Gen-Y Films: The Filmmaking Journal

2012-01-25T20:56:00.000-05:00

Some HD stills from Alison in Wonderland's teaser trailer, enjoy:

We will be doing some pick ups and reshoots in February and March and will be shooting the remainder of the real world scenes and the first of the Wonderland scenes (mainly the Mad Hatter) in April and May. As I wait for shooting to recommence on Alison, I have begun work on a new version of Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou. It will feature, among other things:

-New narration by Rebecca Howland (Molly in Alison in Wonderland)
-Improved color timing for the interview segments.
-A tidier, slimmer pace with some sequences trimmed and condensed, I hope to make this version 5 minutes shorter in total. The Shaw Brothers sequences in particular will be trimmed a little bit since T.F. does not look back upon his Shaw years with much pride. I also want to take the footage costs down a tad.
-The current events finale which hardly minces words in its negative portrayal of the politics of recent years will be toned down a bit, it is simply too polarizing and radical for some tastes and I suspect I have lost interested film sellers because of it, as much as I believe in the importance of speaking the truth. Perhaps such things are better depicted in a subtle fashion anyways, even Michael Moore wouldn't dare compare the Bush Administration with Hitler.

Current plans are unknown, but I may make good on my two disc DVD-R set once Alison is finished and I have more dough to toss around.

2012-01-04T18:08:00.005-05:00

As we enter the new year, I have a nice little surprise:

Alison in Wonderland's official teaser trailer. Watch (preferably in 1080p HD), enjoy, upvote and share. Hopefully this gives you a good idea of what to expect in December 2012. I have worked and fought very hard for what you see there and am happy with the footage I have gotten for this film, though, of course, disappointed that I couldn't move forward with it as quickly as I wanted to. I am particularly pleased with Kendahl Light and Jacob Schwartz, both of whom were excellent finds and have done a great job following in Charli Henley and Dave Luce's footsteps and very much have captured the essence of my own vision of the characters. I was disappointed that I didn't get around to shooting the Mad Hatter stuff this summer and fall and in fact, had I known how much trouble I'd be running into trying to make the film I'd have put more focus on getting that stuff shot, since the Mad Hatter, as a character, is one of the film's biggest selling points. The Hatter and Hare footage you see in the teaser is footage filmed solely for the trailer and will not be used in the movie proper, at least per the plans right now, it's kind of a short film in of itself. I filmed it in early December of 2011.

At the end of the year on this blog I often do reflections of the past year and year ahead, since a year, even though an entirely human made concept and measure, is a very poetic thing to me. A good year brings goals completed and personal growth. 2006 brought both good and bad. 2007 more bad than good. 2008 was one of the worst years of my life but ended up what seemed to be redemption. 2009 was very productive year but marred by health problems and personal trouble. 2010 was more of the same which got me so frustrated I injured myself. This year hasn't been any better, though I have withstood its challenges in a more mature fashion. I really have little to say. My mission is still not complete which is very frustrating to me since I was counting on it being finished but I have taken it more like a man I think. I have realized the true scope of how immature I've been. I am not to say I'm not sometimes very angry and depressed about what's happened, I am, I sadly, am not the type of person who responds well to his plans not working out, setbacks really get me down. I am just as angry, at times, as I was back in 2008, but back then I didn't process it properly. However it has become obvious that there is nothing I can do about it except continue to press on and simply continue to adapt to the continually changing plans and eventually I'll win. I had a plan, I was going to make Alison in Wonderland last year and have a film by the end of it. I intended to see that plan through no matter what. Yet somehow it didn't happen, I don't know where to begin on what went wrong and whether it was my fault or not. At least I got good footage and the groundwork for next year has largely been laid so it will be easier next year. By all means I will likely succeed and for all that I am grateful.

And here we have an additional treat, the "clean version" of the President's speech which appears on Alison's TV during one scene that can be briefly glimpsed in the trailer. As documented, we had to shoot this about three weeks before principal photography. I worked pretty hard to make it look like real news footage and this shows off the movie's attention to detail nicely. I am the proudest of the movie's attention to detail and the amount of work I spent on the film's environments and sets, the character's wardrobes and other such details. This has been a double edged sword since obsessing about those things draws shooting out but heavy attention to detail makes for a very impressive product and among my inspiration was Stanley Kubrick's style of making movies along with Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings movies. There's stuff I put thought into so minute that you don't even see in the finished film or glimpse only very briefly if your eyes are peeled and that, to me, really brings a movie's world "to life" and with Alison in Wonderland that is something I've striven for, something of a visionary and more transcendent quality to the movie's low budget mayhem.

I have been, as said, neglected this blog because of how busy I've been but I should get back in the habit of updating it more often. Facebook, Blogger, Tumblr, YouTube, plus my own website, etc, it's tricky and kind of time consuming to keep it all up to date at once plus direct a feature film and keep my apartment clean. I recently thoroughly updated my website, I will be giving it another slight update given the Alison teaser's now out soon. Alison in Wonderland's page in particular has been updated with more details on its production status.

2011-10-04T19:52:00.001-04:00

I have been fairly hard at work directing Alison in Wonderland and so haven't been updating this blog much. Been kind of out of the swing of things plus Facebook has put me in closer touch with many of this blog's readers anyways. But of course I will hardly abandon this blog and I will be updating it again more regularly once things settle down.

Derek (Dharmik Patel) and Alison (Kendahl Light)

Some difficult, disappointing but probably for the better news is that the shooting of the Wonderland scenes in Alison in Wonderland is now off until next May. I think it is a good decision in the long term, it will be a better film with more time poured into it. I am disappointed and depressed since last year I had to scrap various plans and I don't know when I'll finally have a year where I fulfill my goals again, it has been very difficult and trying for me since my disappointments with Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou were repeated again, in even more quantity, this year. I think I should have split the filming up over more time from day one. I could have actually fulfilled my goal if I hadn't been let down by some people whom I made the mistake of trusting. I am especially disheartened because the White Rabbit scene which I was especially looking forward to shooting needs to be put off until next year because of the season change. The actress who I had hired for the part just decided she didn't want to come to shooting that day and then I attempted to hire someone else for money to get that scene quickly filmed but that fell through as well. But I wouldn't have what I do have now if enough things didn't go right and I have collaborated with many wonderful people. I am very happy with the quality of the footage.

Molly (Rebecca Howland) explains a Tarot spread to Alison (Kendahl Light).

