Success is a waste of time unless you’re sharing it with other people. Once you get up those first few steps, reach behind you and pull your buddies up. Otherwise, what are you really doing?
I was invited to sit down and talk with Spider Baby the host of Spider Cafe for a long format interview of my career in terms of my growth and transition from theatre to film. I’m not going to spoil the discussion for you, but if you’re into Haunt Attractions and/or horror movies, you’re going to want to check this out. Not only do I talk about how I got where I’m going, I talk about my love of the craft as a horror fan, and I share some of my secrets of success.
Thanks again to the fine folks at ROTN Reviews, and their lovely lovely community.
Up until my recent work on the feature length film Bad Candy, this was the most epic production I had worked on. Three massive music videos, joined together to tell the narrative of a family’s circle of murder and vengeance. And I got to be a part of it, so that’s awesome!
There’s a lot that happens in these videos, so multiple views are needed to catch all the details I crammed into the backgrounds and sets here. I think my favourite bits involved the fake teeth scattered on the workbench.
A lot of people were involved, and with all that talent in one project, we knew it was going to come out just great. Pretty brutal footage though… which maybe I should’ve said at the beginning, so my apologies if you watched this at work and you just got fired. My bad.
This was another video project where I had such a great and amazing time. It seems like every shoot I do with Digital Thunderdome I’m always having a good time. It’s because it’s such a healthy and positive environment, and there’s always some great opportunity to find some sort of new creative challenge each time. I’m also always lucky to work with a wide range of really talented people too. DTS has strong leadership that builds incredible teams.
Anyways, here’s some behind the scenes footage, more of which you can find in my portfolio over on my website at Bad Seed FX.
There’s quite a bit going on here in the video, but let me tell you a story about the mannequins.
The idea in my head for the video was that the guy in it was a tortured artist, tormented by past relationships. So each mannequin had three screws or nails embedded into their hearts (to represent the Three of Swords tarot card, which signifies hearbreak and personal loss.) Also, each mannequin looks slightly different from each other while keeping the same theme, in order to make them look like an all-girl super-group like Destiny’s Child or TLC.
So that’s my story. Great shoot that resulted in an excellent video. I love how everything turned out, and again I got to carry on the fine tradition of throwing a bunch of fake blood on my half-naked friend out in the cold woods, which I think I ended up doing like six times over the course of the past year.
You know how they say the best way to get rid of a hangover is to have a little hair of the dog the next day? Well I’m not letting go of my favourite hoilday just yet, so here’s a little something something. It’s a twelve foot demonic muppet I made out of a couch I found on the side of the road.
Speaking of Halloween shenanigans, go hit up my production design website to check out what’s happening over there, as I ramp up to talking about the full length feature film horror anthology Bad Candy that’s currently sweeping awards in festivals around the world. Are you signed up for the email? You should do that, then you’ll be ground floor and front row for it all. Can you dig it? Get in on it now!
Ok so I think I’m all caught up posting all the music videos I’ve worked on recently, so this is nice.
I loved this video because it’s cute and wholesome, and it’s got a great anti-bullying message, which I’m always a big supporter of. This is also one of the rare non-horror shorts of done, so as I bonus I get to actually show my daughter what I do for a living. She’s eight now, and recently she’s been kinda side-eyeing me because I keep telling her about all these cool things I’ve been doing but she’s never allowed to see any of it. For a second there she was probably starting to think I was doing something terrible, like getting into politics.
Enjoy!
Fun fact: LLamas tried to eat our craft services the first day. We got attacked by bees at the end of the last day. We still conquered nature, big and small.
Catching up on the big stack of neat stuff on my desk, here’s a post to a music video we worked on that was just released. Lots of great looking people in this, and the sound stage was at Silver Scream FX Labs, which if you ever manage to find yourself there, be prepared because not only is it am amazing special effects workshop, but it is without a doubt one of the best museums dedicated to horror I’ve ever seen in my life.
Anyways, enjoy the video, I gotta get back to updating my portfolio and my production design website. Have you seen it recently? There’s a lot going on there. I’m behind by like two videos and a feature film. I’m slaving over a hot keyboard right now.
Fun fact: I’ve got a “blink and you miss it” cameo in this one. Can you find me? Take a screen cap and send it my way and I’ll ship you a one-of-a-kind prop from one of the sets I’ve worked on this year.
