Crypticon 2011 Photo Diary!

Here it is! http://skullfaceastronaut.com/drsquid/crypticon2011/

Here are just a few pics from this fun trip:

Linnea Quigley!

Just got back from the Crypticon Seattle convention. Had a great time! Plan a full trip photo diary soon, but it'll take a while to get together. For now, here is a photo of me with scream queen Linnea Quigley. I've met Brinke Stevens several times. If I can meet Michelle Bauer someday, my trifecta will be complete!!!!

Time Flies

Progress is being made here and there on various projects...how's that for cryptic?

Gearing up to go to Crypticon Seattle in 2 weeks. Planning to post a whole mess o' photos of the trip once I am back, as I have done with the 2010 Cryption and the 2009 Crypticon.

Deadly Premonitions Available from WAVE Video!

Deadly Premonitions DVDs are now available via credit card from WAVE video!

http://wavemovies.com/other_producers/fandc/index.php

Dr. Squid's Lab Report List!

Made my first google docs form. Pretty sweet. If you want to sign up for my e-mail list for periodic "Dr. Squid Lab Reports" go here!

Platoon of the Dead - just $9.99

Check it out! Zombies and Tough Tom Stedham for under $10!

Quickie FX shot for TWISTED FATES

So, for TWISTED FATES, I needed a quick shot of a closed-circuit TV monitor in a woman's pantry. Originally I was going to make a tape or DVD of a bit of the footage shot from the other room and actually play it on this little TV.

However, 2 things: one, it's hard to keep reflections of the camera off of a screen in a front-on shot like that, and two, I actually didn't have a decent shot of the two guys - either the woman was in the shot or they were looking the wrong way or at the camera or something.

This was to be a very quick insert shot, so a still image on the screen was going to be fine.

So, I grabbed these two frames: This one, where the guys looked the way I wanted them to...



...and this one, where the background and doorway areas were clear.



I combined them in Photoshop, masking out the woman with the background from the second shot, turning it to black and white and created the frame below:



With the blue background, I was able to use an iMovie plug-in (thanks for pointing it out to me, Victor!) to combine it with my tv monitor shot, resulting in this:



As I said, it's a very quick insert shot, so the lack of movement on the monitor if fine.

As always, so much work for such little details, but they all pay off in the end!

Sandwich!

With Sophia and Jack at a recent shoot for a video short

Triple Yeah!

Got called for Jury Duty, but then my number wasn't on the list, so didn't have to go. Yeah!

Finished my taxes. Double yeah!

Have been busy with shooting and editing a couple of custom video shorts.

Took a family vacation to San Diego for spring break. Legoland, San Diego Zoo and Sea World plus seeing old friends. Good times.

Did some work on TWISTED FATES here and there and am laying groundwork to finish up TRULY DREADFUL TALES by this summer.

Looking forward to going to Crypticon Seattle at the end of May.

And...

In looking for tax-related files, I found the safety glasses I've needed for about a year so I can do a reshoot of an FX shot for EATER!

Triple yeah!!

Deadly Premonitions DVD Release Screening

Had a fantastic time last night at the Northern Lights Theatre Pub for the Deadly Premonitions DVD Release screening! Here are a few pics...



Here is one of my posters in the lobby.



Up in lights! Me with Robert J. Olin (Detective Newman) and Rob Merickel (the masked killer)



Movies for sale!



Some of the attendees after the screening.

Welcome Sister at Mid-Valley Video Festival 2011

Actress Bryn Kristi, director Bob Olin, actress Sabrian Larivee and production assistant Dale Wilson and I at the 2011 Mid-Valley Video Festival in Salem, Oregon. 'Welcome Sister' played during a block of short films. Bob cast & directed this segment of the TWISTED FATES anthology that I wrote/shot/edited/scored. A swell time was had by all!

Deadly Premonitions DVD Release Screening!

Friday, March 4 at Northern Lights Theatre Pub, 3893 Commercial St. SE, Salem. Just $3 to get in and they serve beer, wine and food! I'll have copies of Deadly Premonitions, plus Trailer Park Double Wide Trilogy of Terror, Inbred Redneck Vampires, Housebound and The Evilmaker with me - just $10 each.

Deadly Premonitions Finally Available! New Trailer!