As disappointed as I am since I love reaching my own goals, I think it is a good decision in the long run. The film has been a logistic nightmare and the difficulty of the real world scenes have really taken me aback. I got a strong sense and feeling of "resistance" from day one but I hoped that with enough hard work and perseverance I would prevail. Now I think it very well could have been too much work in too little time for one person. The delays and logistical problems just piled on and forced me into temporary retreat. The Wonderland scenes, which have more special effects, actors, will need a bigger crew, etc, have an even higher "Murphy's Law" quota so I think it's in my best interest and a few actors need recasting anyways. I have three more days of shooting to go and then I'll be done with the "real world" scenes, about 30 minutes of the script overall. The quality of the footage will be even better next summer with more time and more time will make for smoother logistics, plus I'll be feel much less pressured with only 40 minutes of script to get next summer instead of 75. The film's completion will only be delayed for six months.

Mr. Good (Ray Boutin) gives his class a very strange lecture on how the human genepool has been contaminated by goat genes.

In the meantime, I have plans for the winter once the last few "real world scenes" are filmed. I am going to finish Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou and rerecord the narration and also make the new pressing of Two Short Films and maybe even make good on my DVD-R release of Black Sunshine now that I'll be finally happy with it.

2011-08-14T21:54:00.001-04:00

We're three days into shooting of principal photography and have shot a little over five minutes of the script. There have been some setbacks including an actor just deciding he didn't want to show up the first day, but I'm quite happy with what I have footage-wise so far, I can say with as little ego as possible that it's the best looking stuff I've shot to date.

Some high-res publicity stills:

2011-07-25T20:03:00.005-04:00

William Bloomfield as the George W. Bush inspired President of the United States.

Filming has officially begun on Alison in Wonderland. On Friday the 15th I filmed the President scene with actor William Bloomfield playing the role that will show up on Alison's TV. Sadly I had to postpone principal photography proper for two weeks due to some scheduling problems, shooting will resume on August 5th and I have the first several days scheduled for shooting most of the 'real world' scenes. I am pretty pleased with the President footage and am almost done with preparing the version that will be in the movie. The film will be shooting into October now, which is maybe not so bad since the Wonderland scenes having more of an autumnal flavor might be kind of cool aesthetically, also the movie's heavy, elaborate costuming won't cause my actors quite so much suffering which I was rather worried about.

Costume tests for Aria David as The March Hare.

It has been a tough haul, just as much of a challenge as last summer's rush to get Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou done if not more so, but I've handled it somewhat better I think. I've especially hit a lot of resistance in the past month or so but I've gotten through most of it, a real all time low came when my apartment complex threatened to evict me after some carelessness with spray painting the props resulting in paint stains on the porch. Now they have adopted a completely non-negotiable stance even after I offered to use plastic padding and I have to sneak off to a nearby park at night to do it now. I really got flack for that, but the stains are removable with chemical cleaners over a period of time which I was planning on doing anyways. Thankfully the prop and wardrobe work was almost complete when they slammed the gavel on me anyways. The college I wanted to film at also denied my request so I have to look elsewhere to shoot the school scenes.

Costume test with Jacob Schwartz as the Mad Hatter as he brews some twisted tea with milk, sugar and Roofie.

On the plus side, I am very happy with how the movie is shaping up to look and its design for the most part, I did costume tests with Jake Schwartz for the Mad Hatter and Aria David for the Hare and they seriously look like they jumped right out of my drawings, in fact the look of both characters has exceeded my original mental images I'd say. The whole film's sense of design and macabre fantasy world is shaping up to look very "J.L. Carrozza" with the best attributes of Little Red Riding Hood's aesthetic but with larger scope and sophistication just as I had intended. My almost painterly attention to detail during pre-production is paying off I think, but the paradigm is shifting. One of the harsher realities of making films, one that breaks many a weaker willed upstart, is that your vision will inevitably be compromised somewhere along the way as moviemaking is a very earthy, unglamorous and logistical difficulty-riddled process, especially with no budget. I feel now that I must let go of my perfectionism and single minded pursuit of artistic excellence to some degree in favor of the struggle just to get a finished film out of the deal.

The Mad Hatter welcomes you to J.L. Carrozza's own personal vision of Hell.

In that spirit, as shooting commences, here is my official statement:

The thing about Little Red Riding Hood is that it was just the starting point: an inception and point of invention. It was me jogging past the starting line of more authentically making films. I want to complete the first lap or two with Alison in Wonderland! It will hopefully be a superior product because I’ve already invented the whole concept of a trashy, twisted post-modern fairy tale film on a micro budget, so now I can have fun with it and fool around with it even more. My intent is to streamline the concept, perfect it and build it even bigger and stronger using everything I’ve learned since.

The latest production diary, for your viewing pleasure:

2011-06-23T23:39:00.001-04:00

DEPTH OF FIELD CAMERA TEST

I will be shooting Alison in Wonderland with three cameras for both cost-saving strategy and a unique aesthetic, it will be the first of my films where depth of field will have heavy attention paid to it, I barely knew what it was in my early years and didn't think much of it even during Red Riding Hood and Dream House, I didn't really start experimenting with it until The Magic Forest and the results were mixed. For Alison I will be using my longtime companion the trusty Canon GL2 , the low budget yet impressive Canon EOS Rebel T2i and the high quality HDV Sony HDR-FX7. I just did a shooting test comparing the cameras' quality and depth of field. The subject is a prop made for the Hatter scene, Michelangelo's 'Gayvid'.

The first camera is the Canon GL2 which I've been using for years. It used to belong to Neil and has been used to shoot such varied projects as Dream House, the famous Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise, No Place Like Home, The Magic Forest and both interviews with T.F. Mou. Depth of field is difficult to do with DV but not impossible. WIth the GL2, you can get shallow depth of field with a low f-stop/open iris, long lens and a camera positioned at just the right distance, it's pretty darn spiffy for a DV camera. It will used here to shoot behind the scenes B-roll footage mainly but also a variety "point of view shots" with a very wide lens for the movie proper. It's lower depth of field capability and resolution make it good for a somewhat jarring, low-fi effect like you are suddenly switching to the literal visual perspective of a character under a lot of stress.

Now next up is the Sony HDR-FX7, a nice Sony HDV camera I was able to score second hand for only $1500. It is by the far the most detailed and crystal clear visually of the cameras and its color reproduction beats the GL2 (this shot isn't the best example, the white balance is a little off). However, the depth of field disappoints, it's no better than the GL2's really, though the focus got much shallow as we got more zoomed in. This will be used for the film's moving shots and also some coverage shots.

