Moonshine of the Damned, Production Journal #20

Seems like there should have been more than just 20 of these. We just had our very last day of shooting on Moonshine of the Damned - I was calling last week the last, but that was our last day with the leads and extras and all that stuff. This was the final fight sequence involving the Zombie Eater, so it was just two actors. The Zombie Eater, Steve Marchbank and Heather Panton's stunt double, Kinza Mae Baker. Normally I don't do stunt doubles and, quite honestly, while Heather and Kinza are vaguely similar in size, there's still some major differences - however, those differences don't matter at all. You'll see once you see the final movie.

First thing we shot was a couple little cutaway shots involving the very first zombie appearing in the movie and of course I shot it last. It was pretty short and simple, while we were out coming up with ideas for the fight scene I brought the actor along and got his shots. We when went back home and I did a blue screen shot as well.

The Zombie Banjo Boy.

Our only real Deliverance reference left from last year.

After I got done of the Banjo Boy stuff I began a very long makeup process on Kinza, it's something I'm not showing off at all until the movie is release. Normally I'm pretty open to showing stuff off, but I've held back a little on this, but not too much.

That sort of reminds me, at some point I'm actually going to write my own review of the movie. Seems a little pointless and possibly even pandering to myself somehow, but I have a lot of thoughts on it that I'd like to address. I'll probably do a Director's Commentary for the DVD even to explain a few things. Mostly, I feel a little sad that I might actually have to explain the joke that the whole movie is. About 98% of what you'll see what done intentionally - I might've said that before.

Every bad line, awkward delivery, bad camera angle, rough editing, goofy FX - I planned it all. Or at least designed how I would plan it to force myself to do those things through no other option. It's easy to go over the top camping up a bad movie, but this was an attempt to seriously make a movie that might seems like it was done with the utmost of sincere intentions only to sort of fail a bit in places. I've said this time and time again. I love bad 80s horror movies, they were just so much fun. You don't see them anymore and I really wanted to capture that 80s mentality of almost nonsensical plot, where some things you have to suss out for yourself or fill in the blanks on your own.

In all seriousness, if you the sort of person who feels everything needs to be properly explained, needs to nitpick continuity and plot points - you really shouldn't watch this. It wasn't made for the likes of you. It's made for people who really enjoy bad movies that are so bad they're good. It's the kind of movie you're supposed to make fun of - trust me, I do all the time when we talk about it.

One thing I've always had a difficult time with in making movies is fight scenes. They're just to hard to do and do right and even slightly believable. Now this time around I won't brag that it's totally believable, but you can see there was no holding back with the actors. They went for it, risking seriously injuring themselves I'd say - but we tried to be as safe as possible and there was not one injury, aside from being incredibly sore afterwards.

I can honestly say I've never been more excited to show off something I've shot before than this scene. The whole movie is pretty awesome and has some great moments and moves along at a pretty decent pace. But this one sequence turned out just how I wanted. It's really fun to watch and even a little silly in places. All thanks to Kinza and Steve's hard work.

These are the only photos I can show you of what we did for now. Neither of them looked even close to this when I got done with makeup either.

It was a long day too. Started at 9am and finished by 4pm. I had three makeup applications - which took a huge part of the day and I'm so glad I got a couple extra airbrushes, it made the work so much quicker and the make on Kinza was so awesome looking. I even glued down the Zombie Eater prosthetic this time, up until now I let it flap around lose, but knowing the paces we were about to put it through I felt I had to glue it down to prevent it ripping and ruining shots. Worked awesomely and came off intact, if not a little sweaty.

I got it all edited last night as well, in total we got one minute, 30 seconds worth of a fight scene. Not too bad at all, I expected one minute at the very most.

I've been whittling away at the re-recording of everyone's lines. It's a long process that can be a little tiresome, but it's the way I chose to do it. The video itself is about 90% done, it needs colour correcting and whatnot. A few FX shots that I don't need anyone else for. Possible a small sequence with a couple zombies might need to be shot if I can't get the footage in from someone else I was planing on. But even that's not a problem, I'm kind of looking forward to that if it happens.

Otherwise, we're on the downhill stretch of it all now.

Posters! I've got posters done too. First up the official poster for the movie:

And I wanted this time around to do a series of character posters for the Bimbos.

And finally, all of them in one.

Someone had asked about T-shirts and I think even getting prints of posters. Right now I'm busy trying to get the movie done and get a lot of other projects off the ground as well as trying to get shop stuff done. So while the answer is yes, they will be available, don't expect it for another couple weeks until I get my scheduled cleared up

And finally, the trailer:

And that's it. I'm pretty glad it's over with, not because it was a shitty experience, but because it was just so much on my mind this whole summer and I really need to clear my head for the Halloween season as well as for the upcoming Hal-Con in November.

For now, we're pretty close. Hope to do a rough cut screening for the actors and even do a private screening at City Cinema. We'll see how all that goes.