Starring Amira, Tom Stedham, Robert J. Olin, Barb Bradshaw, Tom Shaffer, Alexandra Paris, Rob Merickel, Toni Draggon, Lacey Brassiere, Morgan Mayhem, Darla Doom and Michelle "Ame" Mahoney. Written and directed by Joe Sherlock

Carrie, a young woman gets a gift certificate for her birthday for a session with a local psychic. At first she thinks it's silly but figures that since it's free, she'll go. The psychic reveals horrible news - that Carrie will be surrounded by death and blood. She flees and gets on with arranging her upcoming high school reunion. One by one, the classmates she calls turn up dead. What is the strange connection? Could the psychic have been right? Will Carrie survive these Deadly Premonitions?

http://www.skullfaceastronaut.com/drsquid/deadlypremonitions.html

BRV Screening & Band Show in Winlock!

Mike and I with the snazzy event poster outside of The Club tavern in fabulous Winlock, Washington, February 4, 2011.



My buddy John came over from central Oregon for the weekend's festivities.



Rich, Shelly and Lisa! Rich is beside himself with excitement about the movie screening!!! Rich's band, Two Minute Miracle, plays the theme song as well as other music in the movie and he appears as a vampire guitar player. Shelly played Gloria, the beauty salon owner and Lisa played Candy, the beer-swilling woman hit on at the bar.



Good gravy!!! Lil' Eva is all grow'd up! The lovely and talented Linsdey Hope was also helping out at the bar since things were extra busy!



They must've known I was coming because they were serving a special of bbq pulled pork, beans and potato salad. Nice!



Nate Hope played the band's drummer in the movie.



How big is that giant cock?



Two Minute Miracle, ready to rock and roll!



HUGE THANKS to Bruce, the owner of The Club!



Ron rocks so hard he doesn't need a stage - any counter will do!



Two Minute Miracle rocks The Club!

Good times. Good times, indeed.

BRV Screening at Bar It Was Filmed In!

This is gonna be a hoot and a half! See y'all there! - Mayor Farnsworth

Movie Posters for Sale!

Check 'em all out - http://www.proaxis.com/~sherlockfam/postersforsale.html

DEAD INK Trailer

My short SUPERSTAR is featured on this release. Pick it up at http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Ink-Debbie-D/dp/B0041OSW8S/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1283543758&sr=1-1

Shriek of the Sasquatch!

I love this trailer. Why? Because it harkens back to my childhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and low-budget monster movies of the era. This is the latest flick from Steve Sessions and it is both set in the 70s and made to look like it was FROM the 70s (note the scratches, rough cuts and audio crackles and pops in the trailer - all put in there by Steve - he's been shooting the movie just over the last 2 years).

I have had a bigfoot movie script in the works for some time now, and several years back, I decided it would be really cool if I set the story in the 1970s. I figured I could get some wigs, funky clothes, a few sheets of wood panelling, some ferns, a macrame owl or two, find some locals who had 1970s vehicles and I could pull it off. I can't wait to check out Steve's movie and look at all the details he put in to set it in the time period. Things that remind me of the 70s and/or those low-budget monster movies of the time include:

• The doctor on the phone with an anatomical chart behind him
  
  
• Wood paneling
  
  
• The green VW van!
  
  
• The low, low voice of the narrator
  
  
• The film damage and audio cracks & pops
  
  
• The beaded door divider
  
  
• The hairstyles and sideburns
  
  
• The short shorts on the girl creeping around next to the brick house
  
  
• The crocheted blanket and patterned pillows
  
  
• A telephone booth - those are getting very hard to find!
  
  
• And of course the music and freeze frame with funky typography at the end.
  
  

Coolness!

2010 is OVER. FINALLY!!!

2010 is OVER. FINALLY.

Movie-wise, I made small bits of progress on EATER, BLOOD CREEK WOODSMAN, TWISTED FATES and TRULY DREADFUL TALES, but still none of them are completed. Started writing a handful of different scripts...but none of them are done. Managed to squeeze in a couple of small custom video projects for folks as well.

Really enjoyed putting a horror short together for Steve Sessions' DEAD INK anthology. After a bunch of casting and scheduling troubles, it ended up being a quick, hectic shoot in June, but thanks to Sophia, Floyd, Sabrina and Rob for coming through to help make a great little scary short.

Finished opening and ending credit sequences for John Bowker's EVIL RISING, as well as several pick-up shots and a behind-the-scenes featurette. John is nearing the finish line on post-production, so hope to see that in 2011.

Sub Rosa re-released Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires via MVD Entertainment with a new title: INBRED REDNACK VAMPIRES, but the DVD was missing several extras (including director commentary track) that were still listed on the sleeve! FUCK! Still, it's nice to have some version of it available for people again.

All sorts of expensive car work this year, appliances dying, relatives all getting older and in poorer health, pay & benefits reductions at work, deaths of friends, had a bunch of colds, etc. Whine, whine, whine. Sorry, I'm just in a bad mood.

