BZK2! Undead by Dawn, first images

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Busy

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

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

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/