Last but by no means least, is the Canon DSLR Rebel. It is by far the most visually pleasing of any of the cameras and its color reproduction is to die for. The colors are accurate and vivid and the focus is soft and lovely. It is a little bit less visually detailed than an HD camcorder, but that isn't entirely bad, it makes the image all the more "film-like". The camera is not good with movement and especially hates zooming, so that's why I bought the HDV camcorder to largely supplant it. It will be used for static close-ups mainly where shallow depth of field is most important and also for some very detailed and picturesque wide shots, you know, any shots I want a "35mm film" look to. Sadly it is also the most expensive of the cameras to shoot on, it records onto SD cards which are fairly costly and don't hold much video. It also needs a "higher class" card to run smoothly which all the more expensive.

And here is the second and newest of my production diaries. I promised one sooner but I have been madly busy. I am even busy than I was during Black Sunshine's post! See things down to the wire, see more of lurid props being hammered out and meet the Cheshire Cat in the magic of HD! This is looking like it could be shaping up into something worthwhile I'd say, It seems poised to follow in Little Red Riding Hood's foot steps but then run an extra lap ahead of it.

2011-06-09T01:25:00.005-04:00

A pig's heart and kidney I've been keeping in my refrigerator pickled in hard liquor as a grotesque detail for the Hatter scene.

Long time no update, that's mostly because I have been so busy getting this puppy together. First the casting, it's been an at times frustrating process but I have about half the movie cast and the rest of the actors needed to be cast for the most part are just smaller roles. The toughest part was having several actors who I liked and thought were right for the part basically refuse to commit due sometimes to the film's content and other times to lack of time or whatever. It's been much harder than I anticipated, but I'm still going strong, finding people is easy, finding the right people is a challenge. I'm not going to name names since nothing is finalized yet, but I've found my Alison. In addition to Jake Schwartz as the Hatter, I've cast, as of right now, the roles of Derek, Alison's Father, The March Hare, The Red Queen, a few card guards, Sid the Executioner and the Bush-like President.

The Hatter's collection of dirty, pretty things.

Also, former Gen-Y Films "collaborator" and after that long time nuisance, bitter enemy and beer extortionist Thomas Riggs Hinchey is now in jail. He and Dave Luce love to paint themselves as victims of "my tyranny" but I think it was largely the other way around and their puerile videos speak that for themselves I think. What goes around really does come around.

Meet the Cheshire Cat!

Got the money in May and since then I've been furiously hammering out stuff in the prop department as well to meet July's filming deadline. I've been ordering on Amazon and Ebay and heading to the Goodwill store constantly. I think it's a really good idea for a low budget filmmaker to hit the Goodwill a lot, not only is it dirt cheap, but it all has a nice "lived in" look that is better for realism. Making a new production diary soon to show some off this off, but some of it includes a new piked head in President Obama's likeness (a reference to how despised he is, really), the Cheshire Cat puppet and a myriad of perversions for the Mad Hatter's house including soiled women's undergarments, real pickled organs, severed limbs and a Buchenwald-style human skin lamp shade.

Been using a lot of spray paint lately!

Wardrobe aside as I have to coordinate that with the actors more, the film is about half of the way ready to go prop wise. The "real world" scenes are literally just about all set, I even have most of the posters that will decorate Alison, Derek and Molly's bedroom walls. The Hatter scene is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way all set to go. I even have the entire tea set all ready to go. Building the Mad Hatter's hellish M.C. Esher-like hatrack right now, which is taking a real long time to build, mount and get nice and sturdy. Did a recent revision of the script that cuts out the Mock Turtle/Myrtle the Turtle character and replaces it with a shorter scene with a unicorn.

Recent sketch of the waking up in the Hatter's house scene.

Also, Alison in Wonderland now has a Tumblr account dedicated entirely to it. Follow me for pictures and more frequent updates.

2011-04-25T13:59:00.001-04:00

I proudly present the first of the Alison in Wonderland production diaries, an eyeopening glance into the world of Gen-Y Films with the film's pre-production process. As you can see, I've been working hard on the props, blocking the shots and getting things ready in time for shooting. I just posted casting calls for the movie last week and am rooting through applicants, though I seem to getting some cold feet here and there after reading the script. I did a few auditions on Saturday after a jaunt to the Brattle to see Monster Zero and the rare AIP print of Destroy All Monsters on the big screen.

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And finally posted is some exclusive footage from the Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou premiere including my pre-film speech and some footage of T.F. Mou in attendance. Enjoy.

2011-04-12T15:14:00.002-04:00

So a few little updates to the pre-production of Alison in Wonderland. The shooting script is a third of the way through and I've been doing a little prop work before I can really get crackin' once the money comes in. Getting the piked head to stand on their own through wooden support bases on the bottom was agonizing and took me a whole month to get right involving all three pikes having to be redone but is now down to a science. I'm also back on a second, harder round of the liver cleanse diet and mostly living on soy milk, hummus and rice while loading up on silymarin. I have the real severed head of a rabbit in my freezer. I randomly found the thing on the sidewalk while walking in a nearby cemetery and was compelled to bring it home to use it as a prop for Alison.

Some casting news: I have found a Mad Hatter in the form of one Jacob Schwartz, who impressed me with his understanding of the role and resemblance to my mental image of the character. Like Dave Luce before him, I think he'll take this where it needs to go. I am going to post casting callls for the other roles in the film in about a week.

I am also working on that long promised new pressing of the Two Short Films DVD. This disc will have nice convenient menus and some of the special features will be tweaked a little, the commentaries will be slightly amended as I've remembered a few things I forgot to throw in there. Sadly the master files were lost in the Great Hard Drive Failure of '09. The biggest thing will be a totally redone version of Little Red Riding Hood's Making of. While I was moving last year, I rediscovered the master digital 8 tape for Red's behind the scenes shenanigans I thought I had lost, so it will be longer and funnier and also will have much better picture and sound. I think the Behind the Scenes stuff for Red Riding Hood and Dream House is certainly just as bizarre and almost as entertaining as the films themselves, Neil has told me this as well. They are fascinating time capsules of where I was in '06 and '07 and also provide very earnest and fascinating portraits of the variously eccentric and unusual personalities involved making these movies. I will also be including the infamous Agony and the Ecstasy of the Puppets opening and a few very amusing Easter eggs. This will be the first official release from Metacomet Video.

And as for Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F Mou's future, I am at work on a website update with a nice DivX copy of the uncut version available for download. For the final edit, I am strongly considering aiming the film somewhat at the Chinese market as well and recording or having someone record Mandarin and maybe Cantonese versions of the narration track as well as having the whole interview translated into Chinese subtitles. I will be ironing out the loose ends of this probably after I finish the rough edit of Alison.