On the bright side, a local bar held a screening of BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES as a part of it's grand opening in May and that was fun. I also managed to be part of a tiny group that pulled off a huge 2-school High School Reunion this summer and also had a good time at the Crypticon Seattle horror convention in June. Bit the bullet and took the family to DisneyWorld this summer. Also reconnected with a long-lost friend from my childhood in New Jersey this fall. So not all bad, I guess.

So, here comes 2011 and I pretty much have the same resolutions as in recent years: finish movie projects, eat better and exercise more, work smarter, pay down debt, blah, blah, blah.

We'll see how it goes.

Netflix 2010

So it's the end of 2010 and a lot of websites, magazine and TV shows are featuring all kinds of lists - best movies of the year, worst movies of the year, etc.

Whatever.

I went through my list of Netflix rentals for 2010 and made some rambling statements. Here they are for your enjoyment.

Best Worst Movie was very entertaining and having worked behind vendor tables at comic book shows and seen how various horror cons work, I could really feel for those guys when they went to some cons and no one cared about them. After that, I checked out Troll 2, which some people I know couldn't believe I had not seen. Well now I have. Wow. It's everything they said it would be. And more. And yes, it's one of those that you just have to watch to understand.

The Forbidden World and Galaxy of Terror DVDs were spectacular. Not only because I love these sci-fi/horror sleazefests, but the extras were crazy extensive!

Love love love love Fringe.

Loved Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

Moon was great. Reminded me of Silent Running.

Bog was a "regional," that being usually a one-off, small-budget production made by people with big hearts and often no talent. Those movies where a guy got some money together, shot with local townsfolk in places like bars, private homes and the woods, often with a cheap monster costume and cheeseball effects. Plots are rather ridiculous and acting is usually wooden, save for one or two mega-overactors (often the ones with lots of 'theatrical' stage experience). These regionals also spotlight the local architecture, unique land formations or cultural events. Most of the ones I dig are from the 70s so you also have the fashion, haircuts, cars and decor of the time. Invasion of the Blood Farmers, Giant Spider Invasion and The Alien Factor all fall into this category. Bog was relly bad.

Cthulhu was such an odd movie. Shot here in the northwest, it's a modern riff on Lovecraft's Shadow over Innsmouth with a gay man returning to the small town he grew up in to find a local church involved in unearthly worship. It's dark and a little slow and not very gorey or scary. It's unsettling. Some of it's cool. Some of it is dull. Tori Spelling is in it and does fine in a small role. The northwest locations are exploited well. I listened to the commentary and that helped with some of the murkier plot issues and I learned a lot about a typically troubled low-budget production. I also read several interviews with the write and director, which shed even more light onto things. Seems like they were trying to utilize an often-used theme of Lovecraft's, that of someone who had gone to the big city or university returning to a small someplace they once knew, only to find it similar on the surface, but dark and changed just beneath the surface. They really wanted to tell the story of a man who grew up in a small town, hiding and ashamed of his sexuality, who went to the big city where he could live the lifestyle he wanted to and then had to return home as a changed person and face what he had initially tried to escape. But shoehorning that together with a Lovecraftian tale just didn't seem to gel for me.

Beyond that, in finding out more about the production, they had at least one cool looking fish-man costume created and went to far as the have helicopter shots of fish-men coming up out of the surf and then they barely used any of the footage! Many have said that a lot of Lovecraft wasn't really about monsters per se, but about mood and suspense...a looming sense of dread. A lot of movies that use Lovecraft as a basis or inspiration have showcased big slimy monsters and some say that isn't necessarily true to the author. Well, I dig big slimy monsters, so that's what I was hoping for here and I think we got too little of them. As I said, it was an odd movie.

Liked the squid-head manhole cover, though.

I still dig The Outsiders.

And Toy Story 3 was great, and made me tear up.

Sickened Now Available

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"Cheetos...they're not just for sex anymore."

What does that line mean? You'll just have to pick up VAMPIRISA'S VELVET VAULT OF HORROR and find out.

You Can Kiss My Ass!

Goofball aliens and the chick they abducted in WE NEED EARTH WOMEN

Shiny

Athena Demos in Twisted Fates.

Eyebrow Action

Jon Wilmot in Twisted Fates.

Pretzels

Behind the scenes of Evil Rising.

Busy Busy Busy

Sadly, not busy with movie stuff. Crazy busy at work - lots of working late and bringing work home. Sucks. And lots of family commitments lately. Still hope to eek out some more progress on movie projects by year's end. This blog used to be a place to post all my incremental progress and keep myself motivated. Mmmmmmm...not so much anymore. But maybe...

