Home Sweet Hell, Episode 1

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

Home Sweet Hell shoot finally done.

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

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

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

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

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

Karl Wenham

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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).

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

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.

Editing Grayson & Gortch

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.

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.