of this and definitely DO NOT watch the video.

There's a scene where Pervis (Tim Gormley) gets his hand eaten off at the wrist by Tula (EmilyAnne Fullerton) and of course I wanted to show it - with some editing. And the main gag would be Pervis waving around his bloody arm stump squirting blood everywhere.

So my challenge here was to figure a way to easily create that. I chose to do a silicone prop. I sculpted an arm stump, made a two sided mould of it, then I figured I could do a couple thin coat of silicone before jamming in the padding and and the plastic rod (where the blood tube would run through). The padding was added to lessen the amount of silicone needed, as well I used some old cured silicone chopped up into pellets to further the little amount I had on hand (no pun intended).

The original sculpture.

Making the two sided mould.

This was pretty experimental for me, in all logic it should have worked, but I had no way of ever really knowing for sure until I pulled it from the mould. And luckily it worked out perfectly. After a little paint job it was ready for testing.

Here's a quick video of the blood squirting arm stump:

The stump was then inserted into Tim's sleeve, where is real arm came out through a hole in the elbow. Worked decently well and was a suitably cheesy effect. My goal was to make an effect that felt like it was from an old 70s or 80s movie, and I think it turned out pretty damned well.

BZK2! Behind the Scenes Stuff, Part 3

2011-08-03T18:31:00.000-03:00

There was definitely no shortage of blood on the shoot. Nearing the final part of the shoot it was time for Heather and Julie to get soaked in blood. I actually had 3 different types of blood; a thick gory bright red blood, a runny, more normal looking bloody we used in the pumps and an edible blood.

I have a near final edit done now, just a few shots to clean up because of some mistakes, but otherwise it's ready for the audio. I'm aiming to get this finished by next Wednesday. Here's hoping.

BZK2! Behind the Scenes Stuff, Part2

2011-08-02T05:50:00.000-03:00

One thing that sets this apart from my other projects is that this is the first time I had other folks doing the makeup - totally untrained, maybe they observed it a few times or something before at best. Overall I think they did a decent job - especially when you consider, they really had no idea what they were doing, other then a quick run-through a few days before.

While we were waiting around for the last couple zombies to show up I shot this:

I'm in the middle of editing the movie right now, it won't be long, it moves pretty damned fast. I shot it handheld and pretty much made things up as I went since I kinda wanted it to feel a little awkward and amateurish - I think it worked. As well, it does heighten the panic a little bit and made the shoot faster.

In terms of where I am with the editing, rough editing, I'm on about page 12 of a 17 page script and I just hit the 8 minute mark. I reckon it'll be about 12 minutes. The original was around 11.

To be continued...

BZK2! Behind the Scenes Stuff, Part1

2011-08-01T13:42:00.000-03:00

First off, the shoot went well, really well. For the first time in a long time, we didn't hit any snags, there were not problems or unforeseen crap that hindered shooting - it went really smoothly. That's not to say it wasn't exhausting.

I myself was up at about 5 or 6am that morning - having spent most of the last 2 week prepping everything that I didn't do over the last 2 months - and I believe we got out final shot at around 6:30pm. The weather was a little pissy, 4 different forecasts all said it was going to be a nice sunny-ish day, they were all totally wrong. It rained a little, off and on, until about 11 or so, we didn't start shooting until about 10, since I was hoping it would clear up.

So we were off to a delayed start, but still things moved pretty quickly throughout the day. The zombies all arrived pretty much right when I needed them as well. All the practical effects worked out perfectly and even a little more gory and sillier then I'd hoped. The actors all did a great job, although EmilyAnne definitely stood out with that scream.

The only injury, aside from a couple scrapes was Pete Murphy getting bonked on the head with a hammer - the hammer head was fake, the handle wasn't. I think he survived.

Still converting all the footage right now, should be done in a few hours or so. I'm heading back out to the location this afternoon to do a few quick pick up shots we purposefully didn't bother with yesterday simple for time.

And now, how about a few pictures:

Heather Panton as Rider

Julie Laforest as Honey

EmilyAnne Fullerton as Tula

Draper Bulger as Harlon

Tim Gormley as Pervis

And once more, all three girls.

To be continued...

BZK2! Undead by Dawn, first images

2011-07-24T14:17:00.000-03:00

We're getting closer to the shooting date of July 31st. We got about 17 pages to shoot in one day, we'll see what happens. BZK2! is going to look a lot different then the first one, totally handheld - kind of like The Bourne Identity, with zombies and cheesy effects.

A lot more props and junk this time around. Most notably that zombies will be in prosthetic makeup this time around, not just doused in gore. I've got enough pieces for 13 zombies if needed, 12 piece were created specifically for this project.

Here's a look at about 6 of the pieces - no full faces, just not necessary for this and it's way easier to fit smaller pieces to a large random cross section of people, taking even facial hair into account.

And a pair of ball pein hammers, because only wimps would anything but a damned hammer to take out the undead. The heads are foam, the handle are real wood. I would've done the handles in foam as well, but it was too expensive for the moment, but I will be doing it later when I put these bad boys online for sale.

These are fresh from their moulds, there will be some serious aging done to them for the shoot.

There's a few more pieces, but I'm keeping things under wraps until the movie is shot and release. That's the plan at least for the moment.

ZipperFace

2011-07-02T09:19:00.000-03:00

This was a bit of an odd shoot. I got the idea from a video Heather (the model in the shoot) had shown me some time ago. Took a while to get it fully developed and even then it wasn't exactly like I'd pictured in my head - but that happens, and this one was so radically different from stuff I'd done up until now that impressive that it actually worked at all.

I did get some really great shots from the shoot, still actually trying to decide what one I want to use for the final book. Until then, here's a short behind the scenes video:

The Three Hobos

2011-07-01T22:43:00.000-03:00

This shoot was in the works for quite a while, it was actually this idea that spawned the Bert Palmerro shoot. The ides was simple enough, some homeless demons. Originally I wanted a real fire burning away in the barrel, but that seemed too much effort and headache, so a floodlight seemed like a reasonable replacement.

Here's the video we shot:

Got some great pictures and an amusing video out of it, hopefully the rest go as easily as this one did.

Bert Palmerro's - "Addicted to Love"

2011-06-25T07:02:00.001-03:00

First, here's the video:

And the awesome rambling story behind it.

Had another video/photo shoot this week. It'd been in the planning for ages it seems, but given the logistics of scheduling it languished around for a month or two. Finally happened, but man it was a rough start.

I was up at 5am, makeup was scheduled for 9am and we were supposed to arrive on location at 11am, where we had the place booked for 2 hours. We had an issue with some of the girls not getting back to us in time to confirm their involvement, as as we got closer I decided to find a replacement and then of course two days before everyone's confirmed in. That irks me, but whatever, everyone was onboard and I felt like a bit of a dick having to tell this one girl I lined up that I didn't need her...And then someone cancelled.

So, Julie, the one I contacted outside of the original 5 contacted by Savannah, was back in but just had her car break down so was unable to make it. I figured I could just drive out and get her, no problem.

At around 8, I contacted Draper, made sure we had all the instruments only to find that he had no keyboard, so a last minute search ensued for a keyboard. I loaded everything into the car and proceeded to drive out to get Julie, only to have my car make some pretty horrendous noises. In the end she took a cab, we found a keyboard and made it to the office where the makeup took a little longer then planned - couldn't even get into the office at first, thanks to one of the girls, Allison we did.

From there it wasn't too bad. My back was already sore from hunching over doing makeup for about 5 hours on another shoot on Tuesday, this didn't help. At least I had someone else doing makeup with me, Michelle Cudmore. She does normal makeup, this was her first time playing around with prosthetis and she did a really good job, this would've taken forever without her help.

We were a little late to the location, The Guild, but managed to get going about 45 minutes into the 2 hours I had the place booked for. I assumed we'd need a third hour, but we finished shooting about 2 minutes before our time was up. Awesome.

Took some photos in the park, scared some children. Typical day I guess. Overall, pretty happy with the results, even though my car is currently immobile until I find a replacement track arm. Ah well, had nothing to do with the shoot, so who cares.

Everyone did a great job and even though I've thanked everyone a number of times, I'll do it again. Thanks to Savannah Belsher-MacLean for rounding up our "BertPalmerro Girls" and allowing me to use her office, this would've sucked without her help. Kim Bradford for making the dresses, would've cost me a small fortune to outfit everyone properly. Michelle Cudmore for helping with the makeup. The folks at The Guild, especially Eric (whose last name I never caught) the lighting/sound tech who had to endure that song about 6 times.

And finally the models, Draper Bulger, Heather Tasker, Samantha Hughes, Allison Kelly, Robyn Christensen and Julie Laforest - awesome job guys.

And now a couple more pictures I think, even though I said I wasn't going to post many any more.

Bimbo Zombie Killers 2! UNDEAD BY DAWN

2011-06-06T15:53:00.006-03:00

CAST AND CREW: If you're interested, send an email here and making sure it's labeled something to do with Bimbos or Zombies. Make sure to read all the crap below before signing up though. Also, this really only pertains to people on Prince Edward Island - but feel free to read on otherwise.

Apparently there was some interest about doing a sequel to Bimbo Zombie Killers! While I had no plans to ever do a sequel, I certainly had no objects if I got some actors interested and had some major assistance in getting it organized.

Well, that has almost happened. And yes, there will be a sequel I believe. And it will be shot in August if all goes as planned, maybe even earlier if things come together. It all hinges on things coming together. I have a lot on the go, so I won't be able to spend my energy making all the arrangements like I normally would for this.

If you're interested, you're down for more then just stumbling around groaning trying to find brains to eat - I need everyone to pitch in however they can. Even if it's just finding a couple more extras for me.

THE STORY: Undead By Dawn is not a direct sequel, in fact you never have had to see the original to even get this movie. It's, I guess, what you call a conceptual sequel. I plan on bring in my two original actors, Draper Bulger and Heather Panton to start the movie off - but that's it. Moonshine will still be the cause of the outbreak and that's as close as it'll get to the original. It won't affect the story of the original, it's not a reboot, in fact both could have actually happened in the same world just so happens that some of the individuals involved might look alike. This is Return of the Living Dead 1 and 2 reference for you hardcore zombie movie fans.

While the original was an homage to 70s splatter grindhouse sort of films, this one will be a direct homage to Evil Dead 1 and 2 (hence the title if you haven't figured it out by now). The first person who thinks they're suddenly intelligent and starts screaming rip off, will indeed get something ripped off - might be their junk, who knows.

The script is underway, the plot is already worked out.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU!
Actors. There will be 5 leads. 3 girls, 2 guys. I'm looking to cast 1 more guy and 2 more girls - costumes will be similar to the original most likely. So if you're not comfortable being a little skanky and trashy, this probably isn't for you. There may be more parts as the script is developed, so stay tuned.

Zombies, I'll need lots of zombies. These zombies will not be like the original, these will require makeup - and not cheap shitty stuff, we're going all out if possible. So if you've got a beard, you'll probably have to shave it unless I say otherwise. These zombie will be long since dead, coming out the ground redneck zombies. What is a redneck? Do a Google Image search, you'll figured it out. So if you want to be a redneck zombie, you'll need to dress appropriately and costumes will need to be properly distressed as though you've been in the ground for a long time. If you don't like getting dirty, you might want to stop reading and forget all about this.

Location: A cabin in the woods. Doesn't have to be abandoned, but if it is, it has to be usable and with electricity nearby. A shack nearby would be awesome, but we can work around it if there isn't one.. It must be on PEI and preferably near Charlottetown, I don't care for cutesy useless replies - again, ripped off and your junk possibly.