Almost Halloween

Almost Halloween...which means the end of the year is screaming towards me. Time to take stock of where I'm at on projects and see what I can finish up by Dec. 31.

Blood Creek Woodsman - closing in on having all the pick-ups shot. Got stuff finished up at the Markum Inn a couple of weeks ago.

Twisted Fates - Narrator/Wraparound is pretty much edited. Have just a couple of insert shots to shoot and drop in. Found a long-missing tape, which was good, but lots of bad sound that needed to be fixed, which was bad, but was able to run it through filters and through Garageband and got it to where I am happy with it, which is good. Working on sound and music now. Composed a title theme in Garageband a few weeks ago. Will need to adjust one of the segments to jive with the introduction, but shouldn't be too much trouble.

Deadly Premonitions - Need to double check last master from Mike and finish DVD sleeve design.

Still have some fixing to do on Eater, the fun sci-fi/short I did with my son and his friends.

Truly Dreadful Tales - Waiting for footage of 'Crazed' segment from filmmaker in Ohio. Still need to finish music for 'Beetlemaniac' segment. Writing final segment.

And of course Secret Projects #1-99 are all still in various stages of development.

Don Leifert, 1950-2010

I've written about my love of The Alien Factor and Don Dohler in the past. I just found out that one of Don's frequent actors, Don Leifert, passed away this weekend.

Don Leifert had a William Shatner-esque delivery that I always felt matched the characters he was playing.

I first saw him as Ben Zachary in The Alien Factor. He also had roles in Dohler's Nightbeast and Galaxy Invader and the title role in Fiend. Dohler's 2004 sci-fi movie Crawler is still in post for CGI effects with the Timewarp Films folks and Leifert apparently had a role in it playing a character named...Zachary. Can't wait to check it out.

Until this spring, Leifert was a theater teacher at Towson High School in Towson, Maryland. Judging from the comments on the Don Leifert Appreciation Group Facebook page, his students loved him.

R.I.P.

Twisted Fates Title Theme

I was going for a 1970s made-for-tv horror movie kind of vibe. Listened to Salem's Lot and Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries themes a bunch and then came up with this.

15 Years of F&C Productions

Way back in the fall of 1995, while sitting behind the counter at Hero Hero, a comic shop I co-owned with some high school buddies, I began scribbling notes and drawing sketches for an X-Files-ish b-horror movie. I had some cool special effects shots in mind and started linking them together with a storyline of government conspiracies, men in black and things from another dimension. I remember hashing through the project with Tom Shaffer at that counter and a few weeks later, I grabbed my giant VHS camcorder, threw Tom into a lab coat and began making the short feature DIMENSION OF BLOOD.

Thus was the birth of F&C Productions and my plunge into the world of shot-on-video movies.

I had been self-publishing a comic book and just started publishing a zine called Dr. Squid which featured b-movie reviews among other things. I had subscribed to Draculina Magazine, which advertised many no-budget, homemade horror tapes in the back, so I was aware of a growing subculture of selling and trading these VHS movies. I had made some sci-fi and horror shorts with friends John Bowker and Rob Merickel years earlier, and this looked like fun.

My dad helped me edit DIMENSION OF BLOOD on a 3/4-inch U-Matic editing system, a dinosaur in the editing world already at that time, but ya gotta work with what you've got. I had some VHS copies made and we had a little screening and it was fun.

This was the early days of the internet for me, but soon I had a website up and was networking with other homemade moviemakers around the globe. There were 'microcinema' bulletin boards and amateur movie review sites were popping up all over the place.

My old friend John Bowker came over for a visit and once he saw DIMENSION OF BLOOD, he said he had to be involved in my next production.

I soon made another short feature called MONSTER IN THE GARAGE, a horror comedy starring John and Rob. Again, I made some paper mache monsters, some props, mixed up some fake blood, cast a bunch of friends, and made a movie. I put the two movies on a double feature tape and ended up selling some through Draculina Magazine.



Next up I became the videographer for John's fantasy feature, DREAMWALKERS for his own "Pipedreams Entertainment." It was a herculean project, shot on long weekends for a year or so. I played a role, made some props, etc. We used three Hi-8 cameras over the course of the shoot and most everyone we knew ended up in a role. John and I edited that together on the 3/4" system, which by this time my dad had given me.



Things accelerated over the next several years, with John and I both writing and directing projects, and me shooting them. John ended up getting his own editing set-up and through the internet, we got involved in shooting not just our own features, but anthology segments for other microcinema folks.