2011-03-12T17:42:00.002-05:00

Beginning this post on a somber and serious note, I am really quite disturbed with what is going on in Japan. It really was kind of inevitable, they've been predicting another big earthquake on the scale of the 1923 Kanto quake for 30 years now. It looks just like a Toho film, except it's real. The chilling footage looks right out of Shinji Higuchi's Sinking of Japan. The whole nuclear power plant business was hauntingly predicated by Tetsuro Tamba's Dr. Nishiyama in a sequence in Prophecies of Nostradamus and the city of Sendai, which is thrashed by Legion in Gamera 2, was hit hardest it seems. It was pretty haunting to see the same airfield that Gamera and Legion duked it out on awash in tsunami waves. Thankfully, unlike in Deathquake/Magnitude 7.9, Tokyo was quite well prepared and the damage to the city and loss of life in general has been surprisingly minimal. Yet it is quite disheartening to see this country whose artists and culture has given me so much inspiration over the years (I sometimes jokingly call myself "Japanese trained" as a filmmaker) in Katrina-like shambles, with millions without power and food starting to dwindle until the rescue parties reach everybody. My prayers are with the people of Japan and I will be donating when I can. It's gotten to the point where I'm just so sick of all the world's violence and chaos I've just been meditating and praying for peace every single night. Here's a good fundraiser via the Japan Society of New York.

As far as business goes, preparations for Alison in Wonderland have continued as usual for the last few days. I'm kind of exhausted and haven't slept much keeping up with the Japan earthquake, but I've been trying to distract myself with work and a little alcohol. Undertaking the slow and tedious but very necessary process of making a shooting script and shot list for it and also building a new piked head as well as mounting the existing ones so they can stand up right. Four months till it shoots, it's getting down to the wire now.

I also have just finished work on a new draft of The Witch's Castle, my gritty crime drama pet project based on the Shanda Sharer murder, that runs about 118 pages. I'm pretty happy with it though I have my uncertainties about it as well. I worry it may not be cohesive enough in its current form but it is certainly the best version yet. I hope to get if off the ground the moment Alison in Wonderland is lock stock and barrel. This new script has more exposition and focuses on why it happened as opposed to just how. It's more of a drama now, a character study on those with dysfunctional lives. The influences that I've tapped are many from trashy stuff like John Waters and Harmony Korine's Gummo (a movie I really like) to gritty horror movies like DePalma's work, Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit on Your Grave to Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and The Lovely Bones to Stanley Kubrick and the documentary quality of Kinji Fukasaku's yakuza movies to that nice slice of life Americana quality the old educational shorts have. I tried to stay pretty true to the crime itself while also maintaining my own sensibility and interpretation. I want to film it in a style sort of like "American neorealism", there will some long takes in the film, the tone will be starker, there will be my first split-screen sequence since Little Red Riding Hood and the musical score will be more minimalistic with a heavy use of ambient noise and sampled and distorted public domain library music. The color scheme of the cinematography will be muted and muddy, I have considered shooting the movie in black and white in fact. I'll probably film most of it in New England, but I'd love to shoot a few scenes actually in Madison, Indiana, where it all happened, especially at the real Witches Castle, but I wonder if I'll be allowed to?

I have taken some liberties with the story like I've said. The names have all been changed so to avoid litigation (Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey are both of out prison and it won't be too long before Loveless and Tackett are out too), I have tried to really delve into the psychology of the Melinda Loveless and Laurie Tackett characters (called Christina McKinney and Lauren Hardt here) and probe their unbalanced minds like Peter Jackson did with the young murderesses in Heavenly Creatures. Christina McKinney is a character a lot like Clockwork Orange's Alex. She's an utterly despicable sociopath, but she is bizarrely likable, you can see how seductive she is and she has her reasons for being the way she is. Lauren Hardt is obsessed with the macabre, very emotionally disturbed and desperate to rebel against her domineering, fundamentalist Christian mother who is losing her control over her and her part in Sharon's murder is really just an unleashing of years of pent up rage. In one of the biggest and more controversial changes, I have chosen to combine Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence into one character, Karen Shepherd, though a lot of the old Hope Rippey character's actions have been given to Christina. In real life, Toni Lawrence was date raped about a year before Shanda's murder and I think had that not happened she wouldn't have been there. For Karen, that is fleshed out considerably. She is a prime example of the pack mentality and how, when the chips are down and people are at their worst, "the best", as W.B. Yeats would say, "lack all conviction". Sort of like how Kinji Fukasaku treated the yakuza thugs in his movies, I have an odd degree of sympathy for the murderers of Shanda Sharer which is kind of manifest here. They all had their own unchanneled rage at the world and sadly it was allowed to grow until a poor young girl had to bear the brunt of it. I have written the script fairly objectively and tried to show it from all sides. The Shanda Sharer character, called Sharon Summer here, has been given more of an emphasis and her dysfunctional family life is given some airtime to give it all more of a tragic air. The story of The Witch's Castle is about the tragic side of human existence. I think people will like Alison in Wonderland, not so sure how this one will go over.

I considered working on Coup D'Etat and Horror Colony as well, but I'll save those for when Alison is in post-production. All my time and resources need to go toward that if I want it in the can by fall.

2011-02-25T22:45:00.002-05:00

Alison in Wonderland continues to move forward. I am literally going to start posting casting calls in a week. I am building props a plenty and am getting ready to start more serious preparations. I have decided not to post pictures of the construction anymore or at least as much for two reasons. The first is that it's a little too much of a time waster taking all those pictures considering that the main emphasis needs to be on getting them ready so they can dress the film I'm about to shoot, not showing them off on the internet. Speaking of such, that leads me to reason two: I think showing off too many of the props beforehand might be spoiling the film too much.

A recently made prop for the Mad Hatter scene called simply "Baby Pincushion".

Most of the heavy and dull paperwork for Alison is done. For some good, encouraging news, I just finished budgeting the film yesterday and the film looks like it will be coming in a little under its 10k budget. I will be buying a lot of second hand stuff for the props to keep the cost down and the total of everything the script calls for only came to about 9k! That gives me a nice 1k cushion that can go toward post-production if it is not spent during the shoot, I have been putting a lot of my own financial resources toward this film and as such will probably be able to milk the budget even more so. The Red Queen sequences, as I predicted, are more costly than the entire rest of the film put together, which is kind of funny I think. Right now, I am in the midst of compiling the massive shooting script from all my notes.

As for other projects, I'll have a digital copy of the uncut Black Sunshine on my website probably next month. Adding a digital download section to the site is a huge pain in the ass because the menu has to be changed which involves repasting it onto every page and with all the drawings that makes it quite a nightmare, but I need to update my website anyways since the Kickstarter for Alison was a no-go and all. Those of you who donated will still get special thankses in the credits. I will also be working a little on the little 'Snow' short before Alison shoots and that long promised new pressing of Two Short Films. I am also almost done with a new draft of The Witch's Castle which I like much better.