I'm sorry I keep forgetting to post here on Twitter. Here's an exclusive behind the scenes shot of a heavy metal video I worked on where I had to figure out how to make a woman look like she was burned alive and reborn as a demon. #indiehorror#musicvideos#filmGApic.twitter.com/jBvNRYTEUG
Oh speaking of the mailing list, you should subscribe. You *really* should subscribe. Something big just happened and I can only really describe it as *facemelting*. I’m so excited to share this.
Speaking of small apps reminding me of stuff I’ve done and also music videos with horror themes, here’s one I was the production designer for a mere five years after that last one I posted about here.
As a matter of fact, I even talked about it in my latest email, and you’d know all about the differences and things in common between both productions if you’re subscribed to it…
Oh, and here’s a fun fact: This video came out just as everyone was on their way to raid Area 51. Anyone remember how that went down, or did we all get hit with that memory flashy thing from Men in Black?
Oh hey and if you want to see more pics of this set, visit my production design website at www.BadSeedFX.com.
My favourite little app for reminding me of all the cool and weird stuff I’ve done on the internet and in my life over the years just sent me an email and reminded my about this video from six years ago. I was but a wee baby, and this was my first time working on a music video set. The results are… well, it’s a music video, but it was still a lot of fun to do. I got to do my own zombie makeup and then I got headbutted by a really nice guy, so I had that going for me.
It’s pretty cool being able to look back on how I’ve evolved as both a makeup artist and a barely recognizable BG artist music videos. The difference being is now I’m in good company, so I went from videos to a few views a year to a few hundred thousand views a week.
If I could remake this video with what I know how about production…
The past few months have been pretty rough. We’re all dealing with a lot of things right now and no matter what we’re dealing with, it’s safe to assume that the deluge of negative energy on social media is absolutely not helping.
I’ve always been a sort of “go with the flow” guy when it comes to the internet. I go where the conversation takes me, I follow the dialogue, I respond accordingly. I had no idea how much it was wearing me down.
Then my old lady (and I use that term fondly) was able to open my eyes to what was going on, and more importantly what was going on with me, and she challenged me to try something new. So I went with that, and it helped me kinda re-evaluate a few things, and then with being able to see things with much clearer eyes I really got to notice just how bad the constant friction was just sapping the joy and life out of me.
With these fresh eyes I saw just how bad things were getting. Between that little experiment and some other recent revelations, I put two and two together and realized that not only was there a problem, but that I had the ability to find a solution for it. Things worked for me, and now I’m thinking maybe things will work for you.
Seriously, how different are we? I don’t think there’s nothing in me you don’t have in yourself. So maybe you also need a break from all the social bullshit? Here’s what I’m proposing… let’s focus on better things. Let’s take this day by day, let’s take it one step at a time.
Once again, I was hired by Digital Thunderdome Studios to work on another awesome video for Nuclear Blast Records. This new one has some pretty serious and mature subject matters, so I would warn those of you with weak constitutions to avoid this one.
That being said, it was a great time. The location was great, the team was awesome, and it was nice working with such a high profile and award winning band once again. Crank up the volume and hit play, and as always, if you have any questions, drop them down below!
Normally I’d have an image here, but my “behind the scenes” photography was destroyed by some rogue app or an angry cell phone or something. So instead, enjoy this 15 seconds of ASMR. Which you might need to cleanse the palate after all the blood and violence.
Once again my Timehop app chirps out a little reminder that I can post on my blog. This time last year another video I worked on was released, and now here I am sharing it again and adding a short fact or funny anecdote about it.
Fun fact about this one: This video was filmed in three different locations. The performance part with the lead singer Jeff and the footage with Peter Stormare was filmed in Los Angeles, the narrative part was filmed in a small Baptist church in the deep south of Georgia, and the pyro and blood effects were done on a soundstage just outside of Atlanta. I actually replicated the floor of the church for the more gorier of the scenes so that the fake blood wouldn’t stain the hundred year old floor of the property we filmed on.
Two years ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed alongside notable horror icons like Chainsaw Sally and Lloyd Kaufman for Heidi Moore’s documentary. Since it’s release it has garnered multiple laurels from all sorts of film festivals across America. I was given the opportunity to talk at length about some of my favourite subjects, and somehow Heidi made me sound like I know what I was talking about.
Initially an OSI platform exclusive, it’s now free to watch on Youtube! So pop some popcorn, grab a seat, and if you’re feeling squeamish you might want to drag a garbage can over to you as well, because today is a great day to learn about the psychology and evolution of gore in horror movies.
Into The Fray 