Treespirit Screencaps

Here are a few screen caps from the first footage Tom Shaffer has shot & directed (and starred in!) of my script for the Treespirit short.

Sweet!

Hoping to shoot a bit more with my son for the EATER project this weekend. Also hoping to do some more editing on DEADLY PREMONITIONS.

PHANTASM III debuts on DVD on April 10. Sweet! All I have is a VHS copy I taped off of TV, I think.

JASON OF STAR COMMAND comes out on DVD in May. Sweet!!

Extra memory arrived for computer - hope to get it put in later this week.

Check it out: HorrorJunk internet review show reviews BLOODSUCKING REDNECK VAMPIRES...and they pretty much seemed to dig it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOvt-C3dH2A

Got a new medical coverage plan with no copay for my blood pressure medication! Sweet!

Saw some of Tom Shaffer's TREESPIRIT footage. Some is pretty blownout and the color is pretty bad, but I'm hoping I can fix it all in post. He's got a lot left to shoot so we'll see how the whole thing turns out.

Saw TENACIOUS D in Portland - crazy and funny.

Got a stedicam jr. and nice tripod from my dad - need to carve out time to try 'em out.

Been ridiculously busy at work and at home, but hope to get some more movie updates posted soon.

Zombie Cop!

Tempe Video has set May 2007 as the release month for BAD MOVIE POLICE DOUBLE FEATURE: ZOMBIE COP and MAXIMUM IMPACT. Woo hoo!!! I've been a fan of ZOMBIE COP ever since I rented it from Hollywood Video downtown. The box and title was just too tempting to pass up.

Sure it's a total cheeseball, shot on video quickie, but frankly it reminds me off the shot-on-video gems that my friends and I made when I was in college. And it's hilarious. I'm hoping there will be a commentary track as those are the most enjoyable things about the Bad Movie Police releases.

I'd encourage anyone who digs schlocky stuff and late 80's/early 90's shot-on-video stuff to pick this puppy up. Too cheap? Rent it on netflix or something.

ZOMBIE COP - "Your Rights Are Hereby Waived!"

Keep watching www.tempevideo.com for news...

Good Times With John

John Bowker and I goofing around with my iMac...

Sound Troubles

Well, it was too good to be true. When I share the New Neighbor short to tape, the sound all but goes away partway through, then every other cut seems to be missing sound. Sigh. Didn't find any help in the iMovie forums, but will poke around more and ask a few fellow microcinema folks this week.

The New Neighbor is Done

Finally finished the music and sound work on the "New Neighbor" segment for TWISTED FATES this morning. Need to export it out to tape and also try out iDVD with it. Then on to...everything else!

Here are some photos Ron Ford sent me from the shoot way back when. Athena Demos, William Combs and Ron are pictured on a cold Memorial Day weekend, 2003.









Over the holidays I started a little creature feature with my 9-year-old son and his friends. Inspired, here's a box cover I threw together.

Movie Pix

Dee and I at a recent shoot.

Poor Tom. Look what I made him wear.

Awesome!

http://www.skinnyvideo.co.uk/

2006 SUCKED!!!

2006 Sucked.

A few of the lowlights:

At the end of last year, my grandmother died. At the beginning of this year, my dad had a heart attack, followed by two surgeries. Then, my young son's first pet, a fish, died. So much death around me.

A couple of weeks later, I went to the doctor who was surprised I hadn't already had a stroke due to several medical conditions. He said that if things didn't change drastically, I was going to die, and sooner rather than later. Scared the crap outta me. I've made a lot of drastic changes in my life in the last few months. It hasn't been fun, but if I want to be around for my family, I gotta do what I gotta do.

Spent all that time photographing movies posters I had for sale and didn't sell a single one.

I cancelled my trip to the San Jose Fangoria Weekend of Horrors.

Found out that Heather Storm, who was in my movie UNDERBELLY had a role in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 2. Good for her. Unfortunately, I've yet to see a dime from Vista Street Entertainment for UNDERBELLY.

To top it off, Don Dohler, he of THE ALIEN FACTOR fame, a really nice guy and a big inspiration to me, died this month of lung and brain cancer.

A whole bunch of other crap went on this year that I don't even want to get into here. This is primarily a movie blog, so here's the status on the movies I still have on my plate:

TWISTED FATES: "New Neighbor" segment of is still not totally complete - still needs a bit of music. Robert J.Olin is set to direct the "Welcome Sister" segment in spring 2007. I still need to shoot more stuff, but am unsure of when I can pull it together.

DEADLY PREMONITIONS: I made a trailer, but that's as far as I've gotten. Special effects for Link Masters anchorman footage has been cancelled - going to reshoot.

DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES: After hiring him to do so about two years ago, Tom Shaffer was finally going to shoot the TREESPIRIT segment a few weeks ago, but his lead actress was a no-show, so shoot was cancelled. The girl I'd hired to direct and star in a vampire segment at the beginning of the year completely flaked out, not only keeping my meager production funds and custom-made prop, but deciding she wanted to live as a man. I'm not kidding. Still working on the mummy costume.

Let's take a look back at my New Year's Resolutions 2006, shall we?

"1) Finish TWISTED FATES, DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES and DEADLY PREMONITIONS"

HA! Nope.

"2) Publish an issue of Dr. Squid"

HA HA! Nope.

"3) Go to the June Fango Con in Burbank"

HA HA HA! Nope.

"4) Finish my CREATURE FROM BEYOND script as well as at least one of the other scripts I have half-started all over the place"

HA HA HA HA! Nope.

"I've got other hopes for the year, including losing 50 pounds, paying off my credit cards, and other stuff"

Well, I have lost almost 20 pounds and we did pay off all of our credit cards.

So, I am more than glad that 2006 is almost over. 2007 better be a better year, or I'm going to kill somebody!!!

Resolutions for 2007? Do I dare tempt fate? I think not.

Tell those you love that you love them. Tell them now.

God bless.

On to 2007...

Old Monster Pics

Well, there not THAT old, but they're not new. Just found one of those disposible cameras and look what was on it!



This is the "skull" for TARPO, carved out of a glued-together assembly of styrofoam packing things I got from the computer department where I work.



I used a pair of superballs purchased at The Dollar Store for the eyeballs.



Here is my son wearing the finished costume. I covered the skull with green plastic tarp material, attaching it with a bunch of glue, duct tape and staples. The body was made by cutting out a body outline from two sheets of tarp, stapling and duct-taping the edges and turning it inside out, plus adding a bunch of tarp strips to look like seaweed. I cut up some plastic jump ropes I bought at The Dollar Store to make the "tongues" that come out of TARPO's head.



Here is my son modelling one of the hands I bought for the TREESPIRIT monster



Here is the UNDERBUG before we painted it.



Here is my son with the finished UNDERBUG.

All Work Is Making Me A Dull Boy!

I've got a major project at work going on and have been bringing parts of it home to make sure it is done on time. As such, movie stuff is screaming for attention from it's current location on the back burner.

Tom Shaffer did report that his actress was a no-show on Sunday, so he's re-casting the lead. More news when it comes in.

Got one of those disposable cameras developed and there were a bunch of pics from early work on the Underbug and Tarpo monsters for DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES. Will post when I have a moment.

Don Doher, 1946-2006

My friend John called me this afternoon to pass along the sad news that Baltimore filmmaker Don Dohler had lost his battle with cancer this morning. He was 60.

John and I were both in middle school when we seperately caught Don's movie THE ALIEN FACTOR on the channel 12 afternoon movie. The movie was a huge inspiration for us both and got us interested in making our own movies. The picture above is Don inside an alien outfit from the movie.

It impacted me for a number of reasons. I had moved all the way across the country from New Jersey a year or two earlier. To sit in my living room and watch this movie populated with characters who had accents like mine, who tromped around in woods like those around my old house, was almost like hearing from old friends. Of course the fact that I was around 12 and the movie was filled with all sorts of weird alien monsters made an impact as well!

My dad had a super-8 camera and had made stop-motion movies with his brother. I had made a couple of stop motion things with it as well and remember planning my own ALIEN FACTOR-inspired movie complete with storyboards and special effects notes. I had forced-perspective stuff planned and location-scouted up in the hills and woods behind my house. I never did get that project off the ground, but years later John got a VHS video camera for Christmas. The next thing you know, he and I and Rob Merickel had made STARCHASERS, a sci-fi chase movie shot in and around my house and clearly inspired by Don's ALIEN FACTOR flick.

Sometime back in the mid-80's, I think, TBS aired THE ALIEN FACTOR and I got it recorded on tape. That VHS tape was gold to me for I'd never seen the movie any other time and had never seen it available in video stores where I lived. At the end of the movie, in the end credits crawl, there was an address for the company that made the movie. I wrote to them, telling them how cool the movie was. Unfortunately the address was no longer good and the letter was returned to me. Rats.

Even more years later, I was out of college, working a regular 8-5 job and co-owner of a comic book and game store. I found an ad in a magazine for Don's Movie Club Magazine. I was self-publishing a photocopied zine at the time, Dr. Squid. I wrote to Don in hopes that he would do an interview by mail for my next issue - this was before I was really on the internet. To my pleasant surprise, Don not only wrote back but answered my questions with great detail. He unfortunately seemed a bit bitter about ever getting back into making movies, as he'd been burned by many distributors.

As time went on I moved from publishing a zine reviewing and about b-movies, to making my own. Don also ventured back due to the advent of digital video and partnered with Joe Ripple to form Timwarp Films.