2011-02-14T23:11:00.006-05:00

Darth Vader wishes you a morose and overly sentimental Valentine's Day as he sits alone in darkness, consumed with regret over his terrible mistakes. This video has been in my mind for several years now.

2011-02-05T17:13:00.040-05:00

Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou is now on YouTube in its entirety, baybay, albeit in the censored TV edition that I made so I can show the movie a little wider, the censoring consists of ironically Japanese style optical blurring to the nudity and some freeze framing with the worst of the violence. I am adding a digital download section to my website which the fully uncut version will be available on. I may still have problems with YouTube either with copyright or content, so I uploaded it to a different channel originally created for my short version back in '08 so my main account would not be penalized in-case they decided to take it down per its content. The old version, which has no censorship of the nudity, has been up for two and a half years now and has flown under the radar so I'm not too worried, but you never know.

Like I keep saying, this is not the final version and I am not quite happy with the film as yet. The narration will be re-recorded. I will be tightening up the film especially in the case of Mou's less important director for hire films, I think compressing those segments a little more is probably a good idea. I will be adding in footage from Mou's early films in Taiwan once I can get it and the color balance between the two camera streams is a little off, so the color correction for the interview segments will be overhauled. This will be undertaken during the post-production of Alison in Wonderland, most likely.

2011-02-02T23:36:00.003-05:00

Some news and developments: Alison continues to proceed. The Kickstarter seems like a no go, was it naive of me to think I could raise 20k on the internet with a pretty minuscule fanbase? Probably. I may repost the Kickstarter page for less money if I can, but I have another funding source secured, I am making the movie on familial inheritance, on 10k. I am honestly largely more comfortable with that, I don't have to ruthlessly promote myself online to get it and I don't owe anybody anything when I do get it. I also applied for a 10k grant from the Mass Cultural Council. I can get the film shot on 10k if I absolutely have to. Not counting the $500 camera it was shot on, Little Red Riding Hood cost $200-300. I will be buying props and costumes from the goodwill, building props from items found in hardware stores, toy stores and pharmacies, I'd like to give my cast and crew some money to keep things more cemented and professional, but I've done it before without paying anybody a dime and god knows I can do it again even if it's not ideal. Since the artistic drive and vision in the project is almost entirely mine and all the matters is what shows up on screen, I can even rotate crew people around.

I have finished the annotated, blocked out version of the script and am now breaking down the costumes and props on paper so I can prepare a proper budget and detailed checklist for each scene. Just the non-Wonderland "wraparound" third of the movie is about the scale of Dream House, considerably bigger in fact. Casting begins next month (March). I will be playing three roles for certain, the role of Alison's mother as a sort of reprisal of Mama, the voice of the Caterpillar and the Queen's hunchbacked mongoloid Chef. I may also play a card guard if necessary. I'd love get Charli back as the Red Queen but her days of being in movies are well behind her it seems. I have already lost around 15 lbs (after losing around 40-50 in 2009) on a liver cleanse diet I've been on and am going back on it again before the movie shoots. Been watching a lot of John Waters movies lately, so I suppose they could be what has given me the transgressive urge to crossdress once more. Desperate Living, in particular, almost feels like Waters' Alice in Wonderland with Edith Massey (the greatest actress in film history) playing a character very akin to the Red Queen.

I have once again deleted and reuploaded Little Red Riding Hood and Dream House to YouTube now that YouTube's video length limit is 15 minutes as opposed to 10. I'd rather the movies be available to watch in one part, a lot of viewers generally only watch the first part. I know must be really starting to seem like George Lucas with his 15 VHS releases, 10 laserdiscs, 5 DVD editions, numerous theatrical reissues and now Bluray and theatrical 3-D conversion of the Star Wars films and indeed, Lucas and I both have similarly bad cases of OCD. If Alison gets into theaters you bet your ass Red will be attached to its beginning. I am working on getting the censored Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou on YouTube as promised, it will probably be up Friday.

Now, some more Alison in Wonderland prop-building escapades as promised:

Making a new pike around Christmas, as I wrap gifts for contrast. Only here at Gen-Y Films can the sacred and profane, the festive and morbid, co-exist with such ease.

The new, third pike all done and painted and ready for a new head, something it wouldn't get until a month later. This is indeed the best constructed and most state of the art pike I've yet made. Practice really does make perfect.

A pair of online bought plastic shrunken heads, pre-modification. These are to hang on the blood-splattered wall of the Mad Hatter's house.

The heads came ear less, which is quite unrealistic, I added on ears with Sculpey and smoothed it over while eliminating the neck with papier-mache.

The heads were then painted white so the clay with ears would blend better and so I could control the hue more.

Painting the first shrunken head and giving it a more realistic "lived-in" look while the second one dries after scupeying and papier-mache.

The first shrunken heads hangs as it will in the Hatter's house, all done.

And the second one, which I like it a little better and thinks looks a little more realistic.

The severed head that will become the decapitated, piked head of the Red King, whom the Queen had executed because he failed to please her in more ways than one. It is a truly impressive work already courtesy of Death Studios in Indiana, ironically Shanda Sharer's home state. I was going to modify it more heavily, cut its eye out and have one of the eyes dangling out of the socket by the optic nerve, but I was so awed when it took it out of the box I decided to do much more minimal modification to it. He looks kind of like a young Dario Argento on a really bad night.

Ironically, in something that really made me think of John Waters, they shipped it to me is a box that looks like it's used for freshly killed chickens or chicken meat.

The head, crown (a very cheap, costume shop grade one) and more bones ready to be modded.

Painting the King's crown brownish to simulate rust and make it look a little less like plastic.

The King, post impalement. The edges of the King's head stump are too jagged, looking too "ripped off" as opposed to sliced off with an axe; the first order of business was to smooth it over a little with Sculpey.

Putting papier-mache over the putty to smooth it over.

Painting, painting, painting...

The King, almost done after being repainted for a bit more of a rotted and lived in look.

The completed Red King with a little red food coloring smudged on for more realism hangs out outdoors.

The Red King has been executed and what a death it was!

Now onto the bones, which were made around the same time as the piked King. First papier-macheing as usual, these are going to go into the Red Queen's dungeon in the scene where Alison is chained up there. Then they were painted with two layers and then covered in baby powder for more of a "bleached look". They are far better made than the first batch of Hatter bones, but I sort of wish I had used to brown instead of green and am going to repaint them soon.