Moonshine of the Damned, Production Journal #19

We finally wrapped up on Day Thirteen, it was a continuation and a sort of redo day for what we missed on our rained out Day Twelve. So recovering from that disappointment was a little stressful as I was checking the long range forecast and saw we'd be getting the tail end of a tropical storm just before our backup day was scheduled. And on top of that, the last minute week long scramble to get as many extras back as possible and knowing I'd most likely be doing all the makeup myself.

It all worked out. I'm a little disappointed in that small number of people who seemed at one point to be really enthusiastic about being part of the movie, who joined the group and I actually communicated with - only to have them flake out and become unresponsive when we really needed them. It seems to always be the way, I do a project and a handful of people immediately say "If you never need anything, extras, behind the camera, whatever, just let me know" only to have them never be available or just not respond when I do contact them. It's left me being utterly disinterested when someone I don't really know says that, not because I don't believe them specifically, but just that I've heard it so often to just be let down nearly every time that I tune them out when I heard anything near that phrase anymore. I feel bad for those few that actually are genuine in their offer, but they're so few and far between.

Having said that, I am impressed with the dedication of the extras we've had this year. They're all volunteers and have done an absolutely brilliant job. I've said this before, but it really does go to show that you don't need a huge wad of cash to make movies here - unless you're doing a huge FX piece like this - you just need to find those like minded people who enjoy what you're doing and are really interested in being part of it. Still, I'd love to pay people but with this pretty much being a not for profit movie and being somewhat poor, it's just not possible.

The group that came out for this last shoot, while slightly fewer than I'd planned, turned out to have been perfect. It ended up being a very rough sequence with a lot of potential for people to get hurt and they all threw themselves into it as much as possible. We ended up making those 6 zombies look like way more, really happy with how it all looks so far. I'll be trying to edit some of it possibly today.

Otherwise, things went off as planned overall. We shot some stuff with the Zombie Eater - a few minor shifts in the action happened, as it does when you've got so much going on and it's hard to plot out exact positions on the page or how it should play out naturally. All that got sorted without any effort, it just happened. Which helped speed things up.

The zombie extras, and two of the bimbos, got lost on the way to the location - however the timing worked out as they found their way to us, just as we needed them. So while they had an hour long adventure in the woods, we weren't delayed at all.

So here they all are, minus the Zombie Eater. It was a great day for out last day and really fun as it was a very physical scene, but really easy stuff to stage.

Afterwards I was able to grab a couple of the minor missing shots from other parts of the movie. Actually right behind the hills in the picture above is where I ended up shooting the Zombie Gator closeups, all the rain from the last week created several foot deep ponds. So rather than have to run out to the original location with cold water, we used these lukewarm pools instead - worked out great.

So now I have only a very small handful of shots left. There's the Zombie Banjo Boy shots, for which I created this crude, last minute prop. He'll be shot partially on a location and at least one shot against a blue screen.

Another sequence involving the victim of the Zombie Gator, one of the leads - I won't say which one in case you haven't been paying too close attention. Those shots too will be location and blue screen.

I recently dug out my blue screen that I've had for over 10 years now, bought for my very first feature, The Supposed Prophets, and never used. In fact, it's still in the exact same box it came in. Now that I have the space I decided this was the best time to try it out finally. I looked up a few really great tutorials, I've never successfully did a blue screen (or green screen) shot before, I just never had the patience until now. One quick test and it was done. Not perfect, but for my purposes, a cheesy 80s horror movie, it was absolutely brilliant looking. So not only was this project a huge testing ground for special effect, but even visual effects as well.

And lastly, a fight sequence with the Zombie Eater. And some zombie footage from Scotland too.

I'm starting in on the dubbing this week, in about 4 hours of writing this actually I'll be start that. And we'll just keep plugging away at it until it's done. I'm still hoping for a end of October release and possibly even a screening if I can arrange it without too much effort.

And, with about 95% of the footage done, I'll be working on a teaser this week finally. Maybe even later on today or tomorrow. I plan to have to done by end of the week if all possible.

And finally, the rest of the pictures from the shoot:

Most all the zombie extras had been in it before that came out today.

Trevor has been a recurring extra for nearly every zombie horde sequence and has been really supportive and reliable of the project. Hard to find people like this.

A closeup of the only zombie extra to appear in all three of the movie. A last minute email went out and Will Beckett was able to come out for our final shoot.

And as usual, Will gave it his all and was brilliant as usual.

Heather and her final moments with the Spiked Zombie Head Mace.

And I still don't know what the hell Will  was doing here, but that's pretty much what I expect when he comes out to shoot. He always come prepared to go way beyond what's expected.

And I really have to give credit to every else as well, Charles, Mitch, Pam and Kylie - they took a lot of abuse from the foam weapons. They were all awesome.

Finally, Mary and Julie got to get a little bloodied up.

It's not a fight unless a zombie bites your hatchet.

It was really impressive how everyone, especially Mary and Julie got into fighting the zombies. The shots were mostly closeups to make the group of zombies feel a little larger and from what I saw, it worked really well.

