Thinking About A Werewolf

 One of the major components in what's going to make The short film REDD impressive is how the creatures look. Specifically the Giant Wolf Beasts. 

The creatures vary in the actual feature script. We'll see some zombies, vampires, demon like creatures, but since it's a spin on Red Riding Hood, then it's the Wolf Beasts that must be our heroine's "Stormtrooper."



I'd like to show that there are all manner of Wolf Beasts in this dark and evil forest, quadrupeds, bipeds, wolf-men, wolf-women, smaller wolf like creatures, and giant beasts of all kinds.  Right now, for the short, I can really only express one kind and I want it to be the biggest, and most menacing.

I've posted some of these pics before on my progress. Built the head out of cardboard, duct tape, and faux fur, and fashioned the giant claws out of giant monster gloves I bought on sale, and stuffed them with paper and cardboard.

Then I did some test shots with Brandon White so I could get a feel for how I needed to fashion the rest of the body.

And here are shots of Richard Gaither being goofy next to April Crum. I needed to get a live perspective on how tall the head would be next to April. It already towers over her without Richard being on the stilts.

It's just that pesky body and torso I need to get around. One thing's for sure, we'll have a complete Werewolf before December.

Really this post is just so I could lay out what I've got so far, and really look at what needs to be done.

Thankful

I am very thankful. For my life, for the ability to breathe, move, think, see, hear, and to just be.  I'm so thankful for a roof over my head, and walls to shield me from the outside elements. A bed to sleep in. A bathroom with a functioning toilet and a clean shower. A kitchen I can cook in.  My car.  My computer.  Electricity. Water. I'm thankful for family, and friends.  I'm so very thankful for my wife, my pal, my best friend.  I'm thankful I have her to lean on, to live with, love with, and just be myself with.  When I hold her I always feel like I'm home, and I'm so very thankful I have her.  I'm also thankful that she is so supportive of me and my crazy efforts to make movies.

I'm so thankful for this amazing opportunity I have to make my dreams happen. I'm thankful to be alive, and to understand and comprehend how fortunate I am to do what I'm able to do. I'm so thankful for the freedoms I have to pursue these goals.  It's mind blowing what it took to make me realize that all that I needed to accomplish my goals, I already have.  I have heart and soul, desire and skill, and a wife who believes in me.  Put that with my freedom and I have everything I need to create something truly amazing.

So our typical Thanksgiving events involved, cooking dinner, eating dinner, conversations about space travel and Star Trek, random house cleaning, and then me in the ice cold garage spray painting a Werewolf head.  All of this narrated by FX's Home Alone marathon.  I really love that movie.

I used different shades of fur and felt, I needed to paint him to even out all the colors.  Also I wanted a darker used look, like he'd been running out in the wild for a while.  Also needed to color black around the eyes to help accentuate the glowing red eyes.

The hair needs more work. I need more spray paint and fur, and then it'll be all about the legs and the body.  I hope to do some test shots this Tuesday and or Wednesday.  I'll also try out the new camera crane as well.

The body I'm still trying to figure out.  I can't afford enough fur to cover an entire body, especially since this guy is going to be a giant.  I'm going to have to cheat and give him some kind of clothing.  A robe perhaps with some sort of torn baggy pants.  Nothing so generic as a T-shirt and jeans. I am going to clone this guy into an army in After Effects.  Some sort of cloth, toga, or monks robe, or something along those lines.  I'll have a better understanding when I see the mask and hands on an actor.

I still need to finish my Snicker's Ad.  I really need to pick a day next week and just knock that out.

Even Closer

Went out and bought the materials I needed to continue on the wolf. Felt, Craft Fur, Plastic Table cloth. Again, I'll go more in depth in the VLog, but for now here's a pic of where I'm at with the Wolf Head.

My inspirations for this wolf came from the classic wolf fantasy flick In The Company Of Wolves, but also Rob Bottin's FX work in The Howling, as well as Stan Winston's work in Predator.  And as with anything I create, props, costume, or FX wise, I always get inspiration from Jim Henson.