Anyways, that's all folks for a while. I need to get to work harder on this obviously. I am also working on a new draft of Witch's Castle which will be done relatively soon. I may also the finish the first drafts of Coup D'Etat and Horror Colony before Alison shoots and during post-production.

2011-01-27T21:02:00.003-05:00

Good and some (to a few) awful news. The good news: I have just finished several more props for Alison in Wonderland and the film, whether the Kickstarter works or not, will be funded in some capacity and is on the fast track to being made. I have several people on board and interested already. More info and pictures of the props to come soon.

Now the bad news, the Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou DVD has been cancelled. I was getting closer to being done with it, it's kind of a spur of the moment decision. I am sorry to those of you whom I let down. To compromise, I am going to make a torrent out of the film and upload it online in the meantime (see if I can get it on Cinemageddon) and I may host a DivX .avi off my webspace of the uncut version and put the censored TV version on YouTube.

There are several reasons I decided not to; just today I realized that if the reasons not to do it outweigh the reasons about 5:1, why am I doing it?
1. The Two Short Films DVD was a pretty dismal failure and has sold four copies. This could easily be a repeat of that. Well, it'll probably do better, probably sell a dozen or two dozen copies. I can barely afford food with the price of food rising and I am starting to think this would be me just pissing away hundreds of dollars for no good reason to sell about 25 units at absolute most.
2. This DVD will be even more work than Two Short Films and time is just as valuable as money and I need time to get Alison, always my real baby, going. This would bite into that. I already have had to post-pone the film last year because of this film.
3. I've always been very uneasy about the rights issues surrounding this project and could easily get sued doing this. I'll probably just get a "cease and desist" but I want to be in good standing with the copyright holders so I can pay them off and officially release this film and pissing them off, even if I don't get sued, will most definitely put a damper in that. I also have made my enemies over the last few years and I wouldn't put it past one of them blowing the whistle to Celestial to "get me back".
4. I was never totally happy with Deirdre's narration track. She did her best but I don't think she wanted to do it and I suspect she was uncomfortable with the material. I am uneasy with the film because of that and am not comfortable releasing the film on DVD until the narration track is re-recorded.
5. I do not have the technical facilities quite necessary to make the DVD I want right now, also I am behind schedule on the special features.

In the meantime, here's the DVD cover, which I quite like. If you want to burn the digital copy I upload of my film to a DVD and like sexy covers (I just keep my burned DVDs in envelops or in a "wallet"), by all means use this as the cover. I may well upload the special features in Divx form too.

In the ironic words of Shiro Ishii at the end of Man Behind the Sun: "This is not a defeat." Black Sunshine has been a very difficult project for me. It and Dream House have their similarities but also differences. With Dream House, aside from the Eyeball Neck/Guinness fever dream that continues to haunt me to this day, it was over pretty quickly and what is wrong with the film was completely my fault and out of my own laziness. With Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou things went nearly as badly (with one main, significant difference, what I got is quite salvageable) but this time it was in spite of my best efforts to the contrary. It's like every stage of it has been plagued with gridlock, frustrations and resistance, one of the main reasons I decided to can the DVD is because of its Murphy's Law like streak of luck. But I still intend to finish the film and get it released, don't worry. I am going to get T.F. Mou's early films in the movie and the film will be officially distributed and get a real DVD release. We just don't know when that will happen.

2011-01-01T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Alison in Wonderland fundraiser promo is donesville. Once again, watch and donate and I hope you can see the same promise in this as I can. I talk about the movie's history, its aesthetics, its themes and its guerrilla production plans. I recorded a much longer video but I ended up editing it to a shorter one after the footage came out all blurry thanks to bad autofocus. I'm kind of glad since a 10 minute presentation was overkill. I shot this and Black Sunshine's DVD promo in the same go. And upvote the video please, Dave Luce and "The Fangless Vampire" are still all mad at me.

My website is updated with some slight design changes and a few new sketches, corrections, etc. The biggest change is that the site has been "monetized" with Google ads and Amazon widgets. I know, I'm kinda selling out, but I am a starving artist. The movie-related pages mainly have Amazon widgets with mainly DVDs and a few books, all of which have some relation to the topic at hand. If you see anything you want to purchase, try to do it through my website since I get a small cut of every sale made via the widgets. Thanks!

And Happy New Year from Gen-Y Films and yours truly. May 2011 hold gifts and discoveries for all of us. 2010 was a very challenging, frustrating year. I remember last year I expected to see some serious payoff, unfortunately some of that was not to be. Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou was much harder to complete than I thought, Alison had to be post-poned and Black Sunshine cannot be officially released and sadly T.F. Mou does not have the power of attorney I thought he did with getting clearance for the film footage of his Shaw Brothers films. Also tough was the recording of the narration track and despite Deirdre Yee's best efforts I'm going to scrap the next one too as its sound quality is a little too rough per the recommendation of Ted Newsom (Hammer Heritage of Horror, Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora). Sadly my anxiety, depression and severe allergies did not let up either and I felt quite alienated some of the time. The word passion is rooted in the sufferings of Christ. People often feel envy for passionate people, but passion truly is a blessing and curse in equal parts and is comprised of beauty and joy but also pain and suffering, as beautifully illustrated in Cantopop supergroup Beyond's Under a Vast Sky.

But perhaps I expected too much or for some of what I desired it just wasn't the right time. I think I was somewhat naive to think I could make and finish Alison in Wonderland and Black Sunshine in the same year, especially as a one man operation. I was blessed with many things this year. T.F. Mou and his wife loved my movie and Ted Newsom, whose films I used to watch as a kid was quite impressed as well, which meant a lot. I also have a few movie sales companies look interested in Black Sunshine. I was quite productive in the last year. I finished my first feature and drew a lot as well. I suppose all my struggles definitely matured me consderably. My expectations are less specific I guess with this year. I want to learn to enjoy life more. Alison in Wonderland will be made, I have a few backup options in case the online route doesn't work out. I am not as much closer to my dream as I had hoped a year ago after I got back from Myrtle Beach, but I am not any further from it either. In fact, even though some of the setbacks took me back a few steps, I'm probably still a step or two ahead. And never will I abandon my dream.

2010-12-24T10:29:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas from Gen-Y Films and may your New Year be head and shoulders above the last. Muhahahahahahaaha!

2010-12-17T11:28:00.004-05:00

The Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou DVD promo is all done and hopefully will give you a good idea of what to expect come early next year.

