Spirit Halloween Store (Canon T2i)

First outing with the Canon T2i (550d). Spirit Halloween Store Winston Salem, NC.

Used the kit lens, 18-55mm. Shot in 1080 24p. Auto ISO.

Post and grading in Sony Vegas Pro 9.

The evil baby at the end cracks me up.

Swish Blog #1

Special thanks to Justin Johnson for the idea. Swish Blogging (Or Vlogging) is a unique way to Vlog quickly. Capturing snippets of your day and then tilting up or panning left or right at the end of each clip, this way your clips transitions neatly to the next. No explanation needed, and talking to the camera isn't necessary. Very much just a peek into your day, leaving the images to speak for themselves. Very short, and self explanatory. All transitions can be done in camera, taking it easier on the editing, getting you to the upload much faster.

Halloween is now

111 Days 1 Hour and 11 minutes away. I have so much to do and yet I had time to try to post at 7/11 11:11. Ok back to work.

Scary, but not the end

Halloween. Headache. The Kitchen. A Greek Moment. Poltergeist. A Priest. Thinking of the future. Regretting the past. Working to make things better. Supernatural. Not seeing Drag Me To Hell. Chris bought a Ninja outfit. Hot Cofee. Hot Shower. Cold air. It rained all day. Fingers crossed for Assassin's Creed. Day off, thank God. Crazy flaming candle. 13 Scarier Moments. TAPS. Chicken legs. Bread and Butter. Antioxidants. Jennifer. Ashley. Ghosts. Roger Rabbit. Your latest thought. Creative Visualization. There is no spoon.

You have to do better. You make your own future. No one else.

YOU make your own future.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Awake

Can't sleep. Currently on my wife's laptop while QVC's Halloween Spooktacular is on. I love that they're selling Halloween items. I'm really getting a kick out of the 5' Hanging Motion Activated Kicking Scare Crow. It's an evil pumpkin face on top of a scarecrow's body. It's leg's flail and it's eyes light up when you walk in front of it. Neat.

If our budget would allow it, I know Juli and I would buy every single Halloween item we saw.

On QVC, a guy in a giant monster monkey outfit just walked on to the set, has played with the scarecrow, and has now left. Weird.

Anyhoo. Juli and I love Halloween. Currently our bedroom is adorned with a string of pumpkin lights across our wall, and 6 different Halloween candle holders sit across the stand in front of our TV.

On QVC, an evil pirate man has now joined the monster monkey and they are now dancing. Ah, I see, this is apparently a new item they are now selling. Halloween Masks with Hat and Hair. I see a creepy pirate with a pirate hat and hair, and the monkey mask also has hair and is wearing a clown hat. I could very well be hallucinating all this.

Anyways. I cannot fully express my love for Halloween. Those that know me know how much I love it, and I love that Juli loves it just as much as I do. The other night we finally got to watch Trick r' Treat. Had the candles lit and everything. It was actually quite a neat site to see those lit up pumpkins and haunted houses in front of the TV as the opening credits rolled.

Trick r' Treat is not only a great Halloween movie, it's just an overall great movie. Well directed, well written, great performances, and very intriguing. It really does capture that Halloween spirit. It does indeed lean towards the eerie and demented. Although I was able to pick up on alot of the twists, there were a few moments I just was not expecting.

I may give a full review later, but for now I'll say it was a great experience to watch a movie that celebrated one of my favorite holidays. And it was quite refreshing to watch an original horror movie, and not one that's a reboot or a remake. Warner Bros. decided not to release this one in theaters a couple of years ago. Huge mistake in my opinion.

On QVC, 6' Animated Witches Airblown w/ Candy Dish Cauldron. It's a huge air filled prop of 3 cartoonish looking witches sitting around a cartoon cauldron. Their heads spin. Someone just unplugged it and they all collapsed. That looked kind of neat.

Anyway, it's sad that so many sequels and remakes get to theaters, and a great original movie like Trick r' Treat gets shelved for two years and then goes direct to DVD. Sad. Oh well, I am proud to own it. It now goes with my 3 other favorite Halloween movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas the original Halloween, and Sleepy Hollow.

PROJECT LIST UPDATES:

MONSTER COPS - Finish and premiere the next episode online on Halloween or soon after. Complete 2 more episodes and as many webisodes as possible before February. Distribute a Monster Cops DVD early next year that includes all 4 episodes and about 13 webisodes altogether, as well as a ton of DVD extras, vlogs, gag reel, etc.

HALLOWEEN VIDEOS - There are two Halloween videos. One is called The Long Halloween, pretty much my way of celebrating and paying triute to the holiday. The other one is called The Halloween Machine. Been working on that one for years, got the music for it done and everything, but every year it gets canceled, because it is time consuming and somewhat of a large undertaking. We shall see.