Gotta give it a bit more fur, then give it a once over with some spray paint, then it's on to the body, and then the legs and stilts.  So far I've spent about 35$ on this. I'm hoping to keep the costs low, but I do expect the final cost of this build to be around $50 to $60.

Still need to make time to work on that Snicker's Ad.  More later.

Closer

Was thinking of shooting a few scenes for Monster Cops this week, but it looks like I'm going to spend this Thanksgiving week, finishing up the giant Werewolf costume for REDD. Once I have that complete it will be easier to figure out exactly how these shots are going to go.

Gotta do some shopping this week. I've never been so excited to purchase fake fur, table cloth, duct tape, and pvc pipe. Unless I come up with something less expensive to make the rest of the Wolf's body out of. I'm quite proud that I've been able to make this out of things I already had, and have spent very little money on it. I've spent about $15 on duct tape so far. Everything else is from my collection of stuff that I've picked up and said "Hmm I think I can make something out of that." I have a huge bin full of card board tubes, plastic pieces, materials left from opened packages, anything I at one point thought I could use to help build a prop.

It's called, making it with no money, and this Werewolf is certainly no exception.

Started with a cardboard structure.

Gave it a layer of duct tape to help mold out the shape I wanted. Also built in a bicycle helmet with a strap. This way it can attach comfortably to the actor's head. I am aiming for this thing to be about 7ft or more. Which means I'm gonna have to make some stilts.

And here's where I'm at now. A bit of hair added to it, it's giant hands are ready to go. Now we move on to the fur, paint, and full body.










I'll be going into deeper details with a Video Blog describing the whole process, including the LED powered glowing red eyes, and how I'm doing the hair. And there will also be a VLog about the DIY Camera Crane I built.

These are great examples of how far I'm willing to go to make this production truly great. I want the Werewolf to be hulking and impressive. I want to utilize majestic and sweeping crane shots to really express that cinematic feel. I want it to look like we spent alot of money without actually spending the money. I know we can do it. Every week we get closer and closer to a production date.

Werewolf Research

COSTUMES and FX

Our Stage June

To my surprise both BROKEBACK DINOSAUR and WOLF HUNT are in the top ten in the quarter finals in the Our Stage monthly contest. BROKEBACK DINOSAUR is in the COMEDY category and WOLF HUNT is in the SHORT FILMS category.

So if you don't mind, we sure could use the exposure, especially for Monster Cops and the Wolf Hunt scene.

If you're not familiar with Our Stage then find out more here:
http://www.ourstage.com/

Now you can click on the banners below in order to see the video, then click JUDGE at the top to start watching and judging videos in that particular category. If you don't mind, try to vote favorably for Brokeback Dinosaur or Wolf Hunt. And I'm tellin ya, this is a great time killer.

We've gotta get to and stay at Number 1 in either category through July 1st to win.

Working it.

Figured I'd post some pics of what's been going down for the past month or so. Next I'll post the first Monster Cops Video Blog.

I'm still in the middle of casting, but below are pics of some of the actors that have for sure been cast.

Brandon White, showing off in one of the new costume pieces.


The Adorable Nicole Nastazzio


Comedian Greg Romeo


Doug Hanks, who is also loaning us the use of his guns as well as gun expertise and a location to fire these guns at. Thank you so much Doug.


Danielle Motley has been cast in the much sought after role of Greenly. Yes Danielle I'm using your headshot, and yes I stole it off your myspace, get over it.

And if you're one of the many actors who were looking to audition for the role of Greenly I'm sorry, but I am still actively looking to fill other female roles and will continue to keep in contact with all of the actors who have been emailing me.

Others cast but not pictured:
John Burcham
Lisa Molenda
Will Atwood
Jamie Bertman
more to come.

Secured almost all of the locations. Special thanks to Kelly Emerson for giving us her ranch to shoot at, which has an amazing backwoods area. She also put me in touch with the person who can get us in to shoot at this massive warehouse in downtown Winston.