Fred Olen Ray put out THE ALIEN FACTOR on DVD through his Retromedia label. Sweet.

Don and I corresponded via e-mail and I did a couple of interviews with him for websites and genre publications. He was always nice, supportive and seemed happy to share stories about his work.

I'll be watching THE ALIEN FACTOR tonight in honor of Don.

May he rest in peace.



This is a shot of Don in his basement where they built a set for the Sheriff's office for THE ALIEN FACTOR. I've always thought this was a cool shot - Don, surrounded by the movie world that he, literally, built.

Gobble Gobble

Had a good Thanksgiving. Lots of be thankful for.

I've decided that I'm not going to the Fanogria Weekend of Horrors in San Jose in Janaury. It's just not good timing right now for a number of reasons. I do plan to try for the Burbank Fango Con in June. We'll see...

Watched a movie called ANGEL BLADE the other day which featured Heather Storm in a tiny role of a prostitute who gets murdered. Heather was in my movie UNDERBELLY and I recently found out she's featured in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 2.

DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES: Tom Shaffer plans to start shooting the "TreeSpirit" segment this coming weekend.

DRACULA'S ACCOUNTANT: I actually wrote up about 3 pages of this the other day. Crazy!

DO-OVERS: I'm working on a couple of re-edits of some of my old movies for a possible re-packaging kind of thing. Shooting of some new or replacement footage is going to be necessary. To that end I spent Sunday afternoon with Tom Shaffer and Dee Alsman shooting some scenes. Both are troopers, gave great performances and I think we all had a fine time. Details when the time is right.

Deadly Premonitions Trailer

Here it is...

Zippy Wafflebuns!

Spent the day making this goofy video with my son!

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES: Tom Shaffer called and let me know that Crystal Boboluchii (pictured below) is lined up for the lead in the "TreeSpirit" segment. Sweet.



Lining up a couple shoots in the next few weeks - basically reshoot/pick-up kind of stuff for a couple of projects I'm not quite ready to talk about yet.

Hope to get a ton of stuff done this weekend. Fingers crossed!

Dracula's Accountant

In the "I can't help myself" department, I had an idea for a new script the other night and started jotting notes down about it. Here's the title: DRACULA'S ACCOUNTANT. Man, I'm nuts!

I got DORM DAZE 2 last night from Netflix and started watching it. Heather Storm is actually in it quite a bit, although she appears to have no lines. Still odd to see someone I worked with (in UNDERBELLY) in a "real" movie!

TWISTED FATES: Made a nifty theme in Garage Band for the "New Neighbor" segment. Still more music to put together.

DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES: Just about done writing the segment about the guy who turns into a bug monster on a blind date. Was planning to work in a zillion bug-themed phrases like "ants int he pants" and "bugging out" and such, and I did get a handful worked in, but it would seem a bit too goofy to cram in anny more than I have. Next up is finishing this script and working on a mask. I've got the concept in my head, just need to do some sketches and start building it.

DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES: Talked to Tom Shaffer yesterday and he's already got someone lined up to play the "Treespirit" monster - someone about 7 feet tall! He's also got call in to three other people for the cast, so things are moving along!

Dare I say I feel a bit of momentum on these various projects, so I hope I can keep it up.

Heather Storm

Thanks to a tip-off from my buddy John Bowker, I just found out that Heather Storm, one of the actresses from my flick UNDERBELLY, is in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 2! Just a few years back she was a college student acting in a shot-on-video b-movie in some guy's mother-in-law's house, and now look at her!





You can pick up UNDERBELLY on DVD from me at THE STORE or WATCH IT RIGHT NOW VIA VIDEO ON DEMAND.

UPDATE: Heather Storm is also the new co-host of GARAGE SQUAD on the VELOCITY channel!

Underbelly from Joe Sherlock on Vimeo.

Bit o' Script Work

Finished the rewrite on the TREESPIRIT segment of DR. PUDDING'S MONSTER FILES and sent it over to Tom Shaffer. While I still have several proejcts to edit before I'd even get to that one, it feels good to have it back in Tom's court.

I also worked more on a script for a segment about a guy who turns into a fly monster while on a blind date. Thinking this will go in instead of the vampire story. Have talked to an actor and actress about it and they we interested, but need to get the script finished to follow-up.

Saw a local theatrical production of Dracula tonight. Frequent F&C actor and effect man Rob Merickel did the make-up and special effects. It was way cool including some hot Dracula's brides and a great-looking cross that bursts into flame.

Back to the grind tomorrow...

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On to music

Finished editing and "The New Neighbor" clocks in at 15:38. Have dropped in some music I'd made in Garage Band for the DEADLY PREMONITIONS trailer, but need to create some more specifically for this.