REDD - This is a short film that I've been mulling over for a long while now. I've just recently decided that it needs to be pursued fully. I'm trying to figure out how we can do this. If I can do it the way I see it in my head, it'll be mind blowing.

BOBBY'S CLOSET - It's in preproduction. I'm hoping we can shoot this by spring of next year. Still in the fund-raising stage. I hope to unveil the next part of our fund-raising strategy soon.

Ok, getting sleepy. QVC is back to selling clothes now anyhow.

Trick R Treat

So very excited!

'Trick R Treat' DVD Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Let The Celebration Begin 2009

It's Halloween.

Yes, yes, it's only September 1st (now 2nd), but for Halloween Fans like myself that only means it's the beginning of the true Halloween celebration. Although I've pretty much been celebrating Halloween since August 1st, and technically July 1st.

Let's get things started right, with BUNNIES!!!!

Fuck Me Gently With a Chainsaw

Yes, yes, the title alludes to that classic high school murder flick HEATHERS. Great movie. Written by Daniel Waters. Where the hell is Daniel Waters? Dan, if you're out there drop me a line bud. Miss you dearly we need good writers desperately.

Apparently Heather's maybe resurrected as a TV show. As much as I'm sick to death of all the adaptations, remakes, and reboots, if Heather's has to come back I might prefer it as a TV series. Especially if you don't hold back on the murder, cussing, and dark humor the movie so gleefully celebrated. Slap this badgirl on HBO or Showtime and you'll have a decent series ala Sopranos, Sex In The City, or The Wire.

I have to admit I've become more of a TV hound than a movie goer. I don't watch too many flicks in theaters nowadays. Having worked in the movie theater industry for so long, I have become an elitist. I know how a movie should be shown, how it should be watched, and how a theater should be run.

For the past few years I've seen the decline of the movie theater experience, what with horribe cell phone etiquette, people who talk more than watch, and movie theater management that doesn't do anything about it. And after you pay for overpriced tickets to struggle through the incompetence you end up watching a fairly horrible and unoriginal movie.

Now it's not all bad, there have been some really great films to come out in the last few years, but many of them I choose to experience in my own home theater, away from the crowds. Which is a shame, because I use to love those crowds. I miss those old late night screenings, the excited crowd anticipating a great movie experience. If I were in Austin at the Drafthouse, or at any number of specialty theaters that still know how to show a movie and the crowds still know how to enjoy a flick I would be fine. But a normal friday night at the local cineplex with the kiddies on their phones, and folks who walk in late, not the makings of a great cinematic experience.

In the past 10 years I've found alot of the really great writing and great cinematic storytelling to be found on TV. The West Wing, Sopranos, Lost, The Wire, Heroes, House, The Office, Arrested Development, and many many other shows have evolved from normal TV dramatics to real heartfelt, thought provoking story telling.

If your someone I've talked to before about The West Wing, I've most likely talked about my favorite episode (I think I may have blogged about it as well.) The final episode of the second season. It's called Two Cathedrals. Such a well written episode, and an ending I thought I would only really see in a movie. Lost is another great example. The series has several great episodes, but the pilot alone rivals many big budget summer blockbusters.

I'll always love the movies. But the really great movie style stories are no longer just limited to the cinema. There are really great stories and visions yet to be expressed both in the theaters and on tv, and now also online through web series, and even through video games.

Maybe one of these days I'll find my way back to the theater. Right now I've got netflix and a decent home movie theater to tide me over.

So much to look forward to. House returns this Monday. Yes, I am excited. I think they have a real opportunity to throw House into some comical/dramatic situations ala One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.

And as much of a tightwad I am about money, I'm anxious to shell out some bucks for some upcoming DVD releases.  One of my horror fav's from the 80's is finally heading for DVD. NIGHT OF THE CREEPS.

 Also the long awaited Halloween movie TRICK R TREAT heads to DVD as well.











Still working on BOBBY'S CLOSET, in the fundraising / preproduction stage.  Also I'm planning on shooting a VAMPIRE movie in September. Oh how I'd love to have this Vamp Flick ready to go before November. We'll see.

Until then, I'm awaiting the wide angle lens I purchased, and am already working on the score for said Untitled Vampire Movie.  I'm seeing pumpkins hitting the store shelves, the weather seems to be cooling down, and the local Halloween store is already open.  I'm determined to make this a good Halloween, which I will wholly celebrate by making a movie.

More later on the Vamp flick and Bobby's Closet.

An amazing sunset Wednesday. I was driving when the sun caught me. It looked particularly spectacular that day. Driving towards it, as it went down, over the hill, the trees in the distance framing it. No one else was on the road, and it felt like this amazing spectacle was being performed only for me. It was quite literally breathtaking.