Weapons and Props: I will need some shotguns or something mostly likely. If you got an old double barrel you'd like to part with so I can remove the firing pin to make it safe, that'd be freakin' awesome. Otherwise just let me know if you can help out here and feel free to let me know what weird old farm tools you might have that'd make good weapons.

Special Effects Makeup Assistants: Since there's going to be a lot of old school looking zombies this time around, we're gonna need makeup - a splash of blood just isn't going to cut this time. Obviously there's not too many local folks who know a lot about applying special effects prosthetics makeup, so I'll be giving those who want to volunteer for this a crash course at some point.

As usual this is all volunteer. Please don't sign up if you're not going to show up, you'll just make it more difficult.

And finally, any questions or concerns or anything about this project, please ask away. You can email me at casting@themonkeyrodeo.com - if you try to contact me any other way about this, I'll just get lost in the shuffle and you'll end up crying because you're being ignored. And that's sad, so don't do it.

I can't believe I'm doing this again.

Bimbo Zombie Killers! to be featured in a Zombie Encylopedia

2011-06-04T16:04:00.001-03:00

Had some very awesome news today. Apparently, as the title of the blog suggests, Bimbo Zombie Killers! is going to be featured in a Zombie Encyclopedia - which is exactly what it sounds like. A book devoted to zombie movies, this I believe with be the 2nd book. The first one is available for sale.

I received an email yesterday from the author, saying he was here on PEI visiting friends and wanted to have a quick talk to me about the movie. I spoke with him on the phone today, he asked some questions and whatnot about the movie and said he would like to include it in the new version of the book.

I don't know when it's going to be released, but I'm going to be keeping an eye out for it.

Still no pictures, but less ranty

2011-05-04T23:40:00.000-03:00

Got a whole buttload of new designs on the way. I've sort of taken the approach of "try anything" during the course of doing the Demons project, I had a month or so of hesitation about creating new moulds in the wake of deciding on doing master moulds. Eventually I decided that was just unrealistic and pointless and finally, very expensive.

So the plan now is to just crank these things out, not to censor any ideas, regardless of goofiness, unreal-ism or anything. I had someone point out they thought my stuff needed more work, can't say I was offended in the slightest - even though I have sold stuff and have had very positive feedback so far, it reminded me there's always room for improvement. And I don't fancy myself a professional just yet, I reckon I have a long way to go.

Once I have all these pieces, the moulds should yield a good couple dozen prosthetics each before they start to turn to crap. I have then suss out which ones are the best, redo them - improving them - and making master moulds of them. Hopefully giving me a decent selection of pieces. At least that's the plan.

I got 2 new pieces moulded today, I think Friday or over the weekend I'll try to crank out some new positive moulds and try to get at least 2-3 new pieces done by next weekend. Got some new designs that will require more then just Ultrcal 30 and foam latex as well, won't be starting those for another couple weeks unfortunately.

And a slew of photoshoots are on the horizon. I think about 5 and featuring 13 demons in total across all the shoots. From those there'll be 2 videos being produced - just silly stuff, just for fun, not actually short movies or anything but actual music videos.

And lastly, there's a new product for the shop being produced right now. Still in the sculpting phase, I debated about posting some images but I'm going to wait until it's moulded and I have a final, ready to sell pieces. And it's going to be pretty cool.

Until then, I'm off to fight evil...And to try and find an alarm clock prop that was kicking around here int he way for the last 2 years and has finally chosen now to vanish when I actually need it.

Boring, non-picture update.

2011-04-26T13:44:00.000-03:00

You may or may not be wondering, "Hey, where's all the awesome pictures, aren't you doing photo shoots or making movies or something?" The answer if, if you're wondering, "Not at the moment." And if you're not wondering, please leave and allow strange beasts to devour your soul because you obviously have too much time on your hands reading blogs you have no interest in.

Now that that's out of the way, onto the potentially boring (non-picture oriented) update.

The main bit of boringness is called Business Plan writing and Market research. In a word (or two) it sucks. I can't complain because I chose this business so now I have to prove it's worth the effort...somehow. There seems to be a real lack of assistance or willingness to provide valid or useful information out there. I did get some decent feedback from a couple companies I've already sold to, so that was somewhat useful. It doesn't cover everything though - also isn't helping that the person who's supposed to be helping me write this has suddenly become unavailable without any notice.

I tried an online method someone referred me to. That was a dismal failure. Either on my part for not phrasing the questions properly or whoever attempted to respond for not having a clue what I was talking about and not being the right person I was hoping to find. I was looking for people, indie filmmakers - either them or people who know them - who might be able to provide me feedback about the worth of there being a indie SPFX shop available to them. Is that a service indie filmmakers would have use for or do they already have tonnes of friends who could do it for them.

All I got was a link to a website that doesn't work. Not really the sort of research I'm interested in paying for. You found a website, hooray for you - you couldn't checked to see if it was even being updated or was currently working. Still I sort of appreciate the effort, it just was ultimately of no use.

I've posed this same question to a couple online forums in hopes of getting some feedback, positive or negative at this point I don't care. Just some response that has some thought behind it would be nice. Then again, this is the internet, perhaps I'm aiming too high.

I do have some information though, no specific market information. Like age range or anything like that, I guess I'll have to shift my thinking over to the more generic "Halloween Costume Market" and hope that information translates. This stuff sucks.

And in other news, I haven't been doing photo shoots or filming anything, mainly because of lack of funds and supplies. I've been doing what I can, sculpting some new pieces, designing some new stuff - that's pretty different in some way from what's out there on the market already. So that's some good news at least.

So things remain boring for now. Hopefully that will change in the next few months.

I feel like I've been ignoring this blog.

2011-04-17T23:52:00.000-03:00

I was waiting for Home Sweet Hell to be over and done with before I posted any photos. I posted a whole album on Facebook the other day.I have too many sites to manage now, there's the Facebook page, the actual website, the Demons website and this blog. Sure it might not seem like much but the content overlaps and I'm never sure what I should be posting where sometimes.

Some new prosthetic photos

2011-04-16T20:29:00.000-03:00

Aside from getting Home Sweet Hell done, I've been busy the last week trying to fill another wholesale order - it was shipped out just this Friday. Most shops like images of the pieces before and after they've been applied, usually I would just use photos from the photo shoots I've been doing, but not all pieces make it into a photo shoot. Here's a couple images of some pieces you might not have seen before.

These are a resculpt of a previous pair of ears I had made,

they'll be redone yet again to work out the kinks in the demoulding process.

A totally new pair of ears, they turned out pretty good.

I've used this nose in a movie before actually,

never had a really good product shot of it though.

And this is actually the first nose I ever made,

never used it before until now.

After this last order I've decided to restructure things a bit as far as my work flow goes and how things are done. If you've been reading this then I think I might've mention starting to use master moulds bascially they'll allow me to redo my moulds without resculpting the pieces. This is of course a bit of an undertaking and most all my pieces will slowly be redone from scratch over the next while, new pieces being added here and there.

I'm debating about doing a piece, using it in a photo shoot and then seeing how it's received by retailers before redoing it for a larger scale production. Or something like that. The master moulds will be expensive to make so I don't want to waste time making master moulds of pieces that no one wants - at least as far as larger pieces go, smaller ones are just good practice and sell easier anyway.

Home Sweet Hell all done.

2011-04-16T09:56:00.000-03:00

Home Sweet Hell is all done - sort of. The pilot three episodes are over anyway. I recently had a computer crash, which was a huge pain in the ass and as a result wasn't able to really think about checking the third episode for any glitches until Thursday. And of course there was one and since I was no longer running the same computer I lost my proper encoder settings, since then I've been trying to get Episode 3 rendered properly, still no luck but it's viewable at least for now.

And for anyone who missed all this or can't figure out where to go looking for them, here's all three together.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

It's been a long week

2011-04-14T12:40:00.000-03:00

I had a bit of an animation to do for someone as well as a pretty large wholesale order to fill - and then my computer crashed. Naturally that really effects my ability to do any animation, but also all my labels and invoices kinda need a computer to be printed off.

5 days of buggering about with the damned thing and it's back up and running. The problems were totally bizarre and made no sense - ultimately it boiled down to a single, stupid defective wireless network card. I can't even begin to explain how I discovered that.

So things are back up and running again and then my printer dies on me. I beat the crap out of it, it certainly won't ever work again now. And yes, I do feel better. Plus there were many other little annoying things cropping up along the way. Most of then are taken care of.

Here's the order I managed to barely fill before running out of foam. I think I have enough for one more, but I don't need to produce anything any time soon.

Maddy usually is underfoot when I'm working,

she was nice enough to sit for a moment

and not attack everything.

And of course, stay tuned for the last exciting episode of Home Sweet Hell tomorrow.

Home Sweet Hell. Episode 2

2011-04-08T07:46:00.002-03:00

Busy

2011-04-04T23:28:00.000-03:00

It's been a bit of a hectic week, but then again it always feels like it's been a bit of a hectic week.

Home Sweet Hell has gotten 173 hits as of today, not massive by internet standards, but not too shabby by mine - especially when you consider I don't go out of my way to advertise and it's all though friends of those who were in it. Episode 2 is all ready to go and should prove a little weirder and funnier.

I got myself another wholesale order, pretty decent sized one too. Manageable though, should have it ready to ship off by end of the week if all goes well.

Got a couple photo shoots done this week, one for the "Demons" book and two for the site, probably do two more for the site later this week and I'm prepping for the next photo shoot for the book as well, that'll hopefully be in about 2 weeks time.

Had to do up a couple DVDs for support material for the grant I submitted last month, apparently that HAVE to see a previous movie even if it in no way relates to the project the grant is for. Not a huge problem, at least they're entertaining movies.

I tried out my first Master Mould this weekend. Basically that means I'm making moulds of my moulds. So should anything happen to them, I can easily whip up another in a few hours instead of re-sculpting from scratch. The moulds themselves seem like they're good, won't know for sure until I run a batch of foam - if they work just as well as the originals then this saves me a bit of a headache down the road. Mind you, it won't be cheap and I'll need to reconsider my storage space since I'll be effectively doubling it with each new piece.

I got a very old movie project finally completed this week - no not Malice for anyone wondering - a completely non-Monkey Rodeo related project I did for a friend of mine, an animated childrens(-ish) movie that was about 5 years in the making. Nice to have that done finally.

And I've started work on a new latex mask, not a prosthetic but the pullover kind. I've been doing some research and found there's quite a few places that carry them and the quality looks pretty poor overall. Aside from some of the specialty shops that carry really high end ones, I reckon a lot of these are just churned out, mass produced ones. Pretty unfortunate to see, just means however there's room for me to get something out there, not in as high a quantity, but still something. It'll be awhile before I have the space to really begin mass production or even anything close to it.

Also, and lastly, I managed to make some mental headway on a future project. I've been debating exactly how it's going to work and a lot of things just weren't coming together as I would've liked. This past weekend though I had a bit of a breakthrough and I think I've got it fairly worked out. More details as things progress.

I think that's it.

Werewolves of PEI

2011-04-03T13:00:00.001-03:00

I ended up doing a somewhat last minute photo shoot last night (and another in the afternoon but it was quite so elaborate) to get some images of my werewolf prosthetic. What ended up coming out was a werewolf couple sitting at home watching movies - pretty unremarkable scenario overall, but with werewolves.