It was another decent day. The weather was perfect. It's all done and I can start winding down on this thing now. Once that fight scene is done with - hopefully this coming weekend, it'll be all downhill from here.

One more thing, the very last and final, Line of the Day:


That's pretty much it. There'll be a few more updates like this as there's still a little more to do. For now, thanks to everyone who helped out right from the beginning. It won't be a brilliant movie, but it will be fun as hell to watch.

Moonshine of the Damned, Production Journal #18

We had was was to be our last day of shooting this past Sunday. And while the weather looked slightly on the iffy side, I decided we should go for it and hope for the best. I had to add in new shots in order to make a transition to a different location in case we did get rain, that seemed like it should've worked pretty. So I thought I was all prepared.

Two hours or so we got all our zombies done up, and they looked pretty awesome. We got out to shoot and by the time we got around to needing the zombies, we were already 2 hours behind schedule - I still don't know how that all happened. And then the torrential downpour began. I was really hoping being the woods would lessen it a bit, but not even slightly.

I tried getting some footage, but the rain was too distracting, I was worried about the camera getting fried and balancing a small umbrella over it, on top of being way behind schedule - it was just too much. We could've toughed it out and tried shooting something, but there was the risk of destroying the camera - and then we would've been screwed, over and done - and then there was the possibility the footage would've been unusable anyway because of the rush, so it all could've just been a waste of time. So I cancelled it.

I've never had to cancel a shoot like this before and I'll admit, I wasn't even vaguely fine with the idea. I was put in a shit mood for the rest of the day. The one thing I've always prided myself in was that I've always been extremely aware of wasting people's time, to the point where it does distract me as I'm working. I hate it. I think filmmakers who just fuck about and waste their actors (who are usually volunteers locally) time, are absolute assholes - whether it be on purpose or out of ignorance. You can't do that to people who are giving you their free time, it just means you don't appreciate the effort their putting forth or are too wrapped up in yourself to care about it. People will always have to be waiting around of course, but if they have to because you're too busy thinking only of yourself or you can't schedule for shit, it's just wrong.

I'm still not happy with it, I don't care we didn't get the footage, although it would've been nice, it's just having brought all those people out, spent all that time in makeup only to turn around and tell them to go home - it sucks.

So, the positive side of all this. I have more time to prep the location change - since the original shotlist was based on a location we're no longer using, I now have time to go over it all and adjust things for the better. Always a plus, that's the lesson I learned from last year, Even if you tank on a shoot, figure out what went wrong first and just make sure it either doesn't happen again and find a way to make it even better next time.

Everything's done and ready to go, I just now have time to sort more stuff out, think of streamlining things, just making it better in general for next time.

Here's most of the folks who came out, seeing this feels like looking a group picture of people who were lost at sea on some doomed voyage. Well, it's not that bad. but sort of.

It was fun though, up until it all went to shit and I tried to keep in a good mood about it, but I don't think I was doing a very good job of it.

And here's some of the zombies.

 All of these were taken BEFORE they got bloody and before the rain set it. Afterwards though, they really looked like hell.

This was to be our last day, I had some minor shots with a couple people to pick up and a fight scene to do later, it would've been so awesome to make it over that last hurdle without any of the issues we had last year, but this day managed to screw all that up.

So, we're looking to September 15th and hoping for the best. The long range forecast looks decent, not exactly a warm day, but it won't be a long one. I'm hoping at least a half hour to 45 minute can be trimmed off the schedule if what little footage we got yesterday works out.

And I'll leave you with this, I finally got the more or less final poster created for the movie:

I not going to bother with a line of the day since we really didn't shoot much dialog.

Zombie Rubber Chicken now for sale!

Finally got around to getting these made, I came up with the idea a couple months ago and was just waiting to have the free time to get it sculpted and moulded.

This here is the very first one from the mould, turned out pretty decently. There were a few defects, but since it's so messed up looking anyway, you don't really notice them and they can be just considered to be some random blemishes amongst the several standard other ones.

It's meant to be pretty much the regular old rubber chick prop but a zombie version. I wanted it to be simple to crank out so I tinted the latex a greenish colour. I'll be doing up several small batches of tinted latex so as not to ruin a whole pile of it, so the colour might differ a little from batch to batch.

They'll be $20, same price as what I've seen the regular rubber chicken sold for. And it's pretty much the same size, about 18 1/2 inches from beak to toe.

The blood splattering on it can be done to order. This particular one wasn't too overly bloodied up, just enough. So if you want your Zombie Rubber Chicken to be especially bloodied or perhaps not so much, just ask.- no extra charge.

I'm just turning them out from the one mould, although I've made a master from which I can turn out several more should I end up being (hopefully) swamped with orders. Right now there's about a days turnaround for each one, I'll try to be stockpiling them a bit so there's no delays.

They're no in the online shop just yet, waiting to get a better image done up, but if you're interested you can order on, just send an email to foxhenderson @ themonkeyrodeo.com.