day of the dead -- the worst day of the year

November 1st is always pretty depressing for me. That's when there's the most amount of time before more Halloween. May as well post some swell pictures of this past holiday season (even though it's now November 2nd).

This might be interesting. We did a few storyboards for the Zombie movie. So here are some of the concepts and how they turned out. For some of these I actually took some preliminary pictures before I did the storyboards.












Here are some production photos that a few of us took while we were filming:

(I think this was my first day of being a zombie. Many more to follow)

Here are images from normal Halloween parties. Starting with the ones the weekend before Halloween:

Lucia and I didn't have our proper costumes ready so we both had to fall back on old ones. Joe and Camille knocked it out of the park with their Labyrinth theme.

This is the view from the mansion party the week before Halloween. This is looking west from a few blocks north of the capitol.

Here's a gang of us at Dee's a week before Halloween.

So the day before Halloween I went and helped out at the Nielsen Family Haunted Forest. My job was to hide in the trees and scare people who came down the path. Pretty standard haunted forest stuff. My main strategy was to jump out and take a picture with my camera while screaming. In my old age my creepiness knows no bounds. Hopefully these young girls don't mind me posting their screams.

Here is some of the gang gathered for the premier of The Last Zombie Movie EVER!

And finally, here's me posing in my costume, which I finished at about 6:30 on Halloween afternoon. In case you're wondering, I'm Jack Torrance from The Shining. I adjusted the t-shirt words to something I could personally wear and not worry about it being a Halloween costume.

the last zombie movie EVER!

Well, here it is. It's done and that makes us all a little bit sad in a way. Maybe we'll tinker with it a little. Before we showed it I apologized for it not being funny, but everyone laughed anyway. So, good fun to be had no matter what?



Are you questioning your own duality now?

Check it -- here's the direct YouTube link for more HD access.

So if you want, you can download the Halloween cd on J.R.'s blog. You may need to own up to some kind of 14-day trial. Hey, everything's free though!

Maybe now would be a good time to mention that J.R. is the co-conspirator of the Halloween cd. Probably should have acknowledged that sooner. Good job, boy.

halloween cd 2009!

So this year's Halloween cd is finished and ready to go! Actually we still need to print out the lyrics and the artwork, BUT if you want your copy of the cd, NOW'S THE TIME TO TELL ME. I'll give you the cd, but because of demand and because I can't trust my printer to save my life, you may need to get your own jewel case and print off your own liner notes.

This year's track listing:

1. "Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2. "Mr. Smiley" by Mustard Plug
3. "Eaten by the Monster of Love" by Sparks
4. "Thirteen" by Johnny Cash
5. "Of Wolf and Man" by Metallica
6. "Werewolf vs. Zombie" by Oingo Boingo and Nellie McKay featuring Jon Madsen
7. "Monsters in the Parasol" by Queens of the Stone Age
8. "Shanty For Arethusa" by The Decemberists
9. "Burying the Bunny" by Shriekback
10. "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring
11. "Storm Coming" by Gnarls Barkley
12. "Satin in a Coffin" by Modest Mouse
13. "Rocking Horse" by Dead Weather
14. "Sickness Taking Over" by Pankow
15. "Shadows on Your Side" by Duran Duran
16. "Every Last Breath You Take" by The Police featuring NosferRoytu
17. "Les Velos Pour Deux" by The Brobecks
18. "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton
19. "Complainted d'VN Mate" by The Avett Brothers

You totally know that I would provide download links to all these songs, but a little while back I got in trouble with my server space people. It had to do with copyrighted material or whatever. Here are some (legal (maybe)) YouTube clips for some of these songs:

Heads Will Roll


Storm Coming


Satin in a Coffin


Rocking Horse

'09 halloween movie trailer

Okay, so I haven't been blogging lately. I'm sorry (or maybe you're welcome). Now's as good time as any to check out Twitter.