Leah Quimby and Wes Hamilton were my werewolves - and if you're wondering why they're not overly hairy for werewolves, then you know very little of the true origins of these creatures and luckily all will be explained in a new weekly-ish feature coming to the Monkey Rodeo website in the next few months.

But until then, here's some domesticated werewolf pictures.

A quick video soon to follow.

Home Sweet Hell, Episode 1

2011-04-01T18:17:00.000-03:00

I was in a hurry this morning to update the website and forgot to post this here.

Home Sweet Hell shoot finally done.

2011-03-13T12:26:00.001-03:00

Pictured (left to right) Julie Laforest as Doris, Dempsey Perry as Ricky

and Draper Bulger as Vernon.

After several long days of re-prepping this project (it was originally scheduled for September of last year) and a 15 hour production day, 10-11 hours of which were spent shooting the 3 episodes for the mini web series, Home Sweet Hell is finally onto post-production.

We had 15 pages to shoot in one day and I don't think it would've been entirely possible had I not chosen to shoot it very simply, with very few cuts aside from the ones absolutely necessary. And it was the first time we've successfully shot with live sound - I've tried it on previous occasions and either gave up or was just very unimpressed with the quality.

I've thanked them on Facebook, but I'm going to again, thanks to the actors, Draper, Julie and Dempsey, our guest stars, Tim Gormley, Tanya Nicolle MacCallum and Will Becket. Kim Johnston my Production Assistant and our impromptu sound guy (and Dempsey's father) Dave Perry. Great work guys.

And now for everyone else:
Kim Bradford for the hand stitched sampler logo - it seemed to impress a lot of folks.
Phil MacNevin - the sound gear worked great.
Patrick Poirier - we have to move those chairs back today, thanks again.
Jason Rogerson (Moses Media) - kinda need a boom pole when you're using a boom mic, thanks.
Sharon (If don't know your last name and Kim's boss) - the chairs looked great in the set.

I think that's it, I feel like I'm forgetting someone. Anyway, thanks again. It was an incredibly long day and I was sore and tired as hell when it was all over, but I think it was well worth it.

One more thing, the first episode of Home Sweet Hell with be online for April 1st, the other two following the next 2 weeks.

Balam the Witch Doctor and Biff the Zombie

2011-03-09T12:15:00.000-04:00

Finally got this photo shoot done and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, wasn't sure how great it was going to turn out while I was doing it, but as soon as I saw a couple of the pictures I figured it had worked.

I had Kim Bradford as Balam the Witch Doctor and Draper Bulger as Biff the Zombie. We shot at a local doctor's office - who very awesomely let us use his examination room for this shoot.

And now for some pictures.

Slightly Busy Again

2011-03-09T06:42:00.000-04:00

In the midst of a rather annoying pile of financial irritation (I'm putting this mildly) I've become rather busy with "work". That's the not making any money kind of work unfortunately, but more the keeping me busy kind. Which is good enough for now.

Managed to get a last minute photo shoot I've been wanting to do for some time finally on the go for this morning - which is awesome, it's been ready to go for a little while now.

And if everything stays it's course, we will be shooting Home Sweet Hell this weekend. FINALLY.

As well, we're shooting a sort of surprise video, not something scheduled and not a short movie of any sort, or web series or anything like that. Just a weird little video we're doing for fun and that should make it's way to the internet by next weekend I think.

And who knows what else will pop up. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

New website for Demons project

2011-03-07T13:25:00.002-04:00

Not much explanation needed. I made a website for the Demons project.

http://www.themonkeyrodeo.com/Karl/

Karl Wenham

2011-03-06T14:23:00.001-04:00

The first official picture of Karl Wenham, the creator the photo book, Demons. For those who don't know who he is, Karl was created for the movie Malice. He was a demonic antiquities dealer. Once I started the whole Money Rodeo Project and was thinking of ideas for the various movie projects, I decided I really wanted to use Karl again - since I played that character and it was pretty easy. I don't much care to be on screen anymore, too much hassle when there's also makeup involved, the ideas for the projects involving Karl were easy enough though.

Here's the first image of Karl from a very unplanned photo shoot I did myself when I was bored the other night.

The makeup itself isn't exclusively my design. Originally the piece used in Malice was done by The Scream Team, I based my choice on the makeup off a single image taken from the front - upon seeing it in full I realized it wasn't quite what I expected, the nose was a little more piggish then I would've liked. Since then they have redesigned it further, totally (in my opinion) ruining what was cool about it.

I based my design off that one image, fixing the issues with the nose to resemble more what I liked about that original image. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. This piece won't be made for sale, it was done off a mould of my own face and fit me and probably not too many others.

In other news, I've finally managed to get my apartment arranged to work a little better. I still need to work on getting my work room a little more tidy and efficient, right now it's a mess.

And a mould I was working on for someone turned out like crap. Turns out the model whose face was moulded has a little more curve to her face then usual - it's sloped very slightly inwards from the cheeks back towards the ears. At first I didn't think much of it, I thought maybe it was just an illusion created by the clay on the mould. Turns out I was right, the thing is locked shut now and the only way to free it is to destroy the negative mould somehow - not that it matter since the positive is unusable anyway. First time it's ever happened. Ah well, not the end of the world, but a bit of a disappointment since it looked really good.

It was only an old age piece, which I don't care to do because it's pretty boring - but this did look decent. Anyway, I decided there's no point in going back to it, just as easy for the person who wanted it to get a real old person then it is for me to start over again.

And, in very hopeful new, we've got Home Sweet Hell lined up to shoot next weekend. We'll see how that goes.

A Very Long Week

2011-03-01T15:43:00.000-04:00

It's been not only an very long week, but a hellishly busy week.

For starters, I got my first wholesale order, not a huge one - but at this point I'm not being particularly pick about that sort of thing. Not like I'd turn someone down because the didn't order enough, that'd be kinda stupid.

I also spent the week getting all the last minute paperwork together for a huge grant proposal for a project I'm planning on shooting summer of 2012 - planning on it if I get the grant, there's just no way I could make this movie without money and considering how many I've done with very little budget for any of them, you know this is massive.

To give you an idea, I'll actually be shooting with my first miniature set ever. This one scene would combine computer animated character (there'll be very little otherwise in the movie), green screen, miniatures, false background and actual sets. It's going to be awesome.

And I've decided to adjust my workspace a little bit. Currently this stuff is taking over my whole apartment and it's not that big in the first place. So after some serious apartment tetris (if you've ever moved crap around a crowded apartment, you know what I'm getting at) I have a whole room just for the prosthetic and prop work. Not a single bit of it will be lingering about in other areas. That will be awesome.

Now I'm waiting on potentially another wholesale order, not sure when that'll be coming along but I was assured it'd be soon.

Seven new prosthetics online!

2011-02-20T20:06:00.002-04:00

Finally got some new pieces made and online, there should have been 2 more but there were problems and they didn't turn out so great. Ah well. The horns were tricky, I'm trying out a new mould, so far they're working, but not all the time - we'll see how it works out in the long run if it's worth it or not.

In any case, here's the new pieces.

Melicor Demon
$50.00 CAD
More Info

Witch Doctor
$50.00 CAD
More Info

Werewolf
$30.00 CAD
More Info

Child of Minos
$40.00 CAD
More Info

Elf Ears
$20.00 CAD
More Info

Medium Horns

$20.00 CAD
More Info

Small Horns
$10.00 CAD
More Info

Trying to get myself organized

2011-02-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

I spent the last 2 months doing anything and now I've got too much I'm trying to do all at once. Typical.

I'm in the midst of trying to sort out some details on applying for a grant, a huge grant that will allow me to do a feature film of The Brotherhood, which might have a tentative title "The Well of Demons". I don't know, just playing around with some ideas, "The Brotherhood" feels a little limp as far as titles go. I might post a poll somewhere to see what title sounds best.

Hoping to get this all wrapped up as soon as possible so I can focus on some other things.

As far as actual work goes, I've been sculpting some new pieces. Should have about 8 new items, prosthetics, online next week. A few new full face/partial face pieces, a couple new sets of ears and a few varieties of horns.

Also hoping to get some photo shoots lined up soon, so if there's anyone local interested in getting all demoned up, let me know. You can find out a submission form here.

Teeth

2011-01-31T22:53:00.000-04:00

So I think I'm finally at the tail end of a nearly 2 month long creative block/slump - whatever you want to call it. It hasn't been especially fun when you consider how much I intended to get done. Can't say what's broken it, maybe finally getting some new supplies in, I don't really know. Then again, I haven't exactly done anything yet that makes me perfectly sure it's over - the next week or so will tell.

So today I tried out making fake teeth, sort of. I got as far as getting the mould made as you can see by the upside down picture below - not perfect, but it's a pretty quick process if I really feel like doing it again. Plus it takes very little material to do this.

I'm hoping to get back to make a few new pieces and doing the photo shoots again soon as well. And if all goes according to plan this week, you might see some new stuff - a video or two by the weekend. Hard to say, just taking things as they come and making it up as I go along for the moment.

And if you read the post from earlier today I'm seeing if I can put together another feature movie, this one will be pretty epic if I can get it organized - and get the grants I'm applying for. That's pretty much the lynch pin, no grant - no movie.

Other then that, not much else to go on about. Got a near final edit of Grayson & Gortch, that's nice to be so close to wrapping that up. I've got another order of makeup supplies on the way and if that works out I might be trying to reorganize Home Sweet Hell pretty soon as well.

I plan on doing a bit of an update to the website depending on certain things happening this week. I've got several other projects I need to start revisiting in order to get them ready for shooting this summer, a couple of grants to apply for and probably whole pile of other things I've forgotten about.

I guess we'll see how it all goes.

The Brotherhood - Looking for Cast and Crew

2011-01-31T10:34:00.005-04:00

Looking for cast and crew for an upcoming feature tentatively called "The Brotherhood", a fantasy/adventure movie. It's a cross between "Fellowship of the Ring" and "HellBoy 2". On the epic scale of "Fellowship" with a design style similar to "HellBoy 2". No script yet, so I can't go into more details on that.

I am in the middle of writing up a grant proposal for the Canada Council of the Arts in order to fund this project. If I get it, pre-production will start this summer with shooting to commence spring/summer of 2012.

Right now I'm looking for people who are interested in helping out in any capacity. I have letters of interest that I'll get everyone to sign, and a resume as well. Download Letter of Interest doc. Arrangements can be made to pick up the letter and resume, you just have to print it out, signed and let me know it's ready. The deadline for the proposal is March 1st, so I want to make sure I have everything by mid-February.

Also, this is not full time work, so don't shy away thinking you're making a huge commitment. Right now there's no commitment to anything. I'm looking for a show of local support in the project to add to the grant application, I'm hoping it'll increase the chances of it actually happening. If I get the grant, we'll worry about the details then.

Actors

Since there no finished script, I'm not officially casting right now, but getting a list of those interested would help of course. Below is a quick outline of the various potential parts.

Human of all shapes and sizes, most of this could simply be extras.
Pale Elves - thin, pale-ish types, blonde hair and blue eyes would be awesome, but that can be remedied if need be.
Dark Elves - almost the opposite of the Pale Elves, while still thin, they're darker complected, dark hair and eyes and eventually not look like anything resembling elves.
Dwarfs - Stocky type folks, through the magic of makeup, forced perspective and green screen you will be about 3 and half feet tall.
Various demons - for the most part this is way up in the air, hard to tell what sort will be right for what, so if you want to be onscreen and would rather not be recognizable, this would be for you.

