Dr. Squid Egg!

Behold the Dr. Squid Easter Egg!

Mailed off footage I shot recently for WAVE Video's Sleepwalker Strangler, Luc Bernier's Cold As Soul and Falcon Video's Into The Woods projects. Also mailed off a copy of Housebound to the Mid Valley Video Fest folks for possible inclusion in their Friday Monster Madness Series (director John Bowker said his copies were buried under boxes somewhere and I had some copies within easy reach). Now back to my own stuff!

Death Nurse for Truly Dreadful Tales is done - just need to export to tape.

Worked on the bugman monster mask some more, adding mandible thingees and doing some more painting.

Worked a bit on a few scripts.

Many balls in the air...

War of the Monsters birthday cake

This year my son wanted a birthday cake based on the War of the Monsters video game. In the game you play one of a dozen or so giant monsters who beat the snot out of each other while smashing the city around them. The game is a lot of fun. So here is the cake:



I started with a plain white cake, then added a couple of icing roads, pushed a couple of toy cars into it and then created some fires and a whole bunch of girders and debris with icing. The idea was to create a bunch of demolition for the monsters to tower over.

My son picked out the two monsters from the game that he wanted to have fighting. I penciled them out on paper and inked with a magic marker. Then I scanned the drawings so I could resize them and printed each out on card stock. I colored them with colored pencil. I put the rock monster guy on the wall and rubbed a black pencil over it to get some texture. Then I cut the monsters out, taped several wooden skewers to the back of each one and stuck 'em into the cake!

Toni Draggon: Trooper

Have been busy with family stuff for a bit and then down with the flu for several days.

Shot scenes with Toni Draggon last Sunday for three different projects: one of mine and two by other filmmakers. Shot at the wonderful Atomic Bonfire Art Studio and everyone had a swell time. Toni not only endured multiple costume changes and having to convey a wide range of emotions in short order, but having her hands tied with rope and even a bathtub death scene! She's a trooper!


Death Nurse segment of TRULY DREADFUL TALES is pretty much done. Just need to check some sound issues and master to tape. Put together this title card for it.

Bit by bit...

Almost done with editing on Death Nurse segment of TRULY DREADFUL TALES. Composed a scary little piece of music for it. That was fun.

Shot some DVD extras footage last night with Darla Doom and Amanda Bounds for PLATOON OF THE DEAD. They were hilarious.

Shooting scenes on Sunday for a couple of projects being made by other directors. Going to be working with Toni Draggon again - should be fun.

Tom Stedham (whom I was lucky enough to work with on DEADLY PREMONITIONS and PLATOON OF THE DEAD) will be appearing at OmegaCon next weekend, March 14-16 in Birmingham, Alabama. Tom rocks!

John Polonia - Rest in Peace

The news of John Polonia's passing hit me hard. John was a few years younger than I am, and like me had a wife and young son. Seeing the subject of that first e-mail was just shocking - my heart sank and I just felt so sad for John's family. I went right upstairs and hugged my son.

I'd e-mailed with his brother Mark a few times, but unfortunately I can't say I knew John personally - I knew the kind of person he was from watching his work and from what others had told me about him.

My friend Co once wrote of me that he admired me because I "made movies because no one told me I couldn't." I take that as a compliment - that sometimes you just have to plow ahead and make what you want, as best you can, with what you have. I feel like Mark and John Polonia were like that.

I am reminded of how I felt when Don Dohler passed away. Don made movies as best he could, with what he had. Don was always kind and helpful to fans, and his passing was a great loss for our moviemaking community.

The Polonia's inspired so many of us - from having made one of the early shot-on-video movies picked up by rental chains to being so prolific, making gobs of movies that always had a particular homemade charm.

I pray for Mark and for John's family.