The special features will be quite extensive, an entire second disc jammed with two and a half hours worth. There will about around half hour's worth of deleted scenes and unused interview clips for starters. As I compiled enough to make a two and a half hour film if I wanted to be more self indulgent, there was a lot of stuff that was cut or unused but I think is pretty interesting. There also will be a revealing look at the night of the premiere and my edit of the entire Life in a Day shoot as seen on YouTube edited together into one piece. Also included will be old 2008 short Conversations with T.F. Mou of course and the "Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude" video made with friend Pei-yeh Tsai. Also included, like The Big Toe was on my Two Short Films disc, is my Aquatic Observations short from 2003. The first two "AO" (as I used to call them) shorts will be cut together into one film.

One interesting feature that will be on the disc I have barely mentioned are a pair of ephemeral shorts I discovered via the glorious public domain world of archive.org while editing Black Sunshine. The first is Experiments in the Revival of Organisms and is about a bunch of experiments conducted on freshly dead dogs involving revival from the dead, the creepiest bit is a scene where a dog's severed head is kept alive (did a drawing of it here). The authenticity of this documentary short is disputed but the experiments did actually take place at some point, what is depicted in the film could be a staged reenactment, but the film on the whole is a deeply unsettling experience with a stark tone and Eraserhead-like black and white images. Also on the disc is a short called My Japan, an anti-Japanese propaganda piece made late during the war in early 1945 to promote the buying of war bonds. Resorting to the racist "whites as Asians" caricatures Hollywood pop culture was not above at the time, it depicts what is allegedly the "true point of view of the Japanese" and indeed, is something of a grotesque exaggeration of the truth.

As promised, I will also be doing a slight redo of Two Shorts Films with an added Easter egg (imagine exaggerated puppet moaning in your head and you'll get the idea) and the Little Red Riding Hood making of stuff redone as well as added menus. This and the Black Sunshine disc set will be discounted if you buy them together. The Black Sunshine: T.F. Mou set will cost $15 for the normal version and $25 for the special "limited collector's edition" signed by T.F. Mou and me which there will only be two dozen units of.

In other news, once again, donate to Alison in Wonderland on Kickstarter using the widget on the right if you can. I am not making a big long promo video after all. Sadly the footage came out a little blurry because I used autofocus and I don't feel like shooting it again and working so hard on a video that may not even pay off. It's probably a good idea anyways as the big long 10 minute presentation I was planning on making may be off-putting for more casual viewers anyways. I will be making a shorter, soundbytier video in the next week or so.

2010-12-06T18:30:00.002-05:00

A couple minor updates. First off, another reminder to, if you possibly can, donate to Alison in Wonderland on Kickstarter (the widget on the right)! 10 days in and no money yet!

I have renamed my home video label, formerly titled Ephemeral DVD (after the "ephemeral film" genre which I like). It is now called Metacomet Video after the real life doomed Wampanoag Chief and Horror Colony supporting character better known as King Phillip. The logo has been redesigned as seen above.

I will be shooting the Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou DVD promo and Alison in Wonderland fundraiser video soon.

Also for anyone living in Plymouth, Massachusetts or nearby, starting tomorrow, there will much J.L. Carrozza related material airing on PACTV Channel 13 including the first ever airing of Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou. It will be aired both in its entirety and in two parts. They will be re-aired several times in the subsequent weeks, same time, same channel.
Two Short Films by J.L. Carrozza- Tuesday 12/07/2010 at 10:30 pm
Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou- Thursday 12/09/2010 at 11:00 pm
Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou (Part I)- Friday 12/10/2010 at 10:30 pm
Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou (Part II)- Saturday 12/11/2010 at 10:30 pm

The version of Black Sunshine shown on PACTV is the censored "R" level version. All the nudity has been optically obscured (a real pain in the butt) and the worst of the violence has been obscured with freeze frames. I know, but the Vatican's orders.. Actually, I got in a heapin' helpin' of trouble years ago for airing the Shaw Brothers cult flick The Killer Snakes and have since been a little bit on the careful/paranoid side. You can air whatever you want but people can also flood the station with angry complaints as much as they want. I'd rather avoid that.

2010-11-26T13:12:00.004-05:00

Some big news today.

The Kickstarter page for Alison in Wonderland is now up! You will donate money. And if you forget, don't worry, I'll be embedding this widget everywhere and constantly reminding you.

I also have what appears to be two film sellers interested in Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou. We'll see what comes out of all that!

2010-11-22T13:53:00.004-05:00

The project may be post-poned, but here's the full script for 'Would You Like to Take a Survey?'. I'm pretty happy with it and think it's clever and amusing myself, but what do you think?

2010-11-21T00:09:00.000-05:00

First, a new website update. Nothing much, just some new sketches including some Alison in Wonderland design work and some more current information on Black Sunshine and Alison and such.

For some news that will perhaps bring relief to some and regret to others, 'Would You Like to Take a Survey?' has been canceled for now. I have realized that making it will make Alison's production more difficult, not easier and would much rather just cut to the chase and make Alison. Black Sunshine was planned as a side project to occupy me until Alison got off the ground and became a monstrous behemoth that actually ended up likely postponing Alison. Last thing I want is another side project stepchild sidestepping the filming of my beloved birth child. I still, however, am proud of the script and may make it afterward.

Alison in Wonderland will soon have a Kickstarter page! I am setting it up right now and will launch it around Thanksgiving.

I have built another piked head for the Queen's throne room, will be making those around monthly. I also will begin construction of the Castle of Hearts miniature early this year. More pictures from Gen-Y Films' macabre workshop:
I started with a premade and purchased severed head prop and began by drilling a nice big hole in its base to fit the pike through.
I then cut lacerations in the head with an exact-o knife, these will be filled in with papier-mache and then painted and textured to look like gaping, pustule rotting wounds. The head after drilling and laceration but before it gets the "lived-in" effect.
Starting a brand new pike. All the pikes and heads will be a little different for more realism. Again I used two dowels fastened together and covered with papier-mache but these were a little longer and thinner. I didn't bother sharpening it this time as I put the head atop the pike instead of impaled through it.
The head lays out to dry after filling the holes I cut with papier-mache.
The new pike lays out to dry as well. It's a better made, more state of the art one I think, I did the papier-mache entirely with brown paper bag which works well to simulate the look of wood. After it dried, I painted it with brown acrylic paint.
Guzzling German beer as I paint the head for a look like the skin is just starting to rot away, exposing the flesh underneath.The partially completed head now attached to the fully painted pike. I uses some of the leftover paint from the pike to dirty up, mottle and age the skin to simulate the discoloration of decay.
The second head up against the first. It's a few inches taller.