Costumes

Anyone into costume design and creation. This will range from simple costumes, to mass producing more elaborate costumes all the way to creating armour for a small army of demons. I want costumes to reflect the various races in the movie, humans, various demons, dwarfs and two tribes of elves. Material would range from simple fabrics, to leather to working with fiberglass to create lightweight armour. This is obviously part of pre-production and production.

I'm looking for 4 people to work on this, some will work designing specific costumes for specific characters, others will be needed to create general/stock costumes. There are 3 open spots for this department.

Makeup

While I'll be overseeing most of this, I will need help running foam, and mostly makeup application. There will me a huge amount of makeup needed for a large cast for several scenes. Makeup ranges from various demons, elves and dwarfs and includes small prosthetics appliances, full head pieces, gelatin ears and noses, fake teeth, wigs and beards. I'll be doing most of the pre-production work, however I will need assistance when production time comes around.

I'll be overseeing this department and all spots are filled as of now.

Props

Without a script it's hard to determine exactly what props will be needed, however there are a large amount of weapons to be created. Some weapons will be purchased, some need to be designed. I'm hoping to find a blacksmith or even some similar craftsman to assist with this.

Some props will be created, moulded and mass produced, some might have to be purchased. I'd like to have a few people taking care of casting moulds and tracking down and organizing props and weapons

I'll be overseeing this department as well to some degree, one thing I am looking for specifically is someone with some blacksmithing skills and of course a place to do it. I am tracking someone down, but they might not be available, if you know someone, please try to get them in touch with me or whatever works.

Set Design/Construction

The only major set I have plans for right now is a tavern interior. Without a script it'll be hard to figure out what sets need to be built. They'll need to be done as cheap and as quickly as possible. And I'll also need storage space big enough to build the tavern set in. If you have a warehouse or large, dry barn, please get in touch with me if you're willing to rent it out for a summer.

I have a few names I'm hoping to nab for this department, otherwise I have 4 spots open if you're interested and have some experience, let me know.

Various production workers

I'm looking for any behind the camera type help, organizing, camera people, assistants, lighting, visual effects, special effects, location scouting, extras, animal wranglers (specifically horses for the moment).

There are 5 spots open for crew, this will involve more of a commitment then the other jobs since depending on the job you'll be needed every day of shooting and some before and maybe even after.

There will be more as the project progresses. So if you have any interest, please contact me at foxhenderson@themonkeyrodeo.com, or even through Facebook, and we'll go from there. Should you know someone who might be interested, please direct them towards this. Download Letter of Interest doc

I'm planning on making this the biggest project I've ever done and there's no way I can do it without a lot of help. Keep in mind this request is not for volunteers, should I get the grant everyone involved will be paid for this project, don't expect to get rich though we're working with a limited budget.

Officially starting "Demons" by Karl Wenham...after all this time.

2011-01-11T17:10:00.000-04:00

Seems like a few projects have been hold or delayed or canceled although this past year. Demons hadn't officially started yet, even though I've been doing a few shoots, mainly I need some images to sell my prosthetics online so the shoots sort of had more to do with that - in any case, the hold up was a grant which I finally got word on today so as of today I am officially starting "Demons" by Karl Wenham.

A little anti-climactic since it sort of seems like I've been doing it for months now. All technicalities and whatnot. With the money I'll be able to start cranking out prosthetics a lot more frequently, I've got a few new ones in mind but haven't been able to do anything because of lack of funds.

There's already one shoot lined up for sometime within the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to finally getting some major progress made on this.

As well, and this is rather huge, I'll finally be doing the actual Karl Wenham makeup for myself and doing a quick video/shoot with Karl - so expect to see a video or something withing the next few months.

In other projects, Grayson & Gortch is coming along really well. Just 2 scenes left to edit and do post on and then I'll be starting in on the relooping - could only be a matter of another couple months for this as well.

And, if all goes well we'll finally make a start on Home Sweet Hell after all this time too.

If this is your first time reading this and you're local to PEI, I'm looking for models for the Demons project.

Nothing interesting

2011-01-08T18:36:00.000-04:00

The title pretty much sums it all up. It has been an incredibly dead, unmotivated couple weeks. All this waiting around to see if I got a grant so I can move ahead with the "Demons" project has become tiresome as well. Waiting around for that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't piled on top of waiting around for word back from a couple companies that are supposed interested in carrying my stuff - interested, but not in a hurry obviously. The whole thing is a load of balls really.

However, I did find some ambition today to work on Grayson & Gortch a bit more. I've got half on one scene left to edit, the big final showdown scene. And after that, about 50 or more FX shots, most of which are contained within 3 scenes - so I'm getting closer to have a final edit so I can start in on relooping all the dialog. That'll be awesome fun. Which reminds me, I really need to wrap my head around Cronus again sometime soon.

That's really all that's been happening, just waiting around to see if I'm going to be poor a little while longer. We'll have to see how next week pans out, it'll either be an awesome week and you'll start seeing a whole lot more going on here or it'll turn even quieter then before.

So until there, here's a random cat video - that's really not so random, it's my cat.

"Demons" by Karl Wenham IndieGoGo Funding Campaign

2010-12-23T17:30:00.002-04:00

This was actually posted awhile ago, but I was going to update it and saw I'd posted nothing else since, so I'm just adding to it here instead. Not really too much more info on it, I posted some of the photos and videos for now, I'm hoping to do a lot more to get some interest in it.

$2000 is a pretty high goal, I just thought I'd set it as that, I'm willing to take any small amount really. And if you can't afford to make a donation, then you can easily help out by reposting the link everywhere you can think of.

Mada the Vampire and other stuff

2010-12-22T21:11:00.000-04:00

A short video, shot by Kim Johnston, of the last photo shoot I did with Julia Laforest as Mada the Vampire.

Finally got around to putting this online, even though it was edited about a week or more ago. Anyway, things have been slightly busy, fairly annoying and some other stuff I can't really remember at the moment.

The editing on Grayson & Gortch is coming along well. Just one scene left, half a scene really. So far it's pushing 20 minutes and this last scene is probably the longest of the movie, so it should be a decent length. It'll definitely not be a boring movie, even if it doesn't make total scene because it's moving so fast.

Still waiting to hear about the grant I applied for for the "Demons" by Karl Wenham project - that's been a bit of a source of annoyance.I'd love to rant about it, but I'm too annoyed by how long it's taking to bother. Regardless of the outcome whenever I do finally hear about the grant, I'm going to start up a campaign on IndieGoGo and see if something comes of that. Should have that up and running in a few days if not sooner.

Otherwise not much going on. I've got no supplied so I haven't been working on anything aside from one new prosthetic. It's looking pretty funky though. Can't wait to be able to make the mould and do a shoot with it, should be cool.

And that's it, probably won't be posting anything until the photo shoot next week.

Grayson & Gortch Trailer now online.

2010-12-13T18:51:00.000-04:00

Came out not too bad, although my announcer voice kinda sucked today and since I was in a hurry to just get it done I just decided to put up with it.

Too much to do and not enough time (or money mostly).

2010-12-13T11:21:00.000-04:00

Things tend to bottleneck rather often on me. And that always seems to coincide most proportionally to how poor I am. In any case, I have a whole pile of projects I'm trying (or wanting) to work on, but I'm unable due to lack of funds - kind of annoying.

Right now I'm trying to get the trailer to Grayson & Gortch done, almost done - it's been taking forever as it turned out to be a pretty tricky trailer to edit. I think I finally got it all working, if all goes well I could be online within the day.

Otherwise I'm just trying to get things organized with the online shop. I've got a couple props I'd love to put online for sale, but because I currently can't mass produce them for various reasons, or ship them because of lack of proper packaging, I have to just leave it for the moment.

I've got a short video from the Vampire photo shoot I've been wanting to get to, but due to other projects (not mine but I did make a small amount of money off them) that popped up. I'm hoping once the Grayson & Gortch trailer is taken care of I can get to that.

As well I'm trying to get a new script written, it's almost 2 weeks past my self imposed due date. I'm trying to track down a location for another photo shoot and that's been just dead in the water for some time now.

I need to make some progress with Social Lives of the Undead soon too.

There's 2, perhaps 3, web series type projects I have in developement. One is ready to go just waiting on suppliers. One is just a thought in my head that will take very little work to get off the ground. And the 3rd is the one I want to do the most of all, but I've got a tonne of work ahead of me before I can attempt that.

Also, I've been trying to find a local UltraCal 30 supplier - I'm hoping that's done today. I guess we'll see.

And I've been patiently waiting to hear about a grant I applied for that might actually solve about 80% of all these problems. As well as making a 2nd attempt at a program that will allow me to get the business up and running more smoothly.

I think that's it.

Vampire photo shoot

2010-12-05T20:09:00.002-04:00

I did a photo shoot with Julie Laforest today, done up as a vampire at a local lounge, 42nd Street, and while I'm pretty happy with most of the images I don't think my head was quite into it today because when I look the pictures I can't help think I could've done so much more with that location and whatnot. Then again, things were very limited because of the lighting up there. I brought in some lighting, but it wasn't entirely enough - as a result, keeping things in focus was a little tricky and some of the pictures weren't as sharp as I'd hoped. Ah well, they still look good, just means I should really look at investing in some good lenses.

I think the makeup turned out great, the fangs, as cheap as they were looked great and even the fake blood I made up for Julie to actually drink - yes, this was totally drinkable and pretty damned realistic looking blood. Overall I'm pretty happy with the images and as usual Julie was willing to put up with the makeup and did a great job.

And if you're interested, here's the prosthetic for sale.

Vampire Forehead

(TypeA)

$20.00 CAD

More Info

Editing Grayson & Gortch

2010-12-04T09:28:00.000-04:00

I'm finally getting around to editing this thing. So far here's how it's looking:

8 1/2 scenes out of 12 are edited

Current running time is 13 minutes - approximately 5-7 minutes of unedited scenes

60 FX shots (not too bad, most are muzzle flashes and bullet hits)

I've got everything organized, all the FX shots listed out and now it's just a matter of time. I've got a couple other projects taking up my time this weekend, so chances are I won't get much more done until Monday or Tuesday at this rate. I'm really hoping to get a chance to make a trailer for this thing really soon, just not sure where to even start at this point. I think I'll need some Lethal Weapon sounding music to start with and go from there.

Demon Ear Prosthetics - finally online.

2010-12-01T13:10:00.002-04:00

I finally got these bad boys (or girls, ears don't have a specific sex that I'm aware of) online. I thought I'd actually try to insert the stuff from the online shop into the blog and see what happens.

If it's not appearing properly, let me know. Otherwise, if you've got a hankering for some Demon Ear prosthetics, you know where to get some. There will definitely be more coming online in the next few months. You can never have enough demon ears.

Generic Demon Ears (Type A)

$20.00 CAD

More Info

Or you can go to the actual website to buy them - either way, you should buy them.

It's a wrap on Grayson & Gortch - finally.

2010-11-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

Had our last day of shooting finally on Grayson & Gortch, it's been a long time trying to get through this one project (while many others were postponed, delayed or outright cancelled) but it's finally all shot. And even if something is missing, I don't care, I'll find a way to make it work.

It's about half edited already, so I'll be attempting to make some sense of it all this week and hopefully cut a trailer pretty soon as well. I've got a couple other projects in the works, hopefully things will smooth out over the winter and things will get back on track for the few project in the works for next summer.

So, until whenever there's more news, here's some pictures from the last day.