Kelly's been a real Godsend, she's also contributing some possible props/costumes as well as giving us an in to a Helicopter.

I've been hard at work at creating one of the prop guns for the movie. I felt the Monster Cops needed a specialized weapon, not unlike the Ghostbusters proton pack, or the Plasma Rifle from Aliens. I took my inspiration from Indy Mogul. Everytime I see empty bottles now, I just see gun parts. A full video on how I'm making this will be done later.



Here it is with a final paint job, but still without the final parts and accessories added.


Here's our Special FX guy William Stine working on the Werewolf FX. I'm not going to post too many photos of it just yet, don't want to completely give it away. William you're doing an amazing job.





Still going through casting, still looking at locations, alot is still up in the air, but so much has fallen into place. Can't wait to shoot this one.

Building a Lycan

Thank God for the internet, Thank God for Halloween, and Thank God for INSTRUCTABLES. I'm constantly looking online for someone else out there interested in building a Werewolf costume, just to see if there are any tips and techniques I can pick up for my own Lycanthropic Endeavor (Yeah I said it.)

Not only have I found gryphern's tutorial on YouTube, but thankfully someone on Instructables.com has posted their how to on their Lycan. Thank you so much for this missmonster.

http://www.instructables.com/id/realistic-werewolf-costume/

This is a whole lot closer to the look I'm going for. Love the teeth and the claws for sure. The lessons here have really put me in the right direction. Saves me alot of experimentation (too late.)

Just in time too. I'm going through the budget and I've just hit the cost of Werewolf FX. Looks like I'll be saving some money.

Now if you'll excuse me I now go to look at this tutorial on making an infrared digital camera.

Online No-Budget FX School part 1

Goddamn this has been a bit of a rough week. Tuesday would make it 1 year ago. Quite a weird day. Didn't know what to expect, what would happen, or what I would be doing to make sure Juli was ok. Thankfully we've survived without a scratch, well, no visible ones anyways.

Since all seems well on that front, I can go back to worrying about this current project. Thankfully as I budget this Monster Cops episode, I find a few resources online that help narrow down my budget. In this episode there will be some fx work that I thought I would have to pay an arm and a leg for. Now I've got my own bag of no budget tricks, but it's so nice to see others sharing online. Here are a few vids I find very helpful, and will certainly be taking note of when working on my monster fx.

Indy Mogul's Backyard FX is pioneering some really great no budget techniques. I posted their previous tutorial on builging a BIG FRICKIN GUN. Now here are two vids on some low budget zombie make up tips. These are steps I've actually used in the past. I did monster makeup back in high school and in college utilizing spirit gum and cotton balls with some black make-up and fake blood. Here, Backyard FX takes those techniques even further.


Here's part two of their Zombie FX, this time with guts and an exposed brain.


In the next Monster Cops episode there will be a large Grim Reaper like character. I've decided on this because of my past experience building a Grim Reaper like character for my previous series, The Living Dead Girls. You can somewhat catch a glimpse of it towards the end of this old Living Dead Girls Promo.


I'll be doing a similar version, but I found this video that comes a little closer to what I'd like to do. This is somewhat similar to mine except this ones jaws move. Very impressive. Find out more about this at villagehaunt.com


I'm going to aim to make the eyes move as well. Also I'd like to make the extended hands move using this technique I found on Metacafe. This is something I've fiddled with in the past as well, but this guy really nailed it.

Simple Animatronics - The funniest videos are a click away

Finally I'd been fiddling with Werewolf costuming for a long time. I actually built a Werewolf for The Midnight Special, but most of those scenes just didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, so they were cut. But building from those old concepts and lessons I've learned since then, I'll be attempting werewolf fx again. These videos have taught me alot about which direction I'll be going in for much of the mask and digigrade silts. Thanks gryphern!

Digigrade Stilts


Articulated Mask


These new techniques combined with some old tried and true indie lessons o mine has definitely put me in the right direction, and definitely cuts down on my budget costs. Next up, news on fundraising.