My stuff was mostly horror/sci-fi with a comedic bent: TRAILER PARK DOUBLE-WIDE TRILOGY OF TERROR, VAMPIRISA'S VELVET VAULT OF HORROR, WE NEED EARTH WOMEN, CRIMSON HEATHER and LUST OF THE VAMPIRE HOOKERS. During the same time, John got some financing and flew in an actress from L.A., for a straight horror feature, THE EVILMAKER. Others that followed included ABOMINATION: EVILMAKER 2, THE SEEKERS and HOUSEBOUND, all straight horror. We were both involved in anthologies like the ALIEN CONSPIRACY series, WEREWOLF TALES and TWISTED ILLUSIONS 2.



John's THE EVILMAKER was picked up by a regional distributor, who unfortunately went bankrupt. ABOMINATION: EVILMAKER 2 was picked up by Brain Damage Films and showed up in Hollywood Video stores across the country! Both HOUSEBOUND and THE SEEKERS were picked up and put out on DVD as well.



I tried my hand at something different in the early 2000s, making a sexy crime thriller called UNDERBELLY. Then John made the move to Hollywood. In the spring of 2003, I hired Ron Ford to direct a segment for TWISTED FATES, a horror anthology I'd written. Later in 2003, Mike Hegg and I were contracted to co-write a crazy comedy called BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES. We both produced, I directed, Mike edited and we again cast all sorts of friends and contacts. It was a huge cast, a huge project, shot mainly in a remote location 3 hours from me on long weekends in the last summer and fall. The next summer, we had a big premiere and a weeklong run at a Portland, Oregon theater/bar. It came out on DVD from a New-York-based distributor in September of 2004 and by summer of 2007 it was sold out. It was available on Netflix and it's high gross-out factor earned it both praise and thrashings across the internet.



In 2005, I started shooting a mystery thriller I'd written called DEADLY PREMONITIONS with an actor from Alabama named Tom Stedham who flew out to be star in this new feature. Shooting for it continued off and on over the next several years. I was also shooting more for TWISTED FATES, including one segment directed by Robert J. Olin, and contracting out to other filmmakers to shoot from my scripts for a monster-themed anthology called TRULY DREADFUL TALES. I even sold a horror script I'd written to another producer.



John moved back to Oregon in 2007 and we got right into a new project, a sci-fi zombie flick called PLATOON OF THE DEAD. Tom Stedham came out again and we also brought actress Ariauna Albright up from L.A. I was my first time shooting in HD and it was a huge project. At the end of 2007 Tempe Video put out a double feature DVD set of The EVILMAKER & ABOMINATION: EVILMAKER 2.



Both John and I began screening and premiering our movies at a theater/pub in Salem, Oregon called Northern Lights. Not only have the events been fun, but we've sold the place out, Troma's Lloyd Kaufman stopped by, and we even cast for a project from the audience!

In early 2009, I shot and played a role in EVIL RISING, another John-written & directed horror flick. Tempe Video released PLATOON OF THE DEAD in June of that year, and insanely enough, John and embarked on yet another horror feature later that summer. I shot & directed one of the most ambitious projects I've done yet, BLOOD CREEK WOODSMAN, written by John.



In the spring of 2010, I wrote & directed a short for Steve Sessions' tattoo-themed horror anthology DEAD INK, and that summer BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES was re-released on DVD with a new title from the distributor: INBRED REDNECK VAMPIRES.

So here were are in late 2010, a decade and a half after the birth of F&C Productions. It's funny - the "F" and "C" originally stood for "Fast" and "Cheap." While every once in a while it seems like I'm able to do things fast or cheap, the fact is that the majority of the time projects take forever and there are always expenses you don't count on! As always, I've got more projects on my plate than I have time for, but I just keep on keepin' on.

These movies wouldn't be anything without the great friends and contacts I've made over the years. Some of the best non-actor actors I've met, amazing craftsmen in props & effects, people with connections I would have never thought of, folks who let us shoot in their homes and get things bloody, technical wizards and so many others are all part of the puzzle that makes these wild flicks come to life.

Finally I have to thank my family for supporting me in this crazy addiction for the last 15 years.

Here's to another 15 years? Who knows? You never know what the future might hold. But I know I have projects to get back to working on...

Dead Ink Now Available!

DEAD INK, a tattoo-themed horror anthology starring Debbie D, Demona Bast, Isabelle Stephen and Luc Bernier is now available from Amazon. The main anthology is directed by Steve Sessions and Luc Bernier. Bonus shorts are included including one directed by me and starring Floyd Sumner and Sophia Maria.

Pick up the dvd here: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Ink-Debbie-D/dp/B0041OSW8S/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1283543758&sr=1-1