Another instance of seeing a still of someone falling that at the time I had no idea their feet had left the ground quite so dramatically.

Next on the list are at least 2 photo shoots and the mini web series Home Sweet Hell.

Club 13 - Behind the scenes video

2010-11-25T23:57:00.000-04:00

This was shot by Kim Johnston as I did the makeup and photo shoot. I'm planning on doing this for as many of the photo shoots as possible, might not always be - but here's hoping.

Also, I added a page to the website with this on it and a few of the images - this will hopefully be a regular edition. http://www.themonkeyrodeo.com/demons/club13.html

Silas Wynne's Club 13

2010-11-25T12:13:00.003-04:00

I did another photo shoot last night, this time rather then featuring one prosthetic, I did 3, two of which I had never used until now and one of which were the ear pieces I'd made recently. I've been holding off on making more because I wasn't sure how well they'd work out and I have to say I'm really impressed with the result, easily just as good as any professionally made prosthetic ears I've ever purchased.

So very soon I'll be putting these new pieces online - although I forgot to get photos of the raw, unpainted ears - I'll have to do that soon as well.

Anyway, here's some pictures, the initial idea was a sort of 70s lounge lizard kind of thing, I ended up calling it Club 13. The groovy dude in the middle of the picture below is a fellow Karl knew back in the early 70s called Silas Wynne (Draper Bulger), a Thuul Demon who own a place by the name of Club 13 - which was also the hottest place back in the day for demons to go out and enjoy themselves. With him are two two infamous Kane sisters (Heather Panton and Aleshia Farrell), not much was really known about them, other then they had supposedly had affairs with several important human political figures and as a result had amassed a small fortune through blackmail. Awesome stuff.

Overall it was a pretty easy shoot, the makeup took next to no time despite doing 3 people at once - but that's because the girls just had the ears and forehead pieces. During the shoot, Kim Johnston took some video footage, I'll be throwing it all together into a short video to be posted late today hopefully.

Here's the prosthetics used in this shoot:

Thuul Demon

$50.00 CAD
More Info

G'Lorn Demon Forehead

$20.00 CAD

More Info

Generic Demon Ears (Type A)

$20.00 CAD
More Info

More Grayson & Gortch goodness

2010-11-22T19:26:00.000-04:00

Another scene shot. I think we attempted this one several times already and I'm kinda glad we held off for whatever reason. It's a sort of important scene, since a lot of the plot is really dished out at this point. We shot at a local restaurant/club - not sure how you qualify it - that was closed for the day, so we had to whole place to ourselves.

One more scene after this, not sure when that's going to happen, but it's nice to be finally getting close to the end. Anyway, here's some pictures:

You can see here the makeshift green screen used to hopefully create a hole through Graham, no idea if it'll work since I don't believe I got background images of what's behind him. Ah well, we'll see.

2 more scenes left on Grayson & Gortch

2010-11-16T08:33:00.000-04:00

It's taken a while to get this movie shot, as a result we've got some pretty awesome hair continuity issues. Ah well, could be worse I guess.

We just finished another scene on Sunday, sort of the 2nd part of another scene we shot a couple weeks ago. Turned out great, one of the few occasions when I'm editing I'm not realizing I missed a shot. The editing even went really smoothly, I even finally got to work out Thark and Thork's teleporting effect - pretty simple for the most part, nothing too flashy.

And a huge thanks to Kim Bradford for helping me get this location, I went through a lot of other ideas and had nothing but headaches, this worked perfectly.

We got another shoot lined up for this coming Monday, it's the last major scene in the movie and then the very last one still isn't even written yet. This last scene has gone through a lot of changes and issues with locations, so as a result it's kinda hard to nail down - we're kinda stuck into some very specific elements though, which is making it easier, just trying to settle on a decent location now.

Until then, here's some pictures to make you happy:

And now for a couple stills from the actual scene.

And that's it for now.

Begging for zombie money

2010-11-08T11:58:00.001-04:00

A few months ago, a friend of mine pointed out a cool website called Kickstarter - which is for small indie folks (filmmakers, songwriters, whatever) to help raise money for their projects. I thought it was a great idea - until I realized it was US only at this point in time. Kinda sucks and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it has more to do with the methods of money transferring they're using then their own personal policies. Too bad anyway.

Just recently I found a very similar site called IndieGoGo, the name's a little goofy, but who the hell cares, it's like Kickstarter but it works for everyone, not just the US.

So, I decided to start pre-production on "Social Live of the Undead: A Tragic Zombie Love Story" and see if I can get some folks interested. So, follow the link and if you like what see, give me a dollar. If you really like what you see, go crazy and pawn your children off to help fund the project.

Phineas Zane

2010-11-07T08:52:00.001-04:00

More outtake photos to be possibly added to the book project "Demons by Karl Wenham". This is Phineas Zane, a once great pulp horror novelist from the 1950s.

You can buy this prosthetic here:

Dust Troll

$50.00 CAD
More Info

If you live on PEI, or plan on being are for an extended stay at some point, and you're interested in being part of this project - or just want to know more about it - visit The Monkey Rodeo website.

A quick-ish rant

2010-10-29T19:11:00.000-03:00

I've gotten a fair amount of emails since I've started up the business, which of course is awesome. However, there's a general trend I'm not particularly fond of. So, at the risk of offending people, here's a quick FAQ, followed by a rant.

Hey, I saw your stuff - online, newspaper article, whatever - it's really cool. Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Uh...It's nice you like it, that's great really...but did you want something?

Can I watch?

Pardon me? Watch what?

I want to see EVERYTHING! I want to know EVERYTHING you know! I want to see the whole process of how you make this stuff!

Calm down there, Captain. Again, I do sincerely appreciate the interest, but I don't run a peep show and if I did, you can sure as hell bet that it'd be more then 25 cents a gawk.

You should be nicer to your customers!

Perhaps you don't understand something - a customer buys something, so far you're just the equivilant of a guy standing in line at Burger King screaming about wanting to see the deep fat fryer who doesn't even want to buy fries.

I want to buy something then.

Awesome, please do.

Do you do custom work?

All depends on what you want and the time line and how much money you're willing the spend.

I want a - insert something I would never make.

That's not really something I do.

Can you have it done in 23 minutes and can you do it for free?

Did something horrible happen to your skull as a child and it developed into something much worse as an adult?

I don't understand anything about what you do, so I've no clue how to ask you about anything or what it might cost.

Okay, that's a serious question. It's a lot of information to absorb and there's a lot of variables, so many that I've posted an FAQ on my website answering hopefully a lot of these type of questions. I'm going to keep updating as I'm fully aware that there's more questions that I'm not even thinking of.

WARNING, for those sensitive to negative sounding words, you may want to look away now.

Seriously though, as far as those questions are concerned, I'm amused at the ratio of random "wow your stuff is awesome" emails vs the number of "I want to buy something" emails. I get that people think it's kinda cool, that's freaking awesome that they do - but I'm trying to run a business, not an free information booth.

As I have stated several times before. I do appreciate the interest and the compliments, I take none of it for granted and it really is nice to hear. It's what comes after that irks me.

I don't give tours. I run this business from my home. I am a private person and don't care to have people lingering about in my home watching me do something that quite honestly is about as exciting as watching the invisible man do nothing.

I totally understand that some folks do find it interesting and wonder how's it done, it's simple: I make a mould of a generic face, I sculpt something on it, I make another mould of that. I clean the mould and the sculpt is destroyed. I make foam latex and fill in the mould, the two halves are put together the foam fills the negative space and it's baked. Out comes a prosthetic. There, now you know.

I'm not interested teaching you how it's done - that'd be stupid of me.

I'm not interested in doing a presentation/talk/lecture/demo for you, or your friends, or your work, or your school. In short, you or other people no matter where you are. I'm not a public speaker, I don't particularly enjoy it. I enjoy my work and the privacy in which I'm able to do it. I would hope that the average person would be able to respect that and not immediately assume that I've all the time in the world to meet their every little curious whim while going out of my way and ignoring my only source of income.

If you have a genuine question, I'm more then willing to answer or help you out as best I can. But have a point, these random compliments feel like you're fishing for something. A simple, "Hey, saw your stuff, looks pretty cool" is great. I don't want to discourage people or insult them for just giving me a compliment, but when the compliment feels like there's a hook attached, it's slightly rude and awkward.

Don't inundate me with question after question all in one email, it's overwhelming and just comes off feeling desperate, like your emails are rationed or something. Calm down, we'll get to all your questions eventually. Is this how you have a conversation? "Hi, how are you? What's going on? Where were you last Tuesday? Do you like dinosaurs? Have you ever worn a hat? What do you think of the colour mauve? Is that even a colour?" Take some time, a deep breath and it'll all work out folks.

Again, I really don't want to discourage folks from emailing me about what I'm doing. I don't mind answering any minor questions, I understand the curiosity. Just take a moment to realize that I'm trying to run a business, I'm trying to scrape out a living somehow off this - if you're not part of, and have no intention on being part of, the business+customer=$$$ equation, I've no incentive to really go overboard to do something for you.

Hope not too many folks were offended reading this and if you were, chances are I was directly referring to you. You should try to fix that.

The Legend of Goblin Hollow

2010-10-29T17:50:00.000-03:00

Anyone on PEI has probably heard of the Legend of Goblin Hollow, or more commonly just The Annie Beaton Story. I won't go into too much detail, there are better sources for the story if you just Google it yourself. The basics of it are: a woman, Annie Beaton was brutally raped and murdered in the community of Orwell in the 1800s (I think) and the murder was never solved. There's way more to it then that, but I did qualify it as "the basics".

So the point of all that is that I was more or less hired to do a little bit of makeup by the Historic Village of Orwell, I'm not sure what else to call it, I assume that's technically who did the hiring besides the guy in charged. They do a walking tour/retelling of the Annie Beaton story at a Halloween, this was their 2nd year. The feedback from the first year was that it wasn't scary enough, there was some debate between the guy in charge, Tom, and the historian, Boyd about how the "scary" should be done.

Boyd was of the mind that it would be a little disrespectful to just do a bunch of spookhouse stuff while telling the story - I agree with him. But Tom wanted to do a little more - so that's where the makeup came in. It wasn't much, pretty subtle overall. I can't say I'm wholly thrilled with what I did, it's alright for sure, but I kinda wished I'd gone a little more overboard.

Anyway, here's some pictures:

Another scene for Grayson & Gortch done. 3 left.

2010-10-22T09:47:00.000-03:00

Got another scene done. Should've had only 3 scenes left, but I had to chop up the last scene in order to make it work, so there's still 3 scenes left. Had a god shoot though, despite getting off to a late start. But everyone knew their lines so that made things happen pretty fast. Thanks to everyone involved. Draper Bulger, Derek Martin, Tim Gormley, Corin McFadden, John MacDonald and Patrick Poirier. And now for some pictures.

Tim, Draper and John

Draper and John

John, Tim and Draper

John

Patrick and John

John and Patrick

Tim and Draper

Patrick

John

Corin, Me, Tim and Derek

Tim and Derek

Corin, Tim and Derek

I normally plan things out pretty well, but I decided to just make it up as we went last night. Turned out well enough, although I haven't edited the footage yet - but I got more then enough so I reckon it'll be good.
And now some stills - these haven't been processed yet, they're straight from the camera, it'll look much different in the movie.

I added this picture because it wasn't until I was going over the footage last night I noticed who was sitting on the right side of the shot. Luckily I can easily remove him.

