The Monkey Rodeo: Demon Rum

Well, I've been thinking about this for some time, but it's finally (sort of) come to light. I've been wanting to do some short films after Malice is all said and done, but I've really gotten to like working with prosthetics and whatnot - so I'm looking at doing a series of Monkey Rodeo short films.

They won't necessarily be related to Malice, there could be some character crossovers or reference, but for the main part they'll be stand alone stories - perhaps only enhanced be seeing Malice first, who knows though.

The first completed script is The Monkey Rodeo: Demon Rum, it's almost like a scene from the movie Trainspotting, but with demons. It's sort of a pointless little movie, more just for fun then anything - unless I come up with some better ideas in any subsequent drafts.

Also, things are gearing up nicely for the reshoot in May. I have pretty much all the parts cast, Heroes and Demons. I've working and reworking the Demon armor designs. I want them to look as cool as possible, but still flexible and lightweight, so there's a lot of experimenting with various materials to see what's the best.

One the other side of things, there's been some delays in the upcoming opening scene shoot. Mainly in getting things started. I have a shooting date in mind, I'm just being lazy in getting the actual fight scene outlined and rehearsal times set up. I'm not too worried about, that's the easiest part of the entire scene. It's the lead up to the fight and finishing touches on the costumes that's the most painstaking.

Otherwise, so far so good. It's a slow time of year, hard to stay motivated.

Funky New Eyeballs

Do I really need to say anything here?

I will anyway. These are the lenses for The Beast in the opening sequence for the movie. They're not exactly as pictured on the site I ordered them from, but I'm still pretty happy with how freaky they look. If you're wondering, they're freakin' huge. They're 22mm in diameter and pretty much cover half my eyeball - at least it feels that way putting them in.

They're hand painted I believe, so they're fairly unique in that sense. Since they're so large though they don't sit like normal lenses, again at least it feels that way. My vision isn't awesome with them in, since the edges are opaque and not semi-transparent like some lenses there is some vision loss around the peripheral.

Anyway, that's it for now. Things are progressing a little slowly, but the weather has been crap for filming anyway so I'm not complaining. As well, things are going well for the reshoot.

I didn't check my last post if I mentioned the reshoot, so I will more or less officially announce a major reshoot of one of the scenes for the movie. Now don't panic, if you haven't already about this you're not involved.

I'm planning on reshooting the scene that was done at Fort Amherst last fall, not because it didn't turn out, but because I can make it so much better and way more impressive. The basics of the scene haven't changed at all, we still have the Brotherhood facing an army of demons - although now we will have live action demons.

We'll be replacing the original real weapons with latex weapons. Some I already have, some I have to order, some are being custom made by a company in Germany and one I'm making myself.

The Demon Army will be played by for actors. With a lot of planning I intend to turn these 4 into several dozen, and with the addition of CG background characters - hundreds. The techniques are ones I've already used in the movie, but I was recently re-inspired by a video of 4 guys who recreated the beach storming scene from Saving Private Ryan, turning 4 into dozens.

It's actually pretty simple with a lot of planning, the post aspect becomes fairly easy. So I'll be working out the shots with much more detail to really get the most out of the 4 demons actors. These guys will be done up in funky sinister armor, with custom made swords, prosthetics and contacts lenses. I'm putting as much into this as humanly possible.

So there's a lot more to do, seems this has long since become the never ending movie - the final production time is now looking to be close to 4 1/2 years, maybe longer. Who knows, we've still got a long way to go.

Anyway, I'm still wearing these lenses, trying to get used to them. Forgive any typos since I'm working on less then 20/20 here.

The Big Nothing...

It's been very quiet and not a whole lot has really been going on with the movie. Just thought you'd like to know that.

I took a stab at reworking yet another CG character, might post some pictures soon on that.

Almost everything is ready for the big fight scene. Just waiting for a set of contact lenses and I think that's pretty much it. I'm starting work on the actual choreography and we start fight practice next week.

Aside from that, I had a talk with Draper today about something from the movie. I won't say anything just yet, still need to confirm some stuff. So it's all quiet until then.

That's it really. Nothing too major just yet.