Anyway, things have been plenty busy because it's the holiday season for me. By that I mean it's Halloweentime. As part of the festivities (not limited to horror commentaries and Halloween cds) we've been extra busy producing this year's big Halloween movie.

Here's the trailer for it below. Notice that it's not SUPER funny. Only SORTA funny. I think we tried to make it funny, but since I haven't been feeling very funny at all in the last few months, it's kinda turning out to not be funny in the slightest. Well, we'll see how it turns out. Please enjoy! Hard!



Btw, here's the direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEMHeTD2xZ0

Use it to send out in email, link on your blog, whatever.

Also, you can watch the HD version right there on YouTube.

worse than hitler

So Tuesday I found myself at a softball game. I was planning on simply watching, which I hardly ever do, but it was my big excuse to go out and I gladly took it. Not thinking, I wore my awesome velvet Chuck Taylors and some non-holy thick jeans Joe gave me because they're "too tight in his thighs."

Anyway, If I was thinking, I not only would have worn shorts or something, but I would have also brought my mitt. Turns out the team playing was short a player, because Rhett had double-booked his sporting events and was playing soccer at the exact same time. Joe was there to sub-in for someone else and suggested I play. I was glad to play, I was just slightly uncomfortable. I don't know how basketball players ever played basketball in Chuck Taylors in the 50s or whenever, because Chucks are more designed for... I dunno... sitting really.

Also, I didn't have a glove. One of the guys on the team ran up to the officiator's box and managed to borrow one for me, which was awesome.

All the other guys took the time to learn my name and cheer me on. Real cool. Thing is, I was taking Rhett's place, so I was put on the roster as "Rhett." I couldn't just "join the team." I had to be someone already on the team or there would be a potential forfeit. Strangely, Joe was the only one who yelled "Good job Rhett!" when I'd hit the ball or do some other awesome monumental play. So obviously when everyone else yelled "Good job Jon!" things were quite suspicious.

After the game, I thought I'd run the glove up to the box myself. Silly idea. I hoped to just throw it in there, but I sort of had to ask who to give it to and the commotion made the officiator-lady (it seems like officiator-ladies are way more anal about stuff like this) take the glove back and ask, "What's your name?"

Me: *big pause* "... Rhett." (Of course I figured she COULD have been specifically asking my name on the team, but I totally knew what was up)

Her: "Okay good, because there was some confusion as to who you were out there and if you really belonged here."

I didn't correct her.

I suppose that's lying right? Usually I don't actually lie unless I lie to myself first so I actually believe what I'm saying.

To be fair, it's not like we pulled some huge scam. Our team lost by about 15 runs. I'm no ringer. Surely, if this city league game were to be called off because of a last-minute substitution the other team would be plenty angry that their hitting stats would be erased.

To further the silly matter, this kind of thing happens all the time in leagues such as these. We're busy sometimes and other times we got time to fill in for people who are. When I suddenly found myself in the position, all I wanted to do was lend a hand to the team -- not piss them all off by not being more Rhetty and announcing it.

Anyway, I'm sorry. Maybe this helps. More than likely not.

I only wish I lived in a world or a way or whatever where being dishonest isn't the obvious choice. I sort of want to believe in a world where everyone's at an advantage through honesty. Weird -- I know.

tired... take this though.

I keep meaning to write stuff in here. Lots of stuff to say. I still say a bunch of stuff in Twitter, so you should check me out there -- or stay here (on this actual blog -- not Google Reader) and look at the column to the right. It should be updating my awesome Twitter posts (although it only goes back like four tweets or something).

ANYWAY, the point is, I've got a lot to say, but I'm leaving for California in a couple of hours. Yeah, Joe and I have another film festival to go to on behalf of Dunkball. This time it's the SoCal Film Fest.

We made a trailer for Dunkball. Love it a lot, but we totally should have made it long before we showed the movie to anybody. Seems sensible. Anyway, here it is (and it's awesome):



See you next week, I hope. We'll have fun-fun.