And that's all for now. I'm thinking about making a huge change to one scene, had some issues with our location so I'm debating about rethinking it. Specifically the Vampire Raid Scene, the location is under renovations so unless I can find something else I think I'll try a different idea - no clue what that idea is yet though.

Updating the website again

2010-10-16T20:15:00.000-03:00

Like most things you create on your own, after a fashion you start to want to change it. I'm redesigning the website again, only the 2nd time really though. There's going to be way more on there in the future and I realized it needs to be streamlined even more so I don't have dozens of pages to update when I make even the smallest changes.

I think that'll be happening this week if I can come up with something. Won't be too different, just quicker to navigate I think.

Not much else new to report other then a newspaper article. It's a decent write up, the online version isn't half as impressive as the one in the actual paper though. I hadn't seen it until after I ran into a couple folks who had and they made it seem like it was rather a big deal - I didn't expect much, but when I finally saw it, it was a whole damned page with about 5 or 6 pictures. Not too bad.

That's it for now, hopefully you'll see some changes to the site soon.

New Prosthetics Online!

2010-10-15T18:42:00.001-03:00

Four new pieces online this week finally.

The Dust Troll

Vampire Forehead - Large

Vampire Forehead - Small

Vampire Nose

Figured I could use a weird looking nose prosthetic.

That's all for now, waiting on more supplies before I can do any more. Got about 5 or so new designs to work on over the month of November. And I hope to get a photo shoot or two done with some of these ones.

You can see them in the shop here:

Zombie Photo Shoot

2010-10-10T14:21:00.004-03:00

Got another photo shoot done today. It was a pretty good day to sneak off to a cemetery for a zombie picnic, I was a little worried we might cause some problems should we use a very public graveyard and have some visitors stumble upon us, so we use a really old one, or at least we stuck to the older section of it. It's a pretty secluded place, so no worries at all.

The makeup turned out really good, never did a zombie makeup before and I was pretty impressed myself how it turned out. The model is Julie Laforest, and here's some pictures:

Zombie Mughshot

Here's the prosthetic used in the shoot:

Zombie Mouth

$25.00 CAD
More Info

The Last Severed Finger Post.

2010-09-29T18:59:00.002-03:00

The Severed Fingers are online for sale now. I've got about 28 or so in stock, as well as a couple rejects. They're a pretty simple prop, I'm using them in a couple upcoming projects and figure it I might as well fix them up form my original attempt and make them a little more sellable. They turned out pretty damned well.

They're made of silicone, so they're pretty tough and durable, soft and stretchy. Just what you need in a severed finger. Right now they're selling for $12.95 CAD, you can pick what one you want: male finger or thumb, or female finger or thumb. Or all 4, for $39.95 CAD.

You can buy these bad boys here:

Severed Fingers

Set of all 4 Severed Fingers,
$40.00

More Info

The Severed Finger Assembly Line

2010-09-28T11:30:00.000-03:00

The title pretty much says it all.

This is the 2nd stage in creating them, next is the final paint job and they'll be ready to go into the online shop. If you're interested, they're $12 each. There's 4 different versions, two fingers (male and female) and two thumbs (male and female), you can pick what one you want, or all 4 for $40. Severed toes possible coming soon.

Visit the website soon to buy them.

Grayon & Gortch Movie Poster Goodness

2010-09-27T18:10:00.000-03:00

Finally got Derek and Graham together at the same time to get this done. Obviously done to resemble the Lethal Weapon poster, since the whole movie is meant to do that as well.

Got another couple small scenes done today, took a little longer then planned but it was kinda fun since there was no script, no lines or anything, just Graham and a very small Boler Trailer thanks to Gary McGregor.

I'm hoping to get to go over the footage and the photos later tonight, maybe tomorrow morning and post some more stuff.

The Monkey Rodeo Shop

2010-09-26T15:47:00.000-03:00

The Shop is up and running now, as good as it's going to get for the moment - not that it means it's a crappy piece of ineffectual online retail garbage, just that it's rather limited for the moment. Right now there's just a few foam latex prosthetic makeup appliances for sale, more coming soon enough.

I'm hoping soon to get some foam weapons online, a fake foam axe, fake foam sledgehammer and a fake foam vampire stake (which isn't working out so well at the moment). Otherwise I've been busy getting these badyboys ready. Severed Fingers! They're made from a soft flexible silicone. There'll be a male finger and thumb and a female finger and thumb - debating about making severed toes as well.

They'll go for $12 each, or a batch of all 4 different digits for $40 and if I can get the PayPal to properly work it, I'll allow for a mixed batch of 4 digits at the same price.

Here's the first batch in their raw, just pulled from the mould state - there will be more work done on them to finish them up for sale. Hoping to get them online this week if I can.

Until then, if you haven't seen the website, feel free to pay a visit.

Vampires and Hostages

2010-09-15T13:25:00.000-03:00

This is directed to folks on Prince Edward Island, unless you plan on being here in about 3 weeks time, this might not be all that interesting.

For the movie "Grayson & Gortch" we're doing a scene that's basically a raid on a junkie vampire den. Our two main characters meet for the first time and have a brief chat while they slaughter a house full of crazed vampires. The scene also involves some hostages being held by the vampires.

VAMPIRES:
So what I'm looking for are about 12 vampires. I've got a few right now, I think 3 or 4. I need fairly agile people, since they will be running in short bursts - right before being killed. So there will also be some stuntwork involved as well, it won't be simple. So if you're not even vaguely athletic, this might not be for you.

There will be prosthetic makeup involved, just a vampire forehead. As well as false teeth, hopefully. These teeth are just cheap caps that we might have to fasten on with gum.

Dress like a homeless person, there will be blood as well, so nothing you don't mind getting stained.

I'm looking for mostly adults at this point. Although I don't mind if I end up with 1 or 2 younger vampires, just be aware it's slightly violent, there'll be some cursing and swearing and it could be bloody.

HOSTAGES
I might double up by taking some of my vampires and making them hostages as well, since we never see all of them ever together in a scene. I need about 4. So if you're coming out to be a vampire, dress normally, but again nothing you don't mind getting dirty, I may make you into a hostage first then into a vampire.

We will be shooting this late September/early October on a Sunday morning just outside of Charlottetown. I've no idea how long we'll be shooting. The scene is about 3-4 pages, so roughly 4 hours at least. Not everyone will be require to stay the entire shoot - but you're more then welcome to stick around if you want to watch.

If you haven't read this somewhere else or mentioned you wanted to be involved - this is volunteer work as well - you can email me at casting@themonkeyrodeo.com and let me know. I'll be in touch with everyone at least a week before the shoot.

Demon Boxing and Online Shopping Cart Nightmares

2010-09-09T11:21:00.000-03:00

We had another shoot last night, went great. It was fast, I made it more complicated then it needed to be, but it still worked. Missed one shot, or I guess I should say I didn't realize I needed to do another shot until I started thinking about it after we were done shooting. No worries though, I haven't edited yet so I don't know if it'll be a problem - and it's an easy shot to retake, 2 minutes and it could be done. We'll be shooting on location again, so I might go for it next time.

And in online shopping cart news, it's an absolute confusing nightmare. I tried PayPal - pain in the ass with no way to properly calculate shipping in Canada before the buyer pays. I thought I'd create a merchant account so I could process credit card orders myself - the company I contacted don't seem to really want me to. I tried using Wordpress, I saw a friend of mine using it and it was perfect - I can't figure it out for the life of me and it just made my entire site a mess. Could've been me though.

So now I'm trying something else. We'll see how this goes. Otherwise, here's some demons in a boxing club:

Gregorio Chavez, world famous Cuban actor.

2010-09-03T07:41:00.001-03:00

An important announcement from Gregorio Chavez, world famous Cuban actor.

An now some pictures of Gregorio Chavez, world famous Cuban actor.

You can buy the prosthetic used in the shoot here:

Narl Demon

$50.00 CAD
More Info

Online Shop Up and Running

2010-08-30T22:12:00.000-03:00

It's not a massive shop just yet, just a few items - I didn't want to miss out on Halloween. Right now I'm just using PayPal, I'm a little leery about it still. I guess we'll see how it works out while I'm getting something else set up that should work better.

So for now, it's just a few prosthetics, more will be added over the next month as well as some props which I'm working on right now. Should be awesome if it all goes well. It's slow going though, since I'm doing this all out of my own pocket, which is also the same pocket I'm paying rent and bills out of. It's a sad empty pocket these days. Let's hope things pan out and if it does, I'll actually have no one else to thank for the help but myself. And potentially all sorts of customers.

So if you're bored, or in desperate need to buy prosthetics, head on over to themonkeyrodeo.com and take a look around.

Online Shop = Pain in the Ass

2010-08-27T20:57:00.000-03:00

I've been working away trying to get this thing up and running, only to hit a wall every turn. I'm getting a little tired of it.

I had decided to go with PayPal, because I foolishly thought it was going to be easy. I don't think I've ever been so wrong. Just one pain in the ass after another. I wanted something simple, something that would take the order, calculate shipping and be done with it. It's such a stupid mess I don't even understand why people use it. It'll allow ME to calculate shipping, but not allow for the buyer to do so. Instead, I have to charge them a flat rate or some made up percentage based on the cost - that's utterly retarded, either way someone is going to be screwed out of money - and then once the order has been paid, I then do the shipping and it takes the money out of my PayPal account. Or use yet another online service connected with PayPal in order to do this the way I want.

PayPal, you suck.

So I'm trying something else. I thought a Merchant Account would work, I'm still in the process of setting that up - but it looks like it's going to cost me way more. I'm not liking any of this so far, each week is just a series of obstacles taking up time when I could be potentially selling stuff (okay, so that might be an overstatement, I don't know how long it'll take before I sell anything, but each day that goes by means on less day I'm able to).

Although it's encouraging that I have four companies looking to take my stuff to sell. However, it's equally disheartening that they suddenly stopped communicating with me. Balls.

Prosthetics available on eBay

2010-08-25T11:10:00.000-03:00

While I'm having a few difficulties getting shipping and packaging issues sorted out with my online shop, I figured there was no harm in putting up a couple pieces on eBay. That was a hassle in itself, but after about 2 hours of troubleshooting and dealing with their "Identity Confirmation" support I was able to register as a seller.

http://shop.ebay.ca/foxhenderson/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

It's hard to find them through a normal search, so I highly doubt they'll even ever be seen. That's something I've got to work out as well. These postings were for free, so unless I wanted to start paying some of the seller fees they'll probably only be seen by those who are really searching hard.

Also, I was pretty disappointed to hear back from Mostly Dead this morning. They're a reseller of prosthetics and props and whatnot. Not disappointed because they're not interested, they're very interested - just that I was too late in contacting them so I wouldn't be able to sell anything with them in time for Halloween. That really sucks. Kinda like if you're selling Christmas trees and you miss out on Christmas.

Funny, while I was writing this I made another attempt to just find my stuff on eBay through a normal search. Nothing, didn't even see anything of mine. I added one word to the title and it came up first on the list. Not too bad. They were originally listed as "Demon Prosthetic" with the name of the demon or whatever, and I just added the word "Makeup" to the end, first in the search. Odd. Should look into how their search engine works.

And that's all three, on the first results page even in the US.

Otherwise, I've officially canceled "Breath of the Dead". I hate doing that, but it was just too expensive for me at the moment and given that we wouldn't be starting shooting for 2-3 more weeks, I couldn't see any possibility that it'd be done properly or in time. So it's been put onto next years schedule.

So I'm trying to muddle my way through shooting on "Grayson & Gortch" and we'll see how things pan out for "Home Sweet Hell" as well.

Demons Invade the Midway

2010-08-20T22:28:00.000-03:00

Did another photoshoot, this time with 2 demons hanging out at a carnival. Kim Johnston and Jaz Krautwurst were done up in makeup and we just wandered around a bit - I was sort of surprised no on bothered us at all. Although there were a lot of snotty sideways glances from the skanky looking teenage girls, like anyone really cares what they think though - supposing their actually capable of thought, that is.

And I'm hoping to have a major update involving the online shop very soon. Hopefully.

The Drug Bust Scene is finally done!

2010-08-15T15:15:00.000-03:00

It took long enough. 2 false starts - both days called on account of rain - but we finally got it shot today. If you've been reading this all along, you'll know about how difficult it's been to get things going on any of the 3 projects I've got on the go at the moment.

It was a bit of a late start to the day, but everything went really well, we got some awesome shots and I think ended up with a great little gun fight sequence. And right as we were getting the last shot the battery was about to die - we got the last shot with probably seconds to spare before it totally died on us.

Anyway, here's some pictures:

We shot for about 90 minutes, it was really rushed and a little crazed just making stuff up. We were able to do a lot more then planned since we changed locations from a public commercial salvage yard to a privately owned one. We had Draper running across the roof of some cars at one point.

The folks involved in the shoot were Graham Putnam as Gortch, Dylan Miller and Draper Bulger as the Drug Dealers, and Will Beckett and Tanya Nicole MacCullum as the Agents. They all did a great job.

I thought I'd upload a snippet from the final pat of the scene. WARNING: there's a shitload of screaming and cursing. This is a rough edit too, by the way.

It makes me laugh every time I watch it.

Finally got some shooting done.

2010-08-12T09:48:00.000-03:00

I counted up since my first big cancellation of a shoot on June 25th, I've had to cancel 7 more since then - I might even be under estimating on that.

Last night I finally got to shoot something. It was a little scene, one of those scenes that involved more setup time then it did to actually shoot. Either way, it was nice to get something done.

Here's a still from the scene:

Afterward we took a few shots of Draper in makeup, I don't know if I'm really sold on any of these - since it was just an impromptu shoot, not something organized and thought out. I do like the last one though.

Prosthetics might go online for sale in the next two weeks

2010-08-09T22:44:00.001-03:00

I think I'm at a place where I'm fairly confident in some if the pieces I've sculpted and have enough faith in my ability to reliably produce decent prosthetics to go online with them. I won't have a massive amount to start with, just a few pieces I think turned out really well and are unique enough too.

Just a few minor details to work out. I'll be using PayPal - unless I can find something better and easier for sorting out shipping costs. The little research I did on it and it looks pretty grim overall, hard to say what the best method for this is.

Also, I need to finalize my packaging. For now it'll have to be pretty simple, I just don't have the money or space for anything elaborate - although it'd be nice do something like the Rogue Planet prosthetics I've purchased. They're in a cardboard box with a clear plastic lid and an image of the piece with the name of it attached to the inside lower part of the lid. I kinda liked it.

Anyway, here's a couple pieces from the latest few batches.

Left to right: The Crazy Old Voodoo Lady from "Breath of the Dead", it's custom made piece, not generic so I don't see myself selling it online. Mr. Eliah from "Grayson & Gortch" will definitely be for sale, as well as Barbara from "Home Sweet Hell" and possibly even Doris Lutz from the same project - even though Doris is a custom piece, I think because it's just a forehead it should work well enough - I'll have to test that.

I did an impromptu photo shoot last week with the Gortch prosthetic on Graham Putnam when a shoot got canceled, I'd like to say that was one of my pieces - but it sort of isn't. The design was from a piece called BOARIS from the Scream Team but I remade it for my own use to cut down on the expense.

Here is a new piece, just finished this evening. The picture doesn't quite do it justice, but I still like it. I'll be using it in a photo shoot early next week and this one will also be online for sale. No idea what it's called yet since it's not for a character in a movie.

So here's hoping it all works out. I think I'll post them on the website, but I might test the waters through eBay at first too.

Balls...

2010-08-08T21:22:00.000-03:00

Still trying not to be discouraged from all the recent major setbacks in shooting - it's only going so well.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw a couple photos of the recent prosthetic disasters up for you to see. This is actually the kind of info I wish I could have found online when I started doing all this a couple years ago. I've mentioned before that everyone says foam latex can go wrong a million different ways, but no one ever really explains it. So, I'm going to explain a few way to understand what went wrong with your foam latex.

This here is an unbaked piece. I didn't see any point since I knew it was no good. It was pretty difficult to pry the mold apart because the latex was still gelled as well as it could be, so it wasn't a solid, but a sort of solid.

And here's the result of finally pulling it out of the negative mold. I wish I could say I meant it to look like this, but it in no way resembles the original piece. And I wish I could say it was usable even like this, but it's garbage. Very freaky looking garbage, mind you - gives me some ideas actually.

Here's a closeup of a baked piece that didn't turn out. Normally the pieces should have a uniform consistency throughout, so what it looks like on the surface should be exactly what it looks like inside. This happened because only the outside skin of the piece gelled. Sort of like skin on pudding or something, but a little thicker. It gels from the outside in, not consistently.

When you bake a prosthetic that hasn't fulled gelled, the inside becomes a crumbly mess, the whole piece has no elasticity and rips very easily. How do you tell if it's fully gelled before baking? The best way is by seeing what's left in the bowl, or leave a blob sitting out. If you poke it and you can very obviously feel it's still squishy inside - it's not cured. You should be able to press it and have it feel like a uniform consistency all the way through. And remember, it takes a little longer for it to fully gel inside the mold.

From my experience, it doesn't really matter how long you leave the filled mold out either. No one every really explained that. I wasn't sure at first if there was a window of time from totally gelling that it had to be baked. I've left pieces out for a day or so before baking and it seemed to have turned out just as well as the ones from the same batch that were baked right away. So if you're not sure, just wait a bit longer before you throw it in the oven.

Most instructions will tell you all about adjusting for humidity and how it results in the ammonia in the latex being whipped off faster because the gelling agent is more active at higher temps. That's something you just have to work out on your own. Cut back on the gelling agent and cut back on the de-ammoniate time until it works - sounds fine, but be prepared to waste a lot of latex getting it right.

In my case I was dealing with 75% humidity - I had no idea where the safe range was for cutting back on either part of the run schedule. Took awhile, but I more or less sorted it out - still trying to fine tune it so I can accurately gauge it.

Anyway, that's it. This is an example of one way it can go wrong, and now you know what it actually looks like and what caused the problem. I've run into other problems over the past couple years, I'll probably run into them again. When I do, I'll make sure to document it.

The 4th Batch...

2010-08-07T18:45:00.000-03:00

Over 24 hours of mixing up foam latex and baking and and still absolutely nothing to show for it. I just finished up the 4th batch and while it's still not perfect, it's getting closer. Funny that while all last year I was doing this without a thermometer or a hydrometer things were turning out fairly well - not always perfect, but at least usable.

So, "Home Sweet Hell" has been also postponed, my 3rd project this summer to get postponed because of shitty circumstances. I was hoping to pick it up again next week, but after a quick round of message from the actors it was apparent it wouldn't happen. In fact it won't be happening for at least 4 more weeks now.

I will point out I'm not annoyed with any actors - that's a stupid and pointless reaction under circumstances like this. If I were to get pissed at actor for having lives, I'd be a pretty huge asshole.

So now I just have to try to keep things moving as best as I can and see what happens over the next couple months.

At least it would appear that in this last batch of foam, I was able to fill the molds I needed for a photo shoot tomorrow.

Prosthetics Vs Humidity

2010-08-06T17:44:00.000-03:00

In the process of making foam latex prosthetics, everything mentions how critical paying attention to the humidity is. I never realized just how much so until today.

I'm in the midst of making prosthetics for the "Home Sweet Hell" shoot tomorrow, the stuff just arrived this morning - a day late. Obviously time is something of an issue here. I finally got time to run a batch an hour or so ago, figured, it was a little humid I should cut way back on the gelling agent - the gelling agent is basically what it sounds like, it's the shit that makes the foam gel, and when it gels it goes from a meringue kind of texture to a solid, rubbery wet blob.

Complicated mathy/science stuff warning!

The instructions recommend at 50% humidity, 15 grams of the gelling agent. I find it gels too fast so I normally do about 10 grams. This normally gives me about 5-6 minutes to get the foam into the mold, add on another 2-3 to finishing mixing the foam and you've got around 9 minutes before it turns to crap.

Well, it was 75% humidity in here, I added about 6 grams and it gelled in about 2 minutes. I didn't even get it out of the mixer and just suddenly went from a perfect batch to a solid, ripped up, rubbery blob in about the span of 5 seconds.

I guess they weren't kidding about humidity being a critical factor. I just ran another batch, barely 1 gram of the gelling agent. It's been about 20 minutes and it's still gelling. I guess I'll see how it works this time eventually.

"Demons" by Karl Wenham

2010-08-04T13:35:00.003-03:00

"Demons" unlike most of my other projects isn't a movie, but a collection of photos of various demons, beasts and creatures taken by a demon named Karl Wenham.

Karl himself is a demonic antiquities dealer, collecting weird, unusual and sometimes dangerous artifacts from around the world, as well as from alternate dimensions. On the side Karl is a bit of a photographer and is assembling a collection of the various demons he's known throughout the years.

The basic idea is to create what normally would be a boring, mundane photo of a person doing nothing terribly special, just going about some normal routine and make it a little more fantastic by imagining a world where demons are as commonplace as humans.

The goal is to create at least 100 demons over the course of the next year, resulting in a potential art exhibit (or several) and a book containing all the photos along with a little info/story about how Karl knows these demons.

Here's a couple "outtakes" from today's photoshoot with Gortch.

So if you, or anyone you know, might be interested in volunteering to be part of the project - as a demon of course, get in touch with me at casting@themonkeyrodeo.com. Send along a recent photo (see the update below) and any info you want so I can get a feel for what I'm working with and what makeup might be right. No acting experience necessary, this isn't a movie - but you do need to comfortable being in front of a camera and capable of taking some direction in order to create a realistic looking, not posed, photo.

You might not hear back from me right away, but over the course of the next year I will be contacting potential demon candidates about arranging a makeup session and photoshoot. And I will point out right now, for anyone who just stumbled upon this without knowing me, that this is taking place on Prince Edward Island, Canada. If you're not going to be on the Island over the course of the next year, then there's not much point signing up - even though I do appreciate the interest.

UPDATE: So far the response has been a more then I expected in only a few hours- which is awesome of course, thanks to everyone who signed up. I should point out, if I actually know you, no need for a photo - that's just for folks I don't know. Also, should you have an idea or scenario for your alter demon ego, let me know as well.

Home Sweet Hell - The Monkey Rodeo Web Series

2010-08-02T11:58:00.001-03:00

As the title says, "Home Sweet Hell" will be the project's first web series. It's a last minute kind of project and has come together really quickly. It centers around an odd family, the Lutzs - Vernon Lutz, the human father, Doris Lutz, his demon wife and Ricky Lutz, their half breed son. Much like "The Addams Family" and "The Munsters" it's a bit of a monstrous take on the typical 60s family sitcom, such as "I Love Lucy" and "Leave it to Beaver" with a bit more of a darker sense of humour.

We film the "pilot" episodes of the sitcom this coming Saturday - barring any unforeseen circumstances. The pilot will simply be three 5 minute episodes, all one story to be released once a week. Hope to have them done relatively soon after the shoot.

Now if this all comes off as planned - we're doing this all in a one day shoot - then the plan is to further develop it into a full 12 episodes to be shot in January/February of next year. This is all depending on if we can actually do 3 episodes per day and the availability of everyone involved.

So that's it. That was the first official word about "Home Sweet Hell". We'll see how it goes come Saturday.

The Silicone Meincke Mask

2010-07-28T08:58:00.000-03:00

First off, I'd like to show you some pictures, but I have a self imposed blackout when it comes to showing any images of the character until the movie has been shot - so you'll just have to imagine it.

I posted some images of the mold making a while back, check here, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out, a few little air bubbles (I've now learned how to avoid most of them I think) and I was ready to go. I just needed some silicone.

This is the part I don't like. I've no clear understanding and I've never read this anywhere reliable - how you figure out how much silicone is supposed to be just enough. I saw a ratio somewhere once, but it didn't work. Luckily I made too much and it was almost just enough.

Another thing is that silicone isn't cheap - so if you screw up, it ain't cheap. I screwed up...it was expensive.

So the first thing, once I got the silicone in, was to prep the mold. I got some funky stretchy material to reinforce the silicone and laid it in around the openings. It's a little tricky since the material is nylon, it doesn't saturate well and does stick too well, you have embed it into the silicone on the positive mold. Takes some time to perfect, at least I hope that's the case.

Then I locked the mold shell together over the positive mold. I also had to make some air holes since I forgot when I was making the mold. Mixed up the silicone and began pouring, the type I use is made by Smooth-On and called EcoFlex 30. Shortly into pouring I realized the pour hole wasn't large enough and I wasn't going to get enough into the mold before the 45 minute pot life was up (for anyone unfamiliar with the term "pot life", it just means how long the silicone remains workable before it begins to cure).

I finished as much as I could, wasted a good chunk of silicone and ended up with a weird monster turtleneck looking thing. It was encouraging to see it would've worked really well otherwise though.

I redrilled the pour hole - worked much better. I thought I was done but found an area on the top backside of the skull had some air trapped in it. Luckily I was able to remove the mold from that area, drill a new hole, close the mold and keep going. Worked pretty well.

In the end it came out pretty damned good. The eye hole felt a little off on the mask, it was fixable with some trimming though and I'll know better for next time. It's pretty heavy and silicone doesn't breath so it gets pretty sweaty quick.

It worked though, worked really well for a first time experiment. I'm hoping once Breath of the Dead is shot to get these bad boys on line for sale. Normally you see them online selling for around $500 up to $1000, and now I understand totally why. I'm probably going to sell this a little on the cheaper side. We'll see.

They're coming to get you, Barbara!

2010-07-23T13:57:00.000-03:00

Just did a very quick sculpt for a zombie prosthetic for Home Sweet Hell, first time I've done a normal, typical zombie prosthetic. Pretty happy with it.

I'm doing a lifecast of another actor for the same project in about 20 minutes. So far, for a last minute project, Home Sweet Hell is coming along remarkably well. Given how many problems my other projects have had, it's a welcome change.

Finger Food

2010-07-20T17:39:00.001-03:00

I had asked the other folks involved in my latest project not to talk about it and I've been blathering on about it here and there - but I know what I want to let other's know about and what I want to keep quiet, so it's easy to just tell them not to talk about it.

So the official word is this: I'm doing a new project, a brand new, not mentioned before until the last post, project. As I mentioned last post, it's called Home Sweet Hell, it's a last minute sort of time filler project that's actually going to be really good considering it wasn't something planned and thought out months in advance.

There's a good amount of special effects and makeup work, all reasonably doable for a 1 day shoot. the cast is already assembled and ready to go, we're doing costume shopping over the next week or so. The script is two/thirds done and coming along way better then I'd hoped.

It was designed for a quick turn around, no CG, live sound, one location - very simple. There's a lot to be done before August 7th, but I'm pretty confident it'll all work out. And in the meantime I've even managed to get Grayson & Gortch back up and running.

So I'll leave you with this:

Yes, I'm giving you the finger.

With all the supplies I've had left over from the previous two project I'm able to throw together some decent little props as well. This silicone finger is one of three. Not perfect, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Lost in LaMancha all over again

2010-07-18T12:17:00.003-03:00

Breath of the Dead is hitting wall after wall. Nothing that anyone is at fault for, just bad timing and bad circumstances. The latest of which is the lead actress breaking her leg - we're down for at least 8 weeks now. More production time means a better project hopefully.

Grayson & Gortch will hopefully resume soon, I just need to familiarize myself with it - part of my agenda for the day.

So, through a series of poorly timed events, I was left with a weekend available for filming with some actors, but nothing to film. I feel like this summer so far has just been a wash out as far as accomplishing anything and I was getting a little tired of it - I don't say that to offend anyone who feels they might be responsible for causing any delays, these kinds of things just happen.

It goes without saying I think, that I want to shoot something - not literally, I mean film something. The problem being I've got nothing lined up, no script, no ideas - nothing. I knew the parameters this mystery project had, as well as a couple other birds I could kill with the same stone, so to speak, and that's what I had to work with.

I got together with my girlfriend (and production assistant, producer, etc.) and we brainstormed an idea. Took about an hour I think, but we ended up with a really great little idea for a new project. I don't want to reveal what it is, but it will be shot the weekend of August 7th and probably will be online within that week if all works as it seems like it should.

All I will say, is that it's called Home Sweet Hell and I think it'll be pretty awesome.

And now I've got a script to write.

Shell Shock Mold Aftermath

2010-07-11T08:51:00.000-03:00

It took nearly 16 hours - that's with waiting time and whatnot, not full work - and the mold is finally done.

I managed to pry the back off first. It came out pretty clean too.

The front half was a different matter.

Mu biggest concern was that the mold would be riddled with little air bubbles like the mold for the glove was, and there are some, nothing to be concerned about however. I can probably even patch most of them up once it's all cleaned out.

So now all that's left is to get the silicone - and put in the pour holes, which I forgot to do when I made the mold - and if all goes well, I'll have my first silicone mask and if it holds up, it'll eventually be available for sale online.

Shell Shock Mold

2010-07-10T09:07:00.000-03:00

No pictures this time around because I'm keeping this under wraps until we shoot, but I will say this:

No matter how much research you do, there's always that point in a project that involves something you've never done before, that you just have to do it, get it over with and hope for the best. You either did it right or you did it wrong, you can wait and wait but that won't change, it's either right or wrong.

I sort of hate this Shell Shock material. It's awesome when it works, a little tricky to work with - and that's what makes it hateful. It cures so fast, there's 2 versions, fast (3 mins) and slow (8 mins) and as soon as it's mixed it starts to thicken to a warm peanut butter consistency. It's thick and stringy and you just hope to hell to managed to get enough on your sculpt to make it worth the effort.

It's a mold making material, by the way. A great one, as I said before, when it works. There's no shrinkage or distortions like can happen with other mold materials after they've sat on a shelf for awhile. Once it's cured it's a hard urethane and pretty much nothing sticks to it that you'd be casting into it - at least not that I've encountered so far.

I'm using it to make a mold for a silicone mask. I've used it to make a glove with 90% perfect results. This is for something much bigger and much more costly should it all go pear shaped.

The first coat is curing now, I've got to put another one on in a few minutes and then a backing support material. I'm dreading the end of the day when it's all done and I have to pry this thing apart - I can already see all those shitty little air bubbles in there ruining it. However, since it's a hard shell mold, there's the possibility of reconstructing part in a hard clay should there be any air bubbles - so all isn't entirely lost or wasted.

I guess we'll see in about 6-7 hours when it's all done.

Painted Silicone Deformed Voodoo Zombie Hand Glove

2010-07-09T11:09:00.000-03:00

So there it is. I'll be the first to admit it far from perfect, but the whole point of this was that the silicone glove was meant to test the way towards doing the fill head mask. Every time I look at this thing I wish I'd had the material at the time to do a full forearm glove - but I didn't, so it's not, so whatever.

This is the final painted version, by the way. This is way first time attempting to paint with silicone paints, it's not great, but it'll more then work well enough for the movie. Painting with silicone is a weird experience in a way, it's much different from conventional paints - at least at this point in my experience it is.

I won't go on too much about it, since I'm very much an amateur at this sort of thing, so anything I say, or write, would just be speculation based on 20 minute work rather then years of experience.

Anyway, I'm happy with it. The FX for this movie are coming along slowly...very slowly. Mainly due to financial constraints. I don't mind the slower pace though, it gives me more time to suss out what I'm doing and if I'm in fact doing it right.

Because of this pace, I saved myself from a very costly, in both time and money, mistake. I've worked with silicone mainly as a molding material - not as a casting material. The basic difference being you can use it to make a mold or you can use it to create the object in the mold. Now I've read a lot of material about using silicone but never at the time did I need this information for an FX piece, so I wasn't never able to put this information into practice in a sense where I'd remember it.

In doing the silicone mask that will accompany this glove, I debated about the mold material - mainly because of cost. I was going to do it with the same material I used on the glove, Shell Shock, but I wasn't thrilled with the way it turned out. I later realized because I did it wrong, makes sense now. I decided on silicone, because I'm more familiar with it, but neglected at the time to remember some very important.

There's 2 types of silicone, platinum cure and tin cure. And to be very basic about it, platinum will cure in the presence of already cured platinum and tin in the presence of cured tin - but you can't mix the two. It's a bit like "crossing the streams", to quote Egon Spengler. Although there's no potential for death, it's just a massive messy waste of time and money. In my case, my mold was tin cure, my casting silicone was platinum cure - or would have been had I not realized it and turned out with a crappy pile of uncured silicone in my mold which is a massive pain in the ass to clean up.

I've heard some folks say there's no problem if it coated properly and blah, blah, blah, but I'm not interested in experimenting with such expensive materials at the moment.

So that's it for my silicone ranting. Now, can you guess what movie I was watching when I painted the glove?

Crazy Old Voodoo Lady

2010-07-04T21:12:00.000-03:00

I finally got around to sculpting the prosthetic for a "crazy old voodoo lady" from Breath of the Dead. It's not perfect, it's my first time attempting realistic looking old age makeup - I've seen way worse in way bigger budget movies.

In other news, I've got a couple new projects in development and made some changes to some current projects. I'm hoping to apply for a grant for The Brotherhood movie to be shot next summer, it'll allow me to make it look a little better then I'd planned.

As well, I've started a new project that's not a movie, but still heavily relies on the prosthetics and masks - actually without them there is no project. It'll done over the course of the next year to be finished by June 30th of 2011. It's going to be a book of demons, at least 100 of them, more if I can swing it.

The idea is a book of photos of demons in their everyday lives, most of the photos will look candid as we see regular old blue collar demons at work, or a couple old demons drinking at at bar and each will have it's own little story. It'll be done as though the photographer himself is a demon, a demon named Karl Wendham, and these are all the demons he knows.

So this is the first I'll be saying that the Karl movie won't be happening. It was supposed to be a mockumentary about Karl, but I just couldn't get a good idea I was happy with. So instead that project has been split into two projects. One being the book and the second I'm not ready to announce, it'll probably be ready in December, maybe earlier though.

I think that's about it for now. I've been slowly working away on getting things ready for Breath of the Dead and I'll probably start up on Grayson and Gortch again pretty soon if I can as well.