The head and its final component, a wig for more realism and character. That's a jar of Vaseline I used to get the wig realistically grungy and greasy like in real life.
Cutting and modifying the wig to make it fit the head better and more realistically.
Wig now fitted, grunged-up and molded a little thanks to the stickiness of the Vaseline. I also used some dirt to make the hair look more realistically worn. Now putting a layer of papier mache on the base of the head which will be painted so it will look like the flesh is rotting and sticking to the pike a bit.
The new head lays down to dry all finished and painted the next day. The poor, pathetic serf died a horrible death at the hands of the Red Queen and her freakish servants indeed.
The old head and the new, I'm equally happy with them both.
The new head stands completed. I am pleased with its realism.A longer shot of the new head to put its size into perspective.
A wide shot of both heads in my living/editing room for even more size perspective as I relish the Argento cut of Dawn of the Dead!

2010-11-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

I have been preparing for Alison in Wonderland to some degree and have just started building and procuring a few of the props. I have a new Canon Rebel EOS camera that takes beautiful HD video and will be used as one of the cameras in the film. I also am working somewhat on the Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou DVD set, with which there is good news and bad news. First the bad news, which is that I am axing the commentary and releasing it in February instead of December, will give me time to work on it though I think the Two Short Films repressing may be available in December. All I need to do for that one is redo the Red Riding Hood making of stuff and make the menus.

The good news is that T.F. Mou, whose wife called me to reiterate how pleased they were with the film, has agreed to autograph a certain number of copies and I will be autographing them as well. They will be sold for around an extra $10 as "limited collector's editions". Like with the shorts, I will be returning to this and repolishing it in X amount of time. I have found out new information about T.F. Mou since I finished the movie, I need to correct the "Men Behind the Sun-Man Behind the Sun" issue and Mou is working on getting me access to his early Taiwanese movies.

Truth is, I've been very depressed lately and in a fit of frustration broke my toe from kicking a concrete column the other day. I have struggled harder than I thought I'd ever have to for the last few years and have too little to show for it in my mind. And my talents and visionary mind, rather than connect me with people like I had hoped, seem to have alienated me to some degree, including with many of my former collaborators and I am also sick of people's ruthlessness. I am frustrated my life still isn't where I want it to be, I am in a period of transition now and haven't yielded enough from it in my mind which has drained and exhausted me. I want so badly to contribute to the world but it can seem like the world doesn't want me.

But I am getting back on my feet (both metaphorically and literally as I am now hobbling around with a cane until the broken toe heals). I have been worrying too much. All this strife and resistance I encountered made me depressed and obsessively worry and that ended up crippling me both mentally and physically. Truth is, despite this strong self image I have tried to send out, I am still rather insecure and I still worry about failing and also that my detractors may be "right" in the end. I have to especially forget about both of these and love my life again instead of seeing as it a means to some vague final victory. My perfectionism, obsession with "winning" and proving myself worthwhile in the scheme of things has made me miserable and life can seem like nothing but a string of let downs and frustrations.

Here is some prop work I have been doing as of late. Pictures all courtesy of my new camera.
My materials for the first few creations: a pumpkin (for my festival Halloween "Lucifer O' Lantern") and an electric Halloween skull decoration that will become the first of the Queen's piked heads. I started by gutting the electrical components from the skull and the etchings on the pumpkin were my carving design.Some bones and skeletal parts that came with the skull. These will be given a "lived-in", more realistic post-decay look and used for both the Hatter's torture house and the Queen's dungeon.
The "Lucifer O' Lantern", a jack-o-lantern made into a Devil face in construction, I added prosthetic cliche horns and pitched tail for more effect which I sculpted in clay and then coated with papier-mache. I cut a hole in the bottom to fit in a candle with I would mount on a clamshell. I like to eat stuffed clams so have a lot of those lying around.The first pike in construction. The pike was made from two dowels (industrial wooden support rods) and wood glued then taped together with strong tape and papier-mached. I spent a few days sharpening the top dowel into a pike. I would sit out on my porch, drink beer and sharpen it like a cannibal tribesman. After it dried here, it was then covered in a few layers of papier-mache with brown paper bag and then painted.The Lucifer O' Lantern drying after carving and papier-macheing, the blue bowl has the papier mache that I had been using for all my recent prop department projects.The bowl of papier-mache and an IKEA all purpose screw driver with about 10 different interchangeable bit heads I used to help carve the pumpkin.The Lucifer O'Lantern continues to dry. On the chair is the exact-o knife that I used for both the pumpkin carving and the pike sharpening.Painting the Lucifer O'Lantern and pike.The Lucifer O'Lantern, painted red as a final touch and finished. The Lucifer O'Lantern glows with the unearthly fire of Hades.After drilling and chipping a hole in the gutted, formerly electric skull, I put the finished and painted pike through it. I then molded a layer of red clay onto it to simulate some flesh and musculature. I applying a layer of papier-mache to the skull next, I used thin paper like tissue and tracing sheets to best simulate hanging, rotting flesh. Finally, I papier-mached some fake hair I had lying around on it afterward.The finished piked head lays down to dry as my plants get some sun.The first completed piked head all completed and now standing against my wall where it will stay as a macabre decoration until filming. It will go in the Red Queen's throne room like in this pre-viz painting here.A wide shot of the piked head against my wall, puts its size more into perspective, it's a little under six feet tall.The Lucifer Lantern a week later and all the worse for wear; oozing more gunk than a hoo-haa with chlamydia. Sadly it didn't make it to Halloween. I should have started carving a week before H'ween instead of two weeks. Now I know for next year, pumpkins go bad really fast.Now about 10 or so days later I started work on the plastic bones as I geared up to make another head. I discolored them slightly and then applied papier-mache tissue to make it look like there was still some rotting flesh hanging off them.
The finished first "batch of bones". I painted them to give them a very "post rotted" look and added to the effect by putting a little hair on them and painting them with a little soil from my house plants to "dirty them up". These will go in the Hatter's house and these props will be adorned with live maggots and mealworms to enhance their realism even more. The second batch will be painted a little differently (paler and cooler for a more "bleached" look) and will go in the Queen's dungeon.

I have also been building another piked head in the last week and am almost done with it. Pictures (of which there are many) soon, I am waiting on a wig as it needs some hair.

2010-10-24T11:51:00.003-04:00

The last of the Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou clips.

I have done a slight touch up and recut on the movie for DVD and it now runs about 30 seconds shorter closer to 95 minutes.

2010-10-20T20:06:00.002-04:00

More Black Sunshine: Conversations with T.F. Mou goodness. The half hour or so of the movie devoted to Man Behind the Sun is, naturally, the best and most meaty (no pun intended) part of the movie.