An amazing full moon tonight. Songs Of Love and Devotion, blaring. Music I hadn't really, REALLY listened to in over a decade. I turned it up as I drove, put the windows down, sped through the dark of night, watching the fullest moon I'd seen in a while dancing through the branches along this dark country road. It made me remember things I needed to remember.Someone's fire place is a blaze, and it almost smells and feels like fall going into winter. 

Exactly what I needed. What a great week so far.

Michelle, my dear, I got your email. I miss you dearly, and I am so very happy you and Mike are pregnant again.  I'll email you as soon as I can.

SCREAM w Bunnies

Been a huge fan of Angry Alien Production's work on the Bunnies shorts. 30 second animations summing up your favorite movies, with bunnies. Here's scream.



Check out more from Angry Alien.

Hallowindow

A creation of artist Mark Gervais. A brilliant idea if you've got a projector and an available window on Halloween. I'm so doing this next year. Heck I'm doing this for Easter.



Check out more of Mark's work:
http://www.markgervais.com/

Get the Hallowindow animation to own:
http://hallowindow.com

Chad Hates Aliens

So the Halloween celebration has begun. How am I going to celebrate Halloween? I must be doing something amazing seeing as how I'm such a big halloween freak right? Well I am doing something immensely amazing. I'm going to work tonight.

I've actually been celebrating Halloween for the past few months. It kind of feels that way when you're working on Monster Cops. Today we watched some scary videos, Ghosthunters, Supernatural, bought some Halloween decor and put it all up. For the past few years we've always been just so busy that we couldn't celebrate Halloween the way we truely wanted to. Have a party, get dressed up, go to Haunted Houses, make Halloween Themed Goodies, go all out on the decorations. We're just not there yet. So it's all about the little things. A scary movie here, a few pumpkin lights there. And the main thing for me is to make a Halloween Tribute Video.

I always feel the need to do something special to mark the Halloween occasions, and the best thing I know to do is make a video of some sort. Something I've done for years since I wasa kid. I've always had the video camera out, during trick or treating, or tried to sneak it in to Haunted Houses, always trying to capture that Halloween Spirit as it was happening.

In 2005 I made my HALLOWEEN NERD video. It's right after I had just moved to NC and I needed to do something to not just celebrate Halloween but to make myself feel at home. It was a basic compilation of the little things me and my wife did for Halloween as well as a few observations on the holiday itself. In 2006 I didn't make one although I had planned to. Juli's Mom would pass away that year and the thought of celebrating anything at all was far from out minds. 2007 was still a time of healing as we marked the anniversary of Brenda's death, so the idea of celebrating Halloween just wasn't there either.

Now it's 2008, and I think we're ready to celebrate Halloween again, but of course the time and the money just aren't there. But I am going to make a video. Right now it's called THE LONG HALLOWEEN, and it will be similar in fashion to the 2005 Halloween Nerd video. A sort of video essay on what Hallloween means to me, the little ways we celebrate it, and how sometimes for the die hards that celebration doesn't ever really end.

Of course I'll be shooting and editing well past Halloween so it'll probably be done just after Halloween, but it's something I have to do, for me, and for that Halloween Bug that bites me every so often.

So until MY Halloween Video is ready, I think I'll just post random vids in the Halloween Spirit. This one is definitely a fav, it's Hilarious! And it definitely has that Monster Cops feel to it. Awesome!

CHAD HATES ALIENS

Halloween In July

I've always been a big fan of Halloween. And you already know this if you've seen my Halloween Nerd Vlog above. But I have to say that the past few years haven't been keeping me in that old Halloween spirit. Until today that is. Honestly it started with an email from an old friend from highschool I read a few days ago. She and I always shared the same kind of enthusiasm for Halloween. So reading her email made me a bit sad because I haven't really felt that old Halloween spirit in a while. It all came rushing back though. I decided to go to AC Moore. And yesterday all of a sudden felt like fall for a bit. The cold front, the clouds, felt very refreshing. Then I stepped into AC Moore and saw that they actually had their Halloween stuff out, right as you walk into the store.

So, of course, I took some pics.



Yes I'm fairly certain a few folks were disturbed by the stalk filipino gentleman enthusiastically taking pictures of Halloween decorations with his camera phone.





I'm pretty sure that my Halloween mood was preset by the fact that I had just bought The Dark Knight soundtrack and had been listening to it in the car all day.


So let's see. Projects to work on, working on Monster Cops: Dead By Dawn. Simultaneously will be working on a mock trailer for a movie called Archangel. I think I'll have to find time to fit in a new